Heavenly Sword is up ! !

[shams]

Well, well... this should be interesting (puts flame resistant armour on...).

Shams (the apparant mortal enemy of Sony fans everywhere) has played the HS demo!

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My work has a PS3, and on my way out of work I realised that the demo was downloaded and running!! So I had to have a go - just to be able to participate in this thread if nothing else. 

Prelude - this is the 2nd PS3 I have ever played (first being a couple of games of Motorstorm). Although I can "use it", I generally dislike the controller (now used to being able to "separate" hands now).

I also don't play this style of game. Haven't played God of War I / II for instance. 

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Comments:

Graphics - quite nice. Frame rate seemed solid, backgrounds nice and colourful. I do seem to have a general issue with "detailed" objects that are too zoomed out - as if the filtering isn't as good as it should be. Whenever the game zoomed in, it looked really excellent - less excellent at a distance. Her hair seems a little "extreme" IMO.

Animations are above average - but only that. Its more of a engine/code issue, but the way the anims look is "last-gen" IMO. For instance, you can get her running on the spot, yet not moving - blocked by an enemy. Its not dynamic enough - not enough transfer of momentum, no pushing/charging enemies (based on position), etc. Look at Assassins Creed for a good example of how it could work.

 

Sound - unfortunately I was playing with the sound down, so no comments (it was a workplace, although no one was working).

 

Gameplay - this is where I must disagree with most people here. I only played it twice, but it definitely had the feel of a "button masher" to me. I got through it twice by (almost) bashing/randomly tapping. Tried all three stances/weapons as well. Reminds me a bit of Soul Calibre, where you get access to three characters/weapons at once. It might even play similiar to how "Legends" plays (minus the Wiimote controls of course).

All that said, I have no doubt that with practice - you can learn combos and moves, and better at executing your enemies with skill (just like any fighting game). The game also reminds me of Ninja Gaiden - although I haven't played that either, just watched people play it. 

 

Other comments:

 - presentation is excellent (as I "associate" with Sony games - very cinematic, like a movie)

 - AI seemed "wrong". I know its a demo - and a game - but I thought we were over the age of being surrounded by enemies that attack you one at a time. I haven't seen this sort of thing for a while now.

 - the only thing in the demo that seemed "buggy", to me was the objects/physics. Everything feels like it is made of balsawood - shattering, and with fragments flying everywhere at the slightest touch - regardless of what the object was. No weight. It looked nice, but it felt very unrealistic. There might have been a (gameplay) point to the objects, but I didn't see it.

 - the bit where you are riding ropes was ok - but felt devoid of "control". I dunno, maybe it was intentional (didn't seem to have a solid connection between my button presses, and what was happening). Still looked nice.

 - IMO, the "demo" shouldn't have been more than 100MB. The whole intro movie was unnecessary. Can't believe it was 1Gig!

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In the end, I am not going to give it a score. I only played it twice, and as I said above - its not really my sort of game. If I did like this sort of game (and had a PS3), I would almost certainly buy it - as its very pretty, and does what it sets out to do pretty well.

But a final comment as well. Friday afternoon is "game" afternoon at my work (after 5pm). No one was playing this (in fact, I picked up the game half though - someone had stopped and walked away). Also, I was surprised that no one came to watch me play. As nice as this was, it wasn't enough to distract any of the gamers at my work (including some PS fans) from doing whatever they were doing.