I had Mario Tennis (gbc) as a kid, and I really liked it then. But I didn't realize that the GBA release was also an RPG! This plus the knowledge both were done by Camelot of my beloved Golden Sun... seeing the Golden Sun style seep into this was really cool, I loved the music & the pixel art is amazing. Overall just an upgrade from the GBC game, I really liked the matches being shorter, 2 game sets vs 6 was such a good improvement as the GBC title dragged like crazy. I pogged out of my mind when late game opponents' power shots are straight up using Psynergy against you lmao, and I liked how the rivals were all jerks lol. Really fun game & cast.

I had a great time playing this game, exploring the world, and finding secrets / hidden items. The soundtrack is 1000% my sort of deal, it's incredible. However there are a lot of weak links that keep it from being truly amazing.

#1, the characters are incredibly weak. Eve is the most nothing protagonist I've seen in a while. Yeah she has cool animations when she kills some of the bosses, but other than that she's totally sauceless. I like the customization of her hair, outfits, however, it erases the strong identity a character like 2B or Bayonetta has. They are the most likely candidates for comparison, and Eve has N O T H I N G going for her personality to even put her on the same level as either of them. (And I also think 2B is boring, A2 & Kaine are way cooler chars in that series, but like, Eve is far more boring than all that). Adam, Lily, the support cast are just sort of there, and only really exist to hit you with a "twist" that you can see coming within the first hours of gameplay.

#2, the story, is just fine. There are some really good beats here, but it's so insanely derivative of Nier, that it made me just like, ok, I just want to go play Nier again now... it's fine to be inspired by your faves, but look at Alan Wake 2. Takes crazy inspo from Twin Peaks, but isn't, just Twin Peaks reskinned. It has its own identity and commentary etc on top of what influenced it. Stellar Blade, adds nierly nothing.

#3: the great desert. I took extreme issue w this area of the game. It's the second new bigger more open area in the game and they're both fucking deserts. That's weak. Not only that, but comparing to FF7 Rebirth's vast, sprawling areas & incredible topography, this is just a huge, waste of space & time desert that is largely flat, with just a few more explorable areas separated by minutes of running. It's poorly done. After the beginning of the game guides you through linear, tightly, smartly designed areas that have tons of small offshoot paths to explore, getting dumped into 2 large worthless wastelands back to back grinds the game's speed to a halt. which leads me to #4.

#4: pacing / endings. This is a really big misstep imo. There is a point of no return in the game that is about 60% through it, and in order to get the real ending you basically have to do the majority of all side content. This completely t-bones the pacing of the game, bc you are forced to spend an excess of time here wrapping up anything you want to take care of. In fact, my first run's playtime was DOUBLED at this segment. The game itself isn't really all that crazy long, but there is so much fluff in here, it's kind of a detriment, as you will not be progressing the story for a long while if you go for completionist stuff in this segment. The split at this junction gates you off from a lot of quests, and other things, and the balancing is bad. Once you're done w this you can go get one of the 3 endings. Now, there is only one save file. So if you want to plat the game, or maybe you just care about seeing all the diff ends, you can either: A: desync your PS5 from auto uploading save data, so that you can get 2 endings on 1 run, (you will, I guess, NEED to do 2 playthroughs regardless) B: defeat the final boss without dying--this will prevent you from being sent back and forced into an autosave so you can pick up at the final camp. So then you're forced to replay the game to get the other thing you missed.

#5 minor gameplay: the platforming can be extremely wonky, and there are some other minor complaints, like the lack of a map in many, but not all areas, and then the fact you don't have access to your robot doing anything until 25% through the game. The game is just trying to slowly dole out some mechanics here, but for me I found it kind of lame for the first 1/4 of the game--just too big a chunk of main progress imo for it to work. Fishing also kinda sucks unfortunately, I got more used to it, but. eh.

Nier gets away with this repetition of multiple endings because you gain different gameplay mechanics and different perspectives into the storyline. In Stellar Blade, this is not the case. It is truly just. The same game. But now you can unlock some outfit alt color variants which is fun.

I loved the soundtrack, the gameplay really gel'd with me; I didn't expect sluggish souls like 1v1's, but it really grew on me. Parrying was satisfying to me. I liked the design of the smaller, tighter levels. The graphics, textures, etc are great. The gameplay is probably better / smoother than Nier for sure. Overall I really liked it, and my personal experience is prob more like an 8/10 because I found it generally, extremely fun, but I can't in good conscious rate it higher bc it's not on THAT level, it doesn't succeed on every front.