You play a particularly badass member of a group of warriors who are already known to be badasses. You are not a classic "hero," as you have committed many atrocities in the past, and your misdeeds are on display for the world to know, for a sign of them has been affixed permanently to your skin. Said misdeeds have led to the death of your significant other, which has led you to undertake a great quest to free yourself of their shackles. You must run, jump, climb, swing, and battle your way through a great number of enemies as well as facing off against powerful "boss" enemies using your long-reach weapons and a number of magical abilities you gain throughout the game - all of which you can increase the power of (and/or gain new combination attacks / moves for) through energy collected through the defeat of opponents. When defeating said opponents, you can frequently engage in a context-sensitive "mini-game" wherein you press buttons or rotate the left analog stick on the controller in time with the icons displayed on the screen. Most "boss" enemies can only be defeated by use of these "mini-games."
You move with the left analog stick, evade attacks using the right analog stick. On the PS3, you perform light attacks with the square button, heavy attacks with the triangle button, and jump with the X button, and combination attacks with various iterations of pressing these buttons in succession. You have different energy bars for your health and magical abilities, and you can restore the levels of those by interacting with sources of them in the game...but to prevent you from restoring your health/magic easily in the midst of a fight, such interactions are not instantaneous - you must interact with them for several seconds in order to get the benefits. In addition, there is another meter that fills up as you perform attacks on enemies successfully. When it is full, you can unleash a "super" mode wherein your attacks become much more powerful for a limited amount of time.