LifeisXbox’s Aztech Forgotten Gods review | In this action-adventure game, you’ll be playing as Achtli. With the use of the Lightkeeper, she will have to use the Gods’ own powers against themselves. This Lightkeeper is an ancient artefact that basically looks like a huge hand that can be used to battle enemies and for flight. In Lienzo‘s Aztech Forgotten Gods, you’ll explore a vast open-world with challenges scattered around the world, but are they really worth completing?
Most Memorable Moment
The boss battles were pretty fun. Whilst fighting them wasn’t too hard, there was something else that made the battles just that bit more interesting. Each had its own challenges, which were fun to figure out. There was this one boss where I was put in a room with 4 doors, however, only one led towards the boss. It took me a while to figure out what I had to do there, and I officially consider myself blind now – the solution was so simple, but I was glad to finally notice its solution.
ℹ️ Reviewed on Xbox Series X | Review code provided by PR/publisher, this review is the personal opinion from the writer.
What we Liked!
- Great Story | I mostly found myself reading dialogue instead of playing the game, purely because of how well written this story is. You’ll take on the role of a young Aztec woman, Achtli, who lost her father in a tragic accident as a child. Because of this she’s very claustrophobic and keeps blaming her father’s death on herself. There’s an artifact that’s called the Lightkeeper, and it’s up to Achtli and her mother to find out what this thing is, and where it comes from. However, things quicky go wrong. At the end of the game, while I kinda felt some kind of plot twist coming, I really didn’t expect this kind of thing to happen. The game’s good at keeping secrets for the player, which keeps the story exciting all the way through.
- Decent Achievements | Aztech Forgotten Gods offers achievements which are not too easy, and not too hard to obtain. For the achievements you’ll have to complete the game at least 2 times; normally and just under 2 hours, you can do this in one playthrough, but you’d miss out on a lot of story, which you should really follow! There are also a few to-the-point achievements that requrie you to complete side-missions. These side-missions can range between battles and races. Defeating enemies rewards you 2 kinds of currencies (the names of which I do not know). One currency can be used to purchase upgrades for your Lightkeeper, and the other currency can be used for cosmetics. Both the upgrades and cosmetics each have their own achievement. There are also a few achievements that require you to do specific things – these can be done at any time, and are not missable (for as far as I am aware), however, these do tend to be a little grindy.
Mixed Feelings
- Effortless, yet satisfying Combat | During combat, there are a few different moves you can perform: A normal punch charged punch, shield and a healing ability. In the battles I only found myself using the normal punch and the healing ability. The charged punch and shield were only useful during a specific boss battle, but outside of that, I probably never used them. To kill an enemy with a normal punch, you’ll have to tap “x”, and try to time 3 punches in a row in order to perform a finisher move. If you aren’t able to defeat an enemy first try, you won’t perform a finisher move, but another 3 hits should take care of them. There are a few other enemy variations, though, but they’re so uncommon to the point where it feels as if there’s only 1 kind of enemy. To add on top of that, you’ll bearly be fighting any enemies during the campaign itself; you’ll mostly be fighting against bosses. I will be honest, despite 50% of the combat system being kinda useless, I did find myself enjoying the timed normal punches.
- Graphics | To be honest, I was a little disappointed by the graphics, especially after watching its trailers. The trailers have quite a lot of CGI in them, but there are a few gameplay sections in the trailers. Now the thing that’s odd about these gameplay sections in the trailers is that they look way better than in the actual game. One thing that made the game actually look weaker is the fact that the Xbox Series X version has no shadows, for whatever reason (I cannot confirm this for other versions of this game). Upon checking the settings, there doesn’t seem to be an option to enable/disable shadows, so I have no idea what went wrong, especially for a next-gen system that can handle ray tracing with ease. Besides the odd lighting, the graphics themselves looked pretty good. The open world maybe felt a little basic in geometry, but inside of buildings is where the visuals really shine.
- Lack of Music | While the music in this game sounds pretty decent, there’s like only music during boss battles. Okay, maybe I’m overexaggerating – there is music outside of these battles, but they’re not as noticeable or as memorable. When you explore the openworld you’ll hear literally no music whatsoever, which can get pretty boring quickly, you only hear ambience.
What we Disliked
- Clunky Flight Controls | To traverse through the metropolis, you’ll need a way to quickly move from point A to point B. As confidence may have it, your Lightkeeper can’t only be used in combat, but it can also be used for aerial flight. While this sounds like a very cool concept, I personally found the controls to be a little… clunky. You can move upwards, forwards, to the left and the right, that’s all you need, right? Right? Well, there’s no way to fly downwards unless you simply stop flying, which is… questionable. There’s also no way to diagonally fly upwards, which made the race sidequests a little nightmarish at times.
- Very Slow Game | The 5 to 6 hours of playtime might sound pretty decent, but that’s until you realise that about 80% of the game is just walking and talking. You’ll find yourself walking from one point to another quite often, even if it’s nearby. And besides that, cutscenes take a very, very long time, and it sometimes feels as if there’s too much text for a video game – they could’ve written a book instead. Sure, there are boss battles, but that’s almost all there is when it comes to action. The enemies in this game are basically useless, you just never have to fight any outside of boss battles, which is a huge disappointment.
How long to beat the story | 5 to 6 hours
How long to achieve 1000G | 7 to 8 hours
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