Heavenly Short....
Heavenly Sword is a PS3-exclusive action game featuring Nariko, a crazy woman with really red tagliatelle like hair and a crazy sword / swords. The game was created by Ninja Theory, whose only other game was an original Xbox game called Kung Fu Chaos.... right.... Turns out that Ninja Theory had a gem up their sleeve with HS though...
First off, I need to mention the presentation. This game is like playing an action movie. The graphics are superb and the cutscenes (along with the facial animations) are absolutely outstanding. It's obvious that the team went to great lengths to make the game look beautiful, and it has definately paid off. The facial animations in the cutscenes really bring the scenes to life, and makes the cutscenes really watchable. The voice acting is incredible and just goes to show that with a little effort, cutscenes and voice acting don't have to look awkward or sound like they're being acted by amateur dramatics...
The gameplay is mostly a hack and slash style affair with one very simple difference. Usually, hack and slash games have an attack button. Heavenly Sword uses stances. The idea behind it is you have three stances. Normally you have Speed stance which means you can do speedy combos and do moderate damage. You hold L1 and you're in range stance, which enables you to do damage to multiple enemies at once. You hold R1 and you arrive at power stance, which is slower but deals more damage. On paper this sounds pretty standard, but in practise it adds a layer of depth to quite a shallow style of game.
The story is great, with well conducted cutscenes and a well crafted linear path. Linear doesn't mean a game is terrible! The gameplay is satisfying and although it is close to God Of War, it stands as a great game on it's own and although it has been called a copycat, it's not so close that it's unenjoyable by any stretch of the imagination.
To list it's shortcomings quickly, the framerate can get a little choppy, especially during the big battle sections, and some of the animation can look a little clunky, but it's not gameplay killing really. There are missions playing as Kai, Nariko's sister (?), where you have to use a crossbow with the aftertouch (using the sixaxis in slow motion to control where the arrows go). This was a good idea, but once you get to around Chapter 3 there is a big section with this, and it does grow thin towards the end. It also could have been maybe a little longer, maybe an extra chapter just to bulk it out and make it feel a little less "to the point".
Of course, all of this was nitpicking, and it's a brilliant game and a worthy addition to any PS3 collection, and I must say, I heartily recommend it!
