Heavenly Sword
Playtime: 6.75 hours (6.75 hours total)
Man oh man, did I love me some Heavenly Sword. You might notice that dip in the middle of the chart up there, though...that's because it's frustrating as hell at the end. But still REALLY fun. If you'd asked me at the time, though, I wouldn't have hesitated to tell you exactly where you could shove this game.
I have to admit, I was a bit confused from the beginning. My wife had almost finished the game under our mutual PS3 tag, so I started a new game. I had though that would, I dunno, treat me as a new player, and give me instructions and directions as necessary. Either the game remembered that someone had played before or the tutorial system sucks, because I got maybe 3 instructions on how to do things through the whole game. I was told how to hit things with my sword, and I was told how to do an air attack. Nothing else.
A lot of the time, the game would tell me I should do something, but not how to do it. When I was in an arena, Nariko (the main character) mused about how she knew a way to disable a man without killing him. I kept dodging out of the enemies' way, waiting for the game to tell me to hit triangle or square or square-triangle-circle-pentagram or something, but the instruction never came, and I ended up having to just kill all of them, poor bastards. I didn't know I had multiple attacking styles (air, heavy, fast) until an hour and a half into the game when I discovered it by accident looking through the combo list. I didn't know you could do uber-flashy finishing moves that decimated everyone in the area until the final level. I didn't actually know you could counter spells or attacks until the final boss. The game never told me!
So I think there's a lot I missed out on. Still, it was delightfully fun, made all the better by the fact that Ninja Theory did it....they are the same company that went on to make Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, which is one of my all-time favorite games (and selling horribly, which pretty much kills hope for any more). The level of detail in the facial features in Enslaved is mind-blowing, and you can almost tell the entire story and characterization just by the faces alone, and Heavenly Sword is in the same vein; just not as polished.
Nariko is a great character, but Kai (your crazy pre-teen sidekick) and Bohan (best main villain ever) are the ones whose characterization and facial animation shine. Their expressions and dialogue make the game, and while I spent my playtime lovingly gazing at Nariko for her outer beauty, I spent it lovingly looking at the other two for their inner. Not that Kai isn't cute, obviously, in a psychotic way.
The game was gorgeous, start to finish, the kind of thing that would make as good a movie as it does a game. Which is a big reason I hated the Simon-says quick-time-events. While they're everywhere in hack and slash games like this, all the scenes in Heavenly Sword are ones you really want to be watching. It sucks to miss out on what cool thing Nariko is doing because you're trying to keep an eye out for which random button to hit. I've always thought there should be an option in games to disable QTE's if you aren't an impatient trigger happy gun monkey and want to actually see the game you've bought. It doesn't help Heavenly Sword's QTE timings are brutal. In most cases, you have about one second to hit the button. I can't even form a thought in one second, let alone push a button.
Another bit that pissed me off is what I call Wii-syndrome; forcing hardware functionality into games just because it's there. In this case, it's the stupid useless SixAxis motion control. It isn't accurate, and it isn't fun. The first experience I had with it was playing as Kai, sniping soldiers in a forest with my crossbow. I would fire an arrow off, and then could control the arrow's direction afterwards by tilting the controller. (This was even more frustrating because crossbow aiming is inverted, but controlling the flight of the arrow is not...my brain had a hard time making the switch) The main problem with this section is that it was pretty close range. I didn't have much time at all to coordinate a shot, and when I could, it would bounce off some tree branch and go kerplunk. I don't understand why they didn't give more distance in the first level; in the middle of the game you snipe again with Kai (who affectionately calls it 'playing twing twang' with Nariko, in the most incestuous lesbianic way possible) but you do it on a ridiculously long bridge, which gives you plenty of time to line up your shot. And yes, it's actually fun here.
Never in the game do they explain how Kai can control her arrows in a telekinetic way (or moreso, how Nariko can do the same thing with cannonballs).
Late in the game, as evidenced by my drop in impression, is when I started running into problems. I would constantly get swarmed by enemies, usually fast-moving ninjas, and I could barely get a few hits off before getting air-juggled. Even when dodging out of the way, I would get repeatedly hammered and locked in place, which was controller-throwingly frustrating. I probably would have fared better if I knew about all my super stylish kill everyone moves.
The final boss himself is also really difficult; not so much because he's hard (though he was impossible until I learned about countering), but because two-thirds of the fight is spent surrounded by enemy soldiers running across your fighting area, blocking your view. The brief moments they aren't mindlessly running through the fight, you can't see because the boss' huge gigantic black wings are in the way. It's less a battle against him, and more a battle against the camera.
Still, the game was a perfect way to spend a Sunday, and though I unlocked Hell mode by beating the game, I'm probably not going to brave it anytime soon.
Oh, I've also determined there is no better moment in any game than at the end, when Nariko is cocking a rocket launcher.
