Videogame Review: Stellar Blade
I did not expect much from Stellar Blade.
As someone who lived in Japan a long time and played a good amount of Dead or Alive, I know a fan service game when I see one. At least I thought I did. The trailers and discussion around this game caused me to prematurely write it off as nothing more than another jiggle physics simulator. However last month’s demo release got me intrigued. As a long time hack and slash and Souls game enjoyer, I loved how the combat managed to combine the best of both worlds. Now having beaten the game you can color me truly impressed.
Stellar Blade is the story of a super soldier ‘angel’ named Eve who descends from a space colony to Earth to battle horrifying alien monsters called ‘Naytiba.’ The game rides the line between being pure hack and slash and something of an ARPG, as there are ‘builds’, stats, and gear to manage. It is actually deeper than a Ninja Gaiden or Bayonetta in this regard and offers more room for experimentation.
To get a flavor of the combat just start here. Stellar Blade offers both the over the top flashy swordplay of Devil May Cry combined with the crisp, satisfying parry and dodge flow of Sekiro. The action is fast-paced and fluid. Once you get used to executing parries and perfect dodges you will really enjoy squaring off against a wide range of alien monstrosities. For me it really started clicking once I learned the ‘counter’ techniques — flashy powerful follow up attacks after executing perfect parries or dodges. They are endlessly satisfying to pull off.
The game features a deep skill tree loaded with some dope anime super moves. You also later get a kind of “Super Saiyan” mode for when you need to go ham. Finally you have neat ‘exospine’ and gear accessories you can mix and match to create different builds allowing you to focus on special attacks, stealth, defense, counters, health regen, or anything you want. I have played a ton of these types of games and I can say with confidence this is an incredibly well-crafted and fun melee combat system.
Stellar Blade also has a solid ranged combat system in the form of Eve’s drone gun. I loved how this was implemented; the gun isn’t just a combo extender tickling enemies like in a lot of these games. Instead it has several firing modes and does serious damage with the balance coming in the form of ammo management. Explosive shells and Mega Man lasers let you delete entire encounters safely from a distance. It is fun watching enemies approach you menacingly and you can just recreate this scene again and again.
The most important thing to do when you have a great battle system is feed it. To that end I was really delighted by just how massive of a game Stellar Blade is. It is not just a series of chapters like most hack and slash games. You get several large maps to explore with a strong variety of enemies. Settings include massive deserts, rocky wastelands, ruined cities, space elevators, and even crazy underground labs where you can only use your gun in very Resident Evil-esque horror segments.
With tons of side quests and collectibles Stellar Blade gives you dozens of hours of fun in a single playthrough. Better still — there are three different endings and a New Game Plus and Hard Mode. New Game Plus offers its own new content with additional skills, costumes, gear, and more. There’s even a pretty fun fishing minigame for chill vibes. Replay value is, simply put, stellar.
The breadth and depth of content is impressive, especially coming from a mobile game development studio. It is also good to see none of it paywalled since a game like this would be an easy lure for cosmetic DLC-loving whales. The hilarious controversy surrounding the game from Eve being “too sexy” seems silly after actually playing the game and experiencing how good it is.
A few skimpy outfits and deliberate camera angles is hardly worth all of the pearl-clutching on social media or last minute censorship. On the censorship point I don’t know the full story with Sony, but I will say that the game doesn’t especially feel censored given the amount of flesh on display. Appealing to heterosexual men isn’t some new edgy thing. What’s more it isn’t just men who like attractive female characters. What’s more what’s more, it isn’t just female characters who are made attractive to sell games, as any fangirl of Cloud or Vergil will tell you.
Stellar Blade also has a pretty decent story and an absolutely gorgeous soundtrack. Regarding the latter, the music was done by the same team that did Nier Automata. Expect a nice variety of deliciously atmospheric tracks for every zone. Vocals in the softer pieces are all really beautiful and the chill town and camp themes never got old for me. There are some amazing boss fight themes too.
As for the story, in truth it’s a mixed bag. It’s your classic post-apocalyptic Earth mysterious alien monsters setup with, obviously, a big twist halfway through. If you’re fluent in Asian languages it isn’t especially hard to predict. It’s a good twist though and it gives Eve real doubts about her mission. The variety and scope of settings to explore allow the game to thoughtfully examine ideas of human identity, AI, androids, evolution, and mankind’s ultimate destiny. There is a lot of interesting lore to find if you take the time and in broad strokes it works well.
It is rather derivative though. The magical girl terminator is a well-worn trope from 2B to Ghost in the Shell. As leading ladies go, Eve is nice and all but doesn’t have the charisma of a Bayonetta or Motoko. Stellar Blade borrows heavily from other media. Humanity’s last city in the game is called Zion, which I know is also from the Bible but it’s not the only Matrix callback. You also have a plot thread of AI turning against humanity, a huge mass of people suspended in pods, and even an area in the game called “Matrix.” Still I liked the characters and enjoyed several of the little side missions and quests. There are many neat ideas here.
The story is one of the main things that keep the game from being a masterpiece. The concepts are good but the execution is weak. There are a lot of plotholes and confusing character motivations. The “leave everything vague and work out the details through notes and item descriptions” approach doesn’t work very well here compared to Souls-like games. Confusion about basic elements of the world, its characters, and their choices made the narrative far less emotionally impactful than it could have been.
Another issue is there is a lack of polish in a number of small areas. The dialogue is wooden at times and the camera work and production value of some story scenes is rather amateurish. The voice acting overall is just so-so. I would have liked a bit more variety of combat shouts and dialogue for Eve. I would have liked the ability to easily keep my original save before going to New Game plus. I would have liked auto loot enabled by default, hints disabled by default (they’re more like ‘answers’ than ‘hints’…) and better lock-on and target tracking when fighting multiple enemies. As good as the game is, there is significant room for improvement. Patches, DLC, and sequels may elevate this to the top tier of action gaming series.
Purely on its own merits I would rate this a B+, but I give it a few extra brownie points for being a new IP from a relatively new and unproved development studio, two attributes that greatly increase the risk of failure. Credit to Sony for giving Shift Up the chance to prove they can do more than just horny mobile games. With Stellar Blade we have not just an excellent standalone game but real franchise potential. I’m certain I speak for all the fans when I say I hope to see more of Eve in the future.
Grade: A-
