Heavenly Sword gameplay is solid at least from the demo I've played.
Action game is all about combat system and Heavenly Sword combat system is one of the best.
I've read IGN review and there are many things I disagree with him. His complaint about no block button I disagree greatly, because I thought it was great idea for Heavenly Sword to not have block button as it makes the game more about countering and reacting than just mash buttons and press block button. It makes you play the game more carefully and be more aware of the timing of your attacks.
Also the game complained about arena battles. If you are playing combat focused game, that's what you want. To have more chances of fighting and enjoy that combat system. No one talks about fighting games being repetitive. Very much like Godhand, the game was designed around combat system and the fight itself, so in that aspect what I'm hearing from the review is positive thing, not negative thing.
That also leads directly into the pacing of the game because I do think Heavenly Sword is more of action game than action/adventure game, and to focus quite a bit about action isn't negative.
As for the negatives I do agree on is, the puzzles that require shield bouncing. I can see that as being annoyance if they make me do stupid things like keep going back to pick up shield every time i fail etc.
Kai's part of the game look slightly interesting but I can see it being problem if it has that slow paced sniping mission for too long.
Fighting same enemies over and over. To me that isn't really bad thing. It isn't about what kind of enemies you fight, but how you fight them and in what kind of situation you fight them is what's important. Many games have you fighting same enemies over and over but they are still great games. They didn't seem to complain about this in Kingdom Hearts or in Halo.
The review generally made me think that the reviewer was too fixated with the idea of the game being action/adventure game and based on his judgement on that. Just like Godhand. Instead of focusing what the game provides, he tries to compare with other great action/adventure games and see what is missing from Heavenly Sword instead of accepting it as action game.
As for IGN UK, I didn't bother reading it since it's UK. I don't listen to those bloody British lol.
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