Heavenly Sword review

Adding extra oomph to this are the support players comprised of Nariko’s father, Shen and her kooky sister, Kai - who you take control of throughout the game as well as Bohan’s army of warped sidekicks. There’s Roach - his slug-like body fat is shielded in a steel shell rather like, erm, a cockroach. Throw in the slithery slut Whiptail, who - although we’re quite sure about this - could be Bohan’s squeeze. Then there’s Flying Fox (Berkoff) - a wrinkly, speed freak with a whiff of kiddie fiddler about him and very large knives attached to his back. All of which, you end up fighting at one point or another in the game as end-of-level bosses of sorts.

These boss battles usually involve the age-old classic arcade formula of knocking their varying degrees of health bars down from three colours to one (red) before you can truly begin to inflict some serious damage. And when you’ve done this, you’re prompted to slam circle and perform a series of button-tapping maneuvers that, if done correctly, usually end in you looking extremely cool and your foes extremely broken. Or extremely dead.