Game Review--Aztech Forgotten Gods (Switch)

"What you did yesterday in the cavern ended my slumber, and now my consciousness is bound to yours."

--Tez, Aztech Forgotten Gods

Aztech: Forgotten Gods relies quite heavily on its one undiluted strength at first, which is hardly enough to prop up the majority of the game--until the last third finally becomes deeper and more creative.  As unique as the geographical focus on a never-conquered Aztech empire is, even moreso because of the hyper-futuristic society envisioned, Forgotten Gods is hardly a triumph of a game on any level besides this aspect of novelty until closer to the end.  It is downright barebones or awful otherwise.  Even a "New World" never conquered by European colonization or a world in which this colonization never happened at all anywhere else is barely explored.  I acknowledge that this is an indie game with a narrow budget, but a futuristic Tenochtitlan could be handled so much better.  There is also almost no attack variety and flying around with the gauntlet Lightkeeper can be unnecessarily difficult to control.  However, one of the boss confrontations, to be explored more later below, is so philosophically charged, so artistically clever, and so personally crucial for protagonist Achtli that it greatly transcends the usual abysmal or mediocre quality of the themes, writing, and narrative execution.  The game improves here onward.

Production Values

In general, the poor quality of the visual restrictions and issues in the game inversely match the high potential its setting has for aesthetic brilliance.  Achtli's hair sometimes phases through her torso and outfit with its protrusions (unless you optionally customize it to a sufficiently small size), or her feet disappear into massive bosses during close-up melee attacks.  Worse than this, the character models for some noncritical NPCs are atrocious.  Particularly noticeable compared to Achtli's face, theirs has no depth, as they simply have a flat face with little markings indicating the eyes, nose, and mouth!  Sometimes the photo mode accessed from the pause menu still helps screenshots appear smoother.

The lack of voice acting is not a problem by itself, especially for an indie game, but there is no budgetary excuse for the asinine dialogue that makes its way into the story.  Achtli actually calls one of the early bosses "Lord Flaming Turd" of all things.  And then there are the numerous logical fallacies espoused by all sorts of characters in the game, including the protagonists, that no one challenges because they are presented as if the player is expected to agree with them.  Now, artistic excellence is still possible even when a work is riddled with philosophical errors in its proposed worldview(s), but there is seldom excellence in the dialogue content or delivery to at least balance this stupidity.  A major exception is during the second to last boss encounter to obtain energy to free Nantsin, Achtli's mother.  Regarding Nantsin (spoiler!), she ends up sacrificing her life for humankind, an end that even now relatively few female characters receive.  A fictional woman who sacrifices her life for people at large rather than for her child or romantic partner is still a rarity, and this is one way Forgotten Gods does positively stand out.

Gameplay

Most of the fighting is entirely skippable outside of the mandatory boss fights.  In fact, Forgotten Gods is structured so that it mostly provides scripted dialogue followed by boss confrontations followed by dialogue, which is then followed by another boss fight.  There is more: the very repetitive and minimalist combat is usually limited to only two options!  A standard punch tied to the Y button and a heavier, charged strike tied to the X button constitute the basic offensive abilities.  Occasionally, you have to visit a specific building to acquire new moves or traverse the unlively map, and as you fly around, you can encounter spots with a handful of hovering enemies that can be easily dispatched.

These fights pose the only combat in the game outside of the boss battles and optional timed challenges, taking place mid-flight.  At least there is some variety in the visual appearance of these "deities", as well as some of their locations.  In one, you have to navigate a maze of doorways multiple times over to reach each stage of the fight.  In another, you come into contact with light and dark energy to break opposing sides of the boss's protective barrier.  You can purchase new outfits, hairstyles, and passive/active enhancements for Achtli with two respective currencies that are rather easy to obtain, but other than this and finding scattered historical inscriptions and special pursuit or combat trials, there is almost nothing to do beyond completing the highly straightforward story objectives.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

Depressed by the absence of her dead father, Achtli assists her mother with investigating an ancient relic that turns out to be a technologically advanced gauntlet capable of levitation and great offensive abilities.  Interacting with an energy core in subterranean ruins seems to awaken a set of monstrous beings in Tenochtitlan, as well as telepathically bond Achtli to the Aztech "god" Tez, the Feathered Serpent.  This enigmatic being says the bond is involuntary and that it will assist her.  When her mom gets trapped behind a barrier in the ruins, Achtli retrieves energy from the cores of the miscellaneous aggressive Aztech "deities" that have been dismissed as myths by moderners, hoping to reroute the energy to deactivate the barrier.  As each core is depowered, the protagonist sees visions of what would appear to be past events each time she uses Lightkeeper to absorb energy from the spheres, which is clarified more by information her friend Tepo finds about the distant past.

Intellectual Content

At first, there is precious little abstract depth to anything about the game.  Human and "divine" characters say extraordinarily fallacious things, such as when Tez assumes that Achitli's individual lack of rationality reflects on the entire species, or else he would have no reason to ask her if all humans are so stupid just because she is.  The initial thematic superficiality combined with what starts as highly minimal storytelling effort severely hinders the game, though a rationalistic person could find the characters entertaining.  "Assumptions can lead us down a sketchy path", Nantsin says--and then she makes assumptions by positing obvious epistemological fallacies such as the idea that a signal from inside a structure must mean one of the giant pseudo-deities is inside, rather than being the product of faulty equipment or an inaccurate sensory perception!  The director of an enigmatic organization at one point promotes utilitarianism, yet he contradicts this worldview by later opposing the sacrifice of a small number of humans to keep the gods appeased, as it comes to light that they appear to require human biomass as sustenance.  Eventually, the miscellaneous back and forth fallacies of the characters relent as the focus is placed on such revelations about the nature of these gods.

Yes, most of these supposed gods (any created/contingent being cannot be a deity) are rather hostile to humanity.  Tepo finds evidence that the Feathered Serpent, the first member of the Aztech pantheon to come to our planet, traveled the world fighting ancient warriors, who assigned it different names in different regions; it is supposed to have been the inspiration for Jormungandr in Norse mythology and the Hydra in Greek mythology.  He uses the word organism when speaking of this first Aztech "god" to arrive on Earth, clearly presenting it as an extraterrestrial life form rather than a true deity.  Of course, any being other than a literal uncaused cause is not a deity, however superhuman they might be (incredible strength, prolonged lifespan, immortality, supernatural abilities).  Tez does, however, have a telepathic link to Achtli that clearly transcends the metaphysical separation of their material bodies.  The issue of whether he has an origin is never directly clarified although it is strongly implied by calling him an organism that he was born somewhere else in the universe.  Either way, plot twists about the more sinister activities of the gods in the ancient past serve as a progressively relevant way to introduce genuine aspects of Aztech mythology.

Worthy of special note is Mictlantecuhtli's (the Lord of Mictlan) sensory manipulations, which plunge Achtli into a perceived maze that the "god" calls Mictlan (an Aztech afterlife realm) before he says he is only showing her constructs of her own mind.  He is the only god you scarcely fight, as overcoming him is more about navigating a thematically perfect setting for the protagonist to finally shed her sense of guilt over her father's death, which was not her fault.  From this point onward, the game is far more philosophically oriented and embraces its concepts and themes more thoroughly.  For instance, in this segment, Achtli finds what truly appears to be her father's spirit, but he implies he is only experiencing an afterlife because his daughter is standing on magic artifact that can temporarily fulfill desires.  The only beings that seem to potentially have a sustained afterlife are those whose life energy is stored in the spherical cores Achtli interacts with--since the gods required human life force to sustain their own lives, that energy was stored in the cores Achtli engages with throughout the story.  Not all of Aztech mythology is supposed to be true even in the game, it would seem!

Conclusion

Highly unbalanced but eventually far weightier than it starts out, Forgotten Gods does have aspects of genuine depth and success as philosophical art, but the road to these things is a very difficult one.  Repetitive or unpolished animations and almost no quality worldbuilding and characterization before the final third of the game severely hinders the game.  Stay all the way through, and you will find a game that does significantly improve.  A more expensive and developed game would have handled the setting and Aztech pseudo-pantheon (remember, they are not actual gods!) better while providing at least some combat variety past a couple of melee attacks combined with a very inconvenient ranged attack.  The last third of Forgotten Gods does not undo the extreme flaws of the preceding parts, but it does elevate the title dramatically.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  Lightkeeper's powerful blows draw no blood since the enemies are pseudo-deities or other non-human foes.

 Profanity:  Achtli or other characters use words like "damn", "shit", "bastard/s", and "bitch".