But in fact, Stellar Blade is an absolute mish-mash of genres: Dark Souls, Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy, the same Nier and even Resident Evil games meet here. These titles are by no means all of the games that Shift Up borrowed ideas and solutions from for their console debut, but the bottom line is that playing Stellar Blade will definitely leave you with a constant sense of urgency. déjà vu feeling On the other hand, it’s not bad, and the new Stellar Blade can be summed up simply as a Korean Lara Croft in a bikini.
Standard anime story
We begin our journey in Stellar Blade by controlling the protagonist Eve, who arrives on a post-apocalyptic planet Earth to save it from mutants called Naytibs. She is assisted at a distance by the pilot and combat drone operator Adam, and they are later joined by the engineer Lily. This trio travels through a devastated world, destroying increasingly dangerous enemies and trying to get a hold of the truth.
We won’t say anything more about the plot, but it’s a fairly standard story with predictable twists where you expect them. If it’s your first time seeing this type of game or story, you’ll definitely have a lot of fun, but if you’ve watched anime series or played more than one oriental RPG game, you won’t be surprised by the narrative of Stellar Blade.
True, it is easy to get interested and not let go of various side missions, which are very different here. A significant part of them will be standard “go-find-carry” tasks, but there will also be quite interesting development of side characters and their stories. This will allow you to get to know more not only the characters of Stellar Blade, but also the world in which the action takes place. Therefore, the advice would be not to blindly run through the main plot, but to explore each environment as much as possible, and to talk to all the characters you meet – because you never know who will offer a really engaging side mission.
A mix of different genres
Basically, the entire game is a mix of semi-open world action-adventure genres. We write a mixture, because there is often not one clear dominant genre here. For example, the game’s combat starts off as a Dark Souls-inspired game, but as you unlock more abilities, it becomes more and more like the Devil May Cry series or action games of that nature.
Also, after the first few hours, you start to understand that Stellar Blade has a lot of elements of the platform genre – which is already starting to resemble the Tomb Raider and Uncharted series. Finally, the game even offers segments of the survival horror genre, during which we will only be able to use firearms, which will be very reminiscent of the Resident Evil games.
Literally, the game “Stellar Blader” (eng. gameplay) in the sense of something like a mix sauce in a kebab – all at once and with the same intensity. Players shouldn’t feel particularly uncomfortable from this – you just need to be prepared that this is a game that will definitely not let you get bored and will have to juggle several genres at once.
Complex but accessible
Of course, as you would expect, fighting enemies in the game is given a lot of attention. Here we will have both standard attacks that we can turn into interesting combinations, as well as additional special attacks, the selection of which will also constantly expand. Not to mention, we always have a combat drone with us that can transform into a multi-purpose rifle on Eve’s wrist.
We will be able to use it as a machine gun, as a shotgun, as a rocket launcher or even as a laser. What’s impressive is how well the game manages to switch from third-person melee to shooter, and the two parts complement each other, even though they’re quite different. As you’d expect, in all the best soulslike genre, this is where you’ll need to block or dodge enemy attacks the most. This will allow you to preserve your life column and significantly reduce it for your opponents.
It’s true, it won’t be the case that after learning just a few moves, we’ll use them the same way all the time – enemies attack or fight differently, so we’ll have to adapt or change tactics too.
More than 60 different types of enemies
One of the most impressive things about the game is the design of the enemies. In total, there will be more than 60 different types of both common enemies and bosses. All the designs were reportedly suggested to the creators by Korean horror monster design pro Hee-Cheol Jang. Indeed, he did not lack ingenuity, so all the enemies in the game will be more interesting or more unexpected than each other, and the most surprising are the bosses of the levels.
There will be just as many of them here, and the fights with each of them will be different. It could be argued that the boss encounters are also one of Stellar Blade’s strong points, as all the fights are fast, uneven, very impressive visually and well executed.
It is true that there will be places where you will need to press a given button in a short time – but fortunately there will not be many of them, and usually you will only need to press one button at a time.
Is it sexualized or not?
There will not be many RPG elements in this game, although we will improve our attack abilities or, after unlocking enough materials, we will improve the weapons and armor themselves. On the other hand, here you will have to pay a lot of attention to navigating the environment – in order to find enough materials for improvements or to unlock different costumes and models of Eve’s abilities.
In the long run, we will be able to alternate between different modules for our character, and buy new ones in stores. True, it is interesting that here different stores will offer more goods when we buy from them often and a lot – because in this way we will also raise the level of sympathy of the sellers. Also, our salvation will often be Lily, who will not only improve Eve’s weapons or other equipment, but also make costumes for the character that we have found or purchased.
Yes, there’s been a lot of talk about Stellar Blade here as an attempt to artificially sexualize and gentrify the main character – but there will be 30 costumes to choose from and find, and among them there are certainly quite a few that cover the entire heroine. Therefore, in this place, criticism is for everyone according to their degree of corruption.
There were also rumors that it is possible to completely remove the costumes and the main character will be naked – but you should not forget that she is an android and the nudity will be conditional as well. On the other hand, if you decide that Eve should be in her Eve costume, the developers are making the game much more difficult – and such decisions will come at a cost to the players.
Graphically one of the most impressive games
Perhaps Stellar Blade’s most impressive achievement is the game’s graphics. Although it only takes up 30 gigabytes on console, the game feels like a real, impressive next-gen game.
From the extremely realistically recreated models to the highly realistic environments, the entirety of Stellar Blade is mesmerizing eye candy. You can bet that you won’t be watching the game until the end credits, and even in the course of Stellar Blade, the developers have prepared various visual surprises that will surprise and encourage you to take a lot of screenshots.
The physics and attention to detail of the developers in the game look extremely realistic. For example, if we choose to have Eve’s hair all long on Stellar Blade, it will react differently to different situations in the game, from fast running around the environment to intense battles. It is really worth paying attention to, because not all developers pay attention to such details.
High-quality dubbing in English
The voice acting of the game leaves a very good impression. Although this is a Korean game and the initial reaction would be to play it in Korean with English subtitles, the full English voice acting here is also very high quality, both for the main characters and completely side characters.
The soundtrack is also very memorable, which varies from melancholic songs even when exploring the environments to more intense music during battles or the background music that enhances the horror atmosphere in narrow dark corridors.
“Stellar Blade” is probably the most reminiscent of “Nier: Automata” in terms of the soundtrack – but there are not many such solutions in games, so this similarity only enhances the individual impression left by “Stellar Blade”.
It will take you about 30 hours
It will take about 30 hours to complete the entire game – if we choose to do side missions and carefully navigate the environment. If we don’t do it, it can be overcome in 20 hours or even faster.
Regardless, there are three different endings in the game, but it’s important to mention that reaching one of the endings will be game over. We will not be allowed to return to the world to continue our adventure or finish collecting items – we will have to start all over again.
Such a decision can be surprising – especially when the game is semi-open world and has large spaces. On the other hand, that’s exactly how games used to be, so this is a kind of return to the roots.
Also, some players may be disappointed by the fact that while Stellar Blade is very impressive graphically, it will only have about eight different locations, the two largest of which are open world, both in the desert, and they will be quite similar to each other.
Those who are bothered by deserts will definitely not like it. On the other hand, we will keep discovering new side activities in each area – for example, fishing is introduced in the second half of the game. The developers manage to surprise, because here fishing stands out from other games and is not as obvious as it may appear at first glance.
Verdict
Stellar Blade is truly the kind of PlayStation 5 exclusive that shouldn’t be missed, and this game should definitely make its way onto the console’s gaming shelf. True, the game itself may not appeal to everyone.
It is a Korean mash-up of different genres and different well-known other games, which sometimes lacks the unique identity of Stellar Blade itself. On the other hand, if you’ve always wondered what a Korean Lara Croft and Tomb Raider itself would look like, Stellar Blade might be the closest you’ll ever come to answering that question.
Either way, it’s a game that’s definitely worth checking out, and looking to the future, it’s sure to have a large loyal following. Also, if this is just Shift Up’s debut game on consoles, what luck would there be a sequel?
I’m already curious to know.
