Aztez

Aztez

released on Aug 01, 2017

Aztez

released on Aug 01, 2017

In Aztez, you expand and maintain the Aztec empire through turn-based strategy, while managing violent outbreaks via real-time beat 'em up sequences. Every game is unique; different events will occur, different challenges will emerge, and different spoils will be taken each time you play. Spread, strengthen, subjugate!


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Really dig the artstyle here! Black and white games where the blood is still red, never fails to be cool. I thought the mix of turn based strategy and real time hack&slash was a neat idea, but it kinda felt like it needed something more. I had like three nearly successful runs and it got pretty repetetive fighting the same annoying enemies over and over again.

Juego Completado al 100%
Aztez es un juego que prometía bastante, pero que no llegó a cumplir mis expectativas. Su "complejo" combate acaba recayendo en una serie de combos repetitivos y armas excesivamente poderosas. Su modo campaña no requiere de apenas estrategia para ser superado si eres capaz de ganar la mayoría de combates, e incluso entonces no requiere de mucho sacrificio. De hecho, es más complicado conseguir ciertas armas que al final no merecen la pena que terminar la campaña, incluso "aumentando" la dificultad. Gráficamente es interesante de ver y el estilo artístico es fantástico, pero los escenarios tienden a ser demasiado repetitivos.
En general, es un juego con una premisa muy interesante, pero que es demasiado repetitivo teniendo un loop de juego poco interesante. Puede gustarte si estás buscando un hack'n slash sencillo, pero definitivamente no recomendaría a nadie terminar el juego al 100%.

I like beat 'em ups, I like card games, I like turn based strategy and I like rouge likes, heck, I even like black & white games. Mixing up everything sounds like a good idea, turns out: it isn't. I don't like this game at all.

A 2D beat-em-up that meshes mechanics from Devil May Cry, God Of War and Onimusha, and glues it together with a turn-based strategy game akin to Civ. Certainly a weird bastard of a game, but goddamn if it isn't one of the most intensely fun combat systems I've encountered in my time scoping out the indie beat-em-up scene. Mesh it together with some gorgeous black-and-white on blood aesthetics that brings MadWorld to mind, and you've got a game I can always go back to whenever I need to kill a little time.

The "campaign" is a true case of mustard-on-ice cream, but the arena mode is very solid and is really all that'll ever come to mind when I think about this game. For all intents and purposes, the arena is the main game or at least can be treated as such, and it's hard not to think of it that way with a combat system as rich as this one. The real killer for the system tho is how absurdly easy it is to rack up an infinite airborne combo that no enemy can knock you out of. This complaint is bigger than it sounds for people who aren't really into character action, and smaller than it sounds for people who are. On the one hand, it allows for basically any enemy to be effortlessly killed once you have them launched to a reasonable height (barring some that can break free), and it renders point/combo challenges essentially meaningless as the last enemy in an engagement can be infinitely juggled midair for the aforementioned points or combo score. On the other hand, the challenges are essentially meaningless outside of the board game mode, and there are a good few enemies that can break your midair combo, that is until you get out of their vertical range, at which point it can already have been called a reasonably interesting challenge. On the other other hand (that I keep in my back pocket in case of emergencies), this is super dependent on the engagement, and a good deal of encounters don't have such enemies. Outside of that, the gameplay is extremely solid, with a wonderful selection of ground and air moves that are satisfying and intuitive to master and chain together. Weapons are mostly balanced and distinct, some are arguably more satisfying than others but the fact remains that they, as all the best weapons do, bounce and combo off one another in interesting and varied ways. The enemy design is extremely tight as well, though some enemy variants look unfortunately similar in silhouette. A bit of a shame, as each enemy does have a defined and important role in a combat engagement which itself is great, though it would've been greater if you could more easily tell them apart. Regardless, certain enemies demand certain attack or evasion strategies, some force you off the ground, some force you out of the air, some should probably be parried and, well, yes good they're good I think I've made my point. Overall, if this game doubled down on the action bits and had a defined action campaign - rather than a bizarre rouguelite board game campaign - it could've been excellent, and it almost pains me a bit to say that it isn't. But at the same time I'm reasonably happy with what we got.