Heavenly Sword - It's Over 9000!

Chapter 5, the end of Heavenly Sword. It's actually quite a shame that the game ends here. I feel that it was finally hitting it's stride. But alas it does, and part of my is sad. The other part got a new game and has moved on in life. This is the shortest Chapter of the entire game.

This final Chapter really hits all of the final notes that you could want in the game. It revisits everything and does it's best to keep things interesting at the same time. You finally get to slaughter hundreds of enemy troops and show how much of a "badass" Nariko has become over the course of the game.

The Chapter starts with both Bohan and Shen giving speeches to rile up their troops. Shen's is a pretty typical one. But Bohan's speech is hilarious. He goes so far with his hate-mongering that he actually declares Nariko's people must die because he doesn't like their food. Yep, genocide must be committed over someone's diet. That's just low.

First, you have to fire the cannon again and blow up more catapult things. There are other distractions, such as guys rolling explosive barrels, but once the four catapults are down that section ends. You also need to destroy them before the wall takes too much damage. If the wall falls it's "mission failed" and you have to start over.

Next you have to escort Shen to some stairs. Thankfully Shen does not have a health bar. You only have to worry about Nariko's health. You fight some female assassins who are coming in on gliders. There's a lot of them and they like to randomly dodge your attacks and hit you while you're in the middle of your attack. My O attack really helped get me through this.

Then it's to the outside with Nariko. You're given a hand cannon and the goal to kill 500 troops. Use the cannon wisely. I had to do this section twice because I screwed up with the rockets. I dropped the cannon after only two shots. I only had 50ish people dead and I tried to take the rest out with normal attacks. I had about 475 people dead, but I couldn't refill my health so I eventually died. Second round went much better. I killed 350is with the cannon. Then liberal use of the O attack got me through the rest. I wish I had more time to use the cannon, because it is tons of fun to see 50 -100 people just go blowing into the air after a well placed shot.

Then you have to take out some catapults on foot. You have a time limit, but it's more then generous. You really just need to keep pressing towards the catapults until the prompts appear. Once the two catapults are down you have to rush back to the Fort and that's where the game started. Nariko has her life drained by the sword and she's sent to her own little Purgatory or something.

Once there Nariko yells at the camera, again. I've finally determined that she's actually yelling at the sword. I've also determined that the sword is testing her and seeing if she wants to live. I really like Nariko's argument that if she dies the sword "dies". It becomes a trophy behind glass never to be used again. The fact that she can appeal to the sword's ego impresses me, but she seems to strike a chord because the sword brings her back to life and she's all glow-y now! Yes, Nariko has gone Super Saiyan.

You're given one minute (or was it thirty seconds...) to slice down as many enemy troops as you can. Enemies fall like paper dolls now so go nuts. I recommend range attacks (768!).

Now I've talked before about my dislike of Bohan and how I don't find him to be an intimidating villain and now I know why. He's not the real bad guy of this game, the crow is. I thought the crow was Bohan's familiar, turns out the crow is actually some dark god/demon/monster/creature/wizard/pokemon. When Bohan sees his troops mutilated he begs the crow for power. Apparently the whole plot to get the sword was the crow's idea. Well, the crow gives Bohan power and finally I find Bohan to be intimidating and this last fight is long and hard.

We basically have two Gods meeting at the field of combat. It's the Heavenly Sword vs the Raven King and I love this fight. It's hard, it's challenging, it's tricky, it requires actual knowledge of the combat system and most important of all: IT'S NOT CHEAP! Bohan is a legitimately difficult battle without having to result to animation breaks, over powered attacks or one hit kills. I hope you've learned to fight because I lost this battle a lot.

There are three rounds against Bohan and each one is harder then the last, but I refused to put the game down until he was dead! Turns out that's not actually possible. I really recommend playing this game just for this fight alone. Screw the rest of it, the Raven King battle made me so happy and I could just squeal. Once Bohan is down in the third round it's game over and a surprisingly touching scene occurs.

First, the crow (I guess it's actually a raven) plucks out Bohans eyeballs and then abandons him. Nariko is prepared to finish Bohan off (I'm surprised he actually survived her final attack) when Roach suddenly appears begging for his Daddy's life. It's actually kinda touching. Bohan is relieved that Roach came to help him and Roach really does need his father. In a moment of Mercy, Nariko spares Bohan and allows Roach to take him. I really hope Bohan learns from this and doesn't try to plot his revenge or take out his anger on poor Roach. He would be dead without Roach.

The power from the sword is now too much for Nariko to maintain, she uses the power to heal Kai. She then begs Kai to hide the sword from the world declaring that the sword is evil and is not a heaven sent gift. Nariko then dies. Yep, the hero died at the end of this tale. There's no ambiguity about it. Kai says some stuff, but I wasn't really paying attention.

So the game is over, I'll give my final thoughts in my next post. Then it's off to the next game.