Heavenly Sword demo up on PSN

This BETTER be a good demo. It's been downloading for over two hours and it's still at 81 percent.

Sweet Jesus the download speeds are slow on this thing. I won't go into how many 900 meg downloads I could've done on the 360 with this very same connection in this amount of time, but it's a lot.

On a side note, there's a free HS wallpaper up.

This BETTER be a good demo. It's been downloading for over two hours and it's still at 81 percent.

Sweet Jesus the download speeds are slow on this thing. I won't go into how many 900 meg downloads I could've done on the 360 with this very same connection in this amount of time, but it's a lot.

On a side note, there's a free HS wallpaper up.

Shame-usBlackley

If you like action-heavy games like GOW, NG, and DMC3 I think you'll dig it. Wait until you see the beauty that unfolds. Thanks for the heads-up on the wallpaper.

BTW, yes, I've noticed how damn slow the PS3 is at downloading too. Took me all day to download a few demo's.

Quick impressions:

Rope slide at the beginning is awesome. First fight on the pillar is pretty fun. I like how they make you use the different stances for different enemies.

The game looks really nice, but the animation isn't as good as I'd hoped. I used a grapple move with a dude facing away from me, but when it zoomed in on the cutscene for the kill, he's facing towards me. I also think they need to smooth out the roll animation, because, while not bad, it's not smooth-looking either.

A few bodies got stuck in the air halfway on/off the bridge when they were supposed to fall down. They finally did, but they just sat there floating for a bit, which is kind of disheartening.

I love the QTE event sliding down the ropes, and I hope the game is chock full of them.

The demo is way, way too short.

I like the switching of stances, and I don't really mind neutral being used for block. It feels kind of nice, actually.

Love how when the pillar comes crashing down in the tavern or whatever it is, the bodies you've just killed go sliding off it. Nice touch.

No jump button. Hmmmmm.

It's really nice to see mouth movement match that of the voicework. Props to that.

By the time I got to the tavern, it felt like I had seen everything she could do, which still makes me wonder if this game is going to have enough depth in the combat. I feel better about it, but I'm not confident yet.

Really nice-looking game with a cool QTE event (which I am a total sucker for). The character models are pretty stunning as well. You can actually make out the pores in the heroine's skin in the intro.

Reminds me a *smidge* of Mark of Kri, one of my favorite games of last-gen.

Love the block-breaker animations! Especially the chain sweep into pull into destroyed manhood one. Gotta love that piercing shreik that accompanies it. Also, the X button dash/pick up environmental object is pretty awesome, too.

Am I the only one who thinks this game needs a few body parts coming off?

Only took me an hour to download the demo on top of all the new trailers they released today, and thats on some rather crappy DSL.dohhyulittle

Perhaps Sony just loves you that much. :P

Man, of all the times for me to be running out of bandwidth. :( I miss the good ole days of demo discs...

Ah well, at least everyone seems to be impressed with the demo. I can't wait for the game. :)

Generally great impressions, sounds really good. No jump button seems extremely weird though and I am concerned about that especially since it seems like there is such wealth of movement in the game. After all it just provides another form of freedom for the player, although as somebody mentioned aerial moves seem to be the replacement for that, but Im not sold on no jump. Also about the no block it sounds weird would somebody care to explain how that works, because it sounds unlike DMC (which to be honest is the weakest of the 3 great action games, Ninja Gaiden andGoW). I hated how in DMC the game was difficult by being cheap (making you restart from the beginning of a mission if you died at the end) and only being able to roll and jump away from attacks.

So anybody want to detail how this block, parry and dodge thing works in the game. Sounds very promising but it was a short demo and we have to see how the boss battlesstack up and whether the game remains good over long periods oftime (I.e. the whole game doesnt get repetetive).

[QUOTE="dohhyulittle"]Only took me an hour to download the demo on top of all the new trailers they released today, and thats on some rather crappy DSL.Shame-usBlackley

Perhaps Sony just loves you that much. :P

Lots of OTE? I like doing things myself :( Sounds good so far...

So anybody want to detail how this block, parry and dodge thing works in the game. Sounds very promising but it was a short demo and we have to see how the boss battlesstack up and whether the game remains good over long periods oftime (I.e. the whole game doesnt get repetetive).

Arath_1

The blocking works like this: when enemies are attacking there is a streak of color behind them, blue color = speed stance which is your default stance, it autoblocks a few attacks but you cant sit there and block everything like Ninja Gaiden. Red attacks are not blockable. Each stance has a corresponding color that blocks with it.
Evade works exactly the same as god of war, you move the right stick in the direction you want to go and you roll out of the way.
20% of the game is playable with Kai (Nariko's sister) who only has ranged attacks so hopefully that ensures that it doesnt get repetitive.

Shame-us, people are saying if you are having slow download speeds, pause the download and start it, rinse and repeat till you get a faster speed.
It was slower for me than usual yesterday, 1 gig in an hour is kind of slow, but it could be much worse. Even if you get a megabyte a minute its giong to take 15 minutes to download :P

The blocking works like this: when enemies are attacking there is a streak of color behind them, blue color = speed stance which is your default stance, it autoblocks a few attacks but you cant sit there and block everything like Ninja Gaiden. Red attacks are not blockable. Each stance has a corresponding color that blocks with it.
Evade works exactly the same as god of war, you move the right stick in the direction you want to go and you roll out of the way.
20% of the game is playable with Kai (Nariko's sister) who only has ranged attacks so hopefully that ensures that it doesnt get repetitive.dohhyulittle

So basically the only button you press to block is to change stance at the most? At which point she blocks a couple of the attacks by herself. To be honest I hated not being able to block (coming back to replay DMC after God of War and Ninja Gaiden) so I am a tad skeptical about this (and no jumping), but Ive been hyped so long and everybody seems to be beaming about the game so I have faith it will be great. Thanks for the information ^^

[QUOTE="dohhyulittle"]The blocking works like this: when enemies are attacking there is a streak of color behind them, blue color = speed stance which is your default stance, it autoblocks a few attacks but you cant sit there and block everything like Ninja Gaiden. Red attacks are not blockable. Each stance has a corresponding color that blocks with it.
Evade works exactly the same as god of war, you move the right stick in the direction you want to go and you roll out of the way.
20% of the game is playable with Kai (Nariko's sister) who only has ranged attacks so hopefully that ensures that it doesnt get repetitive.Arath_1

So basically the only button you press to block is to change stance at the most? At which point she blocks a couple of the attacks by herself. To be honest I hated not being able to block (coming back to replay DMC after God of War and Ninja Gaiden) so I am a tad skeptical about this (and no jumping), but Ive been hyped so long and everybody seems to be beaming about the game so I have faith it will be great. Thanks for the information ^^

As for jump, i dont think its a big deal, i didnt find myself trying to find a jump button.

[QUOTE="Arath_1"]

[QUOTE="dohhyulittle"]The blocking works like this: when enemies are attacking there is a streak of color behind them, blue color = speed stance which is your default stance, it autoblocks a few attacks but you cant sit there and block everything like Ninja Gaiden. Red attacks are not blockable. Each stance has a corresponding color that blocks with it.
Evade works exactly the same as god of war, you move the right stick in the direction you want to go and you roll out of the way.
20% of the game is playable with Kai (Nariko's sister) who only has ranged attacks so hopefully that ensures that it doesnt get repetitive.dohhyulittle

So basically the only button you press to block is to change stance at the most? At which point she blocks a couple of the attacks by herself. To be honest I hated not being able to block (coming back to replay DMC after God of War and Ninja Gaiden) so I am a tad skeptical about this (and no jumping), but Ive been hyped so long and everybody seems to be beaming about the game so I have faith it will be great. Thanks for the information ^^

As for jump, i dont think its a big deal, i didnt find myself trying to find a jump button.

At first I was running around pressing X and thinking 'jump damn you! jump!'... but that wore off and I don't miss it. If Zelda and TImesplitters can be great without a jump button, I bet Heavenly Sword stands a chance.rragnaar

Ah, a VERY good point (since I love both games). I suppose its just considering its closest competition WITHOUT having played it its hard to imagine. I do look forward to getting the game though and am sure it will be fantastic it sure sounds like it.

First, I'd like to say that this was a travesty of a demo.

Moving on, the fighting system seems very robust and deep enough. I loved the blocking mechanisms, but unless lesser mobs start doing more damage, I'm afraid that this is going to deteriorate into a mash-fest.

Graphics are beautiful (that's the exact word), but the frame rate needs a lot of work. With a steady 30+ frame rate, the fights would be looking much smoother.