More Sword: Heavenly Sword Addendum

Eugene was kind enough to lend me his copy of Heavenly Sword, and I played through the entire thing in a day. Eugene’s excellent review was thorough and spot-on, so no need to rehash the entire game in my own post. I would like to touch on a few points, though.

Sixaxis? More Like Sixasskiss

In just about every post I’ve made — or conversation I’ve had — mentioning the topic, I’ve railed against the PS3’s Sixaxis controller. At its worst (e.g., Ratchet and Clank’s laser-cutting connect-the-dots tasks), it’s almost pushed me to quit otherwise great games. At its best (Folklore’s system of yanking souls from defeated enemies), it’s been tolerable but unnecessary.

Over the course of playing Heavenly Sword, I underwent a transformation not unlike Winston Smith’s in 1984. My loathing of the Sixaxis wasn’t far off from the hate Winston initially harbored for Big Brother, the fascist figurehead of Oceania.

But just as Winston “won the victory over himself” by the novel’s end, Heavenly Sword helped me achieve my own sort of enlightenment. I learned to embrace the enemy. I loved the Sixaxis.

Though most of Heavenly Sword’s combat is hand-to-hand, there are some extended sequences in which you must use projectiles, like arrows or cannonballs. In these situations, you can just aim your weapon, launch your missile, and let it land where it may — Sixaxis-free.

Or, if you prefer, you can be the projectile: time slows down, and you get a first-person view of flying through the air. It’s like a camera shot from a Sam Raimi movie. During flight, you tilt your controller and guide the missile toward your intended target. If you’re really good, you can aim for specific body parts.

The Sixaxis controls in these sections are fun because the developers were smart enough to try a novel approach to game design: eliminate frustration and add forgiveness.

During the most difficult projectile weapon sequences, your character isn’t personally under attack. Because your only opponent is the clock, you can concentrate solely on your shots. And, for those sequences when you are under attack, the clock slows down enough during missile flight that you don’t have to worry too much about getting annihilated — at least not until your attack is over and the camera perspective returns to third person.

The slow motion adds another advantage. Because the flight of each projectile takes so long, you have plenty of time to compensate for minor steering errors along the way. It may not be realistic for a cannonball to curve upward at the last second, after skimming along the ground for hundreds of meters, but it sure is fun. And if, at any point, you realize that your shot has gone too far off-target to recover, you can bail out and shoot another missile, immediately.

Though Heavenly Sword didn’t make a huge impact on the gaming community as a whole — and Sony has already scrapped plans for a sequel — I hope some developers will internalize what did work about the game’s use of the Sixaxis.

Other Thoughts On The Game

The voice acting and character animations were fantastic. Presentation counts, as these aspects alone got me emotionally invested in a story that was decent, but lean and predictable.

I loved that Heavenly Sword was start-to-finish combat. There was no platforming, where you had to worry about falling off a ledge or restarting your game twenty times to do a single jump. And there were no braindead-easy puzzles to solve or quests where you had to backtrack and fetch a certain item before moving on.

The length was perfect for me. I can’t argue with anyone who feels it was too short, but I loved being able to blast through it in a single day. I played through an entire videogame, and yet it didn’t even blow my whole weekend.

My one gripe about Heavenly Sword is that the boss battles were boring, compared to the regular combat. Each boss battle — including all three segments of the final boss battle — consisted of nothing more than finding a successful attack-defend-attack pattern and sticking with it. The battles against waves of regular enemies were more challenging, diverse, and fun.

Heavenly Sword, or, Super-hot Sword Wielding Superwoman

I’d put off playing Heavenly Sword (HS) for quite some time, even though I knew I’d love it. It turns out my purchase was worth it. Heavenly Sword does have its faults, but the beauty of the game, the interesting story (written by Rhianna Pratchett, daughter of Terry), cutscenes and innovative combat system push the envelope of PS3 capabilities.

HS is the most gorgeous game I’ve ever played. I’m not just talking about the main character, Nariko (who makes Lara Croft look like an old hag by comparison, and I’m totally in love with her by the way), but the entire game. From lush backgrounds, to epic battles, to professionally acted cutscenes, this game is beautiful.

HS is also the first game I’ve played where I didn’t mind the Sixaxis controls. My previous encounters with the Sixaxis (Ratchet and Clank, Uncharted) left me frustrated. In Heavenly Sword you can control arrows and cannonballs, and it’s actually kind of fun when you get the hang of it. (Note to developers—the Sixaxis still sucks and should not be incorporated into new games. Though it worked in Heavenly Sword, the analog stick controls would have worked just fine for the arrows/cannonballs).

The combat in Heavenly Sword takes more than a few lines from my all-time favorite hack and slasher, God of War 2. As I’ve noted before, I don’t mind imitation. The good thing about HS is that it expands on that model in some intriguing new ways. Once Nariko gains control of the actual Heavenly Sword, she has three combat stances; Speed (fast, light attacks), Range (swing your sword in an arc on a chain, remind you of Kratos in GoW?), and Power (slow and heavy damage). The stance you choose also affects your defense. Before they attack, enemies briefly glow blue (Speed), orange (Power) or red (certain heavy enemies/bosses, Unblockable). If you are in Speed stance, you automatically defend blue attacks, in Power, orange attacks. While this is an excellent concept, it failed somewhat in practice. You don’t get much of a warning before enemies attack, so it’s often more useful to simply attack them and roll away (another Kratos move) to avoid damage. In addition, blocking doesn’t help much when you’re surrounded by 10 attacking enemies (this happens often).

That being said, the combat is epic, and in most cases is seamless and fluid (if somewhat hectic because of insane number of enemies), which is important to me. (For an example of the slowest, most disjointed combat engine, play the AWFUL game, Viking: Battle for Asgard.) You will be involved in battles where there are hundreds of enemies on the screen and you will have to kill all of them. All I can say is that part of the game is just fucking awesome, and my only gripe was that I wish it had gone on a little longer.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that you can pick up and throw almost anything as a weapon in this game, from watermelons to the bodies of dead enemies (cool!).

HS mixes it up by also providing you with a second playable character at certain points in the game, Kai. Kai is Nariko’s younger adopted sister. Her weapon is a strange rifle crossbow that incorporates a ranged shooting dynamic to the game. When Kai gets too close to enemies, you’ll have to utilize her cat-like gymnastic abilities to put some distance between her and the baddies. During most of Kai’s combat you’ll be steering arrows with the Sixaxis. You take control of arrows in slow motion and steer them to their targets. It’s pretty fun to nail the baddies in as many body parts as possible—head shots, butt shots, groin shots. In addition, keep an eye out for flame braziers. Guide your arrow through a brazier flame, then steer it to a conveniently-placed gunpowder barrel to blow up multiple enemies.

Combat with Kai can be fun, but be prepared for a pretty steep learning curve and some initial frustration. My advice would be to take your time and play her 1^st mission a couple of times through to improve your skills early.

The storytelling in Heavenly Sword also pushes the envelope of games-as-art. Nariko’s journey has a melancholy splendor to it that matches her physical beauty. From the beginning of the game, we know that the Heavenly Sword is cursed—it grants great power, but it also drains the life of any mortal wielding it. Nariko’s sacrifice to take up the sword and save her people makes for great storytelling and director Andy Serkis (Gollum from LoTR) does a first-rate job with his professional cast. Serkis himself voices the evil King Bohan; if there were an Oscar for best actor in a game, he’d deserve it. The ample cutscenes will draw you in and make you feel as if you are part of a movie — a stated goal of the developers.

Finally, two minor gripes. The first is that the game was too short (6-7 hours to finish). As a fan of shorter games, I am saying this only because I loved the story and gameplay so much, I did not want it to end. My assumption is that PS3 games take a god-awful amount of time to program and that adding the voice acting/cutscenes into this game probably doubled the production time. Making the game longer may have put production out another year or two. So, I guess I’d rather have it be short and good than long and bad (again, see Viking: Battle for Asgard for a game that was too long and clearly released before it was a final product).

Second, the final boss battle, while not impossible, left me frustrated. All the combat skills you gain throughout the game are tossed out the window. There is no reason to try to defend against the close range melee attacks of the final boss; they are too quick and/or unblockable. So you are left with avoiding, avoiding, avoiding him until he uses a ranged attack. You then have to block that at just the right time to have it bounce back and hit him. All the hack and slash fun of the game is drained out from this battle. Lame.

It’s also a long battle, as he has several incarnations. Which brings me to my second point: you are both infused with godly power for this battle, but his godly powers are clearly way, way better than your own. I hate it when developers do this (and HS developers are not alone in this). I’m fine with final bad guys being tough, but if we are both being granted additional powers, can’t I get something cool out of it besides a white glow? He gets wings, flying, raven hordes to attack me, power bolts, super speed, and all I get is a heavenly white glow? Boo! I could have at least had some sort of Angel Bomb or something.

Heavenly Sword is a game that I felt didn’t get the praise it deserved. While not perfect, it pushed the PS3 envelope in creativity, design, visuals, combat and storytelling (and it has an amazing soundtrack). Here’s to hoping there’s a sequel in the works — and that other developers will learn something from Heavenly Sword’s design.