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Episode 783: El Shaddai - Ascension of the Metatron (Patreon)

Published:
2026-07-20 11:00:20
Imported:
2026-08
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360,000…no, 18,000 years ago, an upstart developer/publisher released a beautiful video game. To me it seems like yesterday, for you it might be 2011. I'm talking, of course, about Ignition Entertainment's eye-catching El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron.

For various personal and professional reasons I (Diamond Feit) have long held a soft spot for this largely forgotten title. I wrote a column about it for its tenth anniversary but there's so much more to say about a game this gorgeous and thoroughly weird.

To help me say those things, I reached out to Apocrypals hosts Chris Sims and Benito Cereno along with former Ignition Entertainment employee Shane Bettenhausen. Together, the four of us go over Enoch, Angels, God, the Bible, and the initial HD-era of video games—all in less than three centuries!

Art by John Pading, edits by Greg Leahy. Music heard in this episode (all from El Shaddai's lush original soundtrack):

04:22 - The One Who Receives the Glow

16:45 - Revelation | Never Ending Journey

29:43 - Dignified Time

42:14 - Nephilim Appeared

53:07 - Michael's Hand | Resonating Heaven and Earth

1:06:23 - The Scarlet Liturgy

1:16:23 - Eternal Heaven and Earth (PV ver.) | Flower Arrangements to Life

1:26:14 - Tragic Scream

1:34:56 - Premonition

Closing - Gate to Immortality

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Comments

Andrew O.

Great timing as I'm rewatching Evangelion before the 30th anniversary theatrical showing Wednesday. It's amazing how every time I watch it I notice additional details. I'm going with two buddies I've known since high school, one of which has never seen it. He just binged the series and I'm curious what he'll think.

michael clarke

dunno if you are interested in suggestions, but ive been getting into the Megami Tensei series. i did a search on here and doesnt seem like youve covered it or persona or even atlus generally. would love to hear your guys thoughts on any or all.

Lambda

Great episode! As someone with kinda esoteric and not-clearly-formed religious beliefs, I really connected with the ambiguities of this game. I'm curious how much of that was deliberate, and how much is just a result of it being unfinished. I also have a weakness for goodhearted pious characters, so I really like Enoch as a protagonist. His almost complete silence, save for the sentence "No problem; everything's fine," is one of many things about this game that feels like it's capturing something very real but hard to articulate about how people relate to religion and the world around them. There's such an interesting tension with Lucifel, too- he's the most direct connection the player will have to God, but anyone familiar with Lucifer as a concept will know that he's not an entirely reliable figure, especially considering his callousness towards the (imo adorable) nephilim Anyway, it's very rare that I see stuff that feels resonant with my own experience of religion, so I really treasure that stuff. It's why the moderately problematic filmmaker Darren Aronofsky made one of my favorite movies in the form of Noah (2014)