Heavenly Sword
 

Can anyone tell me about this game? We played a demo of it on PS3 and it may cuase us to buy the system, it seemed like a pretty fun game.

Haven't played it but I remember reviews weren't great (7's and 8's out of 10). It was a long while ago but I think the key theme was that it was repetive?

SHORT.

While the game is going on, you have a decent three to five hour game with few hang ups in regards to controls. Gameplay is really great in the God of War, switch styles, on the fly sort of way. Music was great, voice acting was excellent. It was made with the US/Euro market in mind.

But you will get through this in a day. And I don't think the extras stacked up when I played it.

Rent it, don't buy it.

I heard it was kinda crap really. There are better action games out there to spend your time and money on.

Loved the game, even if it was kinda short; I bought it a few weeks ago and loved it.

They got the Prague Symphonic orchestra to do the music, a team of actors to do motion capture (Gollum is King Bohan!) and tried to make it as cinematic as possible.

Ever watch a James Bond movie and come out of the theater, pretending you're James Bond? That's what they wanted you to feel like. But instead of being a secret agent, you're a badass chick with a big sword. I can forgive the games shortness because they're trying to make it kinda like a movie experience.

Heavenly Sword Cutscenes (SPOILERS)
Heavenly Sword Animated Series

(Despite all my praise for the game, it's not worth the cost of a PS3. Games like Bioshock, Metal Gear Solid 4, Dark Sector, Silent Hill V, and Ghostbusters are.)

You heard wrong.

The only problem with Heavenly Sword is that it is short.

The voice acting is amazing, the ACTING acting is amazing--as they used actors to fulfill the roles and then CG'd them like in Beowulf. You can make out facial expressions on them and it's not nearly as creepy as in most things. The dialogue is also spot on, hilarious when it wants to be, dramatic when it wants to be that, and everything in between. The storyline and presentation is polished to perfection.

The game play, as well, is absolutely amazing if you're the kind of person who likes GoW or DMC games. Everything is perfectly fluid, including switching styles on the fly, and, again, the graphics and animations for all the moves are absolutely gorgeous and believable. The aftertouch controls using the sixaxis for arrows using Kai is also really great. Less great for Nariko, as you really can't waste the time aftertouching thrown weapons most of the time as she's usually in the thick of battle.

And because they fully realize that the true joy of this game is from massive groups of enemies and plowing through them with graceful martial artistry, there's even a few levels where you do just that.

The ending is also epic.

Again: The only issue is that it's only about 5-6 hours per play, but then, so is Contra 1, or Super Mario Brothers, or lots of other amazing games. I really can't agree with the view a lot of people have recently that if it doesn't take 200 hours to beat it's not worth owning.

I'd say this game would have suffered had they added more game time to it, as the crew set out to build a martial arts epic movie you can play. They did that. Any more and it the story pacing would have gone to shit.

The game is great for the ride it has. But it's set up like a kung fu movie, somewhat. The action right there is great but all the background info - (why The Emperor wants the sword, how he heard of it since the race is nomadic, the ORIGINAL user of the sword, the legend behind it...) - is left to wonderment and the next game.

I'm really interested in what would happen in a sequel. And Noriko's little "friend" has to be one of the best sidekicks, EVER...

"Twang, Twang!"

That's strange, because I remember playing the first two levels (or battles I guess) and the gameplay was "mash buttons. Repeat." I mean sure, it looked nice, and it was fluid, but that's because there were, like 2 moves. Also, I never liked the "twing-twang" parts because I couldn't hit a damn thing, so it was just annoying.

That's just my 20-minute playthrough though. I'm sure I totally under-estimated it though.

I think the complaints about this game's length should be taken as meaning it did well and left the players wanting more. All of us are so used to games that do everything possible to lengthen the playtime that when one doesn't overdo it, we're left in shock.

I haven't played Heavenly Sword or anything, due to PS3 not having enough draw for me, but that sounds like what this is. Personally though, I think games in this vein should be required to have a survival mode by law. That way when you really want more, so you're not left with nothing to do after the credits roll.

Edit: One problem I can see with the length though, as opposed to Krylo's examples, is that if HS is anything like other modern action games, it takes too long too get into to be reasonably considered a pick-up-and-play game, so it's hard to go back to it after the game is finished. In Mario World, you can start a new game, and have access to every aspect of the gameplay the instant you hit start. I haven't played HS, like I said, but I'd be willing to bet that isn't the case here. I'm given to understand that you don't even get the titular sword until you're a little ways in.

Yeah, there's always mission selects and everything, and that's something, but it's not quite the same quality of being able to just start a new game of SMW when you have nothing to do for an hour.

So you're judging a game called 'Heavenly Sword' by the two stages in which you don't even have the Heavenly Sword? 'Cause yeah, there's only two moves with a weapon with three different forms, multiple combos for each form, multiple 'super attacks' for each form, and multiple death moves for each form.

Do I even really have to point out how ridiculous that is?

Also: Sucking at the game is not a reason to call it bad. The aftertouch effect takes a little getting used to, but once you're good at it, it's pretty amazing. Or you can script it to the left analog stick, which I guess is easier for some people.