More than just a Soulslike with a protagonist to serve as eye-candy, Stellar Blade has far surpassed our expectations, offering varied gameplay, outstanding visuals, a sublime soundtrack and an engaging story. It's a must-play for action game fans.
Stellar Blade bursts out of the gate looking stunning, full of jaw-dropping set pieces, intense action and gory violence, and maintains that pace throughout. Underneath this flashy action game are a lot of systems that we’ve seen before, but despite what can feel like a lack of innovation at times, it never feels stale or unenticing due to its overwhelming sense of style and polished, gratifying combat. For every familiar puzzle or annoying platforming section, there’s a brutal boss battle or incredible over-the-top sequence that pulled me back in. Stellar Blade is a joy, a deliciously crafted adventure jam-packed with dramatic thrills.
Stellar Blade is collage filtered through kaleidoscope, its myriad influences bleeding together in a neon swirl that produces vibrant new colours and dull familiar ones at an uneven pace. When it chooses to use its building blocks to reach new heights it’s a dizzying achievement in combat presentation and approachability, with EVE’s toolset fun and varied enough to carry the weight of the game’s lesser components. It leaves you wanting to see what else this studio could accomplish, even if they’ve gotten this far on borrowed wings.
Though Stellar Blade draws some ideas from FromSoftware's games, it's immediately clear that Shift Up is following its own path. It's action-packed science-fiction served with a philosophical and... sexy sauce. A sauce that makes it taste like a dish you've never eaten before.
Since the action RPG borrows many mechanics from games belonging to very different genres, the risk that Stellar Blade would turn out to be a soulless "map" was very high. Paradoxically, however, the aspect of the product that more than any other has been able to convince us is to be found precisely in its solid combat system, which even without reinventing the wheel has given us great satisfaction. On the downside, the same cannot be said of the plot, which is insipid and affected by very predictable twists, and of the exploratory component, which reuses anachronistic and not at all stimulating environmental puzzles to the point of exhaustion. To the aforementioned problems must be added the frequent recycling of bosses carried out mostly by sidequests, a difficulty level that is not always electrifying and a questionable management of saves. In our opinion, these rough edges are attributable to the naivety and above all the inexperience of the SHIFT UP team, which until now had almost exclusively created titles for mobile devices. If nothing else, Stellar Blade gave us a substantial taste of the great potential of the Korean studio, which if it were to take advantage of the feedback could really surprise us starting from its next project.
Had Eve been a character with agency and personality, who actually responded to the drooling and leering that she’s meant to embody, well, she’d be Bayonetta.
Have you ever asked to get food while out with your parents, only for them to respond with “No, we have food at home”? Then, once you get the food at home, you realize it is just ok compared to your favorite restaurant. Well, that is the best comparison I can make for Stellar Blade. It is no secret Shift Up were fans of the Nier series. However, Stellar Blade takes so much inspiration from Nier that by the time you finish it, you will realize it was just an okay game compared to Nier. I would go as far to say you might as well play Nier Automata and get more enjoyment from that. Now, Stellar Blade does have some positives. The gameplay is pretty fun, especially in its boss fights. One of the best feelings I got from this game was parrying attacks right on time to hear the satisfying sound that indicated a successful parry. The soundtrack is also pretty, especially in the latter half of the game. Finally, the graphics are beautiful, especially in its open world segments. Unfortunately, I have more negatives with the game than positives.
Stellar Blade’s biggest flaw is its story. It is just boring, and incredibly predictable. Especially, with it being a retelling of Adam and Eve, that if you are aware of the original story, you can accurately assume where the rest of it will go. If you have played Nier Automata, you can also see certain story beats get ripped straight from that into Stellar Blade. It even tries to be thought provoking, but ultimately fails to do so because it does not have anything to say thematically. To make matters worse, characters are written to be so lifeless, and the flat voice acting causes any cut scene to be just a drag. I also found the world to be just uninteresting, even with a bunch of lore written about it. Overall, I found Stellar Blade’s story, characters, and world just incredibly boring. However, I should note that there are one or two moments when the main protagonist, EVE, is being badass and for a second, I would be engaged, but after that moment wears off, I lost interest quickly.
Now I should address the elephant in the room, that being the sexualization of EVE. As someone who enjoys making their characters look cool or attractive in games such as Cyberpunk or Baldur’s Gate, some of the character design in this game made me uncomfortable. This problem stems from its OPTIONAL outfits for EVE, where some outfits are just lingerie. Ironically enough, all the outfits are incredibly detailed and fun to look at, but they are just too revealing. Thankfully, these outfits are optional, and you could just use the base suit which sort of fixes that problem. Of course, you will still notice some unrealistic jiggling on certain parts of her body, but thankfully it becomes less noticeable in the latter half of the game. So if you have an issue with EVE’s sexualization in the marketing or social media talk, you might have some trouble with Stellar Blade. Of course, I am probably not the right person to discuss such topics but felt that I should at least point it out.
While it may have sounded like I HATED Stellar Blade, I thought it was fun. Sometimes video games do not need to tell an emotional story and it just needs to be mindless fun, which is okay. I am hoping Shift Up can learn some lessons from Stellar Blade’s mistakes because if they do, I can see a sequel being great. Overall, I thought Stellar Blade had fun gameplay, pretty music and looked amazing on the PS5, but found it lacking in quality with its story, characters, and world. As a result, my final score for Stellar Blade is a 7 out of 10. I just would not recommend playing this in front of family or significant others.
Juego donde la protagonista es muy protagonista con sus atributo muy bien definidos, juego entretenido pero una historia algo floja, jugable y entretenido en sus combates solo que se vuelve muy repetitivo, es recomendable para jugar divertirse pero no de rejugar
A game with a lot of potential, but ruined by just 1 little detail: Censorship
I know people think this is not a big deal, but the thing is, they'll keep changing our games with these update patches, doing whatever they want, and disrespecting their customers with lies.
They promised an "uncensored" game in every country, and they lied, simple as that.
SummarySave humanity from extinction in this electrifying story-driven action adventure, made by Korean developer Shift Up, exclusively for PlayStation 5.
Experience blistering combat and a twisting storyline as you unravel the mysteries of Earth's downfall.