New Heavenly Sword Info (screens included)

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Somehow in the beginning of the second part, I managed to chain throw a guy around and killed everyone else in a few seconds. I have no idea how it is done. (edit: it was a superstyle move apparently)

Anyway here is my take on the combat system and controls:

QTEs are too forgiving and look fully deterministic, not fun.

Throwing things felt a little slow, that is the time between pressing X to grab an object and recognized X to throw is somewhat long to be useful when enemy is close. If square and triangle buttons aren't used for anything while holding an object, binding them to throws may be a good idea. That said aftertouch is quite fun, especially for dead bodies.

I personally miss manual block, it would be nice to be able to block in the middle of a combo. I do like heavy stance requirement for more powerful enemy attacks.
And stance toggles in the middle of a combo is also great.

Awesome counters, and particularly good use of motion sensing for recovering from KO and air combos.

Didn't feel the need to change the camera much but I agree tilt threshold seemed a little high.

I don't miss jumping during combat but having to walk around small obstacles is a little awkward.

And once again, awesome counters, and particularly good use of motion sensing for recovering from KO and air combos.

Overall very good demo and I wouldn't mind it being short if it came with a difficulty setting and without long initial loading time.

edit: I played the demo again, this time mostly with chained (range) stance, I cannot believe how good the animation is. Wonderful work really.
 
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i personally love everything about the combat system. at first, it was a little weird not having a manual block button, but i got used to it quickly. i agree that it would be nice to have a manual block button though. love that you hold the triggers to use different stances. not having a jump button didn't bother me either.

the demo looks great overall, though it does need some polishing. the framerate didn't bother me and i did notice some tearing but it didn't bother me.

very short demo but the gameplay is everything i was expecting (which is a good thing). i will definitely be picking this up.
 
Haven't tried the demo yet (still downloading), but any idea where I can get a this poster?!? My office wall demands it ;)

nariko-cover.jpg
 
I played it through 5 times and it's just not for me so far. My forearm was sore with all the button pushing. I tried to take my time and be strategic and try different combos,but the game moved so fast and the enemies overwhelm you so quickly that it's hard to keep from button mashing. Just not really fun. The interactive cutscenes look like they have great potential.
Production values look top notch,probably going to be an excellent game for those that like this type of game.Although each time I played it I did a little better,but I like to feel comfortable fairly quickly in a game and have the difficulty ramp up slowly.
Not that the demo was difficult(I never died) but with button mashing,it feels like every action or cool move you trigger is accidental. And that's just not satisfying.
I will give the final game a rent though, and see if more time with it proves to be more fun and satisfying.
 
if you're tired of button mashing, you can mix doing combos with counters. you can beat the whole demo by barely pushing any buttons at all. the combat system is very deep and i absolutely love the setup. i've played through several times, and the more i play it, the more i love it. i'm a huge fan of the action genre, so that may explain why i love the game so much.
 
I like doing counters using the triangle button, also matching the colour of the incoming attack to counter, but the demo is way to short... also the v-sync/frame-drops when the waterfalls are around is not good and i hope is fixed before release...
 
djskribbles said:
if you're tired of button mashing, you can mix doing combos with counters. you can beat the whole demo by barely pushing any buttons at all. the combat system is very deep and i absolutely love the setup. i've played through several times, and the more i play it, the more i love it. i'm a huge fan of the action genre, so that may explain why i love the game so much.
Click to expand...

Meh it's just too complicated to go to all that effort,just to beat up many uninteresting minions. Maybe if the final game allows you to fight fewer enemies at a time, like one or two harder enemies at once that require more strategy I would be interested. Instead of feeling rushed to take and and defend against many.
 
This game is a less of a button masher than God of War. You're just button mashing because you're panicking. You can kill most enemies with just a few button presses (sometimes just one), and you can use dodge to get out of the way if you've got surrounded, and then switch to ranged attacks.

Maybe it's not your kind of game (personally, I don't like FPSes on consoles), but really, the combat system is an improvement over existing actioners.
 
DemoCoder said:
This game is a less of a button masher than God of War. You're just button mashing because you're panicking. You can kill most enemies with just a few button presses (sometimes just one), and you can use dodge to get out of the way if you've got surrounded, and then switch to ranged attacks.

Maybe it's not your kind of game (personally, I don't like FPSes on consoles), but really, the combat system is an improvement over existing actioners.
Click to expand...
completely agree. i think the combat is a mix of NG and GoW, and again, i love how the controls are setup; makes it very easy to change stances on the fly which is essential for blocking and very fun for mixing combos.
 
djskribbles said:
i personally love everything about the combat system. at first, it was a little weird not having a manual block button, but i got used to it quickly. i agree that it would be nice to have a manual block button though. love that you hold the triggers to use different stances. not having a jump button didn't bother me either.

the demo looks great overall, though it does need some polishing. the framerate didn't bother me and i did notice some tearing but it didn't bother me.

very short demo but the gameplay is everything i was expecting (which is a good thing). i will definitely be picking this up.
Click to expand...

I don't know how much strategy is involved but the combat is exceptionally satisfying.
Actually I would like to see enemy multiplier option in addition to regular difficulty setting as well as an infinite enemy mode for scoring something like a two stick shooter.

ninzel said:
I played it through 5 times and it's just not for me so far. My forearm was sore with all the button pushing. I tried to take my time and be strategic and try different combos,but the game moved so fast and the enemies overwhelm you so quickly that it's hard to keep from button mashing. Just not really fun. The interactive cutscenes look like they have great potential.
Production values look top notch,probably going to be an excellent game for those that like this type of game.Although each time I played it I did a little better,but I like to feel comfortable fairly quickly in a game and have the difficulty ramp up slowly.
Not that the demo was difficult(I never died) but with button mashing,it feels like every action or cool move you trigger is accidental. And that's just not satisfying.
I will give the final game a rent though, and see if more time with it proves to be more fun and satisfying.
Click to expand...

I recommend not doing anything but trying to counter with triangle when someone is about to attack. It's pretty safe even if you cannot time it right. you hit them, and if you are too late you block.
 
DemoCoder said:
This game is a less of a button masher than God of War. You're just button mashing because you're panicking. You can kill most enemies with just a few button presses (sometimes just one), and you can use dodge to get out of the way if you've got surrounded, and then switch to ranged attacks.

Maybe it's not your kind of game (personally, I don't like FPSes on consoles), but really, the combat system is an improvement over existing actioners.
Click to expand...

I'm sure the combat system is fantastic,but for me it's just too complicated to fully appreciate. When I play the final game,I will probably play it very superficially like I do all other hack and slash combat games. But that's ok,it will have other things for me to appreciate. A good game is good game after all. And this looks like it will be a good game.
 
I like the Ikaruga and PowerStone elements, but Ninja Theory needs to mix up the color attacks a whole lot more to make this game fun and challenging. Try mixing up colors 33/33/33% instead of 95/4/1% like it was in the demo.
 
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I wonder how it will affect things by starting out without a fully powered-up Nariko. In the demo, her life-bar is full. In some shots I've seen, it's only half-way there. This leads me to believe that they put in the maxed-out Nariko for the demo to make it easier on incoming players.

@ninzel: you're panicking too much when you play. Take the time to watch your enemies and control your attacks. Nariko will block most enemy blows, save for power-strikes, so the danger is mostly limited to changing stances and attack recovery time. Also, it's very easy to perform combos, since she'll linger briefly in the appropriate pose from the previous button, so you can easily chain. You're just making the game more complicated than it is supposed to be by playing it like a button-masher.
 
Where are the tearing and frame rate problems?

You do have to learn combos and the nuances of the stance but you can beat it using triangle mostly and evading attacks.

I do miss the dedicated jump from God of War. And in that game, I don't remember having to learn combos so much as jumping in the air to avoid attacks or to use for attacks.

I haven't messed too much with using the motion for jumping in the air yet. Will have to see how that goes. Did they substitute a jump button to support the SIXAXIS?

Like I was saying, I don't remember combos from GoW so much. I think that game relied on using simultaneous button presses and getting new moves/attacks and upgraded weapons over time.

Wonder if we'll get that, new attacks and the sword doing more damage over time.
 
RollingBalls said:
I like the Ikaruga and PowerStone elements, but Ninja Theory needs to mix up the color attacks a whole lot more to make this game fun and challenging. Try mixing up colors 33/33/33% instead of 95/4/1% like it was in the demo.
Click to expand...

I'm expecting we'll see that through the coure of the game, as the difficulty builds up.
 
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