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Heavenly Sword offers a great gaming experience. The graphics are phenomenal (one of the earliest games to embrace the new standard of motion capture acting/technology), and the characters are pretty well defined. I could have used a bit more back story in that regard, but overall I felt for Nariko's plight as a doomed martyr, and even more so I felt the love between her and her sister Kai. Gameplay was fair, not too far on the button mashing side of things, and the various moves available with the Heavenly Sword became intuitive and easy to use. I particularly enjoyed the pace of the game; Nariko's missions were well offset by Kai's side missions, and Kai's missions were an excellent venue to make use of the Sixaxis feature of the PS3 controller. Ninja Theory found a good balance between the two controller regimes to make the game interesting. Boss battles were not too intense, but having to fight Flying Fox on 3 different occasions was a bit tedious. Heavenly Sword does feature one of the best final battles, however: in Part 1 you battle hordes upon hordes of soldiers, which segues into taking out multiple catapults/war machines on foot. Part 2 gives you a taste of what the game's primary enemy Bohan can do before he is augmented by the very dark powers he is serving. Part 3 pits you against the enhanced Bohan, and this section has a decent learning curve but is a well-crafted upgrade of Part 2: more difficult but still manageable. Overall a solid game which I would play again. Make sure to master both of Nariko's projectile deflect moves with the Heavenly Sword as early in the game as possible as this will greatly save you time (and restarts due to death) in later battles with certain bosses. If you enjoy “Heavenly Sword”, try Ninja Theory’s “Enslaved: Odyssey to the West” for PS3.Read full review
read more reviews @ http://blog.graduategames.com Heavenly Sword is a hack and slash action game similar to God of War, but more heavily focused on the action aspect. It has beautiful graphics and is an amazing start to a franchise despite its missteps, the biggest of which is the brevity of the game's story and single player campaign. Gameplay: 8/10 Pros: 3 different stances with some great combos and transitions, engaging story, exciting and chaotic action gameplay. Cons: The ranged stance is almost entirely useless, only 2 attack buttons, not enough puzzles, and an extensive overuse of "aftertouch" (tilt controlled) aiming /firing missions. Graphics: 9.5/10 Pros: Absolutely gorgeous with a fantastic art direction and amazing character design and animation. Cut-scenes are gorgeous. Impressive number of characters on the screen. A truly technical feat that exemplifies the PS3's power. Cons: Repetitive enemies, and some questionable character design choices (Roach?) Sound/Music: 8.5/10 Pros: Great voice acting, epic score, and excellent weapon twings& twangs. AAA music/sound fx. Cons: Not a fan of the retarded girl sidekick Kai, though in the end her story makes it better to swallow. Flying Fox is the most annoyingly voiced character in recent memory...he's terrible. Roach is also a little cliched...though voicework is good. Lasting Appeal: 6/10 Pros: Extremely entertaining from beginning to end with a very engrossing story which comes to a satisfying conclusion. Cons: Practically no replay value...repetitive gameplay and earning new artwork and combos is not enough for me. Average: 80.00% Tilt: +/-: -5.00% Heavenly Sword was a very enjoyable and engaging rental. I beat the game in less than 2 days and had fun doing it, but I didn't even come close to playing it nonstop. The game can really be flown through. It's a shame that there wasn't more depth in the combat or harder puzzles (and possible backtracking) a la God of War to lengthen this game out. I like the variety of missions, even if some are not as crisp as the main combat ones. The monotony of the gameplay is decently broken up to get you through the game and story, but a game that is over so quickly is definitely not worth $60. Verdict: 75%Read full review
Please keep in mind that this game was release upon the first wave of games for the PS3. I believe we're now in our third to fourth wave as we speak. What does that mean? Basically this game was created back when developers were still in their experimental phase and haven't got a good grasp on the PS3's hardware and great capabilities. Soooo, with that said, this game came out insane! The scope of the project was vast (probably more than what the developers expected). The battle system is superb (with the motion sensor turned off). The game forces you to learn how to have good control over your moves. You don't have to perfect it, but it will definitely help. Just imagine a female version of God of War. The art style is very unique and imaginative. Just imagine a cross over between the Asian culture and a little bit of European. The voice acting is top notch! You'll be surprised to find out who was the "Drama Director" for the game!!! You also might recognize the female that does the motion capture and voice of the main character! It's always cool to see where these celebrates got their stardom. Anyways, great purchase for me! Definitely try to buy this brand new, if you can. This will give them the accountable credit they deserve to make a sequel to the game, which I HOPE they do!Read full review
First, the negative. This is a short game. One play through will take no more than eight hours. There is little reason to have a second play though. There are unlockables (like, the making of) but everything that you might want to unlock, you probably will on your first play though anyway. However, everything else about the game makes you wish that there was more. The graphics, audio, story and of course game play are superb. You in game fighting gives you three different stances and each stance has a set of combos that you can use. On top of that, there are super style attacks that you can work towards by using your combos and not taking damage. Each stance also works as a defense against incoming attacks, speed vs speed, power vs power, etc. There are also counter-attacks of two varieties. One is a simple counter and the other, with a little more precision, is an instant kill against 'normal'/non-boss enemies. I recommend this game to anyone who enjoys action games such as: God of War, Devil May Cry, Onimusha, Rygar, etc.Read full review
I bought this game a couple of months ago. I have beat it already and I must tell you.....This game is one of the most beautiful games of all time (and I have been playing video games since 1984). The control on this game is very easy to learn and execute....but allows for a vast array of ways to play. You can be an aggressive fighter by just mashing buttons, or you can be more like a ninja by being agile and graceful with your attacks, or you can play defensively by counter attacking at just the right time. Best of all is mastering all three ways of fighting to just be a killing machine. The neatest feature of this game (aside from its graphics) is the ability to use your controller's motion sensors by adjusting the tilt and axis of the controller (moving it around). This actually stears/aims thrown or ballistics objects. Totally cool! The story in this game is semi-deep and very attention grabbing. Graphic detail is completely off the hook. This game is the perfect companion of a hi-definition home theater system.Read full review
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