Black, White and Red - Aztez

I have played many side-scrolling games and some beat em’ up games, I have seen turn-based games, but I have never heard, seen or played a game with all of these in one. I wouldn’t have fathomed how a merger of so many genres would work out, until I came across Aztez.

Its 15^th century in the Valley of Mexico and Aztec civilization is flourishing. You take on the role to expand your presence as Aztez warriors, defending your clan and surviving through famines, droughts, robbers, Spanish invaders to name a few. As you move forward with your game capturing neutral cities, different and often far placed cities start to go in a dissent and spreads after each turn unless you stop them in some way. Eventually invaders start to appear and try to claim your capital city. Your goal is to survive, successfully protecting your empire. You lose if all of your warriors die or if your capital city is claimed by the enemy.

Aztez is a terrific concoction of turn-based strategy and side scrolling beat em’ up/hack and slash genres, one complementing the other. Being in charge of your empire, you get to take an action every turn depending on the number of Aztez warriors you have. Randomly generated missions occur each round with different goals be it killing enemies or earning resources in a festival. Each mission grants you either resources or some item cards of varying significance to be used to your advantage in achieving a goal be it gaining warriors, neutralizing cities or simply expanding your empire. You can also buy certain item cards at the expense of resources for extra help. I don’t have much experience playing turn-based games but this one took me quite a bit of time to understand only because there was no tutorial or help provided on how to go about the game. This game doesn’t make the reason behind the goal apparent to the player. All I knew was that it is Mexico in 15^th century and I have to fight enemies but no clue as to why or what. I was randomly selecting missions and just completing them not know how many chance do I have, what mission to go for first, what exactly to do or why for that matter. It was after two game losses that I finally came around on how the game functions. The unlocked weapons remain in the next game though you have to choose one to start and so going past the initial barriers is a breeze, if you choose a powerful weapon. I had no knowledge of Aztec empire and this game does not cater to such audience. There is a guide provided but it doesn’t come close, even remotely in experience a good narrative provides. Developers have put a lot of effort in research but according to me they failed to communicate effectively. Complex names, bizarre rituals without an adjoining story failed to create any sort of immersion for me. It wasn’t until the third time that I could connect the dots and past experiences to apply effective strategy in this element of the game and only then I found it intriguing.

The other aspect of this game is a sheer delight, after the steep learning curve of course. In a 2D plane, you start with a sword and a shield conquering neutral cities or fighting enemies to neutralize or free cities. With the default weapon as the sword, you unlock 8 others like knife, spear, club to name a few by completing specific tasks. The combat system of this game is its USP. It is deep and effective to say the least. It is very easy to juggle enemies, chaining attacks of the same or different weapons forming combos in thin air and on the solid ground. Each weapon has unique set of moves and while button mashing will get you some distance, thought-out key combinations will make each fight a satiating experience. There are plenty of distinctive enemy types providing a constant gradual increase in difficulty. Certain attacks can be only blocked or parried while others strictly need avoidance. If I hadn’t played the training first I wouldn’t have realised what are the meaning of different visual aids above each enemy before they attack mean. Red naturally means attack but yellow and orange!? The combat system is on fleek, however, I had problems with shielding. It didn’t feel responsive enough and when you have grabbed an enemy giving him a piece of your mind, you are vulnerable to attacks from his companions. I also felt that the key mapping was pretty bad on the keyboard and took some time in getting used to but you can obviously change accordingly. When opponent’s health is over, he enters into a groggy state, here the player has the option to sacrifice him to the Gods which will release a fountain of blood. Blood in this game is significant in the sense it can be absorbed to increase health and fill up a blood vial. When this vial is filled, you can perform a God attack and depending on which God you have selected, they benefit you in a number of ways. There are varied types and abilities of God, like damaging, healing or slowing down time for the warrior. You get cosmetic sets as well to customise your warrior to a certain degree. There is an Arena mode where you get to battle one after the other without having to delve into the strategic aspect however the reverse is not applicable. There isn’t an only turn-based mode and that seems fair considering the crutch of this game are its bouts. Filled with content, in-depth combat to explore and with ascending challenges, Aztez stands out in this genre of videogames.

Now the style of the game is something I haven’t seen before in a lot of games. The entire game is in black (for your warrior), grey (for the enemies) and blood red (for well, blood). It looks stunning and surprisingly sufficient. Your warrior and his actions are always clearly perceptible even between hordes of enemies. Every hit to self or others spills blood which stands out in this background of black and white. All battles take place in sort of arenas with people cheering in the background. The turn-based part of the game has an isometric board consisting of hexagons with well-connected cities. It has the default visual cues : red and orange for bad, green for good. The system is pretty compact and does a good job of familiarizing the player of these basic things with one-line descriptions. Team Colorblind have done a tremendous job to make the game look and feel splendid.

The audio of this game does not disappoint. The music is versatile changing according to the situation your empire is in. Drought, rain, invasions, all have a different ring to it. I found it quite catchy and never got tired of it even after three gameovers now (noob). Sound effects are quite responsive and apt for respective actions blending well with the brutal brawler theme of the game.

Aztez scores brownie points in the genres it partakes, successfully sustaining their excitement. It’s a cohesive world, fulfilling players expectation in terms of gameplay but falling short in providing a narrative or acquaintance to the game. Despite its shortcomings, it delivers and offers good hours to get lost into. It is a respectable game for people to try and definitely leaves an impact. It gets a firm 8 out of 10.