There are lots and lots of things that Heavenly Sword gets very, very right. First, and most immediately obvious, it's a truly gorgeous game. Everything from the beautifully designed, slickly animated characters to those magnificent, omnipresent sweeping vistas is a glory to behold. What's more, while your eyes are busy welling with tears of appreciation, your ears can waggle happily at some stunning effects work, the epic orchestral score and voice acting full of genuine gravitas. Without a doubt, if you're looking for a game to demonstrate the potential of your PS3 and bring your smug, 360-humping friends down a few notches, Heavenly Sword provides as much a sensory overload as you're likely to need.



If we rated visuals in sweets, Heavenly Sword would be a 200-foot sherbet fountain.

As you're no doubt aware by now, there are three main components to Heavenly Sword's gameplay: combo-heavy sword combat, archery (and other projectile combat), plus twitch-style Hero sequences. Undoubtedly, the feather in Heavenly Sword's cap is its incredibly elaborate swordsmanship. Once the titular sword is in your possession, you've got three possible 'stances' to select from - Speed, Ranged and Power - easily switched via the shoulder buttons, plus a two-flavour attack using a combination of square and triangle buttons. You've also got dodge assigned to the right analogue and the occasional use of Superstyle moves via circle - these unleashing devastating strikes once you've sufficiently built up your combo counter.




It's an incredibly competent set-up and, as you slowly unlock the countless combo moves through progression, it enables you to perform some truly spectacular - and genuinely empowering - manoeuvres. Adding to this sense of omnipotence is the frankly ridiculous number of opponents you'll be up against at any one time: from tens of enemies as the game begins to literally hundreds in the epic finale. In order to compensate for the frenetic, ludicrously overcrowded action, Ninja Theory has employed a highlighting system, with foes glowing blue, yellow or red just prior to attack - each indicating they're about to perform a specific subset of moves - and you'll need to switch to the corresponding stance ready to counter. Trouble is, it feels like a clumsy fudge to a very significant issue and, once you're besieged by the hordes later in the game, you'll likely resort to fumbled button mashing as even these highlights are obscured by the swelling crowds, making it virtually impossible to counter effectively.



Realistic facial animation is one of Heavenly Sword's crowning achievements.

It's the kind of problem that persistently arises during Heavenly Sword: throughout you can't shake the feeling that you're playing a tangled mess of brilliant ideas desperately failing to wrestle themselves free from some incredibly misguided implementation. For instance, it's a serious misstep when the strongest aspect of your game - sword play - is sidelined for almost 50 percent of its runtime. The very first level employs a massively hobbled version of the combat system which simply has none of the visceral thrill or satisfaction of the fully-fledged engine. Throw in the decision to completely remove sword fighting again in chapter three (of six, one of which is simply a boss fight), replaced by some over-egged archery, then cripple it later still with some pretty but soulless silliness, and it adds up to maybe three to four hours of decent combat in a game which takes a rather embarrassing, and distinctly un-epic, six or seven hours to beat.

Here's the video preview that I promised or you can visit their Official Website too.