Review: Heavenly Sword

Heavenly Sword was my debut game for the PlayStation 3. I had played the demo of it and liked what I played. It resembles God of War quite a bit. You were always swarmed with enemies to kill, you would do a quick roll to dodge incoming attacks, and there were button sequences. To say that it’s a God of War clone wouldn’t be very far from the truth. But, God of War was a great game to me, so will Heavenly Sword follow suit?

So, let’s start off with the story. The main character, Nariko (played by Anna Torv – who is the lead female in Fringe), is part of a clan who holds the Heavenly Sword – a sword that grants the wielder great power, but overtime consumes the persons life. When an evil king, King Bohan (played by Andy Serkis – who is mostly known as the guy who played Gollum from the Lord of the Rings trilogy) goes after the Heavenly Sword, the clan realizes that they are no match for his army. Now, Nariko is believed to fulfill the clans prophecy for the sword so when realizing they’re in danger, the clan’s leader tells Nariko to weild the sword and to prevent King Bohan from getting his hands on it. The storyline will take you from the clan’s home, to King Bohan’s residence back to the clan’s home in a final epic battle. I won’t spoil it for anyone looking to get the game. And honestly, there really isn’t that much more to the story. You are given a little bit of a backlog on it, but the majority of the game revolves around Nariko and Kai (who’s basically a sniper) trying to protect the sword from King Bohan and his army of minions.

Andy Serkis did a fine job presenting King Bohan.

Despite the story being pretty cut-and-dry with no real surprises, I will say that the acting was phenomenal. The creators of the game did a damn fine job getting the emotions across in the game. This was a combination of using actual actors’ movement and voices, and the technology of the PlayStation 3. When Kai was scared, the acting and emotions made you genuinely believe she was scared. When King Bohan insulted his son (a giant bumbling guy who’s not all there) and basically disowned him for not defeating Nariko and him breaking down and crying – you couldn’t help but feel sorry for him – especially after you see that Nariko felt sorry for him. The ending, too, felt very genuine. I won’t throw in the spoilers for that either. But again the acting, voice-over and emotional details were some of the best I’ve seen in a long time.

The game overall was pretty easy to navigate. I wasn’t enthused when the game had to install 2GB of data including the update and from what I saw this was actually a lot of space to eat up for a game. Despite all the space it eats up, the load time was still pretty noticeable. If a Hard Drive is supposed to save on some loading time, I’d hate to see how long it’d load in a system without a Hard Drive. Loading various chapters for the first time also takes up a lot of time. The flip-side to this is that there is barely any loading time after that. The game runs smoothly and you don’t notice any stops in-between. I have no problem waiting about a minute for a game to load if it prevents any loading in-game. Otherwise, the presentation of the game was pretty solid. Chapter selection is done in a field where Nariko is surrounded by six giant rocks that resemble the blade of the Heavenly Sword (each one represents a chapter) and the movement from one chapter to another is deliberately a bit long but nothing to be too critical about.

Just because she's a girl doesn't mean she won't kick your ass.

The graphics are pretty amazing. Then again, it was the first game that I saw in true 720P high definition. Even the backgrounds looked as crisp as the foreground. And everything seemed to run very smoothly. Only during long runs with no activity did I notice small little hiccups. Otherwise, the game is really pretty. Like I mentioned in the last paragraph, emotions were really detailed and added to the presentation of the game. At some points though, facial movements didn’t always look very normal – I can’t explain it … at times it kind of drew you away because you realized you’re looking at a computer-generated character rather than the actual character – if that makes sense. Another issue that always irked me was that her hair didn’t seem to flow naturally – but being a graphic designer I can understand how hard it is to make hair look natural.

The controls follow God of war. Square and Circle were both attacks, X button was the interaction button and the circle action was the “supermove.” As you defeat enemies you gain style points which later can be released to reveal a unique fighting move – many of which involved Nariko either kicking or stabbing a guy in the groin. L2 and L3 moved the camera left and right but would return to the default position when released and R1 and R2 switched between speed and power stances. The controls overall reacted very well to my demand – but there were many times when I attempted to do a combo and it would have done something else. This included a split-second window that you can perform a counter move when blocking. But you have to hit it at the right time and I could have sworn there were times that I did it, but it wasn’t acknowledged. Quite possibly the most frustrating of controls were the “button-response-sequences” where you have to hit a specific button in a matter of time. There have been many times I hit the button but it didn’t go through, which ended up with me dying. And your window to push the button seemed so short that you missed out on it after your brain tells you what button to press. Plus, it was so demanding that you couldn’t watch what was happening. Maybe placing the button prompt in the middle of the screen would have made it easier to switch from watching the sequence to hitting the correct button. While checkpoints were passed right before the button-sequences, it was still really frustrating.

If they're this close, try to get more distance.

With the other character, Kai, you’re basically picking people off using your bowgun. This was a really fun experience. Because when you shoot your arrow, holding down the square button puts you in an advanced aiming mode where you follow the arrow. You then move the controller in the direction you want the arrow to travel – up, down, left or right. You can’t go too far in those directions, but it’s a real fun experience to travel with the arrow right into an enemy. What’s real fun is passing the arrow through fire then hitting a barrel of explosives or fireworks. A downside is that when an enemy gets too close you don’t have an alternative attack method – you have to run away from them then pick them off. This normally wouldn’t be a problem … but they run almost as fast as you and dazing them or hopping over obstacles while they run around them doesn’t help much. I found that to be a neat and unique way to put a new spin on using aerial moves as well as the motion sensor in the PS3 controller.

Overall though, I had fun playing this game. I think the game was a little bit too short and I don’t think there will be a sequel. I never really found myself bored with the game until the later stages where every enemy would block your attacks and the only two ways to really get a hit in is to either counter their attacks or attack them in the middle of one of their combos. Other than that you’re not really going to hit the later enemies in the game and once you get the habit down-pat, they’re not as big of a problem as they once were. The boss battles also weren’t terribly difficult. The final boss battle understandably is tough and a lot of it involves countering his ranged attacks and dodging a lot of his melee attacks. It’s a three-part fight, but you get a checkpoint after each part so if you die you don’t have to start from the beginning. The battle seemed impossible to me at first until I learned I could reflect his ranged attacks back to him then it got a lot easier. Overall, from start to finish, I enjoyed the majority of the game.

Kai may use arrows, but Nariko uses a friggin' cannon (of some sort).

Remember those style points I mentioned earlier? Well, for each section of a chapter you have the option of getting three medallions which are based off those style points. As you collect the medallions you unlock additional moves, image galleries, “The Making Of” and various videos. The downfall of this though, is that after getting 75% of the medallions all that’s left to get are additional moves and image galleries. All of the interesting stuff to me, which was “The Making Of,” have already been unlocked. So while I plan on playing through the game again just for fun and again when I get back to my HDTV, overall there’s no real reason to play again unless you’re a perfectionist. A Hell mode is also available … but once everything is unlocked there’s no reason to play through it unless you just want the bragging rights.

So now, let’s wrap up the review.

Graphics. No doubt about it – this game is eye candy. The background is as clear as the forefront. The cinematics are outstanding but some of the non-video cinematics sucked me out of the moment and made me realize that I’m looking at a computer-generated character. Because they can do a good job with the graphics but still make some of the characters look computer generated, the graphics get a 8/10.

Music & Sound Effects. In-game, I didn’t notice any of the music because I was busy slaughtering my foes or sniping off my enemies. However, when the cinematic were playing, they were pretty spot on. They did a good job getting your adrenaline pumping when Nariko was angry or making you feel bad when King Bohan’s son was ridiculed to the point of tears by his own father. The sound effects were well done, and I didn’t hear any form of repetition while I was crazily swinging my swords. Because the music was only noticeable to me half the time, the music/sound get a 6/10.

Gameplay & Controls. The controls were pretty responsive. However, the response time for the button-sequence-modes went by too quickly and didn’t seem to respond correctly some of the time. Also, combos didn’t seem to be pulled off correctly some of the times. I would aim for one combo and do another. The aiming mode for arrows and ranged attacks was very unique and I hope I see it stolen and used for other games. Gameplay was pretty smooth. Nothing was too difficult, menus were easy to read and the game progressed smoothly. All these taken into consideration, Gameplay and Control get a 18/25.

Story & Presentation. The game didn’t have much of a backstory to it. However, from there it was executed quite nicely. Andy Serkis was the Dramatic Director of the game and did a fine job at it. Emotions weren’t too cheesy and they achieved what they were aiming for – for me at least. The story doesn’t add much to the legend of the Heavenly Sword, though. The story could have been improved, but I thought the presentation was so well done that it makes up for the lack of a more detailed story, so I give Story & Presentation a 18/20.

Fun Factor. The game was fun, bar-none. I didn’t find myself bored that much at all. And if I was, it was because I was still learning. The first few missions where you used range attacks didn’t clearly state that you can aim with your controller, so those missions were frustrating at first but then took off after I figured it out. Boss battles were fun, and the battles were fun so I give Fun Factor a 21/25.

Replayability. As stated before, once you clear the game you’ve unlocked almost everything. Unless you want to unlock everything or want to clear Hell mode for the bragging rights, there really isn’t a reason to return from the game. I plan on playing again – but that isn’t going to affect the score because the developers didn’t really put anything into place that will make people want to play again. Taking that into consideration, Replayability gets a 4/10.

Total Score: 75 pts., giving the game 4/5 invaders.