Heavenly Sword Review
This God of War with girls makes the cut.
Posted by Libe Goad on Monday, August 27, 2007
Expanding on the ever-popular "hot girls kicking ass" genre, Heavenly Sword introduces us to Nariko, a fiery redhead with ninja-like reflexes who's embroiled in a bitter war over the Heavenly Sword, a powerful weapon that drains the life out of anyone who possesses it.
Our heroine grabs the sword in a fit of poor judgment and spends the next few days hacking and slashing waves of enemies in an attempt to kill the scheming King Bohan, and save her people, before she dies.
This epic story unfolds with the help of true next-gen visuals and excellent voice acting, courtesy of Andy Serkis (as King Bohan) and a cast of semi-known Brits. Looks-wise, Heavenly Sword presents one of the most eye-appealing games to appear on the PS3 – each level is filled with gorgeous vistas, and the characters, down to detailed facial expressions, give an something that might even be called an emotional performance.
Sony truly sunk a big production budget into this project, and if cinematics alone made a game, Heavenly Sword would easily rival A-list titles like Halo 3-- but repetition, predictable boss battles and some tacked-on SIXAXIS shooting levels keep this game from reaching its full potential.
The combat system consists of some heavy button mashing, but also incorporates three different stances used to fight different types of enemies – fast, heavy and ranged. Lightweight foes can be taken out using the fast and ranged stances and larger enemies must be off'd with the heavy stance. Using these three different stances opens up a multitude of combo possibilities, and all three stances must be used to make it through the game – a nice touch. Cheap out and punch the same buttons over and over again – death will come knocking sooner than later.
While the combat design offers lots of variety, fighting wave after wave of the same enemies feels like a chore after a while. Generally, Nariko must fight her way out of a crowd of Bohan's warriors, killing them all before moving to the next area. That usually consists of using the ranged attacks to push enemies back and then targeting a few of them using the fast and heavy attacks.
There's no block button – a staple in most action games. Instead, Nariko blocks automatically, provided she's in the right stance. Put her in the heavy stance to block a heavy attack (indicated by an orange glow around her attacker) and the fast stance to block at fast attack (indicated by a blue glow around the attacker). Press the triangle button while blocking an attack allows Nariko to perform a counterattack that will quickly become one of your go-to moves.
The blocking scheme works out fine on a one-on-one basis, but in mid-battle, stopping to wait for someone to attack leaves Nariko vulnerable to swipes from other enemies. It's better to just dodge God of War-style, using the right thumb stick on the PS3 controller.
Heavenly Sword goes traditional when it comes to fighting big bosses. Taking down Bohan and his cronies generally means fighting a group of generic soldiers and then digging in for the big showdown. Mostly this involves the bosses performing the same attacks over and over again until the player dies or figures out the strategy to beat them. While the visuals may be state of the art, this actual gameplay style feels a bit dated.
Timed-button mashing sequences a la God of War make their way into different parts of the game. Mostly there are used to help Nariko finish off big battles or pull off acrobatic stunts normally reserved for cutscenes. At times these sequences are hard to pull off the first time through unless you have lightening reflexes -- we usually found ourselves memorizing the pattern to get through them.
Other attempts at adding variety to the hack n slash fest also yield so-so results. At times Nariko must solve puzzles by tossing shields and pulling levels, and other times the focus switches to Nariko's worm-eating sidekick Kai, who specializes in long-range weaponry.
Kai's sequences revolve around taking down advancing enemies from afar. She can zoom in and shoot or press and hold the square button and then use the SIXAXIS controller to guide the projectile into her enemy. It's a nice idea, but the controller's reaction time feels slow and unwieldy – making these levels much more laborious than necessary. We eventually turned off the motion-sensitive controls and found shooting using the analog sticks much more intuitive.
In the end, Heavenly Sword is clearly a God of War knockoff, from the blades with a ranged chain attack to the lack of camera control (both games use the right analog stick for dodging) and emphasis on massive one-against-a-dozen battles. At least this game has the good sense to crib from the very best, and is a solid effort. But despite the strong presentation and excellent voice acting, Kratos and his mythological pals have nothing to fear from Heavenly Sword. The game doesn't quite match God of War's sense of pacing, character control and after plowing through another room of identical enemies, button-mashing until your thumbs are sore, you may eventually lose the urge to see what's around the next corner.
Final Score: 8/10
