Stellar Blade

Stellar Blade is a blast. For external reasons, it'll likely be one of the most talked-about games of the year, so for the sake of brevity, I'll avoid those obvious points and instead get onto what the game itself has to offer.

The world of Stellar Blade is both beautiful and terrifying. The game strikes a nice balance between gorgeous aesthetics in environment design and brutal (and often bloody) enemies and combat. The two meshed quite well for me though, and this pleasant combination was helped by an absolutely phenomenal soundtrack that adds to the future/post-apocalyptic vibes in every level.

Combat is great. While I wouldn't venture as far to say that Stellar Blade is a soulslike, the difficulty in both random enemy encounters and boss fights is comparable, if not quite to the level of intensity that From Software games generally boast. Nonetheless, I found Stellar Blade to be a compelling and rewarding experience all on its own. The combat is quick and dynamic, and relies heavily on its dodge and parry mechanics, which it utilizes to (mostly) great effect. It functions as a risk/reward system that punishes the player severely for mistiming a dodge or a block, but it opens windows to decimate the enemy as well.

World exploration is mostly excellent, with a scanning system that reveals potential threats and secrets in a wide range. Numerous chests, costumes, and power-ups litter the multiple maps, making exploration and side quest-completing very worthwhile. Platforming is enjoyable, but wonky aerial movements and overly-precise detection zones for ropes and ladders can often contribute to frustrating retries that come off as cheap and unnecessarily difficult. It doesn't break the game, but it definitely detracts from an otherwise great setup.

In terms of the story, Stellar Blade walks a fine line between dark and melodramatic, but never quite ventures into standard levels of cheese found in your average JRPG. The characters are well-written and (mostly) well-acted. I can't say much more without spoiling the story, but suffice it to say that it worked for me, and you'll simply have to experience it for yourself.

In short, Stellar Blade is an incredibly promising start to what I hope will become a long-standing franchise. Its combat is excellent, its story and characters are loveable, and apart from a few mechanical hiccups, the world traversal makes for a very engaging experience. Whether you're a fan of tough, soulslike action games or are just looking for an awesome new game to drop 40+ hours into, definitely give this one a try.

Simply it's perfect, everything in this game is amazing, the combat the world the exploration are amazing. It's wears seeing ign rating this game a 7, and I don't like this game because it's se*y, honestly it's the only thing I hate in this game.

I really hope that this game get the goty I know it might be impossible but I think that it kinda deserve it if there will not be other games that are smas good as this game.

The reason why I love this game because it reminds me of nier automata and devil may cray and sekiro.

And for me I think that it deserve a 10 out of 10. And if you didn't buy this game I really suggest this game to you if you like action rpg games.

Even on story mode it's inanely difficult to move across terrain, let alone fight. Has anyone there in Korea played Tomb Raider? Similar mechanics but I could actually finish Tomb raider. How is this designed for play station when every inch you move there's a controller related hazard? Combat is ridiculous. I don't know afar the attraction to perfect dodge and perfect party are but doing things at the last possible fraction of a second makes for a repetitive bore. That's not perfect. It's stupid. The graphics look great but this game is simply not sun. I'm not going to die 1000's of times just to progress. An epic failure with pretty visuals.

Stellar Blade is a masterpiece that delivers on every front. The DualSense haptic feedback pulls you deeper into every fight, making every clash feel real The music is stunning, setting the tone for an epic adventure, while the combat is fluid, dynamic, and endlessly customizable thanks to a deep skill tree. The gorgeous graphics make every environment and character breathtaking, and the customization options; armor, earrings, glasses add a personal touch to the experience.. With engaging combat, a gripping story, and flawless attention to detail, Stellar Blade is an unforgettable journey and SHIFT UP has done a flawless job.

Stellar Blade has been the center of various discussions and drama due to the design of the ladies in the game. I like the visual design of Eve and the various other ladies met throughout the game. I enjoy looking at pretty women whether they're real or fictional and most other men will as well.

Making the main characters attractive and appealing won't carry the game on its own though. Stellar Blad however has enough other qualities that made me want to finish it even though I had to take considerable breaks from time to time as something either bored or annoyed me.

The combat is very action oriented and provides a lot of options on how you can deal with enemies. You have basic attacks and combos and then various types of special attacks and their combinations. Memorizing all of it will be tricky to put it mildly. Most players will probably pick their preferred combination of attacks and specials and stick with that. My short description of the combat in Stellar Blade would be that it's combination of Nier and soulslike games on steroids as it is very fast paced and requires a lot of active fighting as well as reactive defending with blocks and dodging.

The enemies and bosses are mostly fair fights and will require you to use your various abilities. Quite a few enemies have learning curves as well as you can easily go down if you do not pay attention to what they're doing.

Among the bosses there are a few that are extremely challenging. Especially towards the end the last few main bosses took my quite a few attempts to defeat and I only managed it by using "cheese" tactics as fighting them normally often ended up with Eve being defeated in one or two hits. This can be pretty frustrating. There are a variety of attacks the bosses have where some of them require very specific actions to avoid them and if you do not use those actions then you will end up restarting the fight.

Also there are some situation in the game that are just outright unfair und frustrating. There's one spot in the game where you have 5 automated turrets firing constantly into your direction in sequential order where your window of opportunity to do something and getting to the next cover is like 2-4 seconds. If you don't act quickly enough you will go down and have to restart the entire section again. Getting hit also doesn't make you immune. So if the first or second turret hits and stuns Eve she can eat another hit right away causing her to die. Also the cover positions may not protect your character entirely if the turret gets a lucky shot. So you can get hit while being behind the cover.

Anyway the environments overall are okay and the map design is good. There are linear and open world sections in the game. The open world sections could've used more variety though as there are only two of them and one is a rocky wasteland with sand while the other is a sandy desert with some rocks. So in the open world sections you will mostly see yellow-brownish color pallets which got boring to me by the time I entered the second open world area.

The linear sections of the game are overall better and more enjoyable. You have some side paths to explore where you're usually rewarded with equipment, general items or some kind of world building text note.

The progression of the skills and equipment are overall pretty good. You can feel Eve slowly but consistently getting stronger throughout the campaign.

The music is good but repetitive in some areas. Each area has it's own theme but if you're running around in them for a few hours you will notice that it's always that one same track and it can get on your nerves. There are also at least 1-2 memorable musical pieces during boss fights.

The cut scenes are well done and the voice actor performances are decent. The facial movements when the main characters are talking also seem to be on point for the most part. The side characters on the other hand are lacking when it comes down to their design and lip syncing. You see basic movement of the mouths (if they have normal mouths) but it is minimal effort and doesn't fit what they're saying.

My biggest gripe regarding Stellar Blade is the story. The way the story is told is pretty good. The cut scenes are not overly long and you have a lot of sections where story bits are told while you're walking/running or fighting. So the game doesn't take the control constantly away from me like some other games are doing. There is quite a bit of text telling background information as well though. Most of the documents you find in the game are pretty short reads. So it's not to bad.

What is somewhat bad is what kind of story the game is trying to tell as it's pretty bland, predictable and full of (plot) holes. The way the characters are written also doesn't really make me care about them. Although I like Eve's design she lacks a personality. If you look at the story one could see this is as intentional to make her appear somewhat naive to what is happening. But throughout the game we're lacking a lot of background information about our own character. So one can often just guess how for example Eve came to be in the first place. And even though filling in the blanks yourself can be interesting and leaves room for interpretation it still doesn't make her character more sympathetic. She just seems to be a standard "good" character going along with what most people tell her. The other characters also have problems and the game tries to keep a lot of story aspects cryptic. Also the ending is a bit "meh".

With all being said Stellar Blade was a fun game which in my opinion dragged on a bit to much towards the end. It's fine for one playthrough. I'm not sure however if or when I will ever pick it up again for another run.