Heavenly Sword



Heavenly Sword is a hack-and-slash game set in an ambiguously Asian empire where everyone speaks with British or Australian accents. It was developed by Ninja Theory and released exclusively on the PlayStation 3 in September 2007. The plot concerns Nariko, the unwanted daughter of a clan whose duty is to protect the titular sword, which the ambitious King Bohan believes will grant him godlike power. Nariko and her clan sister, Kai, flee with the sword and spend the remainder of the game attempting to rescue Nariko's father and end Bohan's reign of terror. Though the plot is hardly new, it's solidly executed, with excellent voice acting and motion capture (due to the involvement of Andy Serkis and Weta Workshop) and a surprising amount of humor.

This game provides examples of:

"Kai: "Maybe I should attack your weak point, for MASSIVE DAMAGE.""
 * Action Girl: Nariko.
 * Anime Hair: Nariko again.
 * Anti-Villain: Roach. It's made clear that he's only doing what he does to try and please his father, and is a great deal more sympathetic than the other villains.
 * Arrows on Fire, a specialty of Kai's.
 * Automatic Crossbows: Kai uses one, for starters.
 * Ax Crazy: Flying Fox.
 * Badass Grandpa: Shen
 * Berserk Button: When Nariko starts taunting Whiptail back whilst blatantly saying that her master doesn't give a damn about her and that he was the one who made her so batshit insane, she repeats the taunt Whiptail had previously used to great effect: "Ohhhhh, it's so much better when you're angry!" Whiptail then proceeds to go even more batshit insane.
 * Just being reminded that Roach is his son seems to instantly turn Bohan from relatively calm to the point of blowing like a volcano.
 * Big Bad: King Bohan,.
 * The animated series indicates that the Big Bad is
 * Big No:
 * Bittersweet Ending: She gets ample opportunity for revenge in the end
 * Break the Cutie: Kai is already broken. Then Flying Fox breaks her more.
 * The Caligula: King Bohan.
 * Cat Fight: Nariko's battle with Whiptail degenerates into an exchange of insults.
 * Chainmail Bikini: Whiptail's outfit is basically this.
 * Chekhov's Gun:.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Kai.
 * Deadly Upgrade: Nariko trades in her longsword for the Heavenly Sword after being cornered by Bohan and his army. It ends the way you'd expect given the trope and the fact that the sword has a history of killing anyone who wields it in a rather excruciating manner.
 * Deal with the Devil: Nariko makes such a bargain with the Heavenly Sword.
 * Bohan
 * Empathic Weapon: The Heavenly Sword.
 * The Empire
 * Extraordinarily Empowered Girl: Nariko, of course.
 * Evil Is Hammy: Bohan and his generals, but Bohan is the one who manages to be scary because he is so hammy.
 * Eye Scream: suffers this towards the end of the game when.
 * Fat Idiot: Roach.
 * Faux Affably Evil: Bohan.
 * Fiery Redhead: Nariko.
 * Five-Bad Band
 * The Big Bad: King Bohan.
 * The Dragon: Flying Fox.
 * The Brute: Roach, kinda subverted since he's the only decent guy.
 * The Dark Chick: Whiptail.
 * Foregone Conclusion: Nariko dying is shown at the beginning.
 * For Massive Damage: Lampshaded by Kai.
 * Friendly Sniper: Kai
 * Groin Attack: This game is particularly fond of them, both implied and executed. It affects all other surrounding mooks as well.


 * Hey, It's That Voice!: Andy "Gollum" Serkis as King Bohan, Steven "General Orlov" Berkoff as Flying Fox, and Anna "Olivia Dunham" Torv as Nariko.
 * Hot Chick with a Sword: Work it out. Duh!
 * How We Got Here
 * I Have You Now, My Pretty: Bohan's behaviour around Nariko.
 * Impaled with Extreme Prejudice:.
 * Implausible Hair Color: Nariko.
 * Improbable Aiming Skills: Due to the implementations of the sixaxis controller, Kai is a damn good shot, depending on the player.
 * Improbable Weapon User: Nariko, though the Heavenly Sword is alive, so its improbability may be justified. Far stranger is her ability to steer corpses and other improvised weapons in midair after throwing them or shooting them. Kai can do much the same thing with her arrows.
 * Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Brutally subverted with Bohan, who seems incompetent and acts like a complete goofball more often than not, but routinely performs monstrous acts in order to further his own ambitions.
 * Ink Suit Actor: Bohan looks exactly like an older, more scarred-up Andy Serkis. All of the other main characters resemble their voice/motion actors in some way, too.
 * Ironic Name: Nariko is a Japanese name that means "Gentle Child". She's anything but.
 * Kick the Dog: Bohan does most of the kicking, and the dog is usually named Roach.
 * Klingon Promotion: In one of the animated shorts which describes Bohan's Start of Darkness, he ascended his throne through poisoning the former king.
 * Large Ham: Bohan and Flying Fox practically define this trope. Whiptail also definitely counts.
 * Laughably Evil: Bohan and Flying Fox manage to be funny even when being complete bastards.
 * Les Yay: Kai and Nariko
 * Mama Bear: Harm Kai while Nariko is around and you will be sorry.
 * Minion Shipping: Whiptail is Bohan's mistress, as well as one of his generals.
 * Neck Snap: Bohan does this to.
 * Oddly though instead of twisting neck backwards he actually straightens it forwards. If you've ever had a haircut you'll know this maneuver is not usually fatal.
 * No Indoor Voice: Most of Flying Fox's lines are yelled at the top of his voice.
 * No One Could Survive That:, and presumably dies instantly.
 * No Flow in CGI: Averted... a little too hard.
 * One-Man Army: Nariko.
 * The Ophelia: Kai isn't all there...
 * Overlord, Jr.: Roach.
 * Panty Shot: Nariko does plenty of high-flying flips in a skirt.
 * Parental Issues: Nariko and Shen, Roach and Bohan.
 * Le Parkour: The player can make Kai vault over several types of obstacles, which comes in handy when she has to evade enemies in a maze of random junk.
 * Pet the Dog:
 * Playing Tennis With the Boss: This is one of the keys to defeating.
 * Psychopathic Manchild: Roach, Bohan's mentally-challenged illegitimate son. Who appears to be playing with the corpses of like a dolly at the start of chapter 5.
 * Psycho for Hire: Flying Fox.
 * Quirky Miniboss Squad: While the heroes are usually deadly serious, the villains are often prone to silliness - even King Bohan.
 * Rapunzel Hair: Nariko.
 * Recurring Boss: Flying Fox.
 * Red Headed Heroine: Nariko.
 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge:, Nariko could probably stop wars just by showing up and glaring a little bit. She's that scary given that she literally tore through an army to get at the last person who pissed her off.
 * Say My Name:
 * Scenery Porn: And how!
 * Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: The cover, in which Nariko Is About To Stab You.
 * Snake Talk: Whiptail. It's even in the subtitles.
 * Start of Darkness: One of the animated shorts details how Bohan got to be King (unsurprisingly, it involved poisoning the guy before him).
 * Stay in the Kitchen: Nariko's clan despises her for being born female, as their prophecy specifies that only a male child is destined to protect the Heavenly Sword. Her father even went so far as to for this unpardonable offense, but was unable to bring himself to do it. Her clan continues to treat her like crap even after she's saved their lives numerous times at great personal risk.
 * Stripperiffic: Whiptail's outfit mainly consists of a type of armoured bikini, complete with exposed underboob.
 * And Fan Disservice for most, do you really want to look at her slimy, fishy, scale covered body for that long?
 * Throughout the game, Nariko wears the right half of a skirt and a top that leaves her midriff and right shoulder/arm uncovered.
 * Take That: The appearance of Kratos' blades and armour in Bohan's armoury is a bit like a cross between this and a Shout-Out. (Heavenly Sword has often been compared to God Of War, with some referring to it as Goddess Of War.)
 * : It turns out that
 * Trauma-Induced Amnesia:
 * Volleying Insults: Whiptail and Flying Fox seem to be particularly fond of hurling rather inventive insults at each other, much to Bohan's immense annoyance.
 * The War Sequence: Nariko at the start and near the end.
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Bohan rather cruelly does this to.
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Bohan rather cruelly does this to.