Though the fight itself didn't really change; we simply dodged the incoming waves and trails of water that Whiptail conjured when she swam quickly (she is rather eel-like, after all) to the far end of the arena, closing the gap, and then took advantage of her weakened state after summoning the waves. This fight was much like the one with Flying Fox, though a little quicker, broken into three phases, each with increasing, waves, we pressed on through two cutscenes (one that sadly lacked any audio), and suddenly the game broke off to show Nariko's retreating father -- and Kai!

Finally able to play as the slightly unhinged sister, we experimented with firing off arrows and guiding them aftertouch into a pair of snipers' heads. Near-fatally wounded, Kai and Nariko's father snapped the arrow off and began a slow but steady trek across the bridge to his daughter, while we played support with some long-range sniping. Guiding the arrows was a breeze, and the whole section was a blast -- aided yet again by some fantastic, driving music that kept things going. The cutscene that resulted in Kai reuniting with her father went much like Nariko's discussion with the freed prisoners, with Kai eventually breaking off and running to go help her sister -- while flipping and prancing along. Yes, she's crazy, and yes, she's awesome.

With the diversion broken up, it was back into the final stage with Whiptail, where the windows to retaliate against the increasing number of waves was shortening and the number of hits we could get in were far smaller. Finally, though, after an epic tussle, Nariko and Whiptail landed in a heap, with Nariko clinging to consciousness and the reveal that King Bohan was watching the fight all along. In Nariko's winded state, the villain apparently stole the sword, but before we could find out what happened, Nariko passed out and the chapter came to a close.

It was quite possible a bigger "awwwww" moment than the end of the demo, but of course the different here was that it probably took something like 40 times longer to get through. It sounds a little odd to say about a game that so obviously focuses on combat, but we're most excited about Heavenly Sword's performances. If the few cutscenes we saw in the game were any indication, all this talk about raising the quality of in-game characters wasn't just a load of crap; they really are doing it, and we're now dying to see how the story turns out.

Of course, we'd also like to see a number of things polished up (which they almost certainly will be, given that this demo is still quite early); stuff like the Havok physics sometimes resulted in ragdoll weirdness and some weapons that would bounce around on their own for a minute or so before finally settling. The framerate, too, was a little rough, along with some v-sync tearing, both of which can still be seen in the demo, so we're not entirely sure that they'll be perfect by the game's launch. The animation, too, whether because of the framerate or just the fact that it needed a little polish, is a little chunky in places.

Even still, these are things we had to force ourselves to even talk about since previews are supposed to lay everything out. Still after spending a good two hours with Heavenly Sword's second chapter, we're ready to call it: this is the start of Sony's mounting wall of quality titles that will help finally sell the PS3. Yeah, it took a while, but if this is the state of things to come -- from a first-gen game, no less -- the PlayStation 3 is going to be kicking all kinds of ass software-wise come next year. And right now, we've got the full game to look forward too. September can't get here soon enough...