Wednesday 30 Jan 2008

It does not seem fair to say this in the first sentence, but, Heavenly Sword resembles God of War. This is hardly an insult since God of War 2 is one amazing title that gave next generation consoles a run for their money in 2007.

It’s a bloody hack and slash action game which delves into beautiful set pieces with a boss to determine how much you have improved over your last sequence throughout the game. Your heroine, yes you’re a lady, has kept some of the vital movements from God of War like tilting your right stick to roll and pressing the buttons randomly to produce impressive moves. Once understanding and memorising these “random” moves you really do become a Goddess.

Beautiful cut scenes and introducing aftertouch

Our Goddess goes by the name of Nariko who has grown up on the battlefield with her father in command. She has always been treated as a soldier and never his daughter. The story starts unfolding with beautiful cut scenes at this time when everything goes wrong. When watching these cut scenes your jaw will drop in awe when witnessing some of the best facial animation and graphical details overall. Hopefully this becomes a standard in all future games!

Another great feature to this game is the ‘aftertouch’ idea. Shoot an arrow and direct it with your controller right into the neck of the soldier 100 meters from you…or hit him in the leg and shoot a second shot directing it straight to his pip by tilting the SixAxis controller in the direction you intend the arrow to shoot. The sound effect (which is a nasty ‘thump’) when successfully targeting your opponents is something that does not become tiresome. Aftertouch is also used for some simple puzzles in the game and works a charm, in fact, after playing this I will be expecting this from many titles on the PlayStation 3 in the future!

Engaging but too short

Unfortunately puzzles do not get much more complex than that. Where God of War ups their game is in the puzzle department where you get this amazing feeling of accomplishment and this is where Heavenly Sword falls flat. Besides great control, graphics and atmosphere, there seems to be little brains involved when playing through the game and because of that you will most probably finish the game in about 8-9 hours the first time through and if you played it for a second time you will most probably finish it in half the time. Besides a harder mode there is not much more reason to replay it anyway. The battles can also become very repetitive which is a shame.

Heavenly Sword tries very hard to stand out from the crowd and in some instances it does, I cannot imagine shooting an arrow in the future without directing it myself. However these are game play features that will become common in a couple of months time and a game of this stature needs to last you for at least 18-20 hours with new scenes around each corner introducing new game play methods (like Super Mario Galaxy does) and not shoved down your throat in the first 30 minutes with the same repetitive features right to the end of the game.

It’s beautiful and engaging in parts, but too much repetitive goon-slaying and its disappointing length means it falls just short of heaven-sent status.

Pros: Best ever facial animation; aftertouch is really revolutionary; nice storyline.

Cons: Feels repetitive; far too short.

Rating:
Contributor:	Dawid

Purchase: