Overview
Heavenly Sword is a beautiful, if short, hack and slash beat-em-up. Think God of War with really high quality cutscenes and more variety in weapon strategies and combos. Recommended.

.

Review
Heavenly Sword is a fast moving hack and slash beat em up in the mode of Ninja Gaiden or God of War. It's difficulty is probably on the easy side but then again I had been playing Ninja Gaiden Sigma before that which was seriously busting my balls! It still contains some silliness, not that there's anything wrong with that, but this game has a good plot with engaging characters and cutscenes that aren't just eye candy but can be funny or dramatic as well.

Andy Serkis (of Gollum fame) is in charge of the motion capture and direction and he also plays the games arch enemy in excellent fashion. As is all the rage these days there are several "making of" featurettes, etc and they are good fun and worth watching.

There are two styles of gameplay available. A hack and slash God of War type experience but with considerable depth, you can do ranged, speed and strong attacks. You can combine these different forms of attack inside a single combo which means the possibilities are endless. There's something extremely satisfying about seeing 50 guys flying through the air when you're done a ranged combo!

There is also a fully ranged combat section of the game with one of the game's coolest characters. You can also use "aftertouch" and hold down a button to steer a missile weapons flight - this can be done with sixaxis motion controls (*cough* useless *cough*) or with the analog stick. You also do ranged firing with Nariko, with a cannon!

This game does not have trophy support.

The game has now gone platinum which means you can pick it up for about $30, at that price it's highly recommended. It's a quality exclusive title for the PS3, just buy it!

Rating: B+

Good
- Good Plot with Real Characters. (makes a nice change!)
- Great hack and slash combat with almost limitless combo capability.
- Awesome Cutscenes.

Bad
- A little short.
- A little easy.

Supported Resolutions
720p (HDTV)
480p/576p (EDTV)
480i/576i (SDTV)

Mr Staypuft
Old School Gamer

My Xomba Articles:
http://www.xomba.com/user/slewis68au