Aztech Forgotten Gods – Review - Xbox

Developed and published by Mexican dev Lienzo (who previously developed the awesome Mulaka), Aztech Forgotten Gods is an action-adventure game that presents you an alternative future take on the Aztec Empire. A timeline where this once mighty civilization wasn’t eradicated and the city of Tenochtitlan is now flourishing and has grown into a mecca for the Aztecs filled with advanced technologies.

You play as Achtli, a young woman whos mother uncovers an ancient stone arm artifact, which eventually replaces your prosthetic arm and imbues you with a variety of abilities. While getting awesome new powers thanks to the artifact, the bad news it that it has also woken up some Aztech gods who aren’t particularly friendly. With your new abilities you will be jump flying around the city, battling enemies in aerial combat, and then battling the gods in “epic” boss fights! The combat and traversal mechanics are the real highlight in the game and definitely reminds me of watching Anime, where the heroes would jump around and be fighting all over the place, and when your flying around the city you can really get your speed up by getting boosts from a variety of flying rings.

The game itself with take you around 8-10 hours to complete the storyline and side quests however you can get through the story itself in a lot shorter time. In the city you will also find a variety of shops that let you upgrade your abilities, change your appearance and change your hairstyle. There are 22 potential passive enhancements that you can unlock with upgrade coins. The game also features a photo mode which can be used to capture some of the better looking areas. As well as boss fights, there are also a variety of standard enemy types, each with their own unique combat styles such as soldiers, tanks and mages.

The game does have some disappointing areas however. The game dialogue unfortunately is text based only with no voice acting which usually wouldn’t be too much of an issue but the repeating movement/action loops from the characters eventually become pretty jarring. Also, while exploring the city is the best part of the game, filled with giant buildings and flying vehicles, it also makes it feel rather empty. The game was never pushing the console graphically, but there aren’t many NPCs around in the world to interact with and it all feel rather sparse. At times the game looks great, then moments later it looks rather bad, as if it should have been on a previous generation of hardware.

Aztech Forgotten Gods is far from perfect. It’s an OK game with a very good story and a nice environment to explore, but it’s held back by a variety of niggles and bugs that detract from it being fully enjoyable especially if the camera does what it wants. This is a shame though because the premise/setting is really interesting and unique, it just hasn’t been realised to its full potential.

Total Score:

5/10

Aztech Forgotten Gods was released on 10th March 2022 and is playable on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. The game supports smart delivery and is optimised for Xbox Series X/S and can be purchased HERE for £24.99.

We were provided a copy of the game for this review. Big thanks for that!