The Sword has 2 different configurations that the player can fight with. There is a range stance that is similar to the weapon used by Kratos in god of war good for clearing groups of enemies; then there is the power stance which is a large curved sword which is the most powerful, but also the slowest stance of the two. There is also no block or jump key. I was one of the many that questioned the idea to not include a block or jump button, but if you’ve seen Heavenly Sword in action then you will not miss the jump button.

Ninja Theory’s main ambition for this game was for it to have perfect flow and they feel they’ve got a perfect balance now without the complications of including a jump button. How does one justify no block button? Simple really… if flow is so important then the main character stopping whatever she’s doing at random moments to go into a ridiculous block animation doesn’t go too well with the free flowing movie type action the developers are trying to create.

Instead they opted instead for a counter button that if timed perfectly will perform a number of different counters depending on the type of stance you’re in and the type of attack your enemy uses. Then there are of course the “super style” moves. As you play through the game and destroy all sorts of enemies many times you’ll build up a gauge that when full allows Nariko to perform some crazy over-the-top combat maneuver (which you can see examples of if you search online for gameplay videos).

Now finally back to the King who is played by Andy Serkis aka Gollum from Lord of the Rings and Kong from King Kong. If you’ve seen his performance in the LOTR trilogy as Gollum I don’t need to say much regarding how talented he is. However he’s not only lending his voice talent to Heavenly Sword’s villain King Botan, but he is also contributing to the character development, writing, casting, directing and performance capture for Heavenly Sword. At any rate it’s clear this game has massive potential and as a result my anticipation for it is most certainly high. As a matter of fact unless some massive delay takes place I get the feeling it will be the first true killer app released for the PS3.