Heavenly Sword - PS3

[Mardigan8]

I am finding the voice acting to be absolutely perfect. It is suppose to be totally OTT and it works. Especially...

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in the arena bits where Bohan is hurling abuse at Roach during the fight,

you really get a feel for the characters in the cut scenes.

Re the aerial stuff... I am finding that if Nariko doesn't execute an aerial combo it is because the guy in the air is dead, rather than it not being recognised as an aerial combo... so many times I have put someone in the air then had to watch their lifeless corpse hit the ground when I was all set up for some aerial fun

The Boss fights aswell so far have been top drawer. Not just the fight themselves but the setting and surroundings...

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fighting Roach in the gorgeous arena with all the inidividual soliders in the stands cheering was brilliant.

I am also loving Kais sections and it was the last thing I was expecting given the initial impressions on these bits. It is a nice break from Narikos stuff and IMO works really well...

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guiding a flaming arrow into a barrel of explosives then watching from a distance as the enemy bodies go flying in all directions is superb.

I just cant wait to get home and get more of this played. My initial plan was to play this for a good week and then trade in when Halo 3 comes out but I dont want to give it up, I want to play it through a good few times before it goes anywhere.

[ezee ryder]

Just finished chapter two and the games has gone up in my estimation quite a bit! Whereas before in chapter one I was criticising the aftertouch/shooting sections, I will now praise the use of them in chapter two. The section where

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you are helping Shen escape

is beautifully executed using the aftertouch and it works well with both motion or normal analog stick control. I loved the idea of the

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duel screens, one screen for guiding the arrows and one to keep an eye on old Shen

, so well done! Also as most of you guys have said the cutscene involving

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Bohan, Flying Fox, Roach and Whiptail

is superbly done, one of the highlights so far for me. Lastly the boss battle with

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Whiptail

was excellent, I have read so many reviews that say the boss battles are tedious and disappointing, based on my first boss battle I can say I do not agree at all with these reviews! In the battle with

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Whiptail

there is so much "banter" going back and forth it just adds a layer of atmosphere to the whole thing, oh and once again I must praise the graphical detail during this boss battle....SUPERB!

[hush]

i just bought it have only played it abit but i am liking what i am playing

[eastyy]

well i must say i really enjoyed kais section.....which i did not expect as in god of war i realy didnt like it when they broke up the action but these are great fun

getting the hang of the motion after touch now to

[Number45]

I've just finished the first chapter (Just a little way into the second), and I'm a little underwhelmed at the moment I have to say. I'll echo most of the positives that have been mentioned, but at the moment (And I stress that, I definitely need to give it more time) I'm struggling a little with the combat. I understand how it works, but it can be a little cumbersome trying to block both power and speed attacks at the same time (For cumbersome, read not actually possible! ) so at the moment I'm finding myself doing an excessive amount of rolling.

Still, time will tell.

For the motion touch, I find it fine as long as it's over a reasonable distance. If you're expected to shoot something at fairly short range it's pretty difficult to get it on track in a small space of time, this is where I think the trial and error criticisms came from.

Definitely needs more time from me.

[Mardigan8]

For close range shooting just sue the 3rd person view mate... many a time I have to resort to that and it has actually worked really well... usually ends up with me firing 4 or 5 extra arrows into a corpse. And, taking out a guy from about 100ft away then eventually getting up beside his body and finding him lying there with the arrow exactly where you put it in him is satisfying, simple, but very satisying. Why does it make such a difference in games when the people you have slain remain on screen

I played Stranglehold for a couple of hours alst night but all I could think about was playing Heavenly Sword again. A couple more chapters are getting done tonight so I can set myself up for a Hard mode run through.

[MikeF]

I played this last night, got up to the first boss fight on Chapter 2 and then got wasted (it was late and I wasn't concentrating properly) The QTE kept getting me.

So far so good and will be back on this tonight to show that boss who actually is the boss

[Mardigan8]

The good thing about the QTEs in this is it gives you a few chances to get the upper hand... you may miss a couple but nail some key ones and therefore win the section or you have to get 3 out of 5 or something, its works really well, especially in the Chapter 4 boss fight. The animation during them all is superb.

I aint actually died yet but expect Hell mode or whatever it is called to deal me plenty of death as I batter through it.

[chopemon]

Finished it!

I don't want to spoil it but the last boss didn't r0xx0r my b0xx0rs.

Fairly standard and dead easy once you work it out.

Other than that the last section has some amazing moments in

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bazookering 500 bad guys and then being able to kill an army in one hit!

.

I think any game of this type will have a job living up to any of God of War 2's bosses.

After finishing it I went back and played me some more Kai and whilst I'm sad it's over, it was a really enjoyable game and I cannot wait for the next one.

[Yoshimax]

Chopemons HS career : 15/9/07 - 18/9/07.

My problem with that is I get more than that from XBLA titles - Would you really bother going through it again on a harder difficulty or is that it once and yer done ?

[Mardigan8]

Am on Chpater Chopemon and plan on getting it finsihed off tonight before and after the football

The boss fights certainly aint as difficult as some of GoW 2s efforts but they are beautifully presented and really enjoyable to play.

After all the negative press that these motion controls have been getting recently its nice to see the shooting sections being enjoyed so much... I absolutely love them and Kai is a little slice of character design genius.

They have set a nice foundation with Heavenly Sword and hopefully it is a franchise that will get stronger with each addition.

Yoshi - My inital plan was to play this and trade it for Halo 3 but after the first 2 chapters I had decided it was going nowhere. I cant wait to run through this again on Hard as I see that as being where the real challenge lies (I haven't died once yet and am on Chapter 4 )

[Daragon]

Chopemons HS career : 15/9/07 - 18/9/07.

My problem with that is I get more than that from XBLA titles - Would you really bother going through it again on a harder difficulty or is that it once and yer done ?

Apparently there's more stuff to collect on harder difficulties, more combos that sort of thing. Although there seems to be so few to begin with, I don't see how they'd work them in.

[chopemon]

My problem with that is I get more than that from XBLA titles - Would you really bother going through it again on a harder difficulty or is that it once and yer done ?

I won't be going through on a harder difficulty setting on this game as I generally don't enjoy hard games any more. I tend to play for the experience rather than the challenge (I played God of War 2 on easy as I just wanted to look at the pretty things rather than learn combos).

I have a problem with combat games in that I am tired of learning move lists. I got through this entire game by button mashing with the occasional counter and thoroughly enjoyed it. I don't have the inclination to learn strings of button presses and correct timings. Street Fighter ate all of that up years ago.

However, I may have been tempted to go through it again if it had achievements and whilst I don't want to get into that argument, I think that achievements would have helped the longevity of the game.

I recently went through MOH Airborne on casual and expert because the achievements don't stack and there were other achievements to get at the same time. I really value the achievement system and would have much preferred this to have had a similar reward. I have a suspicion that all first party titles will be patched at a later date to include trohies linked to Home and that may be a lure but for now, PS3 titles are once through only generally.

[Dazzyman]

Im going to start on this after I finished Stranglehold on hard. I dont like playing games on anything other than default medium (but more and more I start out at hard as I find it more fun or will restart on hard after one level). Im not a xbox live scorecard person Im more in it for personal challenge. I tend to drift in a game if I find it way too easy and switch it off and it spoils my enjoyment of it.

[Number45]

You don't get a choice with Heavenly Sword anyway. That's just the way I like it.