Heavenly Sword

September 19,2007 - The long-awaited PlayStation 3 game is finally here to up the bar on what you should expect from a game’s presentation. Throw in God of War-like gameplay and you’ve got a recipe for a game that should be a nice start to the rest of Sony’s lineup for the fall.

Heavenly Sword doesn’t feature much of a unique story, but it doesn’t matter once you see the amount of work that’s been put into the presentation. To add to the God of War comparisons, the story starts off on a similar note, with Nariko fighting against a huge wave of enemies when the Heavenly Sword decides to take her life. The player then joins her in reliving the few days preceding this untimely death in the hopes that things could change. The story’s mainly told in cutscenes, including picture-in-picture scenes to highlight important parts of the screen, which look really good. Cutscenes have great voice acting and lip-synching, and the story as a whole is told so well that any clichés can be forgiven easily. The story is even told so well that you start to care about Nariko and Kai as characters, which is hard for most games to do these days.

While Heavenly Sword is most often compared to God of War, it’s easy to notice that there’s more depth built into the controls—offering the chance to get more out of the combat if you’re looking for it. As you play through each chapter, you can gain up to three glyphs based on how well you did in each scene to unlock new combos and special features like videos and artwork. While the square and triangle buttons handle the main attacks, you’ll need to use the R1 and L1 buttons to switch between the power and range stances depending on the situation at hand. If you block well enough, you will notice that pressing the triangle button at the right time during the attack launches a counter attack, which is handy when you’re out-numbered or out-powered.

As you beat up on your enemies, the middle of the health circle begins to turn orange and the three holes will fill up. Pressing circle when you’ve got at least one of those holes filled unleashed a superstyle move; essentially a special move that guarantees the brutal death of the enemy you unleash it upon. Fill up all three holes and the moves available are great for clearing out the whole room in one swoop. The quick time events are another God of War influence, as you’ll run into these during boss battles and key moments in the game where you’re required to press the corresponding buttons quickly to keep Nariko moving towards her goal. The “aftertouch controls” is the fancy name for the motion controls Heavenly Sword offers. Basically, after picking up an enemy, sword, shield or whatever with the X button, by holding the X button when you throw it, you gain control of aiming that item with the motion controls, which works well once you get used to it. It comes in handy for simple puzzles and a few of the gameplay styles you’ll meet as you journey through the game.

Heavenly Sword can basically be broken up into a few different styles of gameplay that changes as you play through each chapter. There are the God of War-like chapters, where you run into groups of enemies and must dispatch them in a brutal manner. There are the chapters featuring cannons, which require you to aim the cannon and use the aftertouch controls to more precisely aim the cannon balls at targets on large invading structures that Bohan’s army employs. When Nariko is in need of some extra help, her little sister Kai comes into play with her sniping chapters, which resemble Resident Evil 4 a little bit, as Kai must use her crossbow to take down guards with the help of the aftertouch controls. Then there are the boss fights, which are fairly formulaic, but fun and challenging at the same time. Kai’s levels tend to be the most fun, as it is both a break from the occasionally tedious Nariko levels and the humor that derives from Kai’s child-like mind interacting with Nariko and her enemies brings a light-hearted feeling to the game.

Visually, Heavenly Sword is drop dead gorgeous. The cutscenes look great and do the environments and character models. It’s unfortunate that things like Nariko’s wild hair and the blocky shadows in the cutscenes don’t help the immersion of the story at all. There’s also some slight hiccups when Nariko has a ton of enemies around her while debris piles up, though strangely, the framerate is steady when she’s fighting hundreds of enemies at once or firing cannonballs at them. The enemy models could’ve used a little more variety than just one look per enemy type so you’re not just fighting the same enemies over and over. As for enemy AI, it’s not going to blow you away, but they will provide a good challenge throughout the game that definitely helps make the game enjoyable.

With all of this Hollywood influence in the cutscenes, Heavenly Sword’s audio does step up to match the visuals that Heavenly Sword offers. The characters you meet definitely speak like they should, particular the brilliant performance of Bohan, melding evil and humor that makes it so easy to love to hate him. Kai stands out with her child-like mind and speech adding some humor to an overly serious plot by being the ying to Nariko’s yang. The music is exceptional here, accentuating the emotional and action-packed moments perfectly that it adds to the experience of playing Heavenly Sword.

It’s unfortunate that Heavenly Sword is very short, weighing in at a light six hours to beat the game once. There are some unlockables that help, but overall the game’s not worth full price. However, the game’s a perfect rental for anyone with a PS3, as it is a game that every PS3 owner should experience at least once. With charming characters, great acting, beautiful cutscenes, and an overall great, immersive experience, Heavenly Sword has raised the bar for the presentation of next-generation games. It’s just a shame that the experience ends so soon, but there are always sequels to take care of those problems.

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