Aztez seems like a fairly fun little beat em up, until the strategy elements are concerned. What starts out as a satisfying bout of gameplay can turn to extreme difficulty spikes and frustrating wastes of time in a roguelike scenario.

The player controls a squad of Aztez warriors, fighting through and unifying the empire until the Spanish arrive. It starts out fairly standard, with a slash/bash moveset with grabs, dashes, blocks, and parries. There's also a finishing move and the ability to suck in blood from downed enemies to unlock special god attacks, which is all fine and dandy. Weapons are unlocked over time but rarely do any of them really improve the playstyle unless you grab the much rarer weapons like the gauntlet and rifle, which are VERY difficult to get anyways. Player skill is pretty much a necessity, but some of the enemies (especially the Spanish) later on will wipe the floor with you nonetheless.

Past the beat-em up parts the player has a variety of resources and items that they can gain through randomized missions to gain cities, strike down dissenting ones, and other such benefits and bonuses. It's surprising how within a failed campaign or two the player can easily strike through the whole map on a single go, which makes the sting of the late game more frustrating. It takes a pretty long while to reach that point, however, making it not the best form of practice.

Once the Spanish arrive, the difficulty gets cranked up and if the player doesn't have a better weapon in time and/or isn't perfect at the game, the player will be destroyed. For a game focused on gaining resources and items and whatnot, it's surprising how little it means in the main stage of combat, and losing even once is absolutely devastating to the player.

As for music and graphics, the music is alright but the graphics really stand out, taking a hint from MadWorld with a black and white and red cel-shaded color palette. It really helps the gameplay stand out at least with regards to blood, enemy attacks, and special attack opportunities.

Aztez is fun in the first half with building up the empire and taking down goons, but I can't help but think if the roguelike brutality of the game is really a great idea with lengthy campaigns cruelly cut short.