A month late, but I've finally got my hands on Heavenly Sword and I'm really liking it.
From what it looks like, I'm getting pretty close to the end and I'm guessing I'll have clocked in at 5-6 hours once I finish it. So far, I've put in about 3.5 hours or so worth. I can see complaints about the game's length, but while it's part of the reason I like to rent, any longer and it would start to get annoying. I don't know about anybody else, but I sure liked ICO and any longer than about 5-6 hours would feel like the game would be dragging on.
Honestly, I'm really enjoying Heavenly Sword. The downright most impressing thing is the audio. Just about all of it is perfect or very well done. I've noticed a couple of stupid/cheesy lines (mainly from the soldiers), but the weird boss characters and their voices haven't turned me away like other games do. In actuality, the boss characters have intrigued and entertained me because they're all very unique and have a lot of humor in them with how they interact and such. Compare that to other games where you have a totally crappy voice actor trying to act a serious part and such, the characters drift in and out of serious and humorous without any penalty in performance. Take Kai for example, funny because she's so weird, yet her voice actor hit terror VERY well.
The next best thing about the audio is the general sounds of battle. The clanking of metal and the other sounds of battle is VERY realistic and sounds very much like swordplay in a movie. I've enjoyed going in close quarters combat against the Flying Fox.
The gameplay is good too. Sure, it feels a little repetitive, but that is the style of this game and I'd be lying if I didn't say that God of War 1 and 2 didn't get repetitive with the button mashing. That's why I said what I said above, that it's good that the game is on the short side because if it lasted an extra X amount of hours (8-15+ seems to be the butter zone for whiners) then it would feel dragged on and start to get very boring. I also really enjoy the button tapping sequences, they're MUCH more forgiving than God of War 1 and 2 are in that there is a little more space to do them in and you can make a mistake or two during the sequence without having to restart the whole damn thing.
To further explore the gameplay, attacks feel more complex by being able to switch between the stances and change your style to suit different kinds of enemies and their attacks. At first you have to get used the different blocking scheme, but it's better once you get used to it and feels natural to block attacks. The camera isn't too impeding, but I'd rather have the quick dodging than rotating the camera. The worst aspect of the controls are the motion controls with the sixaxis. The quick shakes to start a combo and to recover from getting knocked into the air are good, but the aftertouch to control projectiles feel a bit awkward compared to using the left analog stick.
Another aspect of the game that I really enjoy is the story. It's not like some cheesy storyline and has progressed rather well and is made better with the characters, especially their quality voice acting. Kai's missions are a little iffy when you're being charged by a soldier up close, but who doesn't love Jon Woo's Strangehold aiming slow-motion projectiles hitting enemies?
The next aspect of the game that's good is the graphics. There are a couple of areas (short instances really) where the frame rate hits a low point, but it's manageable throughout the entire game. However, a smooth frame rate would have been better. Still, the game is very lovely to look at and there is a lot of detail in the characters and the environments. Well, I do have a problem with the enemy soldiers because they all look the same so fighting a group of 20 (or thousand) of the same guy is a little odd. Some variation would be nice, but it doesn't really hamper too much on the game as they're just sword fodder anyway. One awesome thing about how the game looks is the physics. The add that extra touch the to game to kick a table and have everything on it go flying or to break a bunch of shelve and have it crumble.
Anyway, I'm still playing through it (second Flying Fox fight) so my opinion may change for whatever reason. However, I would probably rate this game at about an 8.
I'll see if I can break it down once I beat it, but an 8 is where I seem to be standing.
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Big question here if you've read this far, has anybody had any controller problems with this game? My controller has wigged out multiple times in my time with Heavenly Sword. The controller completely lost it's connection to the PS3 twice and I lost control of movement for a moment a couple of times as well. I also have a problem with my triangle button sticking and I partly blame that on having greasy hands from a pizza or some other food or something like that, but I've heard that the triangle button has given other people troubles and I'm wondering if I might have to open up the controller to fix the problem.
