Heavenly Sword is the game that everyone was waiting for! Beautiful animations, great landscapes, graphics, action and of course a beautiful red-haired girl. The whole plot runs around Nariko, the fiery red-haired heroine who is entrusted with a very powerful sword, the sword of Gods: Heavenly Sword.

Right from the beginning of the game , we are taken onto the fighting grounds, for the final battle. We learn the story of Nariko and fight against King Rohan’s army.

Many people have died for this sword. Others worshiped it. But it is said that no mortal can wield it for it will drain one’s life. After many centuries of wondering, the sword came in the hands of a clan that swore to protect it. It was said that one day, a deity will be born into the body of a mortal, a hero who will banish evil from the lands. Instead of giving birth to a boy, the wife of the clan’s leader gave birth to a girl. Despite this, Shen, the clan leader and her father trained her as a warrior.

In the time of the final battle against Rohan’s army, Nariko falls to the ground, the sword absorbing her life: the price she must pay for wielding it. Nariko wakes up alone, angry on the sword; why did it took her life in a such critical moment? Then, the story takes us 5 days in the past where the clan is attacked by Rohan’s army.

After the initial training were we learn the basic moves and combos, we are introduced with the second playable character in the game, Kai, Nariko’s little sister. She lacks the skill of using a sword but she’s very skilful with the crossbow. The developers wanted Kai to be “special” in her own way that’s why only she can use the crossbow; she moves like a cat, walks like a cat and thinks like a child, and everything is a game to her.

The story then follows the capture of Shen, with Nariko going on a rescue mission. She fights one of Bohan’s generals, Flying Fox, who can teleport and moves real fast, always being one step ahead. After you defeat him, he flees for one more encounter later in the game. You also fight another general, Whiptail, which has a fish-like body, and can redirect water in form of water walls / jet attacks. If your skills with the Heavenly Sword are good, you will have no problem defeating Whiptail.

After Nariko sticks the sword into Whiptail, she passes out, waking up captive in Rohan’s prison. Again, it’s Kai’s time to enter the show , as she releases Shen from prison and gets the sword back from the armory, where it stands next to other war trophies. With the sword back, Nariko is forced to fight in the arena against some beasts and her even her own clansmen. In the end she also fights Rohan’s son, Roach, who is a big mutant-like thing with the brain of a 5 year old, wearing a roach shield on his back.

Once the family reunited, Shen barely makes it out, but Kai is followed and trapped by Flying Fox. By the time Nariko gets to them, Flying Fox hangs Kai. With revenge in her mind and eyes, Nariko stars fighting the last general, giving everything, for Kai, with one last breath, to shoot Flying Fox in the head with an arrow. All that for what I would say?!

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Loosing the sword, King Bohan, launches the final attack, with multiple units, the clan being outnumbered by 1000 to 1. While fighting his troops, Nariko falls down, taking the story back from the beginning where she died. But having +10 willpower and a good luck roll to her advantage, after a long monologue with the sword she rises up as a divine goddess, glowing with white aura. King Rohan can’t be a wimp, not now. So and he asks the help of his always following black eagle. This eagle turns into a spirit that enters Rohan’s body transforming him into an eagle bad ass demon, surrounded with a black aura. Everything is there, and the battle between Hell and Heaven begins.

Looking at the weapons arsenal, Nariko has only one single weapon - that being the Heavenly Sword. If the L1 button is pressed the sword is divided in two swords chained but the damage is very low. This is called “Range Stance”, and it is used when surrounded by many opponents; it can also be used to repel arrows and in combat and the “wall of water” when fighting Whiptail. If the R1 button is pressed, Nariko attacks with the Heavenly Sword, the two-handed weapon causing massive damage assuming a combo is performed right. This “Power Stance” is very slow and can be easily interrupted if Nariko is hit. Otherwise, Nariko uses the “Speed Stance” which is a balance between the “Ranged Stance” and the “Power Stance”.

Each Stance has a wide diversity of combos . The combo list is available in the menu and completing them successfully will show Nariko perform a series of acrobatics that will punish the enemies. Some combos take advantage of the Sixaxis controller of Playstation’s 3, having to push the required buttons and shake the controller to perform a special combo. The bad side is that any casual gamer who will notice that pushing the attack buttons (square and triangle) will get the most of the foes down will keep it that way for the rest of the game. This is when talking about the Normal difficulty; when playing on Hell difficulty, you will require more tactics and good knowledge of the combat stances. From time to time you will see red pots that once broken will max out your health. They will also give you some Glyph points (on the bottom bar) which will in time allow you to unlock new combos.

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Gameplay: 87

Having a strong story at the base of the game, Heavenly Sword steps up from other titles by great character performance, emotions and action that captivates you. Lots of combos are available but just pushing attack buttons will allow you to complete most of fights so you will not feel the need to know how to do combos to advance in the game. This is a minus to the game which will rip the level of replayability. On the other side, Heavenly Sword features a great combat engine, which can be scaled for fights with hundreds of troops, and the use of “Aftertouch” for Kai’s arrows and Nariko if she uses a bazooka, the cannon, any objects, even bodies ( I know… it’s just sick). This feature allows you to control the projectile/arrow using the Sixaxis, directing it to a desired spot where to hit.

Graphics: 90

The game uses Havok engine for animations and physics, same engine used for Bioshock, Team Fortress 2; all these mentioned games look astonishing. Heavenly Sword takes pride with its graphics, a lot of work was put to create each character unique, and the landscapes or the environment… ouch (my mouth is still opened, drooling over the controller – so to speak :) ). It looks like Ninja Theory got this to the heights; from water to leafs, simple rooms to an entire city, the attention of detail was the same. Only good words to say about the graphics.

Sound: 88

Looking at the characters and hearing their voices, you can clearly notice the developers managed to capture each of their essence pretty well. You can really hear emotion in their voices, anger or agony; a bonus would be the contribution of the actor Andy Serkis, who is known to play the Gollum in Lords of the Ring series. In Heavenly Sword he plays King Rohan and he’s also the dramatic director. Moreover, every sound effect is created in such a way to increase the action senses and a fast combat style. The music is a very slow Chinese traditional song, which is not disturbing at all the game; rather it pleases the ears when you’re just walking around the scene, admiring the environment.

Hardware: 82

Despite wide areas loaded and lots of units on the battlefield, the frame-rate doesn’t drop too low. And the loading times are also reasonable.

Multiplayer: N/A