After playing the demo for this I was pretty much all in. Shift Up, despite being known for mobile games previously, did a great job of creating a compelling action game that blends DNA from games like Nier, Sekiro, DMC, and others that genuinely surprised me.

A lot of the prerelease marketing from this game almost felt like it was overshadowed by the protagonist and rampant discussion about censorship, but thankfully the game itself was able to deliver. The narrative was fine, but the combat truly is where this game shines. It provides the player with a very satisfying parry mechanic as well as perfect dodges (with upgrades available for each depending on your play style) and mixes in a variety of special attacks that all have different use cases depending on the encounter. These things work in tandem to make battles that may seem mundane in other titles a real treat in this one. Additionally, the game has a great soundtrack very reminiscent of Nier and similar titles in that vein which was very much appreciated.

You're also able to embark on plenty of side quests that reward you with character interactions, outfits for Eve (the protagonist), upgrades for health and combat resources, etc. These can be hit or miss quality-wise, but when they were good I really felt like they made something special here. The world itself looks great, and while some environments felt a bit generic and repetitive, I was able to look past that due to how visually striking parts of the game were at times.

Overall, Stellar Blade was a game I was excited to get my hands on and I wasn't disappointed with what I got. I'd love to see what the developers can do in the future with the experience from this one.

Stellar Blade is an at-times serviceable action game that I have a LOT of issues with, the biggest one being that it is honestly pretty boring, outside of some of the combat. The visuals and, in particular, the animations, are impressive, but that's really the extent of elements of this game that I would consider as such. The pacing is pretty odd; for about 2/3 of the game, you have access to the hub city that gives you a number of mind-numbing side quests, and the rest of the game is equivalent to a point of no return, locking you out of the hub, and with the final 10 or so hours being an exhausting boss rush of four of the game's most difficult fights, one after the other. Most of these are decently designed, but the decision to have them back-to-back-to-back-to-back is questionable at best.

Stellar Blade's narrative is again, serviceable, but not much more than that. The voice acting is pretty great but the characters themselves are whatever. I liked Eve but that's about it. I really did not feel engaged by the story at any point, and there are a number of post-apocalyptic narratives that do a much better job with the twists, such as the obvious comparison to Nier: Automata, and even something like Horizon Zero Dawn.

The biggest issue with this game is that the only real draw is the combat, and anytime you are doing anything but that it becomes a real slog. I did not enjoy nearly any of my time with these other sections, particularly the ones that disable your sword, forcing you to only use your gun, which has some of the least satisfying gunplay I've ever experienced in a game. There are also a number of platforming sections that I hated, as the game's movement is not at all balanced for precision platforming.

Stellar Blade's combat is good but not great. My favorite part of it was the flashiness, but as a parry-based system, it is far inferior to something like Sekiro or Lies of P. The parry timing is weird; it is a lot earlier than you'd think, and I never quite got used to this even by the end of the game, and determined it just did not feel good. This is especially an issue in fights against bosses with very fast combo attacks, as you have to predict the timing, instead of reacting to it, which is not really feasible in most cases. As I said before, the gunplay sucks, and is very poorly integrated into the actual combat loop. The only time you really want to use it is when you are 'supposed' to, like when an enemy weakpoint is exposed after doing a certain defensive action. There is also a sort of 'super' mode that you unlock about halfway through the game called Tachy Mode, which unfortunately is pretty miserable to use. It looks cool but you deal effectively no extra damage compared to your regular for while it barely lasts 10-15 seconds, doesn't heal you, and gives you no i-frames upon de-activation. I ended up only really using it as a way to absorb hits from boss attacks that I could not understand the dodge/parry timing of, as you are invincible during it and it charges relatively quickly.

I do think there's plenty of people that will enjoy Stellar Blade more than I did, but I feel as though most aspects of a game like this that are really important to maintain player engagement were quite hollow, forgettable, and at times miserable to get through. Not the worst action game I've ever played, but generally one that I would consider a disappointment.

6/10

Gooning aside game is actually stellar, has a few minor issues and story is on the weaker side but everything else is amazing.

Shift up did a insane job on their very first AAA game and I can’t wait for stellar blade 2 and their next projects. You just gotta play it and experience it yourself and man soundtrack might be one of my favs oat.

9/10

Stale-ar Blade

Second abandon de l'année. Lorsque je me retrouve exaspéré toutes les 10-15 mins, c'est qu'il faut arrêter.

Rendons à César ce qui lui apartient : le gameplay est initialement très fun, mais il le reste surtout pendant les boss encounters.
Performance, graphismes et bande-son sont tous à la hauteur. La bande-son n'est pas au niveau de NieR à mon sens, mais reste très atmosphérique et agréable à écouter.
That's about it.

Ce gameplay si central stagne rapidement - malgré la variété dans les ennemis, beaucoup d'entre eux sont peu intéressants dans leurs mécaniques de jeu et ne proposent pas un vrai challenge.

Encore un jeu où le platforming est inutilement restreint et confus - on doit faire des tours pour rien, alors qu'EVE est à même de sauter suffisamment haut et s'agripper aux plate-formes.
Que dire de la nécessité d'utiliser le drone pour trouver n'importe quelle porte / objet dans les sections submergées (et certaines sections en intérieur / extérieur), du fait de la visibilité atroce ... Sans parler de comment EVE nage, c'est vraiment galère à manœuvrer.

Stellar Blade s'inspire (fortement) de plusieurs jeux - NieR Automata en plus grande partie, mais on voit également certaines séquences de gameplay tirées d'autres jeux (Uncharted 2, anybody?). On peut y voir une certaine admiration pour ces jeux-là et leurs développeurs, mais lorsqu'on voit voit du quasi copier/coller, c'est dur d'y voir autre chose qu'une pâle copie de l'original.

En parlant de comparaisons, l'histoire est absolument inintéressante en comparaison avec celle de NieR. Très fortement inspirée, mais très mal exécutée. Le Voice Acting est franchement digne d'un mauvais K-Drama dans sa VO coréenne; la version anglaise est encore pire et que dire de la version française ... Les différents personnages secondaires n'ont pas d'intérêt, les animations laissent à désirer, on s'ennuie et pire encore, on ne peut pas passer les cinématiques.

Après tout ça reste évidemment l'aspect tabou / controverse autour du jeu. En dehors des costumes, de la façon dont EVE est présentée, etc, il y a une certaine misogynie apparente dans les interactions entre EVE et son compagnon Adam (qui n'explique pas un certain nombre de situations car "c'est trop compliqué", etc, wtf?) ou bien très tôt avec Orchal, qui ne remercie qu'Adam alors qu'EVE a fait tout le boulot, qui m'ont laissé avec une mauvaise image en tête et que le jeu n'a finalement pas réussi à effacer.

Bref, un jeu qui aura déjà occupé suffisament de mon temps au vu de sa contenance.

Slop game for coomers. You can and should demand better of the games you play. Literally any Souls-like - even the bad ones, like The Surge - is better than this. Boring, overwrought, unskippable cutscenes, long stretches where you do nothing, constant use of X-Ray Vision to find things, and SO much padding. Commits basically every single sin of modern game design almost as if it was following an "exploitative design" checklist.

Also I'm gonna use my review to soapbox for a minute about "pretty girls" in games. The women in this game are designed according to a beauty standard that is only achievable through extensive cosmetic surgery available only to the richest or most-connected South Koreans. Also, butch women are hot as fuck and if you don't appreciate a lady wearing a bomber jacket and jeans with a revolver by her side and a jawline that could chip a diamond, that's a you problem.

If you want to play a good character action game, play Devil May Cry or Nioh. If you want to play a good character action game starring or co-starring a hot woman, play Bayonetta or Ninja Gaiden or Nier Automata. If you want to see a woman's ass jiggle, watch a porno.

That Stellar Blade has been adopted by the stupidest gamers ever as a tentpole game when it would be barely serviceable as a $30 mid-budget bargain bin title is completely deranged to me. I hate the culture war and what it does to people's brains.

Honestly, this game is pretty cool, but it lives in Nier's shadow.

Now this is a wierd take if you know me, but I think Nier is a better game than this overall. I did 3 playthroughs of Nier (the base 3 of 2B, 9S, and A2) and felt pretty underwhelmed. I felt like the gameplay was just too shallow and repetitive for my taste. However, I do get why so many people adore it.

I think this game has far superior gameplay, but almost everything else it does is trying too hard to be like Nier. Wearing one's inspiration on their sleeve isn't a bad thing, but the story, music and even some characters are plucked straight from Nier: Automata. It's to the point where you won't stop comparing the two. That doesn't have to be a bad thing, but one game clearly has a better story, and so it becomes hard to ignore.

That said, Stellar Blade may have an identity crisis, but I still enjoyed my time with it. It certainly gets better and better as it goes on, but it feels like it really doesn't shine until you're near the end. I made sure to do all side quests in my first playthrough, and nab all collectibles so I could get the platinum trophy.

Combat is fun. It's not super deep, but there's enough to carry you throughout the game. I just always felt like I could never fully get the parry timing down. As someone who platinum'd Sekiro, this really frustrated me. I don't know if my skills waned or if Sekiro just had the mechanic down perfectly, but parrying was something I never became comfortable with even up until the end of this game. The gun feature would've been better if it was more seamless to weave into combos with, or better yet if it didn't break lock-on during combat (as of the time of me writing this, they HAVE updated it so it doesn't break lock-on). I didn't like though when you got surrounded by multiple enemies. You could get stagger-locked to death very easily, and the only real way to survive is to just spam the Crescent Slash attack, your primary AOE attack. It doesn't help that if you want to parry multiple enemies, you have to parry each individual attack. And as I mentioned earlier, parrying was difficult enough as it was. I did enjoy the latter boss fights and the way you could customize EVE to play your own way.

The puzzles were a nice enough distraction, however, there are some things that were far too annoying. I remember playing the beginning of FF7 Rebirth and thinking "Oh no... How many big heavy objects am I gonna have to slowly push around?" only for it to be like 3 of them for the entire game. Stellar Blade LOVES to make you push big blocks around. But honestly though, that's the worst kind of distraction you'll find. Everything else isn't so bad.

I will say the map and fast travel systems were pretty bad. There are about 9 or 10 maps that you'll explore. But every area that is linear doesn't have an actual map associated with them. This can make exploration, or retreading, a nightmare in some cases. Thankfully, you have the ability to ping environments to see where collectibles are, so missing items is very unlikely if you spam it enough. However, fast travel is still pretty bad. You can't just select anywhere to fast travel to. You can fast travel within zones, but if you want to go to a different zone, you have to first fast travel to the zone itself and THEN fast travel again to the specific area within that zone you want to go. It makes going back and forth between areas extra tedious.

The story, as I've said, is just a Nier ripoff. If you've played that game, you'll just be experiencing a shallower version of it here. I barely understood what was happening by the end. The characters are pretty bland and forgettable. I played this game in the Korean dub. Now, I'm not a master of the Korean language (I'd say I'm intermediate at best), but even I could tell the voice performances were bland. Adam's voice actor honestly sounded like the computer-generated male voice you'd hear making announcements here in Korea.

Lastly, I will say it was a delight playing dress-up and customizing EVE. I usually don't take aesthetics seriously, but you could tell they put a lot of work into making EVE herself look incredible. Truly a sight to behold (especially in that Ocean Maid outfit).

All that said, this being Shift Up's first big console release is impressive no matter how you slice it. If they can get away from their inspiration in the next game, I think it'll be a much more notable experience.

it's the premise of coughing baby nier automata, but with the plot twists of coughing baby nier gestalt/replicant, but with the gameplay of sekiro if it was cripplingly addicted to fent. it's got one of the worst stories i've yet seen in a game, it's legit more fun to guess at what ideas the plot is gonna crib off next than actually engage with it, both the english and korean voice tracks are grating as hell, half the game is spent in that one desert area from nier automata, it's way too easy until the slight skill check in the last two hours, and you gotta play the whole game with one finger over the home button in case someone walks into the room, there's like no reason this should work but i've beaten it three times so it's gotta be doing something right. the actual like Video Game part of this video game is so god damn fun, keep yourself like four or five weapon upgrades behind the curve and crank your attack speed way the fuck up and you gonna be playing one of the sickest action games in recent memory istg. plus that soundtrack i mean like Oh My Goodness bro Oh My Stars bro Oh My Days that shit is peak. legit kinda sad i can never bring this up in conversation cuz it's a fuckin Big Booty Korean type game but c'est la vie ig.

If I had a nickel for every time I played an action game about a sexy android lady enlisted in an elite military unit of other sexy android ladies whose stated mission is to eradicate a monstrous threat from Earth so that humanity can finally return to the surface after a war forced them to evacuate to a space habitat, only to become the sole survivor of that unit after an assault on the surface goes horribly wrong and meet up with some guy who agrees to provide hacking and recon support so she can still continue her mission, before her time on Earth exposes her to information and viewpoints that contradict the dogmatic authority she's been unquestioningly loyal towards and eventually cause her to have a crisis of faith as she uncovers more about the true nature of her adversaries, her allies, and herself, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

...well, maybe it's not that weird. As much as I love NieR: Automata, I'll admit that there are axes on which it's not exactly difficult to outdo. And Stellar Blade chooses its battles wisely, with expanded combat mechanics and massively increased enemy variety that make the whole experience so much more fun to get through on a moment-to-moment basis. Although you only have one weapon, melee combat is made more demanding by the addition of Sekiro-style perfect parries and color-coded telegraphed attacks that warrant more specific responses. This system isn't perfect - Eve has a nasty habit of dodging backwards when I press forward+dodge which I never figured out, and the separation of "shield" and "balance" into separate indicators is a tad clunky - but at the end of the day, the animations and timing have the juice they need, so it by and large feels good. On Normal Mode (you don't unlock Hard until you beat it), I managed to just barely beat most bosses on the first try, with 0 or 1 Estus-equivalents remaining. To me, that's an ideal dramatic experience, especially at a time when games are coming out so quickly I can't hope to keep up, but given how I usually am with action games that probably means it will be too easy for the rest of you.

Throughout the game, you unlock other combat mechanics, some of them late enough that I won't say exactly what they are in case you consider it a spoiler. But suffice it to say that I found every addition to the melee combat useful, and I worked them all into my toolkit without much fuss even though I'm not usually the type. You also get non-melee options in the form of a few gun options for your drone and some consumable bomb-type stuff. I didn't use these much, but they don't seem to be complete afterthoughts - there's a section soon after you unlock the gun where you're forced to use it on its own, and it's easy for a premise like that to go horribly wrong, but I found that section surprisingly fun with a unique flavor to it. I honestly think the game should have done more to make you lean on your gun, like including fragile sniper or support types in encounters.

The non-gameplay parts don't lend themselves nearly as well to comparison. The plot is about as predictable as you'd expect from the top paragraph - the only times I was surprised by a plot twist were the times I was surprised something was a plot twist, and not something all the characters were supposed to have known already. The locations and music are good on their own, and provide a lot more variety than Automata, though they don't cohere quite as well and there's not much I think I'll end up remembering about them in the long run. The enemy designs are the real standout: there are tons of them, including a bunch of unique bosses, that run a wide gamut of aesthetics without ever feeling out of place (until some truly ridiculous shit shows up at the end, anyway).

The character designs are... about exactly what I expected after learning that these guys made NIKKE. On the one hand, character customization is one of my favorite features in any game, and going into Stellar Blade blind I didn't really expect it at all, so unlocking literal dozens of unique outfits and accessories over the course of the game was a real highlight. On the other, it kind of sucks that nearly all of them feel a need to "sex it up" in some way or another. Before you press "submit" on that comment you just wrote, please know that I don't have any problem with the existence of sexy outfits (and I spent more time rocking the swimsuits than I would care to admit). But at times, the gacha-gooner mentality of the outfits feels almost like an infection, taking otherwise good designs and cutting random, ugly holes in them, as if signaling sex appeal is more important than having appeal of any sort. If anything, the most fetishistic outfits are some of the best, just because no one felt the need to ruin them (if anyone asks, that's why I picked the swimsuits). To show how serious I am about fashion, I will cap this section off by saying that the deciding factor for me in giving this game a 3 instead of a 3.5 was that the ponytail is non-optional even though all the alternate hairstyles were clearly designed without it in mind and it makes them all look stupid.

In summary, Stellar Blade is a fun game and I recommend it. It steps very deliberately into the shadow of NieR: Automata and for a lot of people it will probably hold up in that comparison. It's not going to be an all-timer for me, though. Stellar Blade didn't make me cry.

(well, not through my eyes at least HEYOOOOOOOOOO)

infelizmente esse não me agradou tanto quanto gostaria, botei muita expectativa em cima (talvez tenha sido erro meu) e acabou que o jogo sofre de inúmeros problemas quanto a conteúdo, criatividade e etc, tentaram chupar ao máximo a formúla de NieR/NieR Automata e fizeram algo bem abaixo do esperado (sério, não só a estrutura, designs, lore e etc mas até o PLOT do jogo é IDÊNTICO a obra de Yoko Taro)

Mas claro que tem pontos positivios, a gameplay é uma delícia e extremamente viciante, desafiadora e satisfatoria, os cenários são belos, a trilha sonora é encantadora e o level design de sessões lineares é mágico, remetendo games de PS2.
O verdadeiro problema é o conteúdo medíocre e fraco que o jogo oferece em meio ao semi open world falho (e chato de explorar) e todo seu conteúdo maçante, genérico e repetitivo. A história é extremamente fraca e pouco inspiradora, nada me cativava para prosseguir jogando a linha principal, os personagens são apáticos e nenhum pouco memoráveis, a lore por ser um clone fraco de NIER se torna esquecível, etc.

Sinto que se o jogo fosse LINEAR, só andar para frente e bater, minha opinião final seria diferente, mas no geral ainda sim é um jogo legal que da para se divertir quando ignoro esses problemas.

-not a game for coomers and gooners as many have said !!! fr though i have seen lots of both pos and neg attention being given to this game in that regard and in a way i do absolutely understand the negative reaction to it. however idk it’s all mostly in the background and in the advertising,, i think my politics and opinions on womens bodies and issues tend to lean more radfem than anything else (tho not in a scary or bad way bc like lmfao look at the site im on yk) and i dont have much to say about the treatment of women in this game. obv it’s shitty that in 2024 a game that’s more than a one handed type of thing has to be sold as such but that’s more to do w where we’re at a society and culture lol the word society being said earnestly. but this is not a game that’s turning any straight man into anything he’s not already + the game never treats womens bodies as commodities or objects but obv straight men will see it as such. the story never treats womens pain in a overtly sexual way and while theres def weirdo type men that’ll see women being violent and having violence done onto them and be gross about it, the narrative of the game and the framing of bodies in these scenes is never truly gross or objectifying. idk idk TnA exists and it’s a fact and not necessarily smth that’s bad it just usually leads or ties into smth kind of gross and shitty but personally I don’t think so here.
-which is to say i like both the design and characterization of eve!! she’s cute and strong but still obviously can fail and let ppl down and that’s not an especially riveting or new concept but it’s nice ig. love a good dress up sim lol. thought the characters of lily and adam were like genuinely pretty poorly written and consistently boring,, kind of bad designs too. idk idk im not uhh fourteen so marvel type quips rlly do nothing for me but rlly thought all the other npc’s were v charming and lively and well rounded
-tbh it’s okay that the actual dialogue is pretty bad bc i dont gaf about dialogue but i do care lots about like world building and lore and especially vibes and feelings and w all of that the game excels sm. u can feel how real the games world feels and how each individual place in game has a reason for being and it’s own sad shared history w the ppl in these places. very much so fucking w like how hard games in the last decade lean into overgrown mall abandoned core pinterest image search type aesthetic. shit looks lovely and almost always gets across this nice nihilistic and melancholic worldview that maybe I don’t one hundred percent fuck w irl but do in stories about the end of the world.
-been watching lots of anyaustin as of late and find his thorough searching of game worlds and lesser explored areas of those worlds endlessly fascinating!! this game is like full of unexplored and uninteresting areas. every inch of the world of the game exists as a simulacrum of a real worlds pain and sorrow and regret. everything looks purposeful but also painfully real,, places left in a hurry due to a panic, stores shuttered and places of living abandoned but still furnished. every new area tells a story visually and doesn’t need to or care to explain it to u. <3 seeing a game so thoroughly committed to being realistic in some way break apart in small ways under close examination. lots of smart ppl have said it in more intelligent ways but yeah it is very pleasing to see textureless and flat rocks ur not supposed to jump on or even rlly see off of or above these highly detailed and sort of realistic looking cliffsides. it’s nice to see the bones of a game and the real life work spent on creating them inside the game itself. love how goofy the blood will sometimes look and how shii just clips sometimes.
-don’t usually gaf to do side quests in open world/open world adjacent games but idk feel like I did a vast majority of them here. like 75% or so and not everything has the strongest writing but all the side characters/quest givers do feel like real ppl w issues and problems that u can choose to fix. very rarely is the reward needed or worth it but idk think the places u visit and stories u piece together by doing a bunch of the side stuff is def worth it for ppl that enjoy exploring in games like this. u open urself up to see more unexplored areas by doing all this random content.
-crazy how each new area looks so visually distinct and diff from each other. for a game that very rarely changes up type of gameplay I never felt bored or like I saw everything I needed to see,, always felt like there was something more yet to be seen. don’t even gaf that it’s clear that part of the visual identity for levels in this game are heavily inspired by the resident evil remakes and the avatar films bc what the game does w those areas looks rlly good. there’s also all these beautiful slow moments where ur just meant to chill in the games environments and take it all in and stop the bloodshed and action for a sec and appreciate the art of every abandoned building or the backgrounds of shops or whatever. to me the best and most remarkable and memorable moments are when the game takes itself very slow and just wants to invest and immerse urself in what the game is doing.
-most side quests narratively are about finding some sort of closure. it’s a bleak world and most side content begins w suspicion of death and ends w confirmation of a death. ur usually tasked w either finding out what happened to ppls loved ones or finding a keepsake belonging to the loved one. it’s incredibly repetitious but i still found myself consistently doing these types of quests bc i wanted to see a good ending for these npcs and i think that says sm about how excellent the world building is and how real some of the stories feel. I loved these stories of false hope and delusions that these characters needed to rely on to simply keep surviving in this world.

Project Eve
Acompanhei este jogo desde quando era só um projeto, apesar de todo o marketing... o foco desse jogo é a gameplay, e nisso faz muito bem.
Um dos pontos que me surpreendeu foi a mecânica de parry, adorei como flui bem durante as batalhas, e referente as batalhas gostei muito do nível de dificuldade, a muito tempo que não tinha medo de enfrentar uma boss battle e ficar preso por lá, foram pouquíssimos boss que consegui passar de primeira.
Sobre a ambientação ela é interessante, eu adorei Eidos porém fiquei bem triste com as áreas de exploração semi abertas serem desérticas já que não sou tão adepto.
Já a soundtrack é boa, principalmente nas batalhas, mas como passei muito tempo em áreas abertas em alguns momentos ficou repetitiva, acredito que algumas variações fizeram falta.
Agora o que não tenho elogios é a história, muito simplista e você mata de cara o plot, a Eve faz cosplay de sonsa metade do jogo para não entregar oque está obvio, mas apesar disso o jogo é absurdamente divertido e eu nem vejo o tempo passar matando natybas.

It's like some old ass pervert came up with the worst ideas of a main character design and story, then everybody else around him pulled a solid game out of it. I'm pretty shocked how well this game ended up coming out at the end of the day.

The combat systems in this game end up carrying the bulk of why this ends up so enjoyable. It sits somewhere squarely between Soulslike and Stylish Action games, pushing further into the latter more than something like Sekiro was willing to do. You're not going to be doing high time juggle combos or anything. Instead Stellar Blade focuses on trying to find the most between balancing offensive and defensive options. Enemies will have long attack strings, huge sweeping attacks, and a rock-paper-scissors styled moveset asking for specific dodges to answer them. Again, think Sekiro. The added layer here is, Eve's offensive moveset is very strong with generous windows to cancel attacks into defensive mechanics as well as having some built in evasiveness to her attack strings. Eve is also capable of inflicting ample amounts of hitstun to bosses, meaning interruption is a strong tool as well. This creates a back and forth where understanding how to maximize your offensive output in between using defensive tools is emphasized. It's a fun spin on the current action game trends, and lends itself well to creating a lot dynamic and ridiculous looking boss fight sequences.

It's still rough around the edges in a lot of ways I find. Movement is rather stiff, jumping is janky, there are overriding inputs in places, awkward recoveries, some balance issues (see Burst Skills), the usual camera issues. and a small list of other weird action game faux pas. It's not perfect. It's also pretty derivative of the current action game landscape, probably borrowing the most from Team Ninja's recent outings. That being said, the game still hits the major notes of creating encounters where players are incentivized to explore movesets, and it rewards the player for doing so with more layers of opportunity to keep flexing their skill. Every parry or dodge leaves a gap to fill, every successful charged attack leaves meter to spend, every knockdown is a chance to pull out the gun, etc. Sequencing all of this together well will shave boss fight times down until you are measuring them in seconds, all while showing off most of the full array of options Eve has. That's the core of what makes action games fun, and Stellar Blade manages to accomplish that in a really stylish way.

Then there is the rest of the game which ranges from a "this could've been a Nier AO3" story to "this is actually a good Nier sound-a-li - oh my god that's Okabe" OST to a whiplash of artstyles. The elephant in the room out of all of these is Eve just looks like shit compared to the rest of the art in the game. The entire suite of angels just look like generic Korean beauty models for dubious reason while being surrounded by really eye catching scifi designs. Even with the flimsy "Angels should be the epitome of beauty" thing going on, it would've been nice to see beauty that felt more natural to the world they exist in rather than catering to the lowest common denominator. There is a compelling world with striking designs and visuals here to explore still, but the camera spends so much time focusing on Eve it's hard to really immerse yourself or even take the more emotional beats seriously.

The story is also just dreadful and predictable, and the general direction of the presentation feels almost like a B movie. When action is happening in cutscenes it's wonderfully directed and crazy fun. When drama is happening it's as if the director wasn't even in the room. If the director didn't have enough interest to watch these scenes, why should I? The overall structure of the game is also decidedly mediocre. It's just a semi-open world that feels like a Nier game, but the sidequests are mostly optional challenges and fetch quests. This isn't bad, but it's not good. It works better in Nier since most of the sidequests contain good little stories and insight into the characters and world, something Stellar Blade completely lacks. Occasionally there will be genre shifts into RE style survival horror, which I like, or into 3D platforming segments, which show the weaknesses of the stiff movement. It's clear the people making this game took a lot of inspiration from other games for all of this, and I appreciate what is cooking. It's just all coming together a bit too unrefined on top of a relatively middle of the road content delivery method.

OST bangs, no notes. Okabe shows more range here too, I love it.

I am biased towards action games, and having a game with fun systems that push for mastery really pulls this over the finish line for me. Just, maybe next time we can do this without the overdone designs and with focusing more on those combat strengths instead of just following in certain trends.

Games that have a lot of discourse before release usually turn out really bad or really good, but Stellar Blade just feels average at best and dull at worst.

The ‘dull’ part comes from the story, it’s a poor man’s Nier Automata stitched together with some generic dystopian ideas and philosophy. Even though I didn’t finish it, I doubt it improves after the half way point (where I stopped) especially with how boring the characters were.

The ‘average’ part comes from the gameplay. I think the enemies and bosses fine, but the combat itself is basic. You can parry almost everything by just pressing the button a lot while being attacked, and anything special can just be countered by a timed attack or running away. It’s just feels worse than its contemporaries. Nier or Bayonetta are obvious examples, but something like Nioh or God of War feels way more layered and smooth to play. I will say the visuals here are great, I just wish most of what I saw wasn’t in a literal wasteland.

It’s tempting to call this game an industry plant, but clearly I’m an outlier compared to the average opinion. Maybe try it if you really like how it looks, or just want a quick goon sesh.

A inspiração em Nier aqui é clara, mas em comparação, é bem mediano.

Eu curti os visuais do jogo e achei o combate muito intuitivo, mas a jogabilidade eventualmente fica maçante e repetitiva.

O resumo da ópera é: dropei pela gameplay, zerei pelo bundao da Eve 😂👌

Rpz eu achei que esse jogo aqui ia ser mei ruim mas porra... que surpresa boa meus amigos. Jogabilidade o fino, achei a dificuldade na medida. Cheguei a pensar que os boss estavam fáceis a partir de um momento ali mas os últimos 2 boss eu morri igual muriçoca em dia de carro do fumacê. A trilha sonora é ótima. Inclusive não só a trilha como os sons do jogo em si são bem bons. O jogo é belíssimo, tudo muito bonito. Eu só não gostei muito dos cenários pq eu não sou muito fã de deserto e teve logo 2 aqui pra explorar kkkkkkk
A história não é incrível, mas tá longe de ser ruim tb. Só podia entregar o plot um pouco mais tarde no jogo, logo cedo já da pra pegar oq acontece. Meu único problema com o jogo é com a protagonista, a bixinha da EVE é toda sem sal o jogo quase todo. Ela começa a ter personalidade muito pra perto do fim do jogo e ai complica pra vc se importar com ela, vc se importa mais com os outros personagens kkkkkkkk. Mas é isso jogo do bom recomendo, bjo

I’ve seen a lot of people compare this game to Nier and Bayonetta but I haven’t played any of those so for me this game was great!

Combat is really fun! It felt intuitive and it’s super satisfying to pull off consecutive parries. Graphically it’s one of the best looking games I’ve played on PS5! The game has some really cool character designs too!

Of course there’s Eve who I will admit I do like her design but there’s also a lot of others like Orcal and Enya who I think are really cool. Even a lot of the bosses designs go hard.

Story wise I thought it was alright, I was invested but it wasn’t anything that really wowed me. I’ll also admit the final sections of the game are surprisingly boss heavy and the ending kinda sneaks up on you. With that said the last like 3 bosses gave me a real challenge that looking back I appreciated but I could see being annoying to some players.

Overall I loved Stellar Blade for more then just the sexy robot ladies and for that I say it deserves to be up there as one of the better games of the year!

O ponto mais alto deste jogo, sem dúvidas, é a jogabilidade e os inimigos. No entanto, não ter a opção de desligar as músicas que ficam tocando é um pouco enjoativo.

Apesar de gostar da história, não sei até que ponto gostei destes personagens em termos de personalidade e construção, pois tudo soa meio vazio ou muito superficial.

Sobre os inimigos, há muitos designs incríveis, mas é uma pena que os mais legais apareçam menos que os demais.

Há uma sacada bem interessante envolvendo o nome de dois dos três protagonistas, que a gente só vai entender lá no final.

No geral, vale o tempo.

Wife’s Reaction:
“You knowingly married an outspoken feminist, and yet you bring this into my house?!”

Nearly NieR:
Stellar Blade wears a lot of its inspiration on its sleeve and it all works amazingly. I’m a big fan of the combat with its speed and impact, and the game’s soundtrack is awesome. But the game falters by not diversifying its gameplay enough and having a lacking story.