Aztech Forgotten Gods is a third person action adventure game. They’re a dime a dozen these days so they need to do something to set themselves apart from the rest of the crowd. Aztech Forgotten Gods, has some flaws, but overall it does a good job standing out from the rest with it’s unique setting, fun mechanics, and unique boss battles.
Visuals
Aztech Forgotten Gods is set in Mexico in the future. There is a nice blend of futuristic towers and ancient Aztec pyramids (the name Aztech Forgotten Gods is a play on words). Off the top of my head, I can’t think of many games that prominently feature ancient Aztec architecture. For me, this is something I appreciated because it’s not more of the same old song and dance. The developer, Lienzo, also made good use of bright colors. Maybe it’s because of my NES and SNES roots in gaming, but I REALLY like bright colors. Perhaps shiny objects really get my attention.
While having a unique style, there are some visual issues with Aztech Forgotten Gods. When I got close to a lot of the buildings, the textures didn’t look good. Some of the details on the pyramids reminded me of a N64 game. At a distance, things look goodm but getting up close to them… not so much. This didn’t completely ruin the game for me, but it definitely hurt my experience some.
Gameplay
You pick up an ancient weapon that’s also your main method of propulsion. It’s a giant arm and fist. Not only is it your main melee weapon, it has a jetpack built into it. At first, using the jetpack is rough. In order to gain altitude, I had to fly into buildings and hope that I would go up and not to the side. It was quite frustrating at first. I don’t know if it was me figuring out to properly climb to the clouds, or getting an upgrade for the jetpack, but eventually, flying around was a lot of fun! The combat is pretty one note. You have a reticle of sorts that shows where enemies are and pushing the attack button does more damage if you can time it just right. You can also charge your punch, or punch the ground, but I didn’t find them very useful. You also get a shield eventually, but I think I only used it if I was prompted to. Basically, it’s just punch punch punch.
The game plays out over a series of boss fights. For the most part, they’re each unique. The one common thing they all have is what is an expanding spheres with swiss cheese like holes in them. Other than that, each boss fight is unique. You have to stun the enemies in order to damage them. It sounds easy enough, but Aztech Forgotten Gods does a rough job of making it obvious what you need to do to actually stun these bosses. I spent a lot more time than I wanted to just trying to figure out what to do. Usually, there are visual cues to help you along, but I didn’t see any. This was mildly frustrating. However, once I figured out what I had to do in each fight, I was fine. Once I knew what I was doing, I had fun.
The Final Verdict
Overall, I enjoyed Aztech Forgotten Gods for being unique, with an interesting art style, and fun gameplay. For me, the story was a non-entity. There was a lot more dialogue than I thought was necessary. At times, I thought the controls were rough but eventually ironed themself out and made sense. It’s not a long game, so you don’t have to play for dozens of hours for it to click. I played it on PlayStation 5, and it ran fine but I don’t know how it runs on other platforms. Unlike a lot of games in the genre, Aztech Forgotten Gods does not wear it’s welcome out, thankfully! If you are looking for something short with a fun art style, this may be a game for you. I thought it was GOOD.
