An achievement of story-telling that will keep you impressed and interested throughout the entire game.
An achievement of story-telling that will keep you impressed and interested throughout the entire game.
Review:
Let me begin this review by telling you what this game is not. It is not a God of War clone. I would even go so far as to say this is not a game... not in the expected way. It is a story told much in the same way as you would an epic fantasy movie, such as Lord of the Rings. The graphics, especially the character animations, are amazing. The voice-acting is on par with real movies (not directed by Uwe Boll, that is), and the only difference is that you get to control the characters during battles. Given the length of the game, character development is on the short side, but I believe the game does an admirable job of giving us as much of a backstory as possible during the 5 day time-frame. The music in the game is sufficient, though not nearly as captivating as the animations and sound effects.
The most important part of a game is its game-play. It is in this sense that this game is extremely dissimilar to God of War. Yes, the main character, Nariko, can wield dual chain-blades like in God of War, but this is one of her three attack stances. This would be her range stance, and is useful for keeping large numbers of enemies at bay, and also for knocking an enemy into the air for an air combo. Her regular stance is useful for taking out single enemies, and her power stance is useful for larger enemies or breaking through the enemy's block. Attacking becomes like a simplified Mortal Kombat fight, where you can pull off combos using various sequences of the two attack buttons, but also switching between stances mid-combo. I say "simplified" not because the fights are easier, but the difficulty of the combo system is lower than Mortal Kombat. Some fights require you to face multiple enemies (and types) at once, thus making which combos you use an important decision.
Doing combos, especially stringing together combos between enemies without getting hit, is how your style meter fills up, and once it is filled, you can initiate an instant kill sequence. Additionally, gaining style "points" fills up a second meter, but this one measures your performance thus far on that stage, which unlocks bonus content and new combos. This second meter also serves as the main purpose for replaying the game, other than, of course, seeing how many ways you can air-pummel that foot soldier. The combos are incredibly fluid, and pulling off several combos makes you feel invincible.
Another great way to add style points is countering. Countering is actually blocking followed by a button press. Since blocking is automatic (another key difference from God of War), countering is just a timely button press away. The only caveat is you can only autoblock attacks in the same stance. Strong attacks (akin to your power attack) can be autoblocked only while in power stance, and are easy to see because the enemy glows orange instead of blue while power attacking. However, life isn't all autoblocking, since enemies can also perform a super attack (as seen by the red glow), and these cannot be blocked. Once you do perform a block, countering is easily done by pressing the triangle button, and you better become an expert at this since it is the only way to beat the game's later bosses.
The last difference between this game and God of War is the lack of jumping. This is probably the reason I wouldn't classify this as a regular game, it doesn't really fit the mold of an action hack-and-slash adventure game without jumping. It makes platforming impossible, though there are still a handful of puzzles. These puzzles involve accurate throwing of various items, such as shields or rockets or cannonballs. The term "accuracy" usually isn't used too much since most action games have an auto-aim feature. Heavenly Sword does them one better, by using motion-sensing aftertouch. Basically, the camera switches to a second-person view behind the item and you control, somewhat, the direction by tilting the controller. Although this detracts from the reality of throwing/firing things, it makes it much more enjoyable to hit enemy catapults when you feel like you have some control over the trajectory. A similar mechanic is used for the sniper missions where you control the trajectory of arrows, and the game certainly takes advantage of this for some surprisingly fun mission setups.
For all the complaints about lack of enemy variety, take this list and see what you think: soldier with single sword, armored soldier with shield and sword, heavily armored soldier with shield and sword, heavy soldier with axe, heavy soldier with hammer, ape-like soldier with claws, ninjas with dual swords, and archers. No, this isn't the biggest list of enemies in the world, but it's definitely not the "only two or three types" that others complain about. Also, fighting enemies depends a lot on your environments, and the game does offer up a surprising amount of variety in environments, most of which you can use to your advantage (or are required to use). Bosses are also fun, though once you get the patterns down they aren't that difficult. My only complaint about the fighting is the lack of blood. Was getting a T for Teen rating so important to not include blood?
Graphically, the game is absolutely stunning, with highly-detailed everything, from giant landscapes and buildings down to the realistic-looking skin and amazing facial expressions. The characters do look like actors in a movie, and not just puppets with voices. My only complaint would be that the shadowing effects don't always look great during cutscenes. On the other hand, the cutscenes are also incredible, and you will enjoy them just as much as playing the game.
Combined with the graphics is a captivating story that, although not an award-winning novel, takes an interesting script and excels thanks to the amazing voice work and animation. And even with the short story, the characters are enthralling and humorous, and the story is intelligent and offers some real emotion.
Finally, with so many other reviews hating on the length of the game, I offer up this point of view. If the game really is more of a game-movie hybrid, is more gameplaying really something we want? If you rush through the game, it only takes 6-8 hours, but every minute is something you'll savor. Is this really worse than a game that takes 40 hours, but you spend 30 hours leveling up, or a game that is 40 hours, but it's all basically the same hack-n-slash through level after level (such as most of the dynasty warriors games)? The game does offer some replayability, with trying to get "gold" on all stages, as well as the hard difficulty, but the real point is, would you want to watch the greatest movie ever made if it was more than 4 hours long? This game is really one of those games you don't want to put down until it's over, and I can't think of how that's a bad thing at all.