Posted Aug 24th 2007 9:30AM by Nick Doerr Filed under: News
We can't say we didn't see it coming -- Ninja Theory is willing to give us a second Heavenly Sword game. Chief developer for Ninja Theory (always get the two ninja companies confused), Nina Kristensen, issued this statement: "We'd certainly like to do the 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." Ultimately the decision comes down to Sony and we're sure their decision will be based on sales of the first game.
Reviews are starting to come in for all of Sony's anticipated, heavy-hitting games. While there aren't a lot of reviews for Heavenly Sword just yet, it's getting mostly positive responses. Also, since it is so heavily anticipated, we think it'll sell well enough for Sony to "okay" a sequel. Even though most of us haven't gotten our hands on the final version, do you think Heavenly Sword should turn into another sequel-churning franchise, or is there just something a little more special about a single game that tells a whole story?
[Update: changed "Team Ninja" to "Ninja Theory"... seriously, these companies need to think a litter harder about their names.]
Following even further into the footsteps of action-gaming-powerhouse Kratos and the God of War games, Heavenly Sword was recently given the trilogy treatment. In an audio interview with co-founder of Ninja Theory, Tam Antoniades, this information was divulged to us in addition to the exciting tidbit that the second part of the story is already complete! By complete we mean "written" and not "developed".
If you're curious, it's right around the 11:00 mark in the interview (the last minute of it, really). Also mentioned were downloadable content possibilities (based on what players would like to see added) and support for Home. The sequel depends on the original game being treated to a successful run, so let's all pitch in and make sure Heavenly Sword makes it through the trilogy loop.
If you don't want to get any information about Heavenly Sword by cycling through the comments section over at Ninja Theory's blog on IGN, don't worry. We've got the skinny and we're delivering it to you, list style! All answers come courtesy of Mat Hart, producer of Heavenly Sword.
Blood: "We took a conscious decision to deliver a fairly elegant blood effect rather splashing it all over the walls as this is far more in keeping with the look and feel of the game." We take it that means we'll see some stylish blood-letting.
Special Edition: In a word, no. Sony has decided that, instead of making you pay extra for a special edition of the game, they're going to let Ninja Theory cram as many as they can onto the single Blu-ray disc. So far, they're planning for the retail disc to feature "a series of behind the scenes features as well as the first 2 episodes of a special 'animated series' exploring the history of the Heavenly Sword prior to the start of the game." Can you say, awesome?
Game Length: "It's hard to estimate exactly how long it'll take someone to run through it the first time but we believe that you can expect somewhere between 12-15 hours of play."
Demo: He explains they've got plans for a demo in the very near future and have been working on it for some time. If you want his words exactly, he says to "keep an eye out for this in the very near future...and i mean very near future!" Our clocks are ticking.
That's it for now. We think the word about no special edition is fantastic. It's a great example of a developer really taking advantage of all that extra space. Much better than shoving an extra disc in the case and upping the price $10-20. We'll look for a demo every week until we get one, but from his tone of voice, we might see one either right before or right after E3. Our bet is on right after.
A long time ago we mentioned that a demo for Heavenly Sword was in the works. No, we don't have a date for the demo yet, but from what was gleaned in the statements by Dean Calver, the lead programmer at Ninja Theory, it's coming along quite nicely. Just like the rest of the game. He said, "if you take the PSN demo we are currently doing, then we have a separate team (borrowed from Sony Cambridge) who are doing the work to make it a stand alone demo while the NT team are working on Beta. There's still work for the main team fixing bugs and balancing but it's much less than full time."
Having two teams is pretty wise -- that way no time is wasted making a demo. The "real" team can keep plugging away at making the actual game pure quality and that seems to be exactly what they're doing. An example of their efforts shines through with their approach to load times: " ... at the beginning of each chapter we have a introductory cut scene, while thats happening we are also caching data from Blu-ray to hard disk. This way when we actually are streaming while you play we can use both sources at the same time." We like the sound of that, because loading screens can be pretty annoying if they pop up all the time (we're looking at you, Magna Carta ... you really suck).
Finally, when asked about the percentage of the SPU the team has utilized, Calver has no idea. He said that you only really know stats like that when you feel bottlenecked by the hardware and Ninja Theory apparently hit no walls at all in their programming. This leaves us to wonder if they only used a fraction of the PS3's power, much like Motorstorm. We can't wait to play it!
No online multiplayer -- it's a single player game.
They're in discussions about what to bring to HOME. Trophies, whatever. Again, who would love to see a life-sized statue of Nariko next to that life-sized Dante statue? That's pretty rewarding. If it happens.
Demo is planned, but its release is still in discussion. We're estimating July just for the heck of it. Sound appropriate?
Resolution and framerate right now: 720p @ 30fps
Apparently, there will be giant monster-type enemies. No details yet.
"Good replay value" planned.
Mmm, so what's with developers keeping their mouths shut? Do they really not want to fail to keep a promise that badly? We'd love to just get a ballpark for the demo, or what they'd like to see in HOME, or when they imagine the game being released. Oh well. Until the next interview, then!
The week of Heavenly Sword draws to a close, but we can read up on it anytime, so the week can last as long as you want it to. But the bit of information we gathered for Friday were 10 things we didn't know about the game. Let's see if we actually knew any of them.
Thursday's Heavenly Sword feature is a lot less text-intensive and a lot more "oooh, aaaah" intensive. For yesterday, GamePro allowed readers to check out some of the incredibly beautiful art for the title. This includes, of course, the beautiful Nariko and that outfit that, we're certain, is worn for increased mobility.
There are also some great landscape shots -- things that should probably be on one of those calendars featuring... places. We really don't have much else to say on this topic. It's a great collection of art, except for that one where Nariko is holding the two swords... if you take that picture and put it next to the Prince of Persia: Warrior Within art, the similarity is pretty humorous. The Prince is in a stance exactly like that, if we recall. Anyway, Friday's feature is next... as soon as they update it.
How humiliating! We got so caught up in the news from everywhere else, we completely neglected to keep up with the Heavenly Sword week over at GamePro. No worries, though, we'll catch you up over the next couple of hours. Wednesday's feature focused on the three fighting styles available to Nariko and her sword, which is slowly draining the life out of her. These styles can be changed mid-attack, so it's not unlike Devil May Cry 3's switching weapons on the fly. Here are the three styles in basic detail:
Speed Style: This is the default battle stance primarily composed of rapid short-sword strikes. It's best used for close encounters.
Ranged Style: These chain swords let you pick off distant foes, or hook one and slam him into the ground. Like Kratos, maybe, but we're going to say Ivy from Soul Calibur just to be different.
Power Style: Slow, but can inflict... you guessed it... massive damage!
Stringing together long, custom combos sounds like a blast. As far as the controls, GamePro proudly announces that they're pretty intuitive and easy to get the hang of. As far as SIXAXIS goes, it gets a workout (moving the camera, influencing the direction a projectile is thrown, etc) but isn't central to the gameplay.
One last thing... heroic exploits. These are timed button-pressing sequences (or "on-screen prompts" if you prefer) that involve quick reflexes on your part for survival. We may be completely wrong about that, but there are points in the game where you take part in something beyond the normal slashing action. Maybe it's like Resident Evil 3 where you have to make a decision about how to act really quickly (Jill vs. Nemesis text-decisions)?
We'll bring you Thursday's feature in a little bit!
The week of Heavenly Sword continues over at GamePro, today gracing us with a kinda-sorta behind the scenes look at some of the story, art direction, and graphics. We'll highlight what's important and leave it to you to check out the full scoop so you can sound like the go-to guy/girl for this game.
The Cell is stressed by Heavenly Sword by handling so many enemies on screen at once: "the trick is that Cell treats entire regiments as a single unit of artificial intelligence when they are at a distance; as they draw closer, Cell gradually divides the army into smaller and smaller groups, so they eventually become individual troops with unique fighting styles and tactics." Neat!
Graphics are gorgeous and respond to their environment or whatever: "Wind gusts swirl Nariko's hair and clothes, and bazooka blasts send out showers of dust and rubble." Yeah, but... 1080p?
How about physics and SIXAXIS support? "When firing a cannon, Nariko can influence the trajectory of the projectile using the Sixaxis. Ninja Theory claims it needs the Cell to handle these complex calculations." They claim... so is there another way? We think back to the Nikita missile in Metal Gear Solid... that was fun.
We've still got a lot of questions -- Nariko's past is still pretty much unknown and things like 1080p support haven't been set in stone. No matter the case, this game will be something to grab come September.
Cutscenes in games are photo-realistic on the PS3. Seriously. Even though Nariko from Heavenly Sword is built based on an actress (kind of like the main characters in the Onimusha games), this screenshot/wallpaper placed on the Ninja Theory forums really shows how gorgeous games can be, cutscene or not.
This picture of Nariko spurned on a lot of debate on the forums, many nay-sayers claiming that there's no way this sort of graphic can be in-game. It is in-game, but a cutscene. Just read the original post from the Web Admin: "Had a chat with Tameem, and we've managed to get approval from Sony to release a screenshot to say a big 'Thank You' for your participation on the forums. So, without further a-do, here's an in-game screen grab of Nariko from one of our cutscenes." Yeah, we added the bold. So, what did this "Tameem" guy say? Let's look backwards.
"I'm assuming most of you have seen the "Cinematic Production" teaser. The facial model and texturing you see is based on the actress and the expression is comprised of a series of blend-shapes driven by the mocap data. Each expression is tweaked by us so that we remain true to the original performance. Lighting and depth of field is then applied to the scene and the results, I hope you'll agree, look pretty nice. This particular example doesn't have the floor in place and we've made it into a 1280x1024 size image so that it can be used as a desktop wallpaper."
I've needed a new wallpaper and this will do nicely. What do you guys think? If actual in-game... gameplay graphics are anywhere near this, will that not be very, very impressive?
Hmm, call me crazy, but I'd rather take Final Fantasy XIII's Lightning out for coffee than Heavenly Sword's Nariko. Why? Uhhh... check out the latest screens/scans from the latter's game and you tell us. Yeah, you'd feel safe if Nariko was having a good time and you suddenly get surrounded by a plethora of ninjas, but what if she asked for decaf and you forgot? Something tells me she'd be less receptive than Lightning.
Anyway, these latest scans show the long red-haired heroine dealing some major deathblows to some masked peons, as well as Jeux-France's confirmation that indeed, the game is due out in March for the North American crowd. Which is really strange, since the latest EGM threw this title out in their "Fall '07" lineup. But of course, this is the same EGM who hosted a poll asking "What's wrong with the PlayStation Store" and 55% of the voters said "It's not XBox Live". I mean, I don't like cheese because it isn't ice cream. Sure, both are dairy, but I'm ignorant and take advantage of a poll without any screening questions.
Wow, we're getting off topic. Although, not much to be on topic about. Check out the scans and get pumped up for March!
Or is it? Says Nina Kristensen, Ninja Theory's co-founder, "We've always been a launch window title so it hasn't affected us at all," referring to the PS3 delay in Europe. However, lead animator Guy Midgley said "No, it's going to be next year...but we haven't announced a specific date yet." So... it's a launch window title (which should be before 2007, right?) but it's not coming out until next year in the US?
Oh. Launch window for Europe! Well, if you put it that way, it makes sense. So, for those of you wondering, Heavenly Sword hasn't been moved forward in the launch frame, nor has it been delayed. The difference between Japan/North Ameria launch window and the European launch window might have caused a few rumors to spark into existence, only to be snuffed out by a little bit of common sense.
