Heavenly Sword (PlayStation 3)
Filed Under Reviews
Heavenly Sword is not God of War, but it might be on your mind when you step into Ninja Theory’s first title for the PS3 as the sword swinging warrior princess, Nariko. As a title that was anticipated to be one of the first marquee experiences for Sony’s new system, it was clear that expectations were going to run high for a game with more than a few passing similarities to its fellow peer. But while it does its best to stand alone on the battlefield, the brief adventure can leave quite a bit to be desired.
The story centers around a divine blade that would grant the wielder tremendous power in exchange for his life. Nariko, daughter of the clan leader and a skilled warrior, is eventually caught up in a battle for survival when she attempts to keep the blade safe…only to be forced to use it. With her life burning at both ends, it’s only a matter of time before the Heavenly Sword claims its price, but not before she fights to try and save the lives of those she has sworn to defend.
Fantastic CG cinematics courtesy of WETA Digital, the same company responsible for the effects in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the motion capture acting abilities of its actors including Andy Serkis, otherwise known as Gollum to LOTR film fans, tell the story. As a result, Serkis’ character of King Bohan, packs an encyclopedia of twitches, bared teeth, narrowed eyes, and Gene Simmons’ tongue into his face, making it fun to simply watch what he might do next. The other characters also come alive onscreen in much the same way, backed by great voice acting, from Kai’s catty insanity to Flying Fox’s emaciated evil. The musical score also helps to bring each part of the game to life as it keeps up with the carnage.
The world of Heavenly Sword mixes together oriental styles and a bit of western flavor to create a battlefield filled with gorge spanning bridges, ancient ruins choked by nature, and palaces teeming with sword fodder. There’s a lot of eye candy to feed your imagination especially towards the end with plenty of explosive scenes, but some of it comes at a price with unexpected moments of slowdown when things get crowded. The stable of generic bad guys also come up short in the variety department, even when approaching the end, and loads take a minute or two to complete even after it installs content to the hard drive.
The game is broken up into several chapters seamlessly divided into stages. Although it might be your typical narrative of good-versus-evil, the characters and the dialog are what help it stand out. The story does a decent job in keeping things moving along even when it doesn’t do much to delve too deeply into its own characters. It feels very much like a popcorn crunching tale straight out off the silver screen, or a long lost episode of Xena, that simply provides enough to give you the eye candy needed to keep going with a mix of humor and action as Serkis’ Bohan steals every scene that he’s in.
The title walks you through Nariko’s most basic actions from the start. Despite the premise that the blade is eventually going to kill her, this isn’t Otogi so you don’t have to worry about a withering health bar as you play. She has a variety of attacks that can be strung together into combinations and can use two different “Heavenly Stances” for fast or power attacks. It flows well together until Nariko gets caught up in a combo which you can’t easily break her out of to change her focus. Her battlefield instincts will also keep her pointed at the nearest enemy when you start attacking, but you’ll occasionally need to point her in the right direction.
Guarding is handled by not attacking as Nariko will automatically protect herself from simple attacks and you can also dodge roll out of the way with the right analog stick. You can also execute a counter after successfully blocking an attack, something that will become important when facing off against the bosses. Enemies will occasionally glow with a colored aura that will clue you in as to what kind of attack…quick, powered, or unblockable…they will use next giving you a moment to consider if you should get into the matching Heavenly Stance to block a power shot or just roll out of the way.
She can also use a “Superstyle” attack that can instantly kill an enemy and which might even take down a few of their friends, although bosses will laugh at your attempts to try the same trick with them until they’re ready to go down. Superstyles are earned depending on how many “style” points you collect from stringing together successful attacks, your accuracy with the bow, and performing well in certain scenes. Once you have enough, you can unleash it.
For God of War fans, Heavenly Sword’s gameplay might appear more like something that has gone back to basics by focusing on fundamental fighting styles. It’s relatively bloodless action can often feel like the measured combos and moves of a 2D fighter trapped in an action game. You might be able to button mash your way through a lot of the fighting, but you’ll eventually have to learn how to work the system in order to deal with certain enemies. Even so, after a few hours, it can feel repetitive as you continue to go up against many of the same foes. The bosses, on the other hand, can really force you to think on your feet but overall, aren’t too difficult to take down even when they head into multiple life bars. Most of them will follow simple patterns that you can pick out quickly aside from the final conflict as it becomes a test of everything that you had learned so far.
You may also notice that enemies will usually get back up unless you manage to juggle them to death or combo them into oblivion. If you knock them on their ass, you’ll need to walk over and execute a killing move to finish them which can quickly get old, leeching some of the excitement out of the fight as you hunt down soldiers rolling on the ground in order to put them out of their misery. As the battleground becomes cluttered, getting Nariko to simply stab the bad guy on the ground can become trial and error when she instead attacks the nearest standing foe or picks up a fallen weapon. And for whatever reason, Nariko can’t jump, denying you any chances of dealing death from above.
So instead of air, she’s got a mean throwing arm. Weapons, chairs, and even the corpses of your enemies are fair game. By using “aftertouch”, you can even guide what you throw from the flying perspective of whatever it might be, tilting and turning the Sixaxis’ motion sensor to guide it home. At first, it can be a little tricky to get used to but once you get the hang of it, it’s a lot of fun to guide a corpse right into the face of one of Bohan’s lackeys to break their defense. “Heavenly Pots” scattered around can restore your health and some of these are hidden in out of the way spots which can only be reached with a guided throw or arrow shot. Aftertouch is also used to guide rockets that you might find yourself firing at Bohan’s army, or even explosive cannon balls for when you need to put in time as a catapult killer.
It’s a great concept for fighting but not so much when it comes to the “puzzles” that love to abuse it. Throwable items in the game take the place of crates or buttons as you throw and bounce items off of targets in order to open the way forward. Whenever you see a large weapons rack or a crate filled with hats nearby, that’s your cue to look for a target and warm up your Sixaxis. It wouldn’t be so bad if the detailed environments were actually used to create a real puzzle that actually feels as if it might belong there.
Heavenly Sword also makes use of context sensitive moments such as leaning on the analog stick towards a certain direction or pressing the right button as soon as it appears onscreen to execute certain moves. There are also a few chains of this to follow but they won’t leave you awake at night in fear as most of these are easy to get through as long as you don’t become mesmerized by the action. Even when you fail a chain, you’re usually given a second chance as Nariko recovers from the misstep or manages to grab the cliff face before falling to her death.
And then there’s Kai, the insane little moppet that considers Nariko her bestest friend in the whole world and is a crack shot whose arrows point the way to the Reaper. At certain stages in the game, you’ll be guiding Kai through her own part of the story as she talks to herself while running away from foes or leaping over obstacles. She has absolutely no hand to hand skills aside from staggering foes that come too close so that she can escape, but you can use aftertouch to guide her arrows right between the eyes of whoever she’s aiming at, even through fire and then right into an explosive barrel to send foes flying. Give her some distance and she’s the deadliest thing on two legs. The few stages that she is in are among the most fun that you might have with the Sixaxis.
But the game can come to a harrowing end a few hours after you bring it home, which might not sit well with players expecting more, especially if they’ve come in from God of War’s own saga of divine retribution. There are extras that can be unlocked in the art gallery and you can also improve your rating in certain stages by revisiting them, but there isn’t a whole lot else to experiment with when it is over other than going through the game again at the new difficulty level. Heavenly Sword may be tempered with atmospheric villains, beautiful scenery, and some exciting moments, but it doesn’t cut quite deeply enough.
Primotech Rating: 
