As far as I can remember, I have always been intrigued by the Aztec, Maya and Inca civilizations. If only the sublime geoglyphs of Nazca or the Mayan architecture and the mystery that surrounds them would make any aficionado of mystery and art quiver.
So when a game boasts that it leans heavily on Aztec culture, it doesn't take much to indulge me. Even less when it comes to an action game relying heavily on acrobatic and aerial combat mechanics.
And suddenly, I offer you the not very long test of Aztech: Forgotten Gods released only a few days ago, March 10, 2022. If it's not a nice twist of fate, all that!
In Aztech: Forgotten Gods, you play... you know what? Pretty much every character and location in the game has names to sleep out for a Westerner, so rather than fracture my brain trying to spell them correctly, I'm going to make up new, vaguely Hispanic ones for this test at except for one. If you are players, you can try to find which one.
So, I was saying, before I was savagely interrupted by myself, you play as Tequila, a young woman who lives with her mom Paf, a renowned scientist who is working on an ancient civilization artifact found in some city ruins now futuristic Neo Fajitas. Unfortunately, the boss of Paf, Caramba, decides to cancel at the last moment and without reason the final experiment of Paf which could definitively settle the energy question.
So like any sensible person, Paf decides to sneak into the scene and immediately have this experience. But now Tequila follows her and quickly finds herself bound by force of circumstance to this artifact, a mysterious arm capable of absorbing and ejecting energy. Plus, she ends up with the consciousness of Tez present in her head, an ancient creature once worshiped as a god. There follows an invasion of creatures including giants who will serve as bosses scattered in this agglomeration which will be the scene of not much in fact. Because basically, the average enemies in town can even be ignored without consequence. The game will then be a caricature of an incessant series of dialogues to pass, back and forth between shops with the place of research and the place where the boss has just appeared, all of which makes the game very short. There is even a success to complete it in 2 hours. This test required a little more to explore the void of the dead city, try to understand how the incomprehensible and unexplained races work, collect the dozen memory objects and obtain some completely useless successes like using the rails during 180 seconds or buy all the costumes and all the hairstyles some of which have funny bugs.
But rather than dwelling on the strand of hair that automatically changes direction, let's talk about what the game is worth. could easily be solved by a system of locking opponents, as well as by better management of fights. Because the latter are intended to be dynamic with a speed of movement that is certainly fast, but this is done at the expense of precision and variety in the horribly elementary, repetitive and easy fights.
The narration and the story will not leave traces in the memories either. There is potential, but the staging is so clumsy and naive and so lacking in means that it becomes almost touching to see this clearly passionate project miss out on voices that could have given more weight, rather than texts. in action who will be set aside in favor of not getting killed. Project that also fails to convey emotions through fixed scenes despite the real potential in the heroine's facial animations and the rare Pixar-like expressive protagonists (all things considered, however).
But that doesn't necessarily make it an unpleasant game. Short ? Yes. Frustrating? Certainly. Potential in handling the glove? Clearly, despite a destabilizing inertia that the player will never get used to by the end of the game.
That's what Aztech: Forgotten Gods is all about: a nice little game that will end quickly without real replay value and with a lot of competition in a similar niche. Then again comes the eternal question: "Does this justify its price of 30 €?" I am personally not convinced. €20, maybe. And even...
- Xbox (test performed on Xbox Series X)
- Playstation
- Steam
- Switch
