A little slice of heaven for the PS3, too bad that slice is rather small.
The story of Heavenly Sword, follows a young red haired beauty name Nariko, who is said to be sent from heaven as a savior to her people, or perhaps a curse? She is meant to guard the legendary Heavenly Sword, which supposidly was sent down from heaven above, along with a holy warrior who vanquishd the evil Raven King; thus preventing him from taking over the land. However, a king from a distant land, Bohan wants the Heavenly Sword for himself, to aid him in his domination of the world. The story itself is pretty cut and dry, and its length is one of Heavenly Sword's chinks in this otherwise great adventure. You can literally beat this game in anywhere between 5 and 7 hours, not a very long game for such a heavily anticipated title eh? The story itself is broken into 5 chapters, one for each hour funny how that worked out, which will lead you through jaw dropping landscapes and hordes of ferocious enemies. Some of the battle sequences remind you of epic movies, one battle in one of the later chapters reminded me of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers battle at helms deep.
The gameplay in Heavenly Sword, is a button masher at heart; but you cannot simply button mash your way through the seemingly endless number of enemies in this game. If you try to do that you'll just end up as Bohan's prettiest war trophy. When Nariko wields the Heavenly Sword, she can use it in three different stances: Power, Speed, and Range. Each one of these stances has its own set of combos you can pull off, and you unlock more combos as you advance in the story and by how many points or kills you get in a stage. You activate the different stances by holding down either R1 or L1 and pressing either Triangle or Square, your two main attack buttons. Which, having three different stances and hundreds of combos to choose from, constantly changes up your gameplay and the enemies that attack you will require you to use these three different stances. When Nariko hits enough times sucessfully, a meter built into your health bar goes up, when the little gems inside it light up she can unless a super move. The damage and range of these attacks depends on how many of the three gems are lit. But, they range from her slicing a guys....you know whats off to her grabbing one soldier and swinging him around like a merry-go-round and hitting anything in her path. The other big aspect to the combat is the counterattack system. Nariko will automatically guard if she isn't moving, but if you press Triangle at certain times in an enemies attack she can either severly injure them or kill them, depending on your timing. This can get you out of some tough jams, when you are surrounded by some 20 or 30 of Bohan's minions that is. And if guarding doesn't work, simply dodge by directing the right analog stick, Nariko is far more nimble and quick than most of her enemies. Speaking of the enemies in this game, they range from either the grunts or the sword fodder as I called them, whom never block and just seem to run in and die. To the power blockers, who block most of Nariko's attacks unless you use a guard breaking combo and who use primarily power attacks which are slow and easy to dodge. And numerous others who have their own attack style and moves. And there are also a few stages that involve Kai playing Twin Twang, in other words, she shoots bad guys dead. Her specialty is shooting arrows at enemies, since this is all she does, she doesn't do close range combat. Which in some of her stages can be annoying since you may forget this little tidbit of info. But, her stages are generally fun, you can use the Aftertouch feature to guide her arrows at the enemy, implying that you can direct the arrows using the Sixaxis controller that is. At first, it is annoying and you will miss alot, but after a while you get used to the Aftertouch feature. Very few things are better than aiming an arrow at a guy's forehead, or other 'parts' if you really wanna be dirty.
The boss battles are another thing about this game that makes them fun and satisfying to play, though they can be kind of annoying. You will only run into a handful of boss battles in Heavenly Sword, remember the length of the game to thank for this, but they seem to be worthy foes for Nariko's blade to sink into. During each of them, you will have to pull off a fancy scenes using button pressing sequences, which when you go through for the first time can be annoying. It seems like the reaction timing of the button pressing is off, there were many times where I would press the corresponding button when it came up on the screen multiple times but the move still failed. This causes the boss to regain some of their health, which makes the battle go on longer and can be a real pain.
However, the camera can also sometimes be a pain, if you are constantly moving back and forth, the camera will move with you. It didn't happen too many times to me, but it can be kind of dissorientating if you are in the middle of a heated battle.
The characters are lovable, for as long as you know them, and are also aspects to the game that could've been played out a bit more. Nariko you obviously get to know quite well and Bohan you get to like/hate depending on how you look at him. But, many of the other characters are just kind of there, Bohan's henchmen aren't really described or even talked about much. You pretty much see them in one cutscene, then you kill them, nothing really satisfying about kill some major henchmen I know next to nothing about. But, you cannot forget Kai and her Gollum like antics, she constantly talks in 3rd person and has a sort of peculiar charm about her that just gets you to enjoy her prescense.
Oh, and there is a slight puzzle aspect to this otherwise all actiony button masher. But, it could've been left out, it is not very inventive or unique. You see a box of hats to the side? Well, chances are there is a gong nearby that needs hit by one......and that is it. This so called "puzzle" aspect of the game could've been overlooked, it just seem so to be a hamper on the games progression.
The graphics.......well, if you wanted a game that showed off the power of your PS3, then this is THE game. The character animations look like real life people, they look as if you could reach out and touch them through your television screen. The battles seem like poetry in motion, Nariko moves swiftly throughout the battle without lag or hang ups. The environments looks absolutely gorgeous, the streaming waterfalls, soaring mountains, and vaste battlefields never looked so realistic before.
The voice acting is some of the best I've ever heard in a game, period. The actors really bring the characters to life in this game and are more than worthy of praise for their work. The sound design besdies the voices is okay, not great, not bad it just doesn't seem to add or take away from the mood set in the game.
Overall, if you're looking for an afternoon's worth of pulse pounding gameplay and fantastic visuals then Heavenly Sword is your game. If only it were a bit longer and a few other things were done better then it would probably have been a far more enjoyable experience.