Aztez

Aztez is a surprising combination of resource management games and 2D beat’em ups. In 1428 AD in the Valley of Mexico one hundred years before the Spanish invasion of South America, the dark Priest Tototl predicted that one day an enemy his people have never seen shale crush their empire to dust. With this information now in the hands of the Emperor, you must lead the kingdom to engulf the entire valley and prepare for the Spanish onslaught, if you wish to survive. To accomplish this, you have a team of elite warriors called the Aztez who can be deployed to missions across the valley. These warriors will put down rebellions, hunt down convicts, participate in festivals, and cleanse towns of plague victims. However, the Aztez are not the only tool to unify the valley, at your disposal, are assassins, generals, fortunetellers, and maidens all ready to help persevere the valley.

The game is split into two phases, the first is the planning phase where the player can use items, send out specialists, and observe the available missions. The other phase is the battle phase, wherein you take control of one of your Aztez and proceed to bash in the faces of your enemies. Combat in Aztez comprises of quick 2D beat em up challenges emphasizing combos and area of attack. Your Aztezs have two attacks that can be modified depending on the directional input. Its almost like a fighting game in that regard, finding openings or flaws in your opponent’s defense and properly exploiting them. To aid in this brutal slaughter you also have the choice of 4 weapons to take into battle from a total of 8 that are unlocked after completing certain missions or side objectives. As well as four God attacks that all do something different when activated, helping to tip the tide of battle. All interchangeable allowing the player to create their own load outs and strategies for combat phases. Combined with eye-popping black and white visuals and spectacular sound design Aztez creates a fast-paced and skillful beat’em up challenge.

Now in the planning phase, things are a little less action-packed but still very interesting. From hear you check over the status of your empire, the population of each city, and any problem appearing on the horizon. Its hear that you can send your specialists out into the field to help change the map. Generals ensure that captured cites don’t rebel, assassins put down rebellions if they start, maidens are wed off to forge alliances with neighboring kingdoms and fortunetellers give you items that help your Aztez in combat or change the conditions on the board. Now these are the only real strategic options you have aside from sending out Aztez. Which may sound simplistic however this phase is primarily concerned with securing more resources to fund more specialists and items. So what’s there is perfectly serviceable, anything more in-depth would have taken away from the beat’ em-up portion or simply made this phase to complex and frustrating. So if you’re a fan of Civilization or games like it this may not be for you if you can’t forgive a very simplistic strategy phase. However, while this system is simple it is something that can quickly spiral out of control if not taken seriously or mismanaged. You be surprised how fast the tides turns if you ignore a rebellion to long or wed your maidens off to poor kingdoms.

Now it took a while to find anything I disliked about the game. At first, I thought the beat’em up sections became to clustered and enemies pound you with powerful attacks that combo into one another, especially once the Spanish show up. However, this grew weaker as I played more and got a better feeling for the battle mechanics and the different weapons. Yet there was still one little niggle I have with the game and that’s lack of agency. While playing the game there are certain items that give you a huge boost in winning the game, however, these items are obtained as random rewards. While some may say this helps the rouge like feeling of the game and prioritizing skill over items in combat. To which I answer, why can’t we have both?

Why not instead of these items being given out at random there set rewards for completing difficult challenges. Like raiding a Spanish camp or delving into the underworld. These challenges should be like boss fights testing the skills we’ve gained on our own and if we pass we get items that expand those skill to the next level.

However, even with that little tangent aside Aztez is still a mighty fine game with awesome bone-crunching combat, simple yet engaging strategy, and plenty of customization and replayability. I’ve also heard there might be a version of this game coming to the Switch and if that true I get it on that instead of Steam. Mainly because due to the short play sessions this really is an on the go kind of game. Either way, you play it this game will be a bloody good time.