Heavenly Sword - Do I, Don't I?

Heavenly Sword feels like a game that I want to like. The combat is fun. The story has me slightly intrigued. The characters are unique. But at the same time I want to dislike it. Enemies are cheap and that can make combat a mess. The story seems to be wandering. The characters are annoying. Many of the design choices just don't quite work. I hate when a game seems so close to it's goal only to be held back by so many issues.

I still can't connect with Nariko and I don't think I ever will. I definitely can't connect with her father, Shen. Kai just makes me wish she would go away and never come back. I know that Kai is "simple", but I don't like her.

So Nariko's clan is under attack. What's left of the clan stays the night at some fort looking place. This is really your introduction level and it works pretty nicely. You get to run up and down ladders and slaughter bad guys. Combat proves itself to be enjoyable, but it's not deep yet. I don't have to worry about that too much though, the combat depth I desire will come later.

Now I get introduced to two annoying aspects of the game. The first is Kai. Like I mentioned Kai is "simple". She's basically an innocent. I have no idea why she's like this but I do hope it's explained later on. Kai is supposed to be fun, cute (her bandanna makes it look like she has cat ears) and the player should instantly care for her. I find her annoying and she needs to go away. Especially since whenever Kai shows up that means I get to take part in a shooting mini-game. Kai like to play "twing-twang". That's the nice way of saying shoot everything you see with arrows.

First, I had troubles aiming normally, but this was supposed to be Sony's first major AAA title so the SixAxis controller had to be put to use. When you fire you can hold to the fire button, this will take you into a close up of the arrow, you can then guide the arrow by tilting the controller. I find motion gaming to be fairly sloppy in general and it's no different here. It's easy to over/under compensate and find your arrows missing everything. This is something Nariko can also do in combat. She can pick up objects and throw them at enemies, you can then zoom in on the objects and guide where they go. This same mechanic is also used for puzzle solving.

I'm not a fan of it and this first intro section makes a lousy tutorial. Kai has 25 soldiers to kill. Any soldiers that get by have to be dealt with by Nariko. I successfully killed 4, leaving 21 for Nariko to kill. I think it was just easier to have Nariko kill then all. There are some soldiers who have shields and they can block, but it's not that hard to win.

With that over everyone goes to bed for the night. Apparently Nariko has this reoccurring dream where her Dad kills her with the Heavenly Sword. This night her Dad actually gives her the sword to protect by driving it into the ground next to her in a way that would make you think he was trying to kill her. Her Dad is kinda creepy.

In the morning King Bohan's troops are attacking the fort in mass. You have to do another shooting section, this time as Nariko and you get to use a cannon. Once you blow up the catapults this section is actually kind of fun since you get to launch cannon blasts randomly into enemy troops. You have to slaughter 700 people pretty quickly. Once they are dead you have to try to escape with the sword.

This section is pretty fun. The enemies are diverse and you can actually make use of the throwing mechanic if you want. I need to point out that you are not yet using the Heavenly Sword. This is important because you're about to meet one of the stupidest enemies in video game history. You finally get to meet King Bohan.

King Bohan is an idiot. Apparently he's captured Shen and he wants to trade him for the sword. From the moment he opens his mouth I realized that I had nothing to fear from this guy. He's just an average lunatic who thinks the sword will make him cool. This character is played by Andy Serkis (who I mentioned last time) and no fault of Mr. Serkis', but the character is dumb (so are his henchmen). I cannot take him seriously and every time he shows his "threat-level" drops a little. I think the only reason he's a threat is because he has an army. If he was just some guy on the street he would probably be thrown in an asylum. So his big power is his army and being unbalanced. Go King Bohan.

At this juncture Nariko finally wields the Heavenly Sword, condemning herself. She does this to save her Father's life. I've never really understood the "giving up my life so you may live approach". I mean, the guy you just saved, wouldn't he want to give up his life to save you then? Does it just go in a big circle until one of you finally dies and then the other goes on a quest for revenge?

I'll wrap up Act 1 next time and delve into Act 2.