Released: 2007-09-12

Genre: Adventure

Platform:

Reviewed By: Gianna Tocco

God of War with a female lead. Where could you go wrong?

Since Heavenly Sword was first revealed, it was hard not to compare it to God of War, with its similar fighting style and comparable main characters. Heavenly Sword is an action-packed, hack-and-slash adventure with beautiful movie-quality cutscenes and an interesting cast of characters led by a fiery female hero. The title pulls away from its Greek brother and easily defines itself as a great game with few flaws that never fails to lose the attention of the player, even if Nariko’s battle is over far too quickly.

The game opens with the death of our hero. Nariko is engaged in an epic battle, desperately fighting for her life among thousands of brutal soldiers. To defeat her enemies and save the rest of her clan, Nariko offers her life to the Heavenly Sword— a weapon sent from heaven that grants massive power to whoever holds it. From there, the game is played through flashbacks.

Nariko is an outcast, part of bloodline sworn to protect the Heavenly Sword. Her clan is nearing extinction as the beautiful land that the game is set in comes under attack by King Bohan, who has sworn to cleanse the area of all individual clans and take the Heavenly Sword’s power for himself.

Hundreds of soldiers attack what is left of her home, but Nariko attacks them head-on. Her movements flow smoothly as she breaks necks, stomps down on groins and throws her enemies around effortlessly.

Once Nariko receives the Heavenly Sword, she gains three attack stances: a light, medium and heavy stance. You can switch between attacks by pressing down the L1 and R1 buttons, which in turn deal different amounts of damage at the cost of speed. Heavy and brutal attacks can throw soldiers away with a single slash, whereas her chain whip attacks can hurt several enemies at once, for less damage. Although each stance is different, you only really have to use the square and triangle buttons to execute your attacks.

While Nariko does spin around wilding weapons, doing back flips and jumps taking out dozens of soldiers as they tear up the city and charge to attack you, you can perform every combination in the game just by mashing two buttons. Tap the square button and Nariko will dash, flip, switch targets and, in general, make fools of the King’s army. There are times when Nariko will perform an amazing finishing move that merges into a short, violent cutscene, but you’ll often find yourself wondering when you did it—or better yet, how.

Although fighting entire armies is exciting and fun, the lack of enemy intelligence and simplistic battle style really gives you little to do. Dozens of soldiers fall with hardly any effort. There are not weapons to upgrade, no health increases to find and no reward for progressing in the game, other than playing more of a hack and slash adventure.

The enemies really aren’t very intelligent. Quantity surely ranges over quality, here, as you slice through hundreds of foes that, really, only attack you one at a time. The others just stand there, waiting as you hurl yourself at them with a giant blade.

However, there is no lack of style and intelligence in the bosses you encounter. From the cat-fight between Nariko and the seductive, slit-faced snake Whiptail—who dashes underwater and attacks you with waves—to Roach, who will roll you over with his giant boulder-like body, each encounter is as deadly as their maker. Nariko must overcome each enemy’s unique abilities and finish them off in a zoomed button sequence mode. When the boss is stunned, quick time events dictate that you press a specific button and watch as Nariko performs incredible feats of action, until the battle resumes as normal or the fight ends.

Heavenly Sword manages to stay fresh by having you switch between Nariko and the playful, cat-like Kai, who takes out bad-guys with her arrows. However, there is only one character for each mission and you have no choice in which you will be playing. Once you take on Kai, you’ll find that she can not fight at close range and has no melee attacks at all, with the exception of vaulting over her enemies and running away. Therefore, all of Kai’s missions are at long range.

Kai’s arrows can be lead to their target by use of the Sixaxis controller. Although at first it’s difficult to direct the arrows to their targets by holding down the square button and tilting the controller in the direction you want the arrow to go, it can be quickly mastered. Unfortunately, Kai’s missions seem both tedious and time consuming, as they often consist of either staying in one place, or constantly running around in circles until a proper distance is obtained between Kai and her opponent. However, Kai’s cat-like and playful attitude usually helps you through the down time, as she freely reveals helpful tips and tricks to her play-style by talking to herself, which is surprisingly normal for her character.

“Kai-Kai needs some pretty fire, make go boom!”

The land of Heavenly Sword is an amazingly animated environment, using the full potential of the Playstation 3 by showing elaborate landscapes and large-scale encounters without bringing the game to a halt. At least, not too often.

It may be visually jaw-dropping, but it isn’t without a few glitches. As punishment for dying in the game, players must wait through long loading times, as the game first loads the main menu, then the game itself, then the last cutscene before finally putting you back in the action. There are some frame-rate issues as well. For example, while fighting one of the game’s bosses, there are several breaks for a cutscene where the girls exchange some nasty words before you regain control. Once the action resumes, the PlayStation 3 seems to have a trouble loading the battle, stuttering as it grapples with the framerate. It’s pretty common for the screen to free, turn black, or even explode into a mess of pixels before the action loads up enough to continue playing.

In all, Heavenly Sword is an amazing game, even with its short play time. The story flows great and never fails to be interesting but it can still leave the player wanting to slice up more soldiers in this eight hour adventure. However, once you beat the game you unlock something called “Hell Mode”. It’s still the same game and the same story, just now on a more difficult setting. The game stays action-packed and can leave the player on the edge of their seat as he or she frantically tries to complete the button sequences that Nariko’s life depends on. Although short, the game leaves you with many memorable moments—like King Bohan’s speech to his soldiers about his “sacred genitals.” Heavenly Sword will surely give you one exciting, but short, weekend.