L.A. Noire is a strange beast to me. Made by Rockstar, the people behind Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, one goes into it expecting a certain type of gameplay. Even hearing reviews beforehand about just how different this game was from anything else out there, the graphics and underlying mechanics of GTA and Red Dead are still there and unfortunately set up some expectations about how this game's going to run. There's a weekly vidcast on g4tv.com called Feedback, and one of the panelists explained where Noire fits in Rockstar's canon perfectly. She said that essentially GTA is all about the action at the cost of story. Red Dead was a nice mixture of story and action, but still focused mostly on the action. Noire throws all of its weight behind the story, and while there's still action, it's highly de-emphasized. Does Noire suffer because of it? Yes and no.
The problem with Noire, is that it's much like Heavy Rain in that there is no other game you can really compare it to. The experience is entirely unique. You play as Cole Phelps, a hero returned from the war who starts as a beat cop in the LAPD. After making a name for yourself in some introductory cases, you start getting promoted up the ladder, taking on different desks in departments like traffic, homicide and vice. Most of your cases are unrelated to each other, or at least appear so at first, which gives the game an almost serialized feel, especially as each case has essentially the same underlying structure to it. You hear about a suspicious death from your captain, make your way to the crime scene, search the area for clues, use those clues to find and interrogate suspects, and based on what you find, close the case. It's odd, because I feel that in any other game, this repetitiveness would've been a major downside, but it Noire, it honestly never felt repetitive. Each case brought new clues, new suspicions, new suspects that taxed your lie detection skills in ever varying ways.
Yet it also leaves me feeling confused because while the cases themselves didn't feel repetitive, I couldn't help notice their repetitive nature due to Cole's overarching storyline being, as I felt, rather non-cohesive. Yes, it was there, and going back and replaying cases especially I can start to see how present it was, but I couldn't help but feel during the course of the game that I was just moving from one case to another without moving the more important story forward. In fact it almost felt like there were three or four different storylines that didn't mesh together all too well. There's the beginning, with Cole starting to shine and make a name for himself. Then there's the Black Dahlia cases. Then there's a mass conspiracy involving real estate. And through it all, something to do with morphine and Cole's old war buddies. It's a vast web of interconnections that's hard to keep track of, especially with how little focus it receives until the very end.
And maybe that's my problem. I'm so used to stories beating me over the head with exposition and explaining exactly what's going on, that when a story like this comes along that doesn't connect all the dots nicely for you and asks to do some thinking and connecting for yourself, I get a little lost. While the game is very forgiving and does some hand-holding if you mess up an interrogation or make some mistake along the way, it isn't afraid to drop that hand when it comes to actually piecing everything together. Whether that's a downside for the game, or just for my mental capacity I can't really tell.
As for the game itself and how it plays, that too is an entirely different animal. As I said with the formula, you get a case and are told to go investigate somewhere. You drive there, get briefed on the situation by the coroner or the first man on the scene, and then start hunting for clues. You do this by walking around the scene, looking very carefully for anything suspicious, or just walking randomly until your controller vibrates, telling you you've found something to investigate. Sometimes it's just a piece of junk you quickly discard, other times it's a clue you have to rotate in your hand until you see something important, and sometimes it's a dead body whose head you need to turn to get a better look at the rope marks around their neck. Investigation music plays until you've found everything important, at which time you go searching for suspects or question witnesses. And here's the most important part of L.A. Noire: the questioning.
You see, Rockstar spent years making this game, and it wouldn't have been possible without some astoundingly impressive motion capture tech that captures the performance of each and every actor with remarkable precision. Because, in these interrogations, you ask the suspect a question. They give a response. Then, based on their facial expressions, movements, tics, etc. you have to decide whether to believe them, doubt them, or call them out on a lie based on evidence you collected. These sessions are by far the most interesting, and often most difficult, parts of the game. Unfortunately, they're not always difficult in a good way. Most of the time it's fairly obvious when you should be doubting someone, when they're telling the truth, or if you have evidence that would contradict what they just said. And even if it's not, you gain special Intuition points throughout the game that allow you to remove one of the wrong responses to give, or to ask the community which answer you should choose. However, even with those, sometimes it is frustratingly difficult to try and tell which way the game is asking you to go, especially in determining whether to doubt someone or which piece of evidence you have would catch them in their lie. After letting someone get away with 0 questions answered correctly I had to look up why I had done so poorly, and found that at least one reason were sometimes the suspect would give an answer and I thought calling lie on them was trying to call them out on one thing, but if you actually pressed the button Cole would try to call him out on something else. It was always related, but not necessarily the same thing. I just have to harp on this because if you're going to make this, especially this, the number one important feature of your game, it better be damn near perfect. And while it was pretty solid for most of the game, those odd turnabouts in logic stood out all the more and removed me from the experience.
I suppose this is really where all my complaints come down to: the experience. I honestly think it rather unfortunate that this was a Rockstar game. Or at least, that its underpinnings are much like GTA and Red Dead, because it then invites comparison that it frankly can't live up to, or even simply chooses not to. The world of Noire is gigantic. It's recreated, as they say, 90% faithfully to the L.A. of 1947. But there is nothing to do in this world. There are landmarks to find, cars to unlock, and random street cases (essentially small action-oriented cases) to respond to, but none of them give any good reason to really explore or take an interest in this world that was so masterfully crafted. In GTA and Red Dead they used the space well, but here it feels like it goes to waste. The action in GTA and Red Dead is often intense, and quite fun, while the action in Noire feels short, recycled, a little boring and even simply out of place. And for a game that placed all its emphasis on story, I couldn't help but feel that while it handled its case by case stories better than any of the missions in GTA or Red Dead, Red Dead trounced Noire in the overarching story department. I have to say, without spoiling anything, the Noire let me down with its ending. I feel it didn't build to any worthwhile conclusion and left me wondering why the game wasn't still going in the same way Red Dead continued.
What I'm trying to say with all of this is that by having those constant points of reference, I was constantly being drawn out of the experience I believe Rockstar actually wanted me to have. When it hits its mark, L.A. Noire is easily one of the most interesting and completely engrossing games ever made. The actors are all wonderful, the music sets the tone perfectly, and you start to see the big picture unfolding in front of you and feel like it's a personal accomplishment, that you, master detective, were able to figure out what it all means. But then it reminds you that it's a game. You walk aimlessly around rooms pressing x whenever your controller vibrates instead of carefully searching for something that stands out. You soak up bullets and regenerate while two shots takes out practically any enemy. Every car you drive feels like you're steering an awkward turtle. On top of all that it's a game in a lineage of games that it really shouldn't have anything to do with yet can't help but invite comparison to for the features that it lacks.
Now, I know I've leveled a lot of criticism at this game, but only because it's received so much god-like praise everywhere else. Yes, this is by far one of the most innovative and interesting games ever made, and if you're a fan of film noir and detective stories then this game will have you salivating from the get go. You'll also likely enjoy it more if you haven't played Red Dead or GTA as it will be a completely new experience. Then again, you may like it more even if you have played them just for how different it is. If there's one thing I'm sure about with L.A. Noire, it's that some will love it, some will hate it, and some like myself will find themselves uncomfortably sandwiched in-between praising it for its genius and criticizing it for not having all the elements of a game we've come to expect and enjoy. By no means do I consider this a bad game, but I have to be honest about my personal experience with it and say that unlike others I don't consider it to be one of the best games ever made. As I've said before in other reviews, to me, it doesn't matter how original or interesting you are, if you don't have the gameplay to back it up then it doesn't matter. And while L.A. Noire is harder to judge on gameplay since there's nothing like it out there, I simply came away feeling that it could've been more.
L.A. Noire gets an 8.5/10.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Monday, May 2, 2011
Merry Wives of Windsor
Merry Wives holds a special place in my heart, especially seeing it performed at Seattle Shakespeare, as it was the second play I ever performed in, and it was on that stage. So admittedly, I go into it with some prejudices about what characters should be like and how funny it should be, and so if it doesn't live up to those expectations I'm going to be a bit disappointed. How did this one stack up?
There's an interesting history to Merry Wives. As the legend goes, it was commissioned by Queen Elizabeth after she greatly enjoyed the character of Falstaff in Henry IV and hated his death in Henry V. In short, she wanted to see Falstaff in love, and wanted the play ready in two weeks for a party she was having at Windsor castle. So Shakespeare obliged, and whipped out a comedy more about Falstaff in lust than love, with a Falstaff that is leagues different from the original. Still, Merry Wives proves to be one of his funniest comedies, I believe, for its spectacular supporting cast of comic relief and its ripe opportunities for slapstick/physical comedy.
The story itself is centered around Falstaff, now old, fat and out of money, scheming for a way to earn his fortunes back. He quickly learns of Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, two married women of the town who control their husbands' substantial purses. He devises that he shall woo the both of them, and by extension come by their money. Sending an identical love letter to each, the two wives, being great friends, quickly discover his treachery and devise ways to be revenged on him including a bit with a laundry basket, a humiliating costume, and a final public prank in the forest. In the midst of this, the jealous Master Ford disguises himself to get in Falstaff's favor and essentially tries to catch his wife in the act of adultery (with a thousand "horn" jokes along the way indicating a cuckold). To the side are all of the comic relief characters, including the Welsh priest and French doctor, each with butchered English and accents written into the script, the gossip Mistress Quickly, the magnanimous Host of the Garter Inn who can't seem to go a sentence without calling someone "bullyrook", and a side plot involving three suitors each vying for the hand of Master Page's daughter Anne. Everything is of course resolved in the end, marriages are saved, the right suitor is picked, and everybody walks away happy...except for Falstaff.
Seattle Shakes decided to take this one old school, riding on the theme of performing in front of the queen, with period costumes and I believe an uncut script. A portrait of the queen hung above the stage, every so often producing a cuckoo from it's mouth to indicate the hour of day and provide some unexpected comedy, especially with Master Ford. But there was one problem with how far they rode this theme, just as it was a problem with Threepenny Opera. Every so often the actors would stop whatever they were doing to acknowledge noise offstage, in this case they would bow to what sounded like a flurry of horses and trumpets indicating the queen's passage. In Threepenny it was sirens and looking scared, with no payoff at the end. Here, there's a wonderfully brief payoff in the forest where the queen makes a cameo, but I still can't really excuse breaking up the action so frequently for a joke that, while funny, only lasted like 30 seconds. You want to do that kind of thing you do it twice, maybe three times, and you do it at the beginning of the show and right after intermission starts, not in the middle of a scene where all it does is distract.
Anyways, the actors themselves were all wonderful, though I often felt the supporting cast wasn't nearly as funny as they should have been. I couldn't pinpoint why, until the french doctor started coming in looking more and more accidentally self-injured every scene and realized, none of them really found their proper shtick except for the judge, who even though his physical-exertion-followed-by-back-kink routine was completely telegraphed each time still managed to amuse. The french doctor also had his wonderful moments of ridiculousness, especially after he started coming in injured, but others like the plain accented Welsh priest, the hit-and-mostly-miss high voiced Slender, and all of Falstaff's subordinates never really hit their mark. Each actor seemed to almost be doing their own thing, so bits like the fight between the two english abusers, the doctor and the priest, which should have been a complete murdering of language instead came across as a slapstick scuffle without the actual slapstick. Honestly I felt the only person who consistently hit their mark in both character and comedy was John Patrick Lowrie as Falstaff. Master and Mistress Ford were wonderful with their character, but sometimes missed on the comedy. Mistress Page often sacrificed character for the sake of comedy (her greatest consistent offense was breaking into an almost Oprah persona), and Master Page had a wonderful character with no comedy at all.
This all isn't to say the play wasn't good, or funny. It kept a consistently funny tone and pace throughout, but with a bit more order to the chaos, a bit more cohesiveness, this could've been a great production. Instead, it comes off more as a good, but average, comedy that simply missed its marks by a hair.
Merry Wives of Windsor gets an 8/10.
There's an interesting history to Merry Wives. As the legend goes, it was commissioned by Queen Elizabeth after she greatly enjoyed the character of Falstaff in Henry IV and hated his death in Henry V. In short, she wanted to see Falstaff in love, and wanted the play ready in two weeks for a party she was having at Windsor castle. So Shakespeare obliged, and whipped out a comedy more about Falstaff in lust than love, with a Falstaff that is leagues different from the original. Still, Merry Wives proves to be one of his funniest comedies, I believe, for its spectacular supporting cast of comic relief and its ripe opportunities for slapstick/physical comedy.
The story itself is centered around Falstaff, now old, fat and out of money, scheming for a way to earn his fortunes back. He quickly learns of Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, two married women of the town who control their husbands' substantial purses. He devises that he shall woo the both of them, and by extension come by their money. Sending an identical love letter to each, the two wives, being great friends, quickly discover his treachery and devise ways to be revenged on him including a bit with a laundry basket, a humiliating costume, and a final public prank in the forest. In the midst of this, the jealous Master Ford disguises himself to get in Falstaff's favor and essentially tries to catch his wife in the act of adultery (with a thousand "horn" jokes along the way indicating a cuckold). To the side are all of the comic relief characters, including the Welsh priest and French doctor, each with butchered English and accents written into the script, the gossip Mistress Quickly, the magnanimous Host of the Garter Inn who can't seem to go a sentence without calling someone "bullyrook", and a side plot involving three suitors each vying for the hand of Master Page's daughter Anne. Everything is of course resolved in the end, marriages are saved, the right suitor is picked, and everybody walks away happy...except for Falstaff.
Seattle Shakes decided to take this one old school, riding on the theme of performing in front of the queen, with period costumes and I believe an uncut script. A portrait of the queen hung above the stage, every so often producing a cuckoo from it's mouth to indicate the hour of day and provide some unexpected comedy, especially with Master Ford. But there was one problem with how far they rode this theme, just as it was a problem with Threepenny Opera. Every so often the actors would stop whatever they were doing to acknowledge noise offstage, in this case they would bow to what sounded like a flurry of horses and trumpets indicating the queen's passage. In Threepenny it was sirens and looking scared, with no payoff at the end. Here, there's a wonderfully brief payoff in the forest where the queen makes a cameo, but I still can't really excuse breaking up the action so frequently for a joke that, while funny, only lasted like 30 seconds. You want to do that kind of thing you do it twice, maybe three times, and you do it at the beginning of the show and right after intermission starts, not in the middle of a scene where all it does is distract.
Anyways, the actors themselves were all wonderful, though I often felt the supporting cast wasn't nearly as funny as they should have been. I couldn't pinpoint why, until the french doctor started coming in looking more and more accidentally self-injured every scene and realized, none of them really found their proper shtick except for the judge, who even though his physical-exertion-followed-by-back-kink routine was completely telegraphed each time still managed to amuse. The french doctor also had his wonderful moments of ridiculousness, especially after he started coming in injured, but others like the plain accented Welsh priest, the hit-and-mostly-miss high voiced Slender, and all of Falstaff's subordinates never really hit their mark. Each actor seemed to almost be doing their own thing, so bits like the fight between the two english abusers, the doctor and the priest, which should have been a complete murdering of language instead came across as a slapstick scuffle without the actual slapstick. Honestly I felt the only person who consistently hit their mark in both character and comedy was John Patrick Lowrie as Falstaff. Master and Mistress Ford were wonderful with their character, but sometimes missed on the comedy. Mistress Page often sacrificed character for the sake of comedy (her greatest consistent offense was breaking into an almost Oprah persona), and Master Page had a wonderful character with no comedy at all.
This all isn't to say the play wasn't good, or funny. It kept a consistently funny tone and pace throughout, but with a bit more order to the chaos, a bit more cohesiveness, this could've been a great production. Instead, it comes off more as a good, but average, comedy that simply missed its marks by a hair.
Merry Wives of Windsor gets an 8/10.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Heavenly Sword
From the same people who made Enslaved, Heavenly Sword came out way back in the day near the launch of the PS3 and was touted as being a great example of how beautiful PS3 games could be. Otherwise it was mainly derided as a God of War clone, but any hack and slash with quick time events would be. Being a forebear to Enslaved, I was interested in seeing just how they compared. And it turns out, they're pretty much the same. Interesting premise, interesting story, not so great gameplay/execution.
For most of Heavenly Sword you take the role of Nariko (voiced by Anna Torv of Fringe), a vaguely asian girl with long flowing red hair that is constantly clipping through everything (aka passing through objects or her own body). She comes from a vaguely asian village and tribe that is in possession of the Heavenly Sword, a legendary weapon said to have come from heaven to defeat evil, but it comes with the curse that any who use it will eventually be killed by it. The evil King Bohan (Andy Serkis) seeks the sword for his own and so is hunting the last remnants of the tribe until he gets it. We join Nariko in the middle of the final battle, using the Heavenly Sword to cut a giant path through Bohan's army, but to no avail. The sword takes her life. Lamenting this, she talks to the sword in a kind of purgatory area that serves as a mission select screen and recalls the events of the past 5 days that led up to her death.
Very interesting, right? Unfortunately it feels like the story itself never really progresses after that. Nariko gets the sword, has to save her people, loses the sword, gets it back, defends her people some more, masters the sword and then dies. There are hints to a sequel at the end, but really, it more felt like it was just leaving things open ended enough that it could become a series if they wanted it to. Instead, what matters in this game are the characters. While Nariko and her father come across as mostly bland and a little stereotypical, Kai, the wispy slightly addled child who plays "twing twang" (aka shooting enemies in the face with arrows) who you also play as is wonderfully quirky and just crazy enough to be fun to watch instead of annoying. But the real stars of the show here are the bad guys, because all of them are so completely ridiculous in their own wonderful way. King Bohan flies between rage and malevolent humor in a wildly unpredictable way. The Flying Fox is such a stereotypical bad kung fu movie villain it's hilarious. Whiptail, a woman with snakelike features, is like a Hollywood actress that was rejected from the big time and so has agreed to a B movie monster flick. And Roach, the giant fat slightly deformed son of Bohan, is delightfully pathetic in almost every way and can manage to wring the most sympathy from you except for Kai. All are wonderful in their own completely overacted and overdramatic fashion.
But what about the game itself? As we saw with Enslaved, a great premise and story means little if you don't have the gameplay to support it. And sure enough, it seems the trend started with this game.
The combat itself is actually based around an interesting concept. You have three "stances". Your normal stance is a speed stance, where your blows and combos are based around doing normal amounts of damage at a fast pace. Press L1, and you go into your range stance, where your attacks do little damage, but cover a wide area. Press R1, and you go into your power stance, where your blows do great damage but are much slower and easier for enemies to interrupt. There are combos for each stance, some of which can break your enemy's guard if they're blocking and knock them to the ground where you can insta-kill them with the press of a button. However, the trick is that enemies also use the different stances (except for range), and you automatically block attacks, but only when you are blocking in the same stance that they're hitting you with. So they glow blue to indicate a fast stance, orange for power, and red for unblockable. In the latter case, you have to evade by flicking the right analog stick.
Here's the problem though. The game's mechanics and response times aren't fitted to the style of combat they're trying to get you to learn. Evading is a joke, as when you evade your character doesn't even move far enough to get a sword's distance away. Range stance quickly becomes useless as every goddamn enemy blocks every freakin attack. While you keep learning new combos for each stance, there's never any incentive to try them out as you quickly discover which combos break an enemy's defense the fastest so you can insta-kill them on the ground and then spam that combo. As practically every battle consists of you fighting like 10 enemies at a time, and enemies attack you randomly, it becomes nearly impossible to finish a combo without getting hit. Several enemies switch stances mid-attack, meaning you need to switch stances to block, but the period of time between them turning from blue to orange and hitting you is so fast that even if you hit the shoulder button on time you can still get hit just from delayed response times, meaning you essentially need to learn what that opponent's lead up to an orange attack looks like. But as each enemy has several different combos/attacks that vary randomly, and each one looks quite similar, especially when there's a crowd around you and it's nearly impossible to see the lead-up, battles becomes more tedious than intelligent. I'm sure if you took the time to master the combat, learn all the combos, memorize enemy patterns, etc. that combat would flow like no one's business and you'd kick ass like it feels you should be able to. But for most players that is simply not going to be the case. Basically it's too unforgiving in its own rules and consequences, which makes combat frustrating instead of fun.
Now, being a near-launch title, before they figured out that trying to manipulate a game using six-axis was a bad bad idea, there was a heavy emphasis on six-axis controls, especially when playing as Kai. Essentially, you shoot an arrow, and if you hold down the shoot button you can guide that arrow in slow-mo to your target using six-axis. And maybe I just suck at six-axis, but these sections were some of the most frustrating parts of the game, especially when Kai has no standard attack button, but must plant herself, enter aiming mode, and then shoot to attack the crowd of enemies running at her. When it works right, it works wonderfully and satisfies that part of any gamer that giggles when you carefully aim an arrow into someone's head. But for the most part these sections seem more tacked on to exploit what was then new tech.
I think what Ninja Theory, the developer behind these games, needs to do is just come up with the stories. Get the idea, get the voice actors, get the beautiful graphics down (for an almost launch title the graphics are still pretty stunning), and then hire another team for the actual gameplay. Heavenly Sword would've been such an amazing game if it had the fluidity of God of War's controls. If there's one thing God of War did right, it was making the combat feel fun, visceral, and supremely satisfying whether you were mashing buttons or really taking the time to learn the technique. Heavenly Sword certainly was going in the right direction with what they were trying to accomplish, they just didn't allow for the finesse that the system they instituted required.
In the end, colorful characters and an interesting premise can't save a stale story and a broken combat system, especially in a hack and slash. With any luck, they'll hand the sequel over to the God of War folks and we'll get a truly awesome game. But until then...
Heavenly Sword gets a 6/10.
For most of Heavenly Sword you take the role of Nariko (voiced by Anna Torv of Fringe), a vaguely asian girl with long flowing red hair that is constantly clipping through everything (aka passing through objects or her own body). She comes from a vaguely asian village and tribe that is in possession of the Heavenly Sword, a legendary weapon said to have come from heaven to defeat evil, but it comes with the curse that any who use it will eventually be killed by it. The evil King Bohan (Andy Serkis) seeks the sword for his own and so is hunting the last remnants of the tribe until he gets it. We join Nariko in the middle of the final battle, using the Heavenly Sword to cut a giant path through Bohan's army, but to no avail. The sword takes her life. Lamenting this, she talks to the sword in a kind of purgatory area that serves as a mission select screen and recalls the events of the past 5 days that led up to her death.
Very interesting, right? Unfortunately it feels like the story itself never really progresses after that. Nariko gets the sword, has to save her people, loses the sword, gets it back, defends her people some more, masters the sword and then dies. There are hints to a sequel at the end, but really, it more felt like it was just leaving things open ended enough that it could become a series if they wanted it to. Instead, what matters in this game are the characters. While Nariko and her father come across as mostly bland and a little stereotypical, Kai, the wispy slightly addled child who plays "twing twang" (aka shooting enemies in the face with arrows) who you also play as is wonderfully quirky and just crazy enough to be fun to watch instead of annoying. But the real stars of the show here are the bad guys, because all of them are so completely ridiculous in their own wonderful way. King Bohan flies between rage and malevolent humor in a wildly unpredictable way. The Flying Fox is such a stereotypical bad kung fu movie villain it's hilarious. Whiptail, a woman with snakelike features, is like a Hollywood actress that was rejected from the big time and so has agreed to a B movie monster flick. And Roach, the giant fat slightly deformed son of Bohan, is delightfully pathetic in almost every way and can manage to wring the most sympathy from you except for Kai. All are wonderful in their own completely overacted and overdramatic fashion.
But what about the game itself? As we saw with Enslaved, a great premise and story means little if you don't have the gameplay to support it. And sure enough, it seems the trend started with this game.
The combat itself is actually based around an interesting concept. You have three "stances". Your normal stance is a speed stance, where your blows and combos are based around doing normal amounts of damage at a fast pace. Press L1, and you go into your range stance, where your attacks do little damage, but cover a wide area. Press R1, and you go into your power stance, where your blows do great damage but are much slower and easier for enemies to interrupt. There are combos for each stance, some of which can break your enemy's guard if they're blocking and knock them to the ground where you can insta-kill them with the press of a button. However, the trick is that enemies also use the different stances (except for range), and you automatically block attacks, but only when you are blocking in the same stance that they're hitting you with. So they glow blue to indicate a fast stance, orange for power, and red for unblockable. In the latter case, you have to evade by flicking the right analog stick.
Here's the problem though. The game's mechanics and response times aren't fitted to the style of combat they're trying to get you to learn. Evading is a joke, as when you evade your character doesn't even move far enough to get a sword's distance away. Range stance quickly becomes useless as every goddamn enemy blocks every freakin attack. While you keep learning new combos for each stance, there's never any incentive to try them out as you quickly discover which combos break an enemy's defense the fastest so you can insta-kill them on the ground and then spam that combo. As practically every battle consists of you fighting like 10 enemies at a time, and enemies attack you randomly, it becomes nearly impossible to finish a combo without getting hit. Several enemies switch stances mid-attack, meaning you need to switch stances to block, but the period of time between them turning from blue to orange and hitting you is so fast that even if you hit the shoulder button on time you can still get hit just from delayed response times, meaning you essentially need to learn what that opponent's lead up to an orange attack looks like. But as each enemy has several different combos/attacks that vary randomly, and each one looks quite similar, especially when there's a crowd around you and it's nearly impossible to see the lead-up, battles becomes more tedious than intelligent. I'm sure if you took the time to master the combat, learn all the combos, memorize enemy patterns, etc. that combat would flow like no one's business and you'd kick ass like it feels you should be able to. But for most players that is simply not going to be the case. Basically it's too unforgiving in its own rules and consequences, which makes combat frustrating instead of fun.
Now, being a near-launch title, before they figured out that trying to manipulate a game using six-axis was a bad bad idea, there was a heavy emphasis on six-axis controls, especially when playing as Kai. Essentially, you shoot an arrow, and if you hold down the shoot button you can guide that arrow in slow-mo to your target using six-axis. And maybe I just suck at six-axis, but these sections were some of the most frustrating parts of the game, especially when Kai has no standard attack button, but must plant herself, enter aiming mode, and then shoot to attack the crowd of enemies running at her. When it works right, it works wonderfully and satisfies that part of any gamer that giggles when you carefully aim an arrow into someone's head. But for the most part these sections seem more tacked on to exploit what was then new tech.
I think what Ninja Theory, the developer behind these games, needs to do is just come up with the stories. Get the idea, get the voice actors, get the beautiful graphics down (for an almost launch title the graphics are still pretty stunning), and then hire another team for the actual gameplay. Heavenly Sword would've been such an amazing game if it had the fluidity of God of War's controls. If there's one thing God of War did right, it was making the combat feel fun, visceral, and supremely satisfying whether you were mashing buttons or really taking the time to learn the technique. Heavenly Sword certainly was going in the right direction with what they were trying to accomplish, they just didn't allow for the finesse that the system they instituted required.
In the end, colorful characters and an interesting premise can't save a stale story and a broken combat system, especially in a hack and slash. With any luck, they'll hand the sequel over to the God of War folks and we'll get a truly awesome game. But until then...
Heavenly Sword gets a 6/10.
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