Heavenly Sword PS3

This is the review for Heavenly Sword. Get your sword out.

First Impressionsby Tanx - Video Game Reviews by a Very Busy Math Teacher

Game: Heavenly Sword

Platform: PS3

Played For: less time than spent in a single day at work

There comes a step along the slow path to maturity when one begins to sympathize with the bad guys. Sure, you’ve spent many a year rooting for young knights and heroines, full of spunk and destiny, inevitably accompanied by charismatic sidekicks and cuddly anthropomorphic animal companions.And the bad guys, well what a bunch they are, always ugly and vicious, plagued with odious personal habits like unnecessarily killing their underlings or being given to long and pompous speeches about how they personally will rule the world. But at some point, after you’ve watched the umpteenth million plucky young upstart tear apart the umpteenth million villain’s vast empire of evilosity… it is then that you start to realize that these bad guys are actively trying to build something here, and it is the annoying destined youths that come across as thoughtless engines of destruction.

It is when you reach this tier of adulthood that you can truly begin to appreciate Heavenly Sword, which has one of the most likeable dysfunctional families of villains I’ve seen in a game yet. With your permission let’s ignore our teenage idol heroine Nariko and spend a little quality time with King Bohan and his retinue. Yes, I’m speaking of his loveable son Roach, that Uncle Rooster Guy and of course the adorable Auntie Eel-hat. After all, beyond the protagonist’s skimpy outfit they are the most memorable part of this brief but beautiful gaming experience!

King Bohan is a Unifier. His goal is to have all the disparate tribes of this barbarian world united under a single great banner… yes, he wants to be the guy in charge of this grand new country, but after all if he can accomplish the feat isn’t he the right guy for the job anyway? To create this very human of empires and force the world into the modern age, he must combat magic and tribalism in all of its forms. But superstition is a difficult enemy to displace, especially when represented in physical form. Really the only reasonable choice he has is to liberate this so-called “Heavenly Sword” from its terribly backwards savage caretakers.

You get the sense that King Bohan would have won, if not for the annoying fact that this little relic he wants to hide away in his vault, this heavenly sword, actually IS magic. Here Bohan spends years and years amassing his armada, building siege engines and attracting nimble female ninjas, and outfitting his troops with the very latest in armor and metal weapons, and all this technology, politics and economy is swept aside by one lousy magical blade. It is hard to shake the feeling that Bohan is being cheated, and the game even admits as much towards the end. But perhaps you’re still suspicious that Bohan isn’t worthy of our sympathies?

Well, for one thing, brave King Bohan is an equal opportunity employer, happy in fact to hire the weirdest and the most outcast as marshals based on merit alone. This commendable view probably originates from his dealings with his developmentally disabled son. Bohan struggles in the challenging role as father, often visibly ashamed or angry with his idiot child. But Bohan keeps his son at his side, provides food and shelter and entertainment… in fact he fares much better than one might expect in the dark times that he lives. As a comparison consider our heroine’s father, who neglected her completely and even considered killing her in the name of prophecy or some such mumbo jumbo... and his daughter doesn’t resemble a drooling slack-jawed blob of protoplasm like Bohan’s progeny does.

In addition to providing for his son, Bohan regularly tolerates his marshals’ peculiarities, from birdman’s rooster-like strutting to fish-lady’s inappropriate romantic advances. He’s loyal, good-natured and positive, and inspires a courtroom of mild jests and good-natured ribbing. Though all clearly psychotic, this is a group of maniacs that have found a family for themselves, one of mutual acceptance and happy times.

Throughout the game Bohan, bird-dude and gill-gal have tons more fun than the so-called heroes, except of course when they each end up dead at the end of said heroes’ blades. Bohan offers to show Nariko mercy at one point, offering a life of easy hedonism and no doubt a chance for political power under his wing. Nariko, however, offers nothing in return but death and destruction… she is all anger and no intellect, with no thought for the future and little tie to the past. Conversely, by unifying his country under a single banner, Bohan paves the way for future statecraft and progress. Who would you side for if you had the chance?

That being said, Nariko is cute. And her sister, being insane, is a lot more fun than she is. The cut scenes are very well crafted, lending a bit of personality and humor to an otherwise simplistic game. The backgrounds are lavish, with fantastic cliff-side castles and mighty crenellated towers. If only Bohan didn’t have such a mind for celebration, perhaps there wouldn’t be explosive fireworks left all over his palace walls, making an otherwise unassailable fortress rather unfortunately combustible. Plus, all those nice iron hats he had ordered for his troops… bad idea.

Heavenly Sword makes interesting use of the six-axis PS3 controller, allowing you to inexplicably guide your crossbow shots and hats and other projectiles as they streak towards their targets, a strange abuse of physics but as a game mechanic it works well. The fight controls were also good, keeping a button-masher like myself happy while offering a deeper level of play to those with actual skill.

In the end I’d say Heavenly Sword is worth the price of the disk, if not the price of the console. It is the first game I’ve played on the PS3, and it shows that the system has promise. But due to its brevity it mirrors the PS3 console in feeling like an idea not yet fully realized.

Will I play it more: Okay, I admit it. I still haven’t beaten the final boss. I’m sure I’ll get him on my next try. Update: got him.