open your eyes

Heavenly Sword is a mythical tale of revenge in which the heroine Nariko must weild a sword that will kill her in order to protect her people and save her family. After having just finished playing through Heavenly Sword for Playstation 3 I only have one thing to say: WOW! I have never seen presentation and production values in a video game at this high of a level in all my years of gaming. Off the top of my head, only Hideo Kojima and his Metal Gear Solid series come close. The facial animation is the best ever, the voice acting is very good (some of the bosses are too eccentric for my tastes though), the musical score is breathtaking, and the acting is direct-to-dvd quality. I mean that in a good way. Oh, and the graphics are among the best you’ll find on a console this year.

The only thing holding this game back from instant classic status is, well, the gameplay mechanics. Not that there’s anything wrong with the gameplay but its not up to the level of everything else in the game. The fighting is fun and satisfying but definitely not groundbreaking. However, when fighting as the other playable character Kai, you get to guide her arrows in slow motion clear across the levels using motion control. Very fun and a good change of pace from the button mashing. If I could break the score into two parts I’d go with 8 for the gameplay, 10 for presentation/production values, and end up with something around a 9 overall. Now if only the game were more than eight hours long…

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