Masem’s Gaming Blog

Heavenly Sword, produced by Ninja Theoy and distributed by Sony, has been called by many “God of War Lite” for the PlayStation 3; I certainly can’t disagree with this assessment as while the game has many of the combat elements or ideas from that title, it lacks the puzzles or power building aspect that are present in God of War. That doesn’t necessarily make this a bad game, but after button mashing through the rather short title, there’s not much memorable about this game, though does give promise of what God of War III could offer should it be made on the PS3.

Review Helpfulness: (2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
 Loading ...

Story: B

The game, told much in the same fashion as Kratos in God of War, is told of Nariko’s experiences over the last few days. Nariko is charged by her clan to keep the Heavenly Sword from the huge army of King Bohan. However, as she makes her escape from his attack, she’s cornered and forced to use the Sword, something her clan father told her never to do as it will drain her lifeforce. Realizing her time is limited, Nariko turns to Lord Boahn’s palace to put a stop to the warlord, using the newfound powers of the Sword to assist her in her task. Along the way, the somewhat mentally disturbed and orphan Kai, a childhood friend of Nariko and that Nariko has promised to watch over her, begs to come along to help Nariko with the help of her elite crossbow and athletic skills.

The story is told through (what I’m pretty sure) in-engine cutscenes, some which are a little over the top (I get a feeling of Skeletor and his own henchmen at times). There are also a few times as Nariko runs through long, mostly empty by beautifully stunning segments, that she will provide in voice-over her thoughts at the time. However, the story is nothing really new – it actually feels like it shares a lot in common with Kratos’ own tale, though the ending is quite different and actually pretty strong.

Gameplay: B

Heavenly Sword has been called “God of War” Lite, but I would even go farther and call it an Extra Lite version. If you distill nearly all the puzzle solving aspects of God of War and remove additional abilities or the power to increase those, you pretty much leave yourself with the basic fighting game that is Heavenly Sword. The game has two primary modes of play: than when you are in control of Nariko and her using her sword, and that when you either play as Nariko manning a cannon or Kai with her crossbow.

Swordplay is based on the idea of three stances, the default “quick” stance, the “ranged” stance by holding L1 down, and the “power” stance holding R1 down. Attacks from the quick stance are fast but have moderate damage, ranged attacks can hit several enemies at once but do weak damage, and power attacks are slow but, of course, powerful. While you can use a variety of these to dispatch foes, its moreso how you use them against the opponent that matters. Opponents will use the quick and power stances themselves, and will glow blue or yellow (respectively) before making that attack. As long Nariko is in the proper stance, she will automatically block that attack, but by pressing the triangle button in that stance, she may also be able to counterattack the foe. This becomes critical in the later boss fights as to be able to apply the right attack form that actually hurts the boss instead of bouncing off them. Of course, you can also roll and dodge this attacks as well – this can be useful as there are certain attacks that cannot be blocked by any stance. Should Nariku be attacked and thrown into the air, a shake of the SIXAXIS controller will cause her to sling herself back at her foe, stunning him. As Nariko dispatches foes, she will fill up a “superstyle” meter up to 3 levels. This special attack (not available during boss fights) instantly kills the foe it is used on, and with highly levels can also damage foes in a nearby range.

When you get to boss fights, or at other points during levels, you will need to respond to reactive commands – these generally are for the final blows for bosses or to escape danger in other parts of the level. In the former case, if you fail to complete the reactive command sequence, the boss will get some health back and you’ll need to whittle him down again to be able to run the commands again. In the latter case, Nariko will likely fall to her death and you’ll need to restart the sequence though you’ll be right at the start of it, so there’s almost no challenge at all in that. Other times, Nariko will need to throw objects at nearby targets to open doors (she can also do this in combat as well); this works pretty much like Kai’s crossbow gameplay though ricochets may be needed for some targets.

When you play as Kai or Nariku arming a cannon, you basically need to aim and fire upon targets. However, long range aiming is generally very poor, so the game gives you the ability to aftertouch an arrow or cannonball after you fire it by holding down the fire button and then tilting the SIXAXIS to direct the missile. In the case of Kai’s bolts, you can have these pass through torches, setting them aflame, and then head for the nearest barrel of fireworks and explosives, dealing significant damage to anyone nearby. This initially can be difficult to work out, but there’s enough sections of it that by the end of the game, the concept is pretty straight forward even if there are a few oddities in how the missiles fly at times.

The game is divided into 5 chapters each with 4 to 12 scenes each. A scene may be a single battle with a number of foes, or just one part of a boss battle, as to give an impression of size. As you fight, consecutive attacks without taking damage help to build up style points that fill a meter on screen. At three points on this meter, there are glyphs that you can earn – most of these unlock concept art and other non-gameplay related features, but obtain enough glyphs and you can unlock additional combo attacks for the various stances. There are three possible glyphs to obtain for each scene, and it may take a bit of creative thinking and luck to be able to unlock all three glyphs in certain short scenes, but these are otherwise not hard to get and it is rather easy to get all the possible combinations in the game.

The game isn’t that difficult at the default difficulty (completing the game unlocks a harder difficulty mode) – only a couple times did I die in combat, the other times were due to a timing or other artificial constraint when using the crossbow or cannon. Health regeneration pots, despite being infrequent, are plentiful in areas you need it, and in the cases of some multi-part boss battles, your health is automatically regenerated to you between segments. Once I was able to get use to the idea of using the different stances against certain attacks, clearing areas became rather easy. Of course, I generally just mash buttons in these games, so all I really had to do was just make sure I was in the right stance for the various attacks and counter attacks.

Value/Replayability: C-

I was able to complete the game in a single session, maybe about 5 hours long. Its hard to say that this was too short, as by the time I was near the last fights, I was getting bored with the game (the God of War Extra Lite-ness without puzzles was wearing very thin), but given that there’s no multiplayer, one additional difficulty level, and the possibility of collecting all the glyphs in the game leaves little else to do with the title. However, I’m not sure what could have been done differently beyond not selling this title at the standard next-gen pricing scheme.

Graphics: A

If there’s one area the game didn’t skimp on , it’s in the graphics department. The vista you explore are stunning, and the number of foes that can be on screen at the same time seems incredible. There are points where the game uses a nice effect of a inset shot of an interesting target or a boss as he speaks to you from far away while you can still control your character in the main screen, leaving strict story development points to cutscenes to avoid disrupting the flow of the game. I didn’t experience any noticeable technical issues with the game as well. If there’s anything positive about this game, its the hint of what God of War III could be like if it is made on the next-generation console.

Audio: A-

The voice actors are generally very good though a bit stereotypical and the one for the Flying Fox (a boss henchman) gets rather annoying after a while. The background music is pretty good and appropriately dramatic at times, and combat effects are nicely played out.

Overall: B

Despite being called a lite version of God of War, there is still enough in Heavenly Sword that is does stand on its own, but moreso, I see it as a taste of things to come if and when we get our next God of War game. But until then, Heavenly Sword doesn’t really offer all that much new – the gameplay is pretty much a button masher, and the game is over before you know it. I would definitely call this a renter or used sale.

How well did you find this review helpful? (2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
 Loading ...