El Shaddai is a unique game. Far from perfect gaming experience, but at least you play something different here, other than your typical action game. In its core it is an action game, combat oriented and essentially the artistic alter ego of Devil May Cry. Yet what makes El Shaddai special is its graphics. This game is the biggest proof that graphics make the game, not necessarily photo-realistic graphics, good, or bad graphics, but graphics as the identity of the game.
El Shaddai could have been the next-gen equivalent of Ico, but some flaws hold it back in my opinion. And I suspect people mostly praise the good intentions of its developers, rather than the actual result that we get to play. First of all: cheap deaths because of the bad camera angle in the platform sections and the illusion of depth that often is manipulated in order to trick you and make you fall to your death. It's supposed this way to raise the difficulty level of the game, but what it really succeeds is to bring to the player needless frustration. If Heaven is a platformer, then I don't want to go there in after life... Sound effects could have been better; in fact I found them repetitive and nerve breaking and also the main voice acting was annoying. Also the story itself wasn't particularly interesting and at times I thought it was convoluted.
What El Shaddai truly excells at is the creation of atmosphere. Its abstract environments make you really feel that you are in an outer world place, possibly a symbolic structure of Heaven, or time-space. If a game can make you totally believe that you reside for as long as it lasts inside its dream world then only for that I consider this game worth of praise.
I do recommend this game, not because it is particularly polished, or masterfully designed, but because it simply shows another way that games can also be made. Memorable games with character and originality. El Shaddai is made of these elements. Despite its weaknesses it's certainly a breath of fresh air from all that Hollywood style of the main stream action games.