Heavenly Sword is a tale of a sword...from heaven o_o

Story
Long story short, bad guy wants sword, good girl gets sword to protect her people and then a bunch of random relatively uninteresting stuff happens in the middle.

The story for heavenly sword is pretty decent but where the game stands out really is in the acting. The voice actors do an exceptional job of portraying their characters and successfully conveying emotion from the character. Even though the game is about a yr old, No game has come close to heavenly sword in this regard (Nope not even MGS4 or Uncharted).

The game creators did a good job and they knew it however they felt they did such a good job, they felt the need to add an unnecessary amount of silliness into the game. The boss characters i'm sorry to say are all stupid. Roach is the only one that wasn't stupid which is ironic because he is actually stupid. They tried to make the boss characters do too much and while they did a good job with their acting and mocap and all that everything was just over the top and excessive

Graphics
Nothing else to say really, heavenly sword is a beautiful game. Playing it for the second time, i actually forgot how good the game looked. The graphics haven't aged one bit.

Gameplay
Short and simple the game is pretty much a button masher. The gameplay is also made wierd by the removal of a jump button and a block button. When you fight there are three stances, speed, normal and hard. That is pretty much it. You can mix these stances on the fly to achieve your combos. And you can just button mash your way on normal mode and you will beat the game regardless (at least till you get to the final boss). The counters are also worth mentioning since there is a little cut scene for each successful counter. The counters are relatively easy to pull off. When you button mash, just hit triangle a lot and you will be countering with ease

The gameplay is pretty solid for a button masher. It could be better but it could also be worse. During the course of the game, the game puts you thru some puzzles. Some very unimaginative SIXAXIS puzzles that let you maneuver projectiles in slow motion to hit random objects that open doors. The SIXAXIS controls are very good and they control well but i just wish the developers would have had a little bit more imagination with the puzzles

All in all, heavenly sword is a good game (not great). It lacks a certain something that would elevate it to greatness and it lacks a lot of things that would take it to fantastic status. The game once was compared to the God of War franchise but it ultimately falls short. The combat lacks the depth of ninja gaiden and also lacks the satisfaction of GOW. The game is relatively short approximately 6hrs and there really isn't much replay to be had from the game.

I wish the game was better and i wish i could say this could stand amongst the greatest of action games but unfortunately as beautiful as the game is, it simply falls short