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.

Sword, albeit a furious fighter, is less about gore and severed body parts, and more about the beauty of combat, mastering Nariko’s blades and triple-barreled style. Puzzles, although a major part of Kratos’s exploration, aren’t as prominent here. Instead you’re required to use the Sixaxis more to complete skill tests like locked gates and defeat shielded guards.

Harboring three stances, Heavy (hold R1), Range (default stance) and Speed (hold L1), Nariko comes jammed with a wedge of combos varying from the swift to the mighty. But chaining all three styles together will net you mammoth combo numbers - you can reach well above 100 hits - with devastating results. Oddly, there is no jump button, and despite the strangeness of it at first, aerial control of Nariko through the Sixaxis soon becomes second nature. One thing’s for sure: you will absolutely need to master these stances in order to own combo control, as blocking certain enemies require you to use either Power, Speed or Range stances to fend off their attacks. It sounds like a headache on paper, but after a few waves of Bohan’s troops, it all moves so fluidly you’ll hardly notice your fingers tapping the shoulder buttons.