“Auto lock and combat movement scaling

Believe it or not, many people simply do not know how to use an analogue stick. It’s amazing just how many people don’t immediately know how to manipulate a stick to move the heroine around. We allow movement with the d-pad but, most importantly, we move the heroine about in combat.

Press attack and the heroine will travel forwards with her attack anim. If there’s an enemy nearby, she turns to the target before attacking and we scale the attack anim up to the target. The player doesn’t need to push the control stick at all as the heroine will, to some degree, acquire and move towards enemies with only the input of the attack button. If the player doesn’t use the control stick to move or target, we do our best to select the most appropriate target at any given situation. If we get stick input we narrow down and precisely pick the intended target for attack.

There are two layers of targeting there. One for the newbie - and I mean complete newbie - and a more traditional one for gamers. So, if someone new to gaming starts to play, they will acquire targets and make meaningful attacks. Seasoned gamers can ignore the help and select targets themselves, controlling fight situations better, hopefully, enjoying it more.

Auto blocking

Many people seem to dislike the fact we don’t have a block button - probably more so than the fact we don’t have a jump button. Auto blocking was something we took from Kung Fu Chaos and we wanted to explore and make it work for Heavenly Sword.

If it wasn’t for our stance-based combat, I would be gagging for a block button. However, the stance-based system enables a different approach: the heroine has three stances, as I am sure you all know now, having played the demo. Each stance has different blocking attributes: Speed stance can only block speed attacks, Power stance can only block power attacks and Range stance cannot block at all.

Simply put, the idea is to be in the right stance at the right time. Early on in the game we don’t have many power attacks but, later, we mix enemy stances up a lot and things get faster. Again though, there are multiple layers of difficulty: new gamers will mostly rely on the auto blocking but the more experienced gamers who take the time to learn the depths of the block mechanics will reap more benefits - especially when things get more complicated.

Counters

We have a simple countering system in Heavenly Sword. Block an attack, press triangle and you perform a counter. Simple. You are, however, time limited so you need to do it fast. We are pretty generous with the window of opportunity, making countering fairly easy - it’s therefore balanced through limited damage to the enemy. Better timing though, results in a kill counter finishing the enemy instantly. The better you play, the more rewarding the experience. We also have a few surprises later in the game regarding counters. Mwa ha ha ha…

I’ve only touched on three aspects of the combat system but nearly every part of it has this multi-layering: timings based on novice play, timings based on average gamers and timings based on complete ninjas. I don’t want to alienate people, I want to empower them.

Mums and dads, aunts and uncles: they can all play the game, enjoy and get something out of it. You guys, when you play, can play like your relatives or you can play like a pro. The combat system gives back what you put into it. It’s an interactive system, it’s reflexive. How you feel, how you respond, how you think.

The combat system is, as you play, a portrait of you.”

So in essence if you think the combat system sucks and is just a hack n slash then more then likley you just suck.

We will see in a few weeks. It is already a known fact that almost every review out there lied about Bioshocks game length so I guess it isnt a stretch to say they are about this game either. Besides game length rarely means the game is bad. Games with a specifically graphed out story that has at least two sequels have to end eventually and in this genre it isn’t that short, I can play through God of War 2 on the hardest setting in like 8-9 hours with no effort at all and that is still an awesome game.

This is a new low, even for PS3.

Got a chance to play the final test version and if you play on hell mode it takes a much longer time. On normal and not collecting all the items you can you would be hard pressed to finish it under 10 hours. Most likely edge and IGN played it on easy and blasted through it then poped in another game to review, I don’t see how anyone could beat it in 6-8 hours unless you did a speed run on easy. Oh wel,l its only 2 mediocre reviews out of alot of really good ones. Plus I disagree alot with some of there opinions after playing the same content. You get a feeling they just aren’t a fan of the genera to begin with. I think it was edge that bashed the fact there is a counter system which makes it so you have to be on the defensive sometimes and wait or you’ll get you ass kicked like it was a bad thing then said he pref reed a much more visceral combat that lets you just hack through the enemies with no need for blocking or countering. Just his opinion I guess, I prefer the skill required to fight the enemies and not just plow threw them with no real threat to yourself but thats just me.