Despite being a short ride this title manages to pack in more action than most games can in a beautifully told story.
The Good:
-Excellent combat system with jaw-dropping Advent Children style action sequences
-Incredible life like diverse selection of characters with great voicing & acting behind them. You can build a bond of genuine affection for them.
-A well written, entertaining story
-Rich colourful environment
-Packed with extras
The Bad:
-Very short (around three to three and a half hours to complete)
-The Kai sections feel like a classic gaming after-thought and slightly under-developed
-No on & offline multiplayer
It's quite a remarkable feeling attempting to write a review for this game. It is known to be a short game (around 3 hours) I feel as though I could sit here & type page after page about this title. It is something that gets under your skin and takes you back to being a seven year old boy watching over the top Asian martial arts movies and to a slightly lesser extent all the Japanese animes.
The game opens up to a the scene of a vast battlefield of soldiers & huge siege towers/ catapults advancing, when the camera pans in you see a lone soldier standing alone outside a fort ready to face off against this force single-handedly armed with the Heavenly Sword. By video gaming standards you'd expect this to be some overgrown, muscle bound, arrogant male but in fact it is a woman. We play this game as Nariko, A scantily clad warrior girl from an ancient clan who is believed to be a curse by her clan. The story is that long ago Heaven sent a warrior to Earth to topple a evil tyrant, when the battle and the evil was gone the Heavenly Warrior had vanished leaving only his sword behind. This sword was wielded by men who went on to do great atrocities with it & became corrupted by it until the sword developed a blood lust & claimed the lives of those who used it. A clan took it upon themselves to take the Heavenly Sword and hide it away from mankind who sought it for power. A prophecy told that the Heavenly Warrior would be reborn in human form, this man would go onto to lead his people to the promised land. When the night in question happen, the long awaited messiah turned out to be a female and took her mothers life in child birth complications. The clan took this as an ill omen so you can pretty much imagine what Nariko will of gone through during her life (there is five short animation films that tell the history prior to the opening of this game available for free on the PlayStation Store which I highly recommend you download).
Back to the opening. You get to enter combat against hundreds of on screen enemies until the Heavenly Sword claims your life & you are transported through the Heavens onto another plane. Here Nariko talks to a character which remains unknown for a large portion of the game (we don't know who it is as the camera angle is from their first person perspective) and we are taken back a few days in the story to see the events prior to opening siege. You are throw straight into action this game. This game is short but it always keeps you in the action & tension of the moment which is actually refreshing not having to endure tedious moments that games implement to hinder you and increase the game length (Assassin's Creed springs to mind as being one of the biggest culprits). The combat here is a sensation it is a system you can pick up & play and get to the end of the game without having to become a master at the combat but at the same time it is a system you can really get your teeth into & master.
A loose way to describe it would be God of War on ice skates. That isn't intended as ill harm to Heavenly Sword, whereas God of War feels more of a rough brawler this game feels almost fluid & water like which doesn't sound that ridiculous when you watch the action on screen & it is almost like a canvas. Nariko's flowing hair being paint brush like, when using the sword you smoke come off the blade from moving at subsonic speeds, when enemies block your attacks you are treated to a wonderful explosion of sparks on the screen, it almost feels like a dance too when you watch the fighting & music joining each other in perfect harmony (which some martial arts Grand Masters claim the two share strong resemblances). The combat isn't just eye candy it does have depth. Where some games shower the players with multiple weapons this game limits you to just one which is similar to Cloud's sword from Advent Children. It is essentially two swords that can be used in speed stance which involves dual wielding them at great speeds, ranged stance which turns them into a more Blades of Chaos/ Athena God of War style attack and power stance in which both swords are combined into one large one. Mastering the guard breaking (stringing multiple combos together to break down a enemies defence), blocking, countering and recovery (when you are knocked into the air you must shake the Six Axis controller for an attack to get straight back into the thick of the fight. The circle buttons grabs, aerial combos, and using the aerial stance to deflect arrows is particularly satisfying and when the chaos on screen has stopped you can survey the mayhem with all the bodies, dropped weapons, broken pots & damaged tables and chairs littering the area. It is a damn shame this game has no form of multiplayer.
I could go on to talk about the combat but I do feel as though I started to waffle on long ago and would now like to talk about the graphics that go from the lushly coloured game world to the extreme details in the characters. You can see real personality in the characters faces and you can grow a bond to all them (well maybe all except fish-girl), the games arch enemy King Bohan (played by Andy Sergis who did Golum in the Lord of the Rings films and delivers a brilliant performance), the other playable character Kai (Loveable yet simple minded teenage girl who adds comedy to the game - I have to go on record & say that I do not like the sections you play as her) and the genius theatricality of Flying Fox being my favourites. The game world is full of atmosphere, the most notable of which being the Gladiator style pit fight in which you are forced to fight with all your enemies in the stands jeering you, throwing missiles at you, launching confetti into the air, it is a scene that needs to be played to be appreciated.
Sadly all good things must come to an end. After all the incredible boss fights that offer quick time events just like God of War which (I must reference again) are Advent Children over the top crazy beautiful, incredible cut scenes and the simply epic closing chapters which bring us back to where the game started & beyond in this journey of bravery and discovery of one's self is over. I must applaud Ninja Theory and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe for supporting their decision in ending the game the way they do. It is satisfying and exhilarating to play a game to a real conclusion for a change and it is the cherry on top of a large cake.