General Information
Published: Sony Computer Entertainment
Developer: Ninja Theory
Genre: Third-Person Action
Number of Players: 1
Release Date:
US: September 12, 2007
Europe: September 14, 2007
Australia: September 20, 2007
MSRP: $59.99
Console: Playstation 3
Features: 16:9 Support, 480p Support, 720p Support, Memory Card
Media Size: 1 BD
ESRB: Teen
The Story So Far..
From The Official Heavenly Sword Home Page
Heavenly Sword is a tale of revenge, courage and self-discovery. For as long as the clan can remember, the prophecies have told of a son, born of their leader, who will lead them to their rightful place in heaven. So when the leader of the clan is born a daughter, Nariko, it seems as though the prophecy shall pass, unfulfilled.
Or so they all believe...
After her father is murdered by a bloodthirsty rival, Nariko sees one last chance to change her fate and avenge her father's death. To accomplish this mission she must wield the Heavenly Sword, a weapon so powerful that every blow she strikes brings her closer to death. As she fights, Nariko will not only come to understand that revenge is a hollow endeavor, but also discover her own worth and sense of place in the world. Only then will she be able to take command of the sword, becoming its master rather than its slave, transforming her lonely, cursed life, and fulfilling her destiny.
The Principle Players of Heavenly Sword
The Villians
An Introduction to Evil?
The Prince Roach
General Flying Fox
The Serpent~Whiptail
King Bohan
Heroes
An Introduction to Good
Nariko
Kai
Production of Heavenly Sword
More than just a delicately woven narrative exploring bravery and retribution, Heavenly Sword pioneers in offering mind-blowing cinematic visuals and delivering a groundbreaking gaming experince, seamlessly uniting digital creation with emotional, dramatic performance..
By capturing full body movement, facial expression and on-set voice from various actors through the use of wireless microphones, hundreds of light-reflecting markers and infra-red motion capture cameras, Heavenly Sword thrives in setting a new benchmark for emotional performance in video games.
So brace yourself for an epic action adventure like you've never experienced before.
The Making of Heavenly Sword Series
Each video details the creation of the game from the varied aspects of production. The first video below is a featurette "The Making of Heavenly Sword."
The Making of Heavenly Sword: Bringing Cinematic Production to Gaming
Making of Video Episode One: Introduction
Making of Video Episode Two: Bringing Design to Life
Making of Video Episode Three: Capturing Performance
Making of Video Episode Four: The Sounds of Combat
Making of Video Episode Five: Creating the Music
OVERVIEW
Emotionally charged, stunningly beautiful, and delivering unprecedented dramatic character performance, Heavenly Sword showcases the power of PLAYSTATION®3
computer entertainment system. A dramatic tale of revenge sees Nariko, a fiery red-haired heroine, embark on a quest for vengeance against an invading King and his army. Thestory builds around the ancient Heavenly Sword, which once belonged to a powerful deity. It can never be wielded by a mortal without it slowly, but inevitably draining their
life-force.
When the invading King (played by Andy Serkis) destroys the warrior clan that
guards the Heavenly Sword, the clan leaders daughter, Nariko, takes up the
sword in a desperate fight for survival. Nariko must now pay the ultimate price
as she embarks on one last mission of vengeance against the King and his
army before her life is finally and irreparably overtaken by the omnipotent
Heavenly Sword...
Andy Serkis, the worlds leading CG actor, famous for his roles as Gollum
in "The Lord of the Rings" and Kong in "King Kong," was heavily involved
in the creative process. As well as starring in Heavenly Sword as the
villain, King Bohan, Andy was a major contributor to the character
development, writing, casting, directing and performance capture
for the PS3 title.
Heavenly Sword features a deep, diverse combat experience made
possible only on PS3.
The Heavenly Sword The Heavenly Sword itself can
transform into three distinct weapons, each with its
own accompanying fighting stance used by Nariko to
vary combat styles.
The Combat Engine The combat engine can scale up from sophisticated one-on-one encounters to one-on-many, where enemies employ intelligent squad-based dynamics, right up to combat against battalions pushing real-time gameplay and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to unprecedented new levels.
Physics-Based Combat The physics-based combat allows players to sweep debris against opponents, kick tables to halt an oncoming surge of fighters, smash the enemy into the scenery, or throw bodies into other enemies using aftertouch controls.
Wide range of Objects & Weaponry Heavenly Sword provides a wide range of objects & weaponry including rapid-fire crossbows and massively damaging bazookas.
Creative in-game Cinematography Coupled with real-time story evolvement and amazing set-pieces, Heavenly Sword feels like a blockbuster action movie that takes combat gameplay to new heights.
PLAYSTATION®3 Greater processing power on the PS3 enables more immersive visuals and sound effects in Heavenly Sword, heightening the character performance and combat within the stunningly beautiful environments.
Partial Install - Like many up and coming PLAYSTATION®3 titles, Heavenly Sword allows the player to perform a partial install on their HDD. This provides a streamlined experience, with drastically reduced loading and transition times.
Heavenly Sword ~ The Animated Series
Prior to the release of the game, a number of animated episodes which explain, in detail, the prolouge of the story, have been put on the Internet and the PSN. These shorts are known as "The Legend of the Sword." There are five in total.
Episode One Legend of the Sword
Episode Two Guardians of the Blade
Episode Three The Rise of Evil
Episode Four The Divine Birth
Episode Five The Day of the Warrior
Previews/Impressions
IGN: August 27th 2007
Gamespot: August 27th 2007
Game Trailers: August 9th 2007
Demo
Heavenly Sword Demo
The Heavenly Sword Demo is avaliable via the Playstation Network and can be downloaded free of charge. The Demo details the start of the second chapter of the game and while short, gives a healthy feeling for the game itself. Below is a walkthrough of the Demo as told by one of the developers himself!
Heavenly Sword Demo: A Ninja's Guide to Success
Im taking a guess that, if youre reading this blog, chances are youve seen the episode of Heroes in which Niki Sanders (aka Jessica) and her son Micah start the show playing Heavenly Sword. Am I right?
Well now you can do what they were doing - or at least you can from Thursday July 26, anyway! Thats right: the demo of Heavenly Sword came flying out of Format Testing and is hitting Playstation Network tomorrow - but then you all already knew that, didnt you?
But, if the internet is awash with this news already, why should you read this blog update? Well, it's only here that I can give you guys the inside track to make sure you get the most out of the demo. Spread the word, this is the place to be...
So, as I say, what I want to do here is highlight some of the cool bits for you to check out in the demo. Call it a personal 'Mat Hart Guided Tour of the Heavenly Sword Demo' if you like. Sound cool?
Our demo opens with Nariko and her adopted sister looking out over an ancient water temple as they begin their search for their father. Kai quickly runs off to hide safely from Bohans soldiers and the game begins as Nariko attempts to find a way down to the temple. In a short space of time, youll find yourself in the thick of it as Bohans soldiers and guards rush in and attack Nariko.
So, things to try out are:
- Experiment with stance switching. Nariko can instantly switch between stances using the shoulder buttons. Your standard stance is the Speed Stance, L1 pressed and held is the Ranged Stance and R1 pressed and held is the Power Stance. Youll find the various enemies react differently to each stance, meaning youll need to find different tactics to defeat them with style.
- Once youve mastered the basic attacks, it's time to try some advanced stuff. Wait for an enemy to attack and hit TRIANGLE to counter their strike. This relies on careful timing but, if you get it just right, youll deliver a killing blow to your attacker.
- By this time, you should have some Superstyle built up. Look at the HUD element in the top left: the inner dial is your Superstyle bar. Whenever one or more of the gems light up, you have access to a variety of Superstyles that can wipe out dozens (and in later levels, literally hundreds) of opponents in one devastating blow. These moves are stance specific so, at each level, you have a Speed, Power and Ranged Superstyle. Activate these using CIRCLE while in the stance of your choice. Obviously the more gems highlighted, the bigger and more devastating the Superstyle!
- Got that nailed? Sweet! Now try using L1+TRIANGLE on someone who's staggered - they'll fly up into the air. If youre quick enough, jerk the pad up and Nariko will launch into an aerial combo. Try SQUARE + SQUARE + SQUARE to start with but dont forget that other combos are shown in the pause menu.
- On that note, Nariko only has a handful of moves available in the demo, with tonnes more to unlock during the full game. Some of these moves have a little broken shield icon which signifies that this is a Block Breaker move - use these to break down enemy defenses.
Hopefully, thisll give you a good place to start for now. Let me know how you get on - Id love to hear what you find cool! Over the next few weeks, Ill try and reveal more of the techniques and tactics you can use in the demo and final game.
One final sneaky tip: dont kill the axeman during the opening hero sequence (i.e. miss the final SQUARE press) as you slide down the ropes. Thisll give you a chance to see what its like fighting a tougher character!
- Mat Hart
Interview
This is an interview conducted by CVG with Ninja Theory's Chief "Ninja" Nina Kristensen. I had wanted to post another but OP length limits prevented me.
Heavenly Sword Interview Game Relative Topics - August 28
By CVG
How important is Heavenly Sword to the success of PS3?
Nina Kristensen: I think Sony would certainly say this is really important game for the platform, which is wonderful for us. They've been incredibly supportive.
We heard the soundtrack was 10GB on the disc...
Kristensen: Yes, that's the audio allocation.
So would you say you couldn't have done this game on the normal DVD format?
Kristensen: No way. We have jam-packed the [Blu-Ray] disc absolutely full.
Is that without compression?
Kristensen: Yes, we used compression all over the place. We had to be really judicious at the end with what was going on the disc and what wasn't. I think it's one of those things - if you give us the space we're going to fill it with stuff. It means the audio can be of a higher quality and stuff like that. It all adds to the quality of the package.
What type of influences have you taken from other games? God of War is a frequent comparison?
Kristensen: God of War is an excellent game, but I think the biggest influences for us came from film. This includes films like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Hero - really big, epic martial arts films with absolutely gorgeous choreography and dramatic martial arts. We also looked at Lord of the Rings for its big story and huge landscapes.
You've used SixAxis controls as one of the more innovative mechanics in the game. How much potential do you see that part of the controller?
Kristensen: I really like the SixAxis. My favourite use of it in Heavenly Sword is what we call 'after touch'. So anything you can pick up and throw - which is just about anything in the game, including corpses - or any projectiles that your fire like bazookas, can continue to be controlled with the SixAxis. It feels quite natural, and I like that. I think that's how SixAxis should be employed - in a way that feels natural.
How have you reacted to reviews and feedback so far?
Kristensen: I have had a sneak peak at a couple of reviews and I'm really chuffed so far. But they're not all out yet.
Have you got any plans for download content?
Kristensen: No we don't have anything like that announced at the moment. We're very interested in supporting Home. And there is an online component to Heavenly Sword, but when we do online we'll go all-in.
How much further do you think this type of action game can be taken?
Kristensen: I think we've made some really nice strides, but I think there's always a lot more that you can do. Controls always need to be intuitive. The more intuitive they are the more enjoyment for the player. I'm not a believer of having to remember long button combinations. I think players should always do what he or she intends.
I only want to see it used in ways that feel natural. As soon as you start having to shake it about when it bares no correlation to what's happening on screen, it makes no sense. As long as it matches what you're doing as a character I think it works really nicely.
How important is the success of Heavenly Sword to Ninja Theory?
Kristensen: Success is of paramount importance to us. We're an incredibly ambitious studio and we set out to do something big and bold. If everyone likes it that's going to make all the difference to us and will certainly give so many more opportunities as to what we can do going forward. And frankly I'd be devastated if it wasn't a success after four years of development.
Is it safe to assume a sequel is on the cards?
Kristensen: We'd certainly like to do a sequel with Sony but nothing's been set in stone. We're looking to expand and do new things but certainly we want to continue the Heavenly Sword franchise.
So you definitely have plans in place to take the franchise forward, then?
Kristensen: Yes, and we can't talk about them. Sorry.
Have you had a chance yet to consider other genres?
Kristensen: We'd certainly like to play into the strengths of the team, and we've got strengths in combat and cinematics. I think animation is another area of strength within the team. We always want to push those skills further, and I wouldn't rule out dabbling in other areas - that would be fun.
With the downsizing of E3, Leipzig has become on of the key gaming events of the year now. How important do you think Europe has become to gaming?
Kristensen: I think it's incredibly important. There's a huge amount of development out here and in terns of market share, America's a little bigger but Europe's not far off.
Four years of development is quite a long time. Why so long?
Kristensen: We started early, before PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 even existed for that matter, so we actually started development purely via high-end PCs, and we had to figure out what the architecture would be. We started early because we knew it would be a really big undertaking. An action adventures by its very nature are not something you can just churn out. We signed with Sony in January 2005, which is when we got our first kit.
What benefits did signing with Sony bring?
Kristensen: Being directly with the platform holder means you get access to all sorts of nice bits and pieces, and can get close to the hardware very early.And developing for a single platforms means that you can focus everything into the platform and don't have to make any compromises for another platform.
How well do you see PS3 doing over Christmas on the back of Heavenly Sword's release?
Kristensen: Really well, I hope. I honestly don't know but I hope it will make a really big difference.
Reviews
Games Radar - 8
One thing is clear: the PlayStation 3 will not be left without at least one hack-and-slasher starring a lithe, lethal heroine.When its good, its truly magnificent and some of the final stages will have anyone with a 42-inch high-definition TV foaming at the mouth. No battle-scene compares to Narikos finale. Plus, Narikos home of the new face of PlayStation, going so far as to shunt Lara Croft from her throne as the ultimate game girl. Bring on Heavenly Sword 2
IGN - 7.0
What youre paying for then with Heavenly Sword is the grandiose spectacle, the overblown production values and the chance to show just what your PS3s capable of when given the chance. Its a benchmark in presentation for console gaming.
GamePro - 4.5/5.0
Until Kratos' next adventure comes along, gamers can and should busy themselves by taking in the compelling saga of Nariko and her heavenly blade. It is without a doubt a journey worth taking, even if the road to the end is somewhat bumpy.
Game Informer - 9.0
Film critic Roger Ebert may speak poorly of video games at the moment, but if Heavenly Swords seamless blending of silver screen caliber acting with razor-sharp gameplay points toward where this entertainment medium is heading in the future, he may soon give them two thumbs up. The performances that Andy Serkis and his fellow actors deliver are just as impressive as the never-slowing action that unfolds on the battlefield.
Gamedaily - 8
This epic story unfolds with the help of true next-gen visuals and excellent voice acting, courtesy of Andy Serkis (as King Bohan) and a cast of semi-known Brits. Looks-wise, Heavenly Sword presents one of the most eye-appealing games to appear on the PS3 each level is filled with gorgeous vistas, and the characters, down to detailed facial expressions, give an something that might even be called an emotional performance
1up - 8.0
For those looking for the next big triple-A action game, Heavenly Sword is close, but not quite there. To its credit, there's a scene near the end of the game where you essentially go bowling through crowds of enemies -- it makes you realize just how epic games like this are going to be a few years down the road. But for now, Heavenly Sword does one better than hint at the future. It's an example of developers doing a good job being inspired by good taste, rather than looking up the recipe and coming up with something that's a bit different, but not quite as good as the original. Heavenly Sword is on the positive side of that line: solid in its own right and definitely worth playing.
Other Review Scores
Euro Gamer- 7.0
Game Trailers- 7.9
Edge Magazine - 6/10
PSW - 80%
EGM - 8, 8, 9
Play Magazine - 10/10
OPM UK - 7/10
OPM Dutch - 89%
Heavenly Sword ~ Evolution
"So what better time than at the start of an exciting new console generation to position yourself with a statement of style and beauty? And to start early enough to craft an amazing gaming experience that truly could not exist on current gen hardware?"
"For the first time in over 2 years, Nina, Mike and I hit the road armed with a full design, a business plan, and a nice little trailer to pitch our Heavenly Sword concept to a few choice publishers.
We are Just Add Monsters and our last game was Kung Fu Chaos
So far so good.
We are here to present our next gen game concept
Next gen? Do you mean PSP?
Oh boy.
Despite all that, by the end of our presentations, particularly when we showed them our trailer and our early-bird strategy, the response was uncanny. By uncanny I mean good. By good I mean unbelievably amazing. No game any of us had ever pitched before had been met with the enthusiasm we witnessed in those dull, audio-visually-challenged meeting rooms.
As we followed up with meetings and worked our way up the publishing chain, we started hitting dead ends:
We think that starting with a team of 23 is too small for a NEXT-GEN game
"HS was never meant to go to XBOX, it was designed for NEXT GEN from the start"
GameTrailer's Evolution of Heavenly Sword
