IdyotAko 18 years 8 months ago wrote:

I've played it and I've finished it... now here's my take on the game itself.

Synopsis:
Legend has it that a hero will born to wield the Heavenly Sword and free the land from the tyrannic rule of King Bohan. To their dismay, it was not a hero... but a girl, Nariko, who was born on that day. After years of being seen as a disappointment, Nariko now wields the sword in order to save her family and clansmen. Will she succeed, or will the curse of the Heavenly Sword consume her?

Storyline:
This is a little bit of a twist on the "hero must wield a legendary/cursed weapon to save the world"-type of story, but it's fairly a good take. The pacing is good and you do end up getting to know the characters and either like them or hate them. You get to know each character's personality and may be able to relate to them as well (except for Flying Fox... he just creeps me out... ). Some of the dialog could have been better, but considering the story premise, it's a good attempt. GRADE: B

Sound:
This is one of the better sounding games that I have played. The music is very well made and fits every scene and situation the player is currently in. Sound effects from all the characters fighting to rumbling giant machines to even the rustling of the leaves in the wind is captured as accurately as it could get. The voice acting is also very very good. Each line is delivered with emotion befitting the scene. My only complaint on this department is some of the looping dialogs tend to repeat itself. Use a sound system to get the full effect... I highly recommend it. GRADE: A-

Graphics:
Pretty is not even close to describing this game. The game developers definitely put their hearts and souls into this project. The detail of the environments is amazing to say the least, and the character designs are extremely well conceived. As far as the character animations... the motion-capture is one of the best to date. There is little to no animation cutting when transitioning from one movement to the other and the cutscenes are done with the graphics engine, not you normal pre-rendered stuff. The detail on every character is scary realistic... especially in high def. There are times where they kinda look zombified, but it's rare and far between to be considered noticeable. GRADE - A

Gameplay:
I must say... this is the biggest downfall for this game. Let me just clear this up first. The gameplay is great... well done in fact. The problem is (as a lot of critics have indicated) the game is fairly short. You can finish the game in a couple of hours. Adding the Glyph system and a Hell mode extends the playability, but not by much. The unlockables are also a little bland (pictures and a couple of movie clips that you can easily download from the Playstation Store for free) to make it worth going through the game again. I did very much enjoy the fighting system. Having the 3 different stances is a nice addition even if in the beginning, it borders on button mashing and likely relying on the Power Stance a lot... but as the difficulty ramps up, you have to learn to use all three and transition between them mid-combo to get maximum results. Another nice addition is the Aftertouch. Moving and tilting the Sixaxis as you shoot projectiles may seem like a gimmick, but there is a lot of strategy involved with its use. It does kinda seem to defy the laws of Physics... but this IS a video game. All in all, the gameplay is solid... just not enough of it to really enjoy it as much. GRADE - C+

FINAL VERDICT:
This game had a lot of hype behind it coming out of the gates, and unfortunately, it stumbled at the blocks but finished eventually. Good story, great acting and marvelous graphics was sadly somewhat overshadowed by the length (or lack thereof) of gameplay. If they plan to make a sequel (which I doubt, seeing as how it ended), they just probably need to make it a lot longer and add a bit more content. Rent it to experience it, but only buy it if you want to keep it. FINAL GRADE - B