At only 50% complete, Heavenly Sword is shaping up to be an impression action title for the PlayStation 3. The demo we played featured our female protagonist facing off against a group of Asian baddies and a final boss (the developer we talked to noted that the level we were playing are part of the second chapter of the game). At first glance, and maybe even second and third, Heavenly Sword feels derivative of God of War. The fighting is flashy but pretty simplistic: a few button mashes and we were doing chains of foe-killing action. It's all eye candy, but the developer promises that the difficulty will be knocked up a few notches by the time it launches.
What we love about Heavenly Sword are the three fighting styles available: by holding L1 or R1, you can switch to ranged chain attacks (major God of War similarities) or combine your two swords into one giant scimitar. The boss fight was a combination of standard fighting and context-sensitive button masher, or "ninja sequence," according to the developer on hand. Although not specific, we do know that the title is expected to use motion sensor functioning.
As we stated earlier, the game is visually stunning but needs a lot of tweaking. The shadow and lighting is gorgeous and indicative of next-generation power, but the character models (specifically our heroine and her hair) suffer from ugly aliasing and jagged edges. We could not judge audio because the Sony booth was too loud, blasting Franz Ferdinand's Do You Want To? ad infinitum.
The game is only half complete and already looking promising. Most importantly, the game is fun to play, and we look forward to seeing how it develops.
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