AKA, the game that finally convinced me to purchase a PS5. Stellar Blade is an incredible game, and I’ll lay it all out here.
I’ll talk gameplay first, since there’s a strong emphasis on it I feel like it’s worth noting right off the hop. For me, the gameplay in Stellar Blade was phenomenal. The combat feels very Bayonetta-esque. It’s not one to one by any stretch of the imagination, but I’d say it’s closer to Bayonetta than something like Elden Ring. For me, that actually works much better. The slow methodical swings in Elden Ring and other Dark Souls games is quite interesting and fun to master, but the moment to moment action in a fast paced combat game like this hold my attention so much better.
The game does start you off fairly simple, and gradually drip feeds new things in as you progress. You start with the ability to do combo attacks with Square and Triangle, Block, Dodge, Perfect Parry, Perfect Dodge, and use Beta Moves. With just all that, the combat already feels fairly complete, but crazily enough as the game goes on you also get a gun mode, a Hyper Mode, and Burst Skills.
Now, funnily enough because of all this the game actually follows the gradual difficulty curve a lot of “hard” games end up in. It starts off painfully difficult, and gradually becomes easier and easier as you progress, gain new techniques, increase your health and other stuff, and gain more potion slots. That’s not to discount skill, but I’ll admit that out of almost all the bosses in the game, the first Alpha Naytiba was almost the hardest boss for me. I believe I died facing that boss 5-10 times. As I progressed I found myself dying to bosses significantly less, with some fights actually being first try wins for me. That being said, this game does actually hit a steep difficulty wall right at the end. The final two fights are no joke the hardest fights I’ve overcome in any video game. I won’t get into specific mechanics to avoid spoilers, but it was quite a welcome surprise after I got used to steamrolling the game.
In terms of other gameplay related stuff, the game is split into linear levels and open world areas. The linear levels feel very focused, go here, do this, and so on, whereas the open world sections take the reigns off and just let you do whatever you want. I think overall I probably got more enjoyment out of the open world areas, but both have their charms. After the first linear section you’ll start to get sidequests. I found these to be fairly good for the most part, each one providing a small amount of insight into characters and the world at large.
Speaking of the world, this game has a very interesting setting and lore, and it just drops you right into it (literally). You’ll spend the majority of the game trying to figure out the specifics of how the world came to be what it is now, and I was so in for the whole experience. I’ll say that I didn’t expect many of the twists that were presented when they were finally revealed, and I’ll likely enjoy my second playthrough all the more for it when I get around to it.
The music in this game reminds me heavily of Nier. I’m not 100% sure about the story with the development team, but this entire game feels inspired by Nier Automata. The music has adaptive triggers for different situations, and it’ll vary effortlessly switch to the combat version of the track when you end up in a fight. Overall I definitely enjoyed the musical selection in this game, not sure if anything necessarily hit me as hard as some Nier tracks like “City Ruins (Rays of Light)”, but I’ll have to listen to some of the music more to see.
I guess it’s worth mentioning this game does have some controversy. The female lead is quite honestly the most unbelievably proportioned character I’ve seen in a AAA game, and literally every outfit has her in high heels. Speaking of outfits, there’s a ton of them to unlock, and a good many of them are on the more risqué side. I personally found the “Daily” set of outfits to look quite nice, while also being reasonable if I want to ever interact with another human in real life.
But anyways, to the point about oversexualization, I’ll just make this note. The game would be just as good mechanically and artistically if the protagonist was a guy, or a less attractive woman. I think the developers decided they’d get more eyes on their game if they did this, and so they did, but the game is extremely good on it’s own merits as well.
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