Aztaka Review
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Gameplay
Aztaka is an action RPG only in the most hack 'n slash sense of the word. It offers talents you can learn, skills you can gain and upgrade and stats you can upgrade on level-up or with items. Each of these is fairly basic in approach, there being six stats, 14 skills and 7 talents. There are no skill trees, no skills related to anything but combat, and the items are generally of a simple bonus nature, with no diversity in the sense of drawbacks or curses. Other than equipment, you will find quest items and potions, the latter giving either permanent bonuses or temporary boosts to certain skills.
There is no class system, nor does leveling up offer a lot of variation (you can increase one stat and one skill with one point per level). Instead, the game has two PCs: the main character, Huitzilo, who is a spear-wielding warrior by trade, and his companion, Ayopha, a hummingbird that provides advice and wields magic. Skills and stats are spread equally between the two, and they level up independently, both gaining experience for every kill you make.
Roughly speaking, your keyboard controls Huitzilo's actions, while the mouse allows you to cast spells, and interact with the world on certain scenarios. Casting spells happens by selecting the spell from a bar, selecting a target and then clicking a number of icons that appear one-by-one near the target, to activate the spell.
This plays out a lot less confusingly than one might think. Most of the time your focus is on Huitzilo. When you need to interact with the world you will generally not be under attack, or at least able to find a quiet spot. You will often have to jump and run around with Huitzilo while casting spells, but to help you out, the world slows down during the spell-casting process, meaning you don't have to literally do two things at one. I'm not a big fan of the spell-casting mechanic, but the combined mouse-and-keyboard gameplay works really well. A big reason it works is that Ayopha's presence is pretty thin. He can't be hurt, does not interact with the world and moves independently. As a gameplay function, they might as well have removed the bird and given Huitzilo spellcasting abilities instead, but the bird is a nice touch in presentation.
Added character and gameplay depth comes from the different energy containers. Energy is found through non-random drops that are tied to the enemy's type and level. There are four energy types; vital, divine, pure and elemental. All four are used to interact with the gameworld, as you can resurrect NPCs or open doors by feeding them energy of a prescribed type. Vital energy can be used to regenerate Huitzilo's hit points ((Solar Energy)), divine energy to regenerate Ayopha's mana points ((Divine Energy)), but both of these regenerate by themselves well, Huitzilo's regeneration being tied to one of his skills.
The interaction between the energies and the world aren't that interesting, being limited to opening doors or activating lifts for the most part. The first interaction between world and energies you're introduced to using vital energy to grow branches on trees so you can pass obstacles is probably the most interesting one.
More interesting is the way items and talents interact with the world. During gameplay, you will find a spear that allows you to break down certain doors, boots that allow you to do double-jumps, a talent that allows wall-jumps, and a bevy of talents that offer new kinds of attacks (such as attacking while jumping, or while doing a roll). This interaction between character progression and platform gaming is probably the most interesting element of the game, but its execution isn't perfect.
For one thing, it is overly linear. There's a (good) chance you won't find all the available skills, but a number of them are offered as clear story advancement devices. Items are a bit worse, as the only items that you can really pick are those in 5 jewelry slots (two for Ayopha and three for Huitzilo). Your spear, shield, armor, boots and Ayopha's main necklace are all offered in the fashion of linear upgrades.
The second problem is a bit more significant: the developers seem to believe that every gamer has photographic memory, and when once faced by an old door he can't open, will remember where it is, and will then, half a dozen stages later, realize the door-breaking spear he just picked up might just work on it. It doesn't send you back and forth like this often, but neither does it give you any hints when a newly-gained talent might match a blockade you faced earlier, and it isn't always that obvious.
Other than interacting with the world, the obvious function of equipment and stats is to allow you to better kill your opponents. The majority of talents you can gain are combat-related, but none of them will really impact how you fight your opponents, though I did discover late in the game that the jump downward-spear attack allows you to bounce up and down on your enemy's head, damaging them while they can't reach you.
The combat is a combination of jumping around and clicking as fast as you can to do a bunch of spear attacks. Each opponents warrants a slightly different approach, and some of them have an interesting set of attacks that you have to take into account. However, the range of enemies is very narrow; there's a dozen different enemy types at the most, and the fact that they become tougher later on does not help alleviate how boring it becomes to fight them over and over again. In fact, one of the later enemies, the Brute, isn't difficult at all, but he does take a long time to kill. For some reason the developers decided it'd be a good idea to have the player face half a dozen of them one after the other in one level, probably the most boring sequence in the entire game.
The game also features boss fights, with varying level of novelty and frustration. Most of them are really easy, and follow the classic platform boss model of the player just repeating a certain set action over and over until the boss is dead. Not exciting, but fitting in the game overall.
Another problematic old-school element is the save system. Aztaka uses a checkpoint-based save system, the checkpoint always being the world map. If you're on the world map, the game is saved, if you're in a really long level consisting of multiple parts, it won't save anywhere during the map. This system can be very frustrating. If you just slugged through a boring level, and die at the hands of the boss, you'll have to slug through the entire boring level again to get at the boss. The occasional (rare) bug becomes even more annoying as it can force you to replay half a level. A bit into the game you will get the skill (Divine Favour), which resurrects the hero (once per skill level) between checkpoints. That is a bit of a solution, but doesn't completely resolve the frustration caused by this oddly designed save system. One positive note is that the game is never really hard, and that helps keep frustration down. Then again, with a better save system the game could have been made significantly more challenging while not becoming any more frustrating.
With 21 levels, Aztaka offers up to 10 hours of gameplay on a single playthrough, though I think most people can finish it in about 8, and one should realize the gameplay includes a lot of running back and forth through the same area. There is not a lot of replay value, and I suspect a few people will get bored or frustrated and drop it before finishing.
Story & Quests
The story is simple and, well, uninteresting, of the normal Chosen One kills Evil One mold. Dialogue is delivered in the usual hack 'n slash monologue way, with no dialogue options offered, and none of it is exceedingly interested. The oddest thing is when you reach the ending, it seems to set up for a pretty awesome sequel, and then suddenly resolves everything you could potentially do in the sequel in the ending credits, and then opens up for another significantly less awesome-sounding sequel.
Story progression occurs through the main quest, though most of that is (find the seven phonograms) and (kill the big bad). It is a typical hack 'n slash sequences of big bosses and unlocking new areas, though as mentioned it also bounces you to and fro in confusing ways.
The game also offers a number of side-quests, basically consisting of the two RPG standards (kill the floozles) and (collect the thingamajigs). None of them are interestingly set up, nor do they add a lot to the game in execution, as you'll often resolve them simply as you follow the main quest, without having to do anything special or going out of your way much.
Setting & Graphics
Aztaka offers a fairly original, Aztec-based setting with absolutely beautiful, hand-painted scenery. I don't know nearly enough of Aztec culture to judge how consistently they apply it (the centaurs and harpies seem a little weird to me), but it is easy to fall in love with the backgrounds, hauntingly beautiful and endlessly atmospheric.
The look and animation of the player character and his enemies are a bit too scaled down to be impressive, but they are generally pleasing to the eye, and the animations are fluid as a rule. The color schemes are a bit dodgy at times, making me wonder why I'm suddenly fighting men in pink tights, and the effects (such as spells) come off as a bit simple, but those are two small footnotes on a visually gorgeous game.
Sound & Technical
Sound is a bit of a mixed bag. The music is generally solid and fits the setting well, but it's the sound effects where the problems start. None of them are bad by themselves, but they are a bit grating as they stack one upon the other. In particular, Citérémis mismanaged the background noise of giant flies and bees, the buzzing of which will positively drive you insane as you flee the level, away from the penetrant cacophony.
The technical side is equally a mixed bag. Aztaka is a stable game, I encountered only one bug through my entire playthrough, but it is a bit of a resource hog. It requires a 2 GHz processor and 2 GB of RAM. And while it is a pretty game to look at, I really don't see what it needs that much hardware for. And it is a shame, as it narrows the potential consumer base of the game.
Conclusion
Aztaka clearly shows the marks of being a first-time, independent game. For every one thing that it does well, there's something lackluster to drag it down. Character progression directly impacting platform gameplay is a fascinating idea, yet the guideless running back and forth between levels after unlocking a new skill is just confusing and frustrating. The combat isn't bad, but simply increasing the hit points of enemies only serves to make some fights long and boring rather than more challenging. The presence of character progression in this type of game is interesting, but it's too simple and linear to really sink your teeth into. And then we have simple things like the lack of keymapping - meaning this game is pretty hard to play for left-handed people - that seem eminently avoidable.
Citérémis does seem honestly interested in feedback, and is working on a patch to address a number of issues, including the savegame problem, but as of this review going to press, the patch is not there, so I have to review without. Just keep the possibility of this game significantly improving through patches in mind, though for now we only have the developer's word to go on.
Aztaka is certainly not a bad game. However, other than the beautiful environments and its unique combination of the RPG and platform genres, it doesn't stand out in any way. The gameplay is certainly novel, but it's not polished enough to work really well, and can get pretty boring at times.
I'd recommend giving the demo a try, as I think there are many out there who will really fall in love with this game's enchanting visuals and unique gameplay. The game is currently available for 25 USD via digital download (including Impulse and Direct2Drive), which admittedly seems a bit steep for a game of this type. Judging when games are over and underpriced can be tough, especially for independent games, but my instinct says the experience isn't quite worth the price tag for most people.
