Stellar Blade Is the Reason to Buy a PlayStation 5!
I am going to have to crack open my thesaurus of superlatives for this one because Stellar Blade is one of the best games I have ever played. I am a fan of the adventure/hack-and-slash genre. They are my go-to genre of games. They have been since I dove deep into gaming from the PS3 era. Games such as God of War, Bayonetta, Ghost of Tsushima and Devil May Cry are listed as my all-time favorites.
However, as I completed Stellar Blade and watched the credits roll, I had to sit there and ponder: “Did I enjoy Stellar Blade more than God of War?”. It shocked me to say, “Yes, I did!”.
You play as a character named EVE, a futuristic warrior tasked with the 7th Airborne Squad to invade Earth and defeat the monsters called Naytiba that inhabit the planet and reclaim it for mankind. However, during the initial attack, the airborne troops are all but wiped out. EVE, the lone survivor, continues with her duty, but as she does so, she finds and befriends other survivors to continue the fight and her mission.
When the game initially came out, there was a lot of negativity around the supposed lackluster story. I say “supposed” as, although the game misses a mid-game punch to keep you going forward narrative-wise, I was left with my jaw dropping to the floor when I reached one of the game’s three endings. I suspect many previous reviews were based on just playing a few hours of the game, not after completing it, as this one is. It makes a huge difference in how you view the game’s overall story and narrative.
The true ending I got felt complete, satisfying, and very surprising. It also made me have deep, profound questions in my mind when I finished, like where exactly do you draw the line of being human? The story of this game is based around this very question, and without wanting to give spoilers away, you will be forced to make decisions that will affect which ending you get, around what you think the answer to that question is, and a lot of what you think you know will be wrong. I thought I could see where the story and game were heading hours before the end, but I was pleased to find out that I was totally wrong.
The journey from start to finish took around 30 hours, with around five of those having been taken up doing some of the side missions. The complete journey will take you to many different locations and settings, all equally fantastic in their artwork, rendering, and graphical fidelity. I never knew a desert could be so beautiful. Some of the game is linear, with the middle portion of the game open to players to explore a few semi-open world areas.
The linear sections are very focused and graphically impressive. At times, walking down tunnels or corridors and knowing an enemy could jump out at me at any second, felt very much like I was playing Dead Space. Indeed, some of these linear sections forced the player into using the gun weapon only in dark, dank places that had equally eerie lighting and sound design too.
To mix things up during the linear gameplay, there were many puzzles sprinkled in with a few all-action set-piece moments. Escape from a falling train wreck whilst it’s coming down like in Uncharted; check. On rails sequences at blistering speeds while avoiding barricades; check. God of War-like puzzles but with lasers; check. Loot boxes that had three different types of mini-games to open them; check. Platforming/climbing sequences that, again, felt like a Nathan Drake exploration sequence; check once again.
Of the above, the only aspect that didn’t feel totally polished was the platforming. It wasn’t awful, just occasionally annoying in that it was easy to misjudge the jumping distances. You weren’t punished too badly for missing jumps, just a slight loss of health and back to the last checkpoint. It’s just the game was so polished and perfect in all other areas, it’s a shame the same couldn’t quite be said of the platforming.
The game has plentiful save points where, via a telephone, you can quickly travel to anywhere else that you have located a similar camp with a telephone. To traverse the semi-open areas, this saved a lot of time. Each area was interesting to explore, with secret paths, side missions, and collectibles to find, as well as the occasional new boss fight. The only critique I have of the world was that there are only two open-world areas, the Desert and the Wasteland.
As their titles suggest, they are areas that look very similar and a little dull twice over. The game should have made the second area to explore at least visually different from the first to make things more interesting for the player. For example, at one point in the game, you visit a mountainous region that is delightfully snowy. It’s a shame this area wasn’t considered as a design point for the second semi-open world to explore as it was great to look at something that wasn’t dusty or sandy!
Be that as it may, there was still an enormous variety of locations overall for a post-apocalyptic world, and that even includes a foray into space! The level of detail in the artwork of these locations is outstanding. Couple this with the graphical fidelity and it really makes each part of the world pop and feel alive. It’s amazing to experience these places in-game. At times, I’d stop to pause and just look around.
Everywhere my eyes went, a new amazing detail was found that would draw me further into the game. When I think of what this game has achieved in its world design and look, it makes a lot of other games look very silly and basic indeed.
The missions to go anywhere are clearly marked on your map. You mainly start your missions from the hub world city of Xion, but for linear missions, you are transported to a new region. Xion is where you can find new side missions and get access to other areas, as well as upgrade your gear and fill up with new supplies.
The glue to all of this though is the game’s incredible combat that shines the best when facing one of the many boss fights.
It’s going to be hard to capture in words how the combat will make you feel, but the short version would be that you will feel like a total badass after each encounter! The game’s mechanics favor a style of counter-offense. What I mean by that is that you have to learn how to dodge or parry to perfection so you can then launch some of the most powerful attacks you have in your arsenal.
Even if you play the game on the easiest difficulty, you won’t be able to get very far just by button-mashing. Indeed, some bosses by around the mid-game level can wipe you out in one multi-hit flurry alone! The order of the day is to read your enemies’ movements (which is easy to see with the stunning graphics) and then parry or dodge to gain an advantage. The skill tree has meaningful upgrades to ensure your counterattacks become more powerful. Take note of them and practice them to make your encounters much easier.
Unlike in God of War, my parry wasn’t instantaneous. There is a very slight delay for EVE to bring her sword into the blocking position. I couldn’t decide if I loved or loathed this mechanic. If it were instant, I feel it would have made parrying far too easy and, therefore, most of the combat too. But having that slight delay increased the possibility of getting it in too late. Add that to the excellent enemy designs where they never had the same cadence of attack sequences, and this meant that each encounter felt different in how they played out.
EVE has many ways to defeat enemies. A melee weapon, ranged weapons, throwable items, as well as skill-based attacks assigned to L1 and other buttons, and more to unlock as you get further into the game. The early-level boss fights are easily dispatched with the basic weapons you have at the time, but by the end, you will need to master EVERYTHING at your disposal, even on the game’s easiest setting. The last boss fight in particular was especially challenging but had me punching the air in satisfaction when I defeated it.
This is where I think this game is special. Shift Up has brought new mechanics to a genre where I thought I’d seen it all and made it work. The way in which you can fight and how you have to time your defensive moves to then gain the upper hand is genius. For example, timing a dodge perfectly slows down time for a split second, like in the film The Matrix. This window then gives you the opportunity to press other buttons to attack.
It’s not easy to consistently do this, which makes it hard to cheese these attacks all the time, but with a little practice, it is utterly rewarding when you do pull them off. Equally, the satisfying ching of metal on metal when you execute a perfect parry is intoxicating. Each enemy has a certain amount of shielding to let them withstand a certain number of perfect parries, which is indicated by small yellow balls under their health. If you land enough perfect parries to clear these yellow balls, you can then stun any opponent, boss or minion alike, and execute a rebellion attack. Rebellion attacks significantly reduce the enemy’s health in one moment, which makes the effort to get them rewarding to the player.
Lastly, at the end of each boss fight, there is always a very cool and exciting cinematic way that EVE finishes them off. Many of these moments are filled with gloriously gory endings! When it’s done, and when it’s all added up, as mentioned before, means you feel, as the player, like a total badass when the scene ends!
The game has excellent sound design. I played most of the game with my headphones on. The in-world audio brought the environments to life. Howling winds alongside echoing footfalls in tunnels draw the player deeper into its world.
The voice acting was a little dull and would have been a major downgrade if I hadn’t completed the game’s story. It’s hard to explain without giving huge spoilers away, but when the game finished, the voice acting and the reason it was the way it is was not an issue anymore.
What was very exciting was the in-game audio during the fight sequences. Enemy attack sounds and weapons felt engaging and added extra weight of realism and excitement to combat. The only part of the audio I wasn’t convinced with was the soundtrack. Although not my particular taste in music, the retro smooth jazz elevator music you hear most of the time in camps did become a little annoying near the end. However, the synth-rock and bombastic music for the boss fights excelled. Currently, as I type this review, I’m listening to the game’s soundtrack in the background. It’s helping me recall just how many good tracks there actually were, not just the boring ones at camp!
Since the launch of Stellar Blade back in April, it has had many free updates. Some of these updates have added free in-game content, like costumes and a Boss Challenge arena. Having free content for their first triple-A console game is such a classy move from Shift Up and is bound to impress the fans even more. I’m glad I waited until the updates and to have finished the game to review it. Without the updates, my score for the game would have been lower as it is better for having them.
So finally, how has all of the above put together at the end of the story made me feel about the game? As I’ve said, it’s one of, if not the best, hack and slash game I’ve ever played. That statement is all the more remarkable to reflect on when you consider this is a new IP from a developer who has never made a console game before.
I am really struggling, maybe even nitpicking, to find faults with the game to mark it down. This means that the production levels and game design from Shift Up are absolutely remarkable. They have achieved something even industry giants like Santa Monica Studios or Naughty Dog would be proud of. The fact that this has happened in their first console game is mind-boggling!
For me, Stellar Blade is almost perfect. The combat is satisfying, exciting, thrilling, technical but accessible. Not too hard to master but hard enough not to be easy. The game’s graphics are superb and detailed, and they look even more impressive coupled with some of the best artwork I’ve ever seen. Character designs are interesting, as are the enemy types and details around the world. Cutscenes are gorgeous, engaging, and well-executed, especially the cinematography aspect.
The game’s audio is very good, as is the game’s menu systems, and meaningful, sensible skill tree builds. The entire game wreaks excellence, interest, quality, excitement, and rewarding gameplay at every juncture.
The ONLY things I really feel where the game could have been better would have been if one of the semi-open worlds had a different look to it rather than being a desert area, and that the game could have done with a good mid-story punch. Reading that back makes me feel like I’m being overly critical, but if we are going to get perfection, that’s the kind of detail I think would have put this game over the edge. The fact that that is all I can find to comment on should give you an idea of just how brilliant this game is.
Summary
A fantastic first-time adventure from the developer Shift Up. Exhilarating combat, stunning graphics, audio, and an excellent story that shines the most once you get to the credits. The game is nearly perfect. It’s shocking how good the production levels are. Stellar Blade‘s badass lead character, EVE, should be one of the new PlayStation icons, and this game is my contender for Game of the Year 2024.
Developer: Shift Up
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Platforms: PlayStation 5
Release Date: 26th April 2024
