Reviews// Heavenly Sword

A sexy, leggy redhead. Father issues. A great big sword that developer Ninja Theory calls 'heavenly'. Where to start? Oh, alright, I'll start by talking about the game. Congratulations, you've just been spared an analysis of all the Freudian sexual angst knocking about in Heavenly Sword.

I'm lucky enough to have already previewed Heavenly Sword a little while back and found it to be... well, not quite heavenly, but damn good. Having sat down with the full game I'm happy to report that not a vast amount has changed, but a few things have crept up either through more time spent playing the hack 'n' slash or thanks to niggles brought about by elements that I thought would be removed from the final code.

First up, however, a recap.

For the uninitiated (and if you've come through Sony's barrage of hype and remained unintiated, congratulations), you play Nariko, the sexy redhead mentioned above. Nariko is in the unfortunate position of having inherited her dad's job as leader of her clan. Sounds quite cushty, I know. But it's not. We all like sexy redheads, but playing one who just sits around in the lap of luxury all day wouldn't be much of a lark, would it? The problem is that Nariko's tribe is on the run from King Bohan, a nasty sort who's out to conquer Nariko's land and capture the über-powerful Heavenly Sword for himself.

That would be a bad thing, so when her father gets kidnapped Nariko decides to take up the blade herself and take on the Big Bad. Unfortunately, that means she's on the fast track to death, giving her just a few days to sort things out.

That leaves you, the gamer, to hack, slash, kick and Twing Twang your way through the conquering horde.

By far the most celebrated aspect of Heavenly Sword has been the graphics, and they do, indeed, look great. Unsurprisingly, Ninja Theory hasn't done anything to make them worse since the preview copy I played was released.

A couple of flaws did pop out this time round, however. The first is scissoring. I was happy to put up with the on-screen image spontaneously shearing in the middle of the game when I was playing the preview code, but in the final version of a game that's being sold to a large degree on the strength of its graphics, it niggles. It doesn't inherently damage the quality of the graphics, but it does make the game look less polished than it could.

Another niggle was certain body parts of the characters. Before I go on – yes, I know, I'm being granular - I'll get to that. The primary niggle here are the character's teeth. They just look... wrong. Wrong in the same way that a man in a false beard looks wrong. They look added in afterwards.

Similarly, various characters' fingers and Nariko's legs look a bit rushed. But – as I say, it's granular stuff.

I point it out because Ninja Theory seems to invite it by making everything else look so stunning. The faces look nothing short of amazing, with Hollywood rivalling textures and shaders (right down to pores on Nariko's face) decorating some really great motion capture and acting. Similarly, the in-game action looks great, with beautifully-lit backdrops and action that flows wonderfully. All of which makes the tiny niggles that there are stand out. In all fairness to Ninja Theory, however, I'm being a bit of a whiny bastard.

One major element in the full game that didn't feature much in the preview code is Kai. Kai is the creepiest and most endearing supporting character I've ever come across in a game - and it takes a lot for a game character to charm me. She's probably somewhere in her early teens and mad as a bag of frogs. She comes into play as a sniper character, lugging around her massive tubular crossbow and taking pot-shots at attackers.