I dunno what darth is talking about honestly, my expectations were really high for this game and they have been met an exceeded.
Lemme address Dath's as I go since I think most of them are lame frankly:
- The controls are superb, the fact that they assigned the two other stances to holding the L1 and R1 button suggests to me that in later stages of the game there will be combos where the player will switch between stances while executing them to make them work which sounds superb.
-AI: Honestly the AI is more than adequate for this sort of game, do you play this genre of games? I doesn't sound like you do. While the enemies don't have Ninja Gaiden Sigma level AI, they more than hold out. The enemies with shields need to have their blocks broken or you need to time your attack perfectly to hit 'em or you will just keep hacking at their block and not do any damage.
The non shielded enemies are definitely the low level guys and those guys are grunts and easy to handle. But here's a fact: This isn't a button masher. If you try just button mashing to play you will get cut up pretty badly. Enemies attack you more than one, two or sometimes three at a time. This means if you are trying to finish off some guy with some crazy moves the others will attack you and hurt you so you can't just sit there and button mash you have to move around between the many opponents and try to fight most of them at a time instead of going for one or two at a time.
- The demo being short is definitely true, but I played it over and over again and was learning how to properly play the game as I went, the first time you play through you feel like you're missing out on how you're supposed to be approaching it, you see the blue and red and orange colors around enemy attacks, they are there for a reason:
Blue attacks can only be blocked in speed stance (the normal stance) and you use the autoblock for those.
The orange attacks can only be blocked in the power stance (when you switch to the giant sword by holding R1).
The red attacks need to be dodged because they can't be blocked.
The fact that you can't block in combat is a good thing, not a negative. If you were able to just hold the block right after launching a huge combo or in the middle of it or something that would remove a lot of the challenge. So the game punishes you for button mashing too much by letting all the other guys attack your back when your just hacking away at some dude.
- The zero gore thing. While I definitely would have welcomed more gore, there is not zero gore... did you miss the parts where you shove your swords into a guy's nuts? I'm actually happy with the gore because in former gameplay footage there was like no blood, no they've added a good amount of blood and the execution and throw moves are definitely violent and fun.
- The camera is very much like the one in God of War and if you have no problem with that camera then you definitely won't with this one. Also I find it funny that you who appear to be a NG fan would complain about camera, because the camera in Ninja Gaiden is easily the most noticeable flaw in that game. It's much worse having a stuck camera in closed environments where you can't see half your enemies half the time than having it in an open environment like Heavenly Sword. I remember dozens of times where I mistakenly went into another room because of the camera in NG games because it was in a bad position and then had to kill the same enemies over again (I don't complain cause I love that game).
But the camera in this is definitely better than NG. One thing I hope is that they do that God of War effect where they keep the camera in place while you walk away sometimes until you become tiny and you can see what a huge and beautiful area you are in, with these graphics it should be a sight to see.
- The game is beautiful and looks better than I thought it would, but I still have to see it in HD which should be amazing.
- The music was good, not god of war good or anything, but it was also a very small sample of music because of the shortness of the demo and it was good.
Here's some more things that I have to say:
The combat system > God of War's combat system. Definitely a lot better than that game's fighting. The normal enemies are more challenging, attack more at a time and block a lot better.
The three stances work wonderfully,
The speed stance is the normal fighting one and it's good cause you can autoblock in it while just standing there.
The ranged stance (hold L1) is the closest thing to the combat system in God of War, it's the most button mash-y but luckily you can't stick to that because the enemies will dodge your attacks and come for you so it's really a termporary stance.
The power stance (hold R1) is also temporary and it does more damage and flings oponents into the air but it is slow and leaves you open to attack as well.
I think the ideal way to play the game and get the most out of fighting is to constantly switch stances for different situations.
The best thing about the combat is the counter system. If you time your heavy attack (triangle) at the perfect time when an enemy is just attacking you will pull off this awesome counter attack and take the enemy out.
I feel that if you master the combat in the game you will be able to pull off these counters a lot more often, as I was starting to get better at them around the 3rd or so play through. So patience is a virtue to learn how to counter.
Also, something that someone mentioned before me, the animations are very well done. Especially the counter attack animations and the throw move animations. Much better than any game of the type I've seen probably.
The physics are great too, but I think they overdid the rag doll physics on enemies, though I don't mind it being unrealistic because it gives the game a certain flare.
One of the best touches is the slight slow mo when you fling an enemy in the air with your swords, it made the whole move look a lot cooler.
Overall I liked it more than I expected because I was expecting the combat to be like God of War but with three stances, instead it doesn't share that much with that game except that it's the same genre. The combat is very much unique to this game and I liked it more and more the more I played.
Like others said already, the biggest complaint is about the demo being so short, but that's a complaint I can live with. Aside from very minor complaints about the game itself, it is really great and settled in my mind that I'll be buying it for sure.
Now that I know the regular combat is better than God of War, I want to see how the boss combat is, I don't expect HS to outdo the other game in that, but I hope they will be more than just regular fights against enemies with more hit points.
