On Cloud Nine
We finally have some extended hands-on time with Heavenly Sword and it's nothing short of jaw-dropping.
Published: August 1, 2007
We're going to have to check the office for bugs. Not a day after the Heavenly Sword demo dropped on the PlayStation Store and we responded with plenty of frustration and befuddlement that something that can be beaten in minutes took hours to download, we received a rather lengthy preview build of the game. That was Friday and it's not Wednesday, which means we've had all weekend and the better part of the week to write a preview. So why haven't we (y'know, beyond the whole laziness thing)? We can't stop playing it.
The full chapter slice of the game that we received was nearly the antithesis of the PSN preview; it was lengthy, it had deeper combat with complex enemies, it had longer (and absolutely stunning cutscenes), boss fights, multiple sections, unlockables, storyline details, a deep combo tree... Need we go on? While the game was a little older and less polished than the demo, we couldn't help but feel that a couple more of the "levels" in the game would have resulted in a long exposure of things rather than just an ultra-quick snapshot.
Still, it's probably best to move on from all the backseat driving and get into just why we've been so hooked. If you're read our previous hands-on impressions of the game, you'll know the basics of combat, but whereas the Gamers' Day build (which was identical to the demo released in length) teased with the basics of combat, not really cautioning against mashing the combat buttons, the length of our preview build made it plain that developers Ninja Theory were working on a combat system that sat somewhere between the intense technical swordplay of Ninja Gaiden Sigma and the more twitchy-but-satisfying combat of God of War.
Our preview build (comprising the whole of Chapter 2, which saved us from some of the now-infamous spoilers, but stripped out some of the tutorial hand-holding that would have helped with learning the basics of combat) began right where the released demo did, but before it launched into revenge-driven main character Nariko's speech about possibly needing her sister Kai to play "Twin Twang," we were treated to even more proof that Kai may not be all there as she roused her sister and debated eating a small bird or a worm.
Even though the backdrop is shrouded in darkness and Kai was the only character on screen, the quality of the performance -- in voice acting, body language and cadence -- was something that first teased, even more than in the cutscene at the start of the demo, that there was something special going on with these cutscenes. That point was later hammered home with a scene between all the bosses in the game and King Bohan, the game's main villain, about halfway through the second chapter.
Once the game started, though, we were almost on cruise control until we made it past the demo portions, having played them a bit more. Like the demo, there were little updates here and there; as enemies come in for an attack, they'll glow a particular color -- blue or orange -- indicating the stance you'll need to take to block the attack (which is done automatically if you're not attacking), while red attacks are unblockable. Since the game provides two blocking stances (speed and power), and because if the ranged stance (where Nariko's blades spout chains and gain some serious striking distance but have their actual damage whittled down to near-nothing) has no block, there is a decent amount of depth.
The full chapter slice of the game that we received was nearly the antithesis of the PSN preview; it was lengthy, it had deeper combat with complex enemies, it had longer (and absolutely stunning cutscenes), boss fights, multiple sections, unlockables, storyline details, a deep combo tree... Need we go on? While the game was a little older and less polished than the demo, we couldn't help but feel that a couple more of the "levels" in the game would have resulted in a long exposure of things rather than just an ultra-quick snapshot.
Still, it's probably best to move on from all the backseat driving and get into just why we've been so hooked. If you're read our previous hands-on impressions of the game, you'll know the basics of combat, but whereas the Gamers' Day build (which was identical to the demo released in length) teased with the basics of combat, not really cautioning against mashing the combat buttons, the length of our preview build made it plain that developers Ninja Theory were working on a combat system that sat somewhere between the intense technical swordplay of Ninja Gaiden Sigma and the more twitchy-but-satisfying combat of God of War.
Our preview build (comprising the whole of Chapter 2, which saved us from some of the now-infamous spoilers, but stripped out some of the tutorial hand-holding that would have helped with learning the basics of combat) began right where the released demo did, but before it launched into revenge-driven main character Nariko's speech about possibly needing her sister Kai to play "Twin Twang," we were treated to even more proof that Kai may not be all there as she roused her sister and debated eating a small bird or a worm.
Even though the backdrop is shrouded in darkness and Kai was the only character on screen, the quality of the performance -- in voice acting, body language and cadence -- was something that first teased, even more than in the cutscene at the start of the demo, that there was something special going on with these cutscenes. That point was later hammered home with a scene between all the bosses in the game and King Bohan, the game's main villain, about halfway through the second chapter.
Once the game started, though, we were almost on cruise control until we made it past the demo portions, having played them a bit more. Like the demo, there were little updates here and there; as enemies come in for an attack, they'll glow a particular color -- blue or orange -- indicating the stance you'll need to take to block the attack (which is done automatically if you're not attacking), while red attacks are unblockable. Since the game provides two blocking stances (speed and power), and because if the ranged stance (where Nariko's blades spout chains and gain some serious striking distance but have their actual damage whittled down to near-nothing) has no block, there is a decent amount of depth.
