Posted in: Games, Review, Video Games | Tagged: Aztez, game review, indie dev, Team Colorblind

Expanding Ancient Cultures With Blood: We Review 'Aztez'

I miss having a lot of the old-school shoot-em-up and beat-em-up arcade style games. The last one I played that I really enjoyed was Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which took me back to the four-player fighters, but we really don't get to see a lot of the single-player games anymore like Rolling Thunder, where its just you versus everyone. Once in a while we do get one of these games and they all come with a twist, like Team Colorblind's latest release, Aztez.

Aztez is a single-player side-scrolling platformer where you take on the role of a warrior who is responsible for expanding the Aztec empire. You do this by going around a fake version of South America and beating up rival tribes with leaders as well as soldiers who represent The Spanish. The game will start you with a hexagon overlay map where you can select a direction to go in and make your way to a different city. You'll walk along your desired path to beat up and kill enemies in your path, eventually leading to a single boss who you will have to beat to take over the area.

Beyond that simple premise, there is no storyline to speak of. The goal of the game plays like a lot of arcade games of the same genre where the overall goal is to complete the game by taking over everything and getting the high score for each stage. It is kind of lacking in the sense that there's no driving plot, but the game gives way to freedom of choice to do things as you wish in the order you wish. What's more, no two games are the same! If you complete the game once and start over, you'll be presented with a different set of challenges across the board for you to choose from. So lack of story isn't necessarily a killer as the game allows for an open format.

There's a weird combination of beat-em-up combat and turn-based combat married together here, which can be jarring at first until you get the rhythm down. Thankfully you'll have a place to practics as the game has an Arena Mode where you can take on multiple enemies and get your strategy and timing down before you run off to do Campaign Mode. And you'll need the Arena as the tutorial is very basic and the in-game instructions don't really do the combat justice.

The style and the music are very simplistic and stylish. You're playing on a black and white setting with many shades of gray in a cartoon-like setting. Normally this would be a turnoff for me as it doesn't lend much to the game, but the style in which this is accomplished is very fluid and feels natural. I especially enjoyed the way they handled blood in the game and treated it as a danger component that stands out from everything else. It gives satisfaction when your enemies are hurt or down, but also serves as a warning beyond the life bar that you're in danger.

Overall, I enjoyed Aztez a lot. It has a couple issues when it comes to length and enemy difficulty, but that's just too easy for me to make it a flaw when I could simply practice and get better. I was a little put off by the lack of a story, which I think the game deserved more than just the quick beats of telling you what to do and where to go if you want to accomplish a goal. It's a good game with some good action, I'd recommend trying it out and seeing how you feel about it, because I know this could bore a few people, but there are many who will find it challenging and will strive for top score placement.

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