Doesn't age well
I have just finished this game. It took maybe 7 hrs? But considering how shallow the combat and gameplay is, I guess thats a good thing.

I am a big action fan junkie, and I played and loved Ninja Gaiden 1&2, Devil May Cry, and all God of War games. So I was pretty excited for this.

The cutscenes are terrible. The voice acting is overdone, and made me cringe. Worst yet, some are unskippable. Aside from Nariko and Kai, pretty much everyone is very dislikable, from the villagers who hate you to the villians who have the worst lines I ever heard in a video game. Story is straight forward and medicore. Developers have already annouced there will be no sequel, so those that do like a continuation of the story will be disappointed.
Combat was fun at first, but I quickly realise how bad it is. There are really only 2 type of combos, ones that break shields and ones that don't. You will be mindlessly mashing buttons like crazy and randomly. I took out the final boss with the same combo I was using the whole game. There is a counter system, but it is hard to counter something if you are not in the right stance, and you will end up taking alot of cheap hits. When you fight you build meter so you can do an ultimate attack that looks very cool, but since there are 7 of these, they quickly become boring to watch. Sometimes enemies will even block the animation so you can't see it.
Roughly half the game you are shooting stuff like cannons and bows. You can steer them using the sixaxis or analog sticks. Motion control sucks in this game, analog still gives more control. But this steering becomes old really fast and I started to think why I am doing this in a hack and slash game? It is just there to mask the shallowness of the sword combat. I prefer depth in my combat.
Graphics are pretty good at the time, but doesn't hold a candle to more recent games. I can't really blame the developers for that. The concept art looks really beautiful, but the ingame action doesn't convey that. Sound is decent. Checkpoint system is totally thoughtless. If I die, I have to go back to the start, and watch a long unskippable annoying cut scene.
My advice is to skip this game, and play something else. You can probably find this used for +, but even at that price I don't find this game to be worth it.

Absolutely Beautiful
I am simply impressed. I think the storyline is very original. The villains you fight, the game play and even the length are great as well. Most one player games these days try to make the games long and in the process of doing so, create unnecessary scenes and story lines. some games are good at this though i.e Metal Gear Solid and Uncharted 2 but Heavenly sword is just precise!
I fell in love with the Character Kai and the games music by Nitin Sawhney...Absolutely beautiful.

HANDS DOWN, THE BEST!
WOW! This game was a winner for me on every level. The storyline, the graphics, the game play and music were all top of the line. Sure lots of people say the game was short but even that did not bother me and if it did it's only because I loved the story so much. No other game I have ever played made me care about the characters like this one did. I was really invested in the out come. Nearly cried, yes you read that right. Nearly cried about little Kai. You have to play it for yourself to see why. That is all I will say. I sure hope another game like this one is in the works from the same company because they really know what they are doing. I am a big Tomb Raider fan but now HEAVENLY SWORD is my all time favorite game by far!

Retrospective: Unpolished
Heavenly Sword / 711719813224 / B000K9OP2A

Disclaimer: This review is written for people who haven't bought / played this game but are considering doing so now that the game is older and slightly cheaper than the newest stuff out there. Thus, this is an "as is" review, not an "as was" review, hence the "retrospective" perspective.

"Heavenly Sword" is a very pretty game, with an interesting setting and intriguing backstory. The story is well-told, through many interesting and lovely cutscenes, and I think it is probably safe to say that this remains one of the most attractive and visually polished games on the PS3, which is doubly impressive considering that this is also one of the earliest titles on the system.

Having said that, I do wish a bit more polish had been spent on the game mechanics overall, as graphics and story can only go so far to forgive a clunky play system, particularly in a hack'n'slash adventure game. The control system in regular combat is... adequate. It does feel a little too much like "smash every button on the control and hope for the best" and less like finesse and timing is appreciated, but eventually it does start to feel like skill is appreciated (particularly via fatality moves) over stamina. Although when some of the armored baddies show up, it does feel like your fingers are in danger of falling off at times.

Most of my frustration, however, comes with the addition of what I would call gimmicky gameplay. Several sections require the use of the Sixaxis controller to guide arrows and cannonballs towards their targets. I, personally, have never been a fan of the Sixaxis, as I feel that the controller is just too sensitive to the slightest movements in some regards (as in, oh, I accidentally moved the control ever-so-slightly off-level, so OF COURSE that means I wanted my cannonball to swing giddily off into the ether), and completely insensitive to certain deliberate movements in other regards (look, I'm tilting left! LEFT! What's wrong with this thing?). I'm not a big fan of movement-sensitive gameplay period, as I tend to have shaky hands, and flat-out requiring it in gameplay to get past a level is kind of frustrating for me. Now, I know that some people love the Sixaxis and if you're one of them, that's great, but if you're like me - well, now you know that at least one level in "Heavenly Sword" requires Sixaxis control, and be forewarned.

The other facet I don't much care for in "Heavenly Sword" is the preponderance of quicktime events. Now, given an infinite number of "do overs", I don't mind quicktime events so much at the start of a chapter if it's an adventure interlude - I can play Simon Says with the best of them, so if I really MUST press X-0-L-R-U-D-X-X before I can be let into the chapter, well so be it. But "Heavenly Sword" also uses quicktime events as 'finishing moves' for boss battles, and if you fail to get the sequence perfectly correct, the boss gains all his hitpoints back, and that is annoying. Add into the fact that restarting the battle on your part means wading through dozens of red-shirts before you can even GET to the boss, then you beat him down low enough to trigger the quicktime event, and THEN you must get a perfect sequence of buttons or he regenerates all his health for no adequately explained reason, and it's just frustrating.

Action/adventure brawlers are not, I admit, for everyone. They're not my usual genre-of-choice, probably because I'm not very good at them, and "Heavenly Sword" certainly felt more like 'work' than 'play' for me. Someone more experienced and appreciative of the genre would no doubt feel differently. I did appreciate the stunning graphics and interesting story, but because the story so frequently felt walled off by the Sixaxis and QTE gimmicks, I eventually lost interest in the game despite the story. I would recommend checking out "Heavenly Sword" if you know you're already a fan of the genre, but if you're not already an action/adventure fan, "Heavenly Sword" probably won't make a convert out of you.

~ Ana Mardoll

My first PS3 game- so awesome
i rate this game higher than Uncharted: Drakes Fortune. I found it to be more fun and exciting.

i recommend it to all. great story, awesome game play, great graphics.

don't know why it is more than still...it came out years ago...should be a greatest hits.

hope they come out with more HS games. loved the story.