Developer: SHIFT UP Corporation
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Platform: PS5
Tested on: PS5
Stellar Blade – Review
Stellar Blade might have been one of the most hyped games of the last few months, and not necessarily only thanks to its interesting gameplay previews but also because of its very noticeable protagonist, EVE. Footage has been circulating for a while where the busty protagonist is killing monsters in fairly skimpy outfits, and this has sparked discussions in different gaming communities. Some prefer to go back to the day and age when games had scantily clad leading ladies, while others prefer a more modest approach. We mainly cared if this was a case of style over substance or if the game actually proved to be worthwhile.
Story
Stellar Blade’s story is a fairly straightforward one. In the distant future, our planet has been ravaged by strange beings called the Naytiba. These beings basically wiped most human life off the planet, forcing the survivors to start a so-called Colony in space. You will play as EVE, who is part of the 7th Airborne Squad. You are tasked to take back the planet, but sadly all of your fellow fighters die shortly after landing. You also find yourself inches away from death, until a human survivor, Adam, whisks you away from the battlefield, saving your life. Adam will assist you from this point onwards so you can defeat an Alpha Naytiba, which is a stronger variant of the regular ones. Upon doing so, he introduces you to the other human survivors who live in humanity’s last bastion, Xion. It seems the settlement has its own issues that require your unique skills.
All in all, the story is quite enjoyable, even though it has quite a few predictable moments. The game starts fairly vaguely, but things get explained gradually as you progress. You’ll get to know the main cast of characters the further you get into the story, but many characters have a very superficial personality and it’s hard to care about some of the main cast. For an adventure game, the narrative is quite good, but it’s clear that the writing itself isn’t that stellar.
Graphics
Across the board, Stellar Blade is a beautiful game. We’re not just saying this because the developers added a plethora of lewd outfits for EVE, but everything looks as if it was a proper next-gen project. The environments look interesting, the backdrops are gorgeous, the enemy designs are eerily interesting, and even the less important NPCs still look good. Of course, the game still utilizes the same assets for many destructible items, but this didn’t bother us too much.
The combat animations are also very fluid for both EVE and her opponents. The special effects from the attacks are rather modest but they fit the overall atmosphere of the game. We did encounter a bit of clipping here, as well as a few rough edges. Some parts of the world felt perhaps a bit empty or could have done with some more enemy variety.
Sound
When constantly beating gargantuan monsters to a bloody pulp you’d expect to be on edge most of the time when playing Stellar Blade, but this couldn’t be further away from the truth. Even though the game does have some adrenaline-infused music during combat it actually has a very mellow and relaxing soundtrack when just exploring the world. The gentle tunes and soft voices that accompany them allow you to properly zone out when exploring the different biomes of this universe’s version of a destroyed Earth. The tracks looped fairly quickly, but they never grew dull.
The voice acting is also great here, and even minor NPCs are fully voiced. Of course, EVE, Adam, and the rest of the more important characters steal the show here. We did quite enjoy the overall quality of the voice acting, even though not all dialogues are as well written as you’d want them to be. There were a few somewhat awkward conversations during quest dialogues, and even a few replies did feel a bit out of place.
Gameplay
It’s hard to fully place Stellar Blade into a specific genre. The game has quite a few Soulslike elements, but it also has a few shooter segments, as well as a lot of platforming and minor puzzle elements. Even so, the offset is quite simple, as the game gradually opens around you by exploring and progressing through the story. The first zone is quite linear, but after that, you’ll get dropped in more open areas and you are free to backtrack as much as you want after finishing the boss battle in the second zone. For the most part, you’ll be running around different environments, treading carefully not to draw too much attention, and picking off enemies by memorizing certain attack patterns. The game revolves heavily around timing your parries and dodges.
For the most part, things are fairly straightforward. You can either opt to just aim for the game’s main content and be done in roughly twenty hours, depending on what difficulty you play the game on and how quickly you solve certain puzzles or beat certain bosses. You can easily double that playtime if you’re aiming to find all collectibles and finish all side quests. Many side quests in the game are fetch quests or have you kill a specific amount of monsters. One cool thing about the secondary missions though, is that upon completion the game actually asks to teleport you back to the NPC that gave you the quest. This is a fun touch that does help you save time to find waypoints that allow you to teleport back to Xion. We did find certain interaction options a bit tedious, as you’ll always have to go through a bit of text to access stores or the bulletin board.
As a whole, the combat is very enjoyable. The moves are fluid, it’s easy to nail certain combos, and the overall combat system is very accessible. That being said, not everything is as polished as it could have been. For example, the parry system in Wo Long was a lot more responsive, and nailing successive dodges also feels a bit finicky in Stellar Blade. Using the different skills is easy, but swapping ammo or consumables feels a bit clunky. You’ll essentially have to stop moving in order to swap ammo or consumables, which can prove to be very deadly in an ongoing battle. The healing system works very much like Dark Souls, where you refill your consumables at a rest area. You can have other consumables as well, such as additional healing items or grenades and other weapons.
One thing that somewhat annoyed us was the imprecise platforming in the game. While we can enjoy great platforming or parkour sections in games, it felt as if Stellar Blade wasn’t very polished regarding this aspect of the experience. EVE wouldn’t always grab onto ledges, she would get stuck behind the smallest items, aiming jumps wasn’t always that easy, and so on. We even had instances where we would clearly reach a ladder but simply clipped through it. This made certain segments of the game awfully frustrating, simply because it resulted in quite a few unfair deaths. We do commend the developers for changing up the gameplay with so many different things to do, but as a result, not every aspect ends up being as enjoyable.
Conclusion
Stellar Blade is a great PlayStation 5 exclusive title. The game offers solid combat, a lot of interesting (side) content, a likable protagonist, and beautiful sceneries ready to be explored. While at times the game is a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, master of none, it did manage to captivate us from start to finish thanks to its accessibility and overall interesting boss encounters. We thoroughly enjoyed exploring this post-apocalyptic Earth, and if you’re a fan of action-adventure titles with a semi-Soulslike format, we can easily advise you to check this one out.
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