Heavenly Sword – Review

Heavenly sword which is developed by Ninja Theory, was built exclusively for the PlayStation 3 console due to the technical abilities of the machine. It was one of the first games to really show what the combined power of the CELL and the RSX GPU could really do. The game was released in almost all territories in the latter half of 2007.

You play as Nariko, who is the game’s main character, she is a young warrior who comes from a clan ruled by her father, Shen. The game’s story is basically an evil ruler who wants to get his hands on a magical sword called, you guessed it, heavenly sword, which has been protected by Nakiro’s clan for a long time. Nakiro decides to take it upon herself to keep the sword safe and wields it herself, to give purpose to all those that fell before her also trying to protect the sword.

Heavenly Sword game play is akin to all those games such as Streets of Rage and Double Dragon, which were hugely popular back in the day, which involved progressing through each level in small chunks, where at each interval having to dispose of a group of bad guys before moving on to the next point. As stated before, the main character, Nariko, uses a weapon called the “Heavenly Sword” which can change between three different fighting styles depending on what the player wants to use. There is a Speed Stance, which is the default , and is good all round,Range Stance is along range attack but does less damage and finally there is the Power Stance, which is the most powerful, but slowest style.

Some sections of the game also resemble action titles from yesteryear such as Road Avenger or Cobra Command, which were found on the ill fated Sega CD system. These titles called upon the player to press specific buttons on the pad when the image of a button would flash up on the screen. These are random and enable the main character to avoid falling objects or to hit or jump over looming enemies. Split second timing is needed or Nariko will meet her doom.

Nakiro also has a younger sister, Kai, who the player can take control of in portions of the game. Although most of the stages where you play as Kai involve sniping missions, where she will use her crossbow to either protect or kill certain characters. The SIXAXIS is also used to good measure in Heavenly Sword, where it is mainly used to guide arrows which have been fired, to enable them to find their destination more accurately.

Final Words:

Heavenly Sword is a good game in every department. The fighting is regular and varied enough to keep you coming back for more, and the graphics and orchestral score are some of the best seen on the system. The voice acting deserves a mention too, in that it is actually good, and it draws the player deeper into the game story, as any good voice over should. However with this said the only main criticism that i can find with the game is that it can actually become very repetitive, very quickly. On the whole i would recommend this game to anyone who likes a game to have a combination of good graphics, good sound and good game play.