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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:
- Action Girl: Nariko.
- Anime Hair: Nariko again.
- Arrows On Fire, a specialty of Kai's.
- Automatic Crossbows: Kai uses one, for starters.
- Ax Crazy: Flying Fox.
- Big Bad: King Bohan, until the very end, when it's heavily implied that he is in fact The Dragon for the raven that's been sitting on his shoulder throughout the game.
- Big No: Nariko lets out a grief-stricken "NOOOOOOOOO!" after Kai's apparent death (and, shortly after, a variation which just has her screaming Kai's name).
- Bittersweet Ending: She gets ample opportunity for revenge in the end but succumbs to her Deal With The Devil as the titular sword takes her life.
- 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.
- Chekhovs Gun: King Bohan's raven.
- Complete Monster: Flying Fox.
- Crowning Moment Of Awesome: Several, including Kai's eventual revenge on Flying Fox.
- Crowning Music Of Awesome
- 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.
- Empathic Weapon: The Heavenly Sword.
- The Empire
- Extraordinarily Empowered Girl: Nariko, of course.
- Eye Scream: King Bohan suffers this towards the end of the game when the Raven pecks out his eyes for failing him.
- Feed Me: King Bohan and Flying Fox, especially.
- Five Bad Band
- Foregone Conclusion: Nariko dying is shown at the beginning. Still, she manages to wipe out Bohan and his army one last time before she's gone for good.
- For Massive Damage: Lampshaded by Kai.
- Groin Attack: This game is particularly fond of them, both implied and executed.
- Hey Its That Voice: Andy "Gollum" Serkis as King Bohan, Steven "General Orlov" Berkoff as Flying Fox.
- Hot Chick With A Sword: Work it out. Duh!
- How We Got Here
- I Have You Now My Pretty: Bohan's behaviour around Nariko shortly after he captures her.
- 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.
- 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.
- Memetic Mutation: Hat + Gong = Door opens! Also, Kai loves fireworks.
- Also, "We may need you to play twing-twang" leaps into mind.
- Moral Event Horizon: Flying Fox murdered Kai's mother, then had her stuffed, mounted and put on display. Years later, he shows Kai his handiwork.
- Neck Snap: Bohan does this to Whiptail. And makes it look surprisingly easy.
- No Indoor Voice: Most of Flying Fox's lines are yelled at the top of his voice. In fact, one of the few times he doesn't yell is when he's dying.
- No One Could Survive That: Kai is hung by her neck after being dropped from a great height, and presumably dies instantly. As it turns out, she is still very much alive, though weakened.
- No Flow In CGI: Averted... a little too hard.
- One Man Army: Nariko
- The Ophelia: Kai.
- Parental Issues: Nariko and Shen, Roach and Bohan.
- Player Punch: Sort of. The scene in which Flying Fox, after spending a portion of the game gleefully tormenting Kai, captures her and then proceeds to hang her by the neck from a really big height (apparently killing her in the process), deliberately doing it as Nariko watches is just plain upsetting. Nariko's anguished screams at Kai's apparent death really serve to make the moment hit even harder (but don't worry, Kai gets better).
- Playing Tennis With The Boss: This is one of the keys to defeating the Raven-possessed Bohan.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Roach, Bohan's mentally-challenged illegitimate son.
- 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.
- Roaring Rampage Of Revenge: If she weren't already dead, 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: "KAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIII!!"
- Scenery Porn: And how!
- Snake Talk: Whiptail.
- 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 attempt to kill her while she slept 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.
- 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.)
- Tear Jerker: The ending. Enough said. Also, the moment in which Bohan is lying, helpless and blinded, while Roach runs to his aid, telling him that he's going to take care of him and begging Nariko to "please let me take him home" qualifies.
- The apparent death of Kai also qualifies.
- Trauma Induced Amnesia: Kai doesn't remember the death of her mother, until Flying Fox forces her to remember.
- 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.
- The Woobie: Roach, a rare villainous example.
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