Stellar Blade Review – Celebrate Sexiness with Gaming’s Best Soundtrack

Stellar Blade is not just a fan service – there is a level of elegance and passion to its design, that it is easily one of PlayStation 5’s most exciting offerings. There is no denying that the game has left a mark on gaming these past months before release, spawning countless online discussions, positive or negative. Regardless of your opinions, Stellar Blade is an amazing title to experience, one that not only celebrates beauty but also offers solid and thrilling combat along with easily one of the best soundtracks in gaming history.

This is especially impressive, considering this is South Korean studio SHIFT UP‘s first major AAA title as they have always been known for their specializations in mobile games with equally seductive ladies such as the highly popular Goddess of Victory: NIKKE and the now-shutdown Destiny Child.

Taking place in a fictional future where Earth has been almost completely wiped out after the invasion of the alien race Naytiba. Where hope seems lost, the survivors who now reside in space colonies send in the special forces Angels to reclaim Earth through the eradication of Naytiba. EVE is such a member, plunged onto Earth via a drop pod as part of the 7^th Airborne Squad, but sadly the only survivor with all her squad mates wiped out from the brutality of Naytiba.

Severely injured, EVE was rescued by survivor Adam who accompanies her every step of the way via a remote drone, and there’s where our adventure begins. Sounds familiar? Perhaps, it reminds you of a certain game named NieR: Automata, the action RPG by the beautiful mind of director Yoko Taro. There is no doubt that comparisons between the two are inevitable as it is no secret that SHIFT UP drew massive inspiration from NieR: Automata, from the premise of foreign enemies invading, squads of sexy female androids, to even a flying droid companion following EVE throughout.

Even with clear inspirations and homages to NieR: Automata, Stellar Blade still forged its own identity and strengths. While the game built up an impressive setting, the story sadly did not reach the heights of its inspiration, with plot points moving in directions that could be described as too predictable. The pacing also suffers from inconsistency, but when the game tells its story at its best, you are presented with some extremely cinematic cutscenes with some of the most beautiful character models. That said, their expressions can feel stiff at times.

EVE with the Style 

A standout element of the game aside from our alluring main protagonist EVE is the combat, which caught many players by surprise for adopting a Souls-like approach as opposed to character action hack-and-slash. It is easy to see why many players were expecting character action stylish combat as Stellar Blade wears its NieR: Automata influence proudly. Especially with a highly seductive lady as your lead and a visual that screams “style”.

As I said, the game has a Souls-like approach to combat, and that means movements will deliberate, and every swing of your sword will be committed. This makes encounters all about anticipation and retaliation, watching enemies for opening and returning them counterattacks. It is just absolutely cool to see EVE materializes her sword from her hairpin to a ready stance, and that is her primary weapon throughout the game. Her sword is the basis that builds up EVE’s combat style, combining various moves with slashing and thrusting motions through normal and heavy attack options.

While the combat is primarily designed to mirror Souls-like encounters, you can still chain up combos through a series of attacks depending on your button sequence. Certain combo attacks even require you to delay your input or hold your presses, in ways that may remind you of other action titles such as Devil May Cry.

Further bolstering more attack options are the additions of Beta skills, special attacks that you could activate after accumulating enough energy. EVE can equip up to four of these skills, and these attacks give her certain advantages, whether functioning as a gap closer or a continuous flurry that greatly damages the enemy’s defenses.

Parry This, EVE

Purely going on the offense would obviously not net you a victory, if you do not care about your defense, and Stellar Blade placed a huge emphasis on this. Aside from your attacks, EVE has a varied array of maneuver options such as dodges, jumps, blocks, and special evades while anticipating perilous attacks from enemies, indicated by blue or pink flashes, each initiating different types of evasive movements. As mentioned before, this is a game about anticipation and retaliation, but it’s also about reflexes.

With careful timing, dodging just as an attack hits will have EVE avoid attacks with a slow-time effect that allows her to quickly counter back with her own slashes. Similarly, as incoming attacks are about to hit EVE, well-timed blocks will trigger parries with satisfying jingles and flashes, and slowly wear down enemies to a state of vulnerability, allowing you to unleash your flashy combos or a cinematic-like critical move. In short, Stellar Blade brings the best elements from recent action hits like NieR: Automata, Sekiro: Shadow Die Twice, and so on, and packaged them into a neat package with their own little ideas sprinkled on top as extra stylish toppings.

As you progress through the game, you will also eventually unlock more new skills and combo strings, which make the depth of combat ever more pronounced. To take better advantage of these skills, there is even a training mode for you to get in tune with the techniques before bringing them out in practice and style on your enemies. It’s not all melee because there are ranged options as well through modifications to Adam’s drone. These ranged options are quite reliable in many scenarios, especially in keeping your distance away from rampaging enemies that can be difficult to anticipate up close, barraging them with bullets.

Even though Stellar Blade presents its combat with a Souls-like flavor, the difficulty is not exactly that brutal, thus players who are not ready for a challenge should not worry about being overwhelmed. The challenge can still be felt when you face some of the main bosses, but even if you make a blunder and fall in battle, you can still revive yourself via certain items. Despite the Souls-like influences, death has no consequences in this game, only needing to restart from checkpoints, so no “souls run” required.

The combat deserves its high praise, definitely, but one element holding it back to its full potential is the responsiveness of controls. This has been a glaring issue in the demo, and while the full release made much-needed improvements, there are still some noticeable delays. This is largely due to the commitment of animations, where EVE cannot cancel her attacks or movements whenever she likes, leaning hard into the Souls-like combat.

This takes quite some time to get used to, and if you are perhaps up against an unfamiliar enemy, you cannot rely a hundred percent on sheer reflexes. We do understand that it is designed to balance the risk and reward factor, but some level of animation cancels would provide more flexibility in terms of controls in battle. It is still an extremely fun combat system, but there’s no denying there’s still far more potential hidden within, and some tweaks should be considered by the developers for the future.

Camping with EVE 

Accompanying the combat is the exploration and level design, which certainly surprises us as the game actually features a semi-open world map. To be precise, the game takes you through levels that are designed to be more linear, but some shortcuts can be unlocked for easier backtracking, in a vein similar to the level design of Dark Souls. However, the scope of exploration then expands greatly once you reach Xion and Wasteland, both having large maps with multiple points of interest.

Despite having a large space to explore, both areas provide maps for ease of exploration, and they can be accessed via the menu. It can be quite inconvenient without a minimap HUD display, but it does keep the screen clean of clutter and presents the game without overloaded information for better immersion. What I could say is that the more linear design of the levels is perfect, as even though it limits the scope of exploration, the backtracking parts aren’t a chore. The semi-open world exploration is just fun because there is a lot of attention given to ensuring every corner has something to greet you, rewarding you for your keen eyes.

Xion, the main base, in itself is a safe haven with no enemies to bother you. It is a center for EVE to interact with its residents, complete missions, or access a suite of facilities. As EVE talks to the NPCs, their relationships grow and she would gain access to some new perks. Each main merchant also has Affinity levels, which can be raised up to 3 levels to unlock new products, including Design Patterns for crafting new sexy outfits for EVE.

Meanwhile, the Wasteland is packed with tons of secrets, challenges, treasures, and materials to find, keeping you busy for a long time until you would even forget to continue with the main mission. However, this stretch of land is home to a lot of extremely hostile enemies, which can be aggroed to EVE rather easily. They are relentless in their chase, so the best way to escape them apart from combat is to interact with the nearest Camp and rest up, which can be annoying if you are in critical condition. Occasionally, you may encounter platforming challenges, which I’ll be honest, it’s not exactly suited to the game considering how tight the movement controls are.

Platforming challenges apart, the game does provide a good variety of solidly designed puzzles and challenges. None share similar mechanics, whether standard puzzles or ones on a larger scale, giving a fresh experience each time with a format that is fun, creative, and at a reasonable difficulty.

EVE is GOAT

Alright, the most crucial and strongest selling point of Stellar Blade – EVE, the main character, who has been in the internet spotlight lately for her captivating appearance. EVE is a character who stands on her own – she is much more than the eye candy that many have labeled her. Throughout the story, she goes through quite a journey, starting off with having trouble maintaining her mental stability, but eventually grows into quite a character – resilient, reliable, showing no hesitation in helping her allies without expecting anything in return, and being an overall lovely lady. Although rarely shown, EVE is quite a cutie, having adorable moments such as her taking offense to criticism for her “bland” hairstyle and doesn’t mind trying new drip to look more confident. 

Yes, EVE is hella sexy but it is within the confines of realism. After all, she is based on a body scan of South Korean model Shin Jae-Eun. Whether through story cutscenes, combat, actually, any portion of gameplay, Stellar Blade never fails to showcase EVE at her best. There may be arguments that she may seem bland at times, but her charm and interesting features are on display as you explore the game further, especially through her interactions with various characters, with many of them even having their own side quests and stories that relate them to this bleak world. There is no sin to be charmed by EVE because she is one endearing character with her own backstory and personality that are fascinating and make her a charmer.

Fashion Queen EVE 

Speaking of EVE, SHIFT UP truly provides her with the best of worlds, even giving her a wardrobe of fashion options for her to walk on the runway that is post-apocalyptic Earth. Thankfully, the stunning outfits for EVE can be acquired relatively easily, allowing you to start your dress-up darling game with her as you progress. The outfits are acquirable through exploration activities or by raising your affinity with various merchants, obtaining Design Patterns blueprints that allow you to use at Repair Console to tailor yourself some cool and sexy garments for EVE. The great news is that crafting materials are easily obtainable and cheap, so there is no reason to hold back in giving EVE her lovely costumes. Outfits are not the only way to dress EVE up because you can also give her various accessories, and even give her a fresh haircut at the salon.

Fashion is not the only customization available in the game as you can also bolster EVE’s combat capabilities through a combination of two main pieces of equipment – Exospine grants fixed bonuses through upgrades, while Gear gives them according to rarity.  You can upgrade the slots of each of these equipment through the Repair Console access in Camp. Furthermore, you can also boost EVE in various other ways including your standard Attack Power increase, drone upgrades, and the many skills, which are divided into 5 categories. It is just fun tweaking and decking out EVE, not only for combat but also at her drip, which I ended up dressing EVE up with new clothing every so often throughout the game. 

A Music to Remember

A high praise that Stellar Blade truly deserves is the music. We got a feast of it during the demo, and the full game proved that Stellar Blade has one of the best soundtracks in gaming history. Not that I want to overstate it, but this is probably the first time when every track sounds amazing and just right to the ears – every piece of music in the game is straight-up earworms. I even manually record some of them for my own personal playlist, especially the ones with vocals.

If you wonder why the music comes with an air of familiarity, that’s because to realize their vision, SHIFT UP’s audio team collaborates with music production studio MONACA. Yes, the music studio that was established by Keiichi Okabe, the composer of NieR: Automata, further wears its influence proudly, and perhaps why the tracks sounded phenomenal.

Hard Mode, Where

Being developed as a PlayStation 5 exclusive, there is no doubt expectations that Stellar Blade will be optimized to its best for the platform, in particular for the console’s flagship features. On the technical side of things, the game is remarkably optimized with no bugs in sight. For performance, the game offers 3 graphical options, namely Prioritize Performance, Balanced, and Prioritize Resolution. For the majority of our playthrough, we went with Balanced mode, which as the name clearly suggests, offers a balance of high-fidelity graphics and high frame rates, making the game highly enjoyable without sacrificing one aspect over the other much.

The utilization of PlayStation 5 features is your standard affair, providing DualSense controller support with noticeable Adaptive Trigger and Haptic Feedback sensations. The loading times vary depending on where you are at the moment, but generally, smaller zones do load in incredibly swiftly.

While the gameplay experience is extremely solid, it is somewhat disappointing that the game lacks some features on release, including the Photo Mode, making taking beautiful screenshots difficult without HUD elements messing up the result. For a game that pays so much attention to character beauty, it is surely disappointing and screenshot photographers are going to have a tough time during their Stellar Blade photoshoot sessions.

For those looking for a challenge, it is also disappointing that you will be experiencing a relatively easy Normal Mode for your first playthrough until completion before unlocking the Hard Mode, for your tougher adventures.

Truly Stellar

The stars have aligned as Stellar Blade is one wild ride that keeps on giving, going above and beyond in surpassing our expectations. Stellar Blade is a product of passion, a lovely combination of some of the best action games, rocked to the top with an incredible soundtrack, and boldly celebrates beauty and sexiness with EVE.

That said, as an avid fan of Souls-like and hack-and-slash titles, the truest potential Stellar Blade’s combat was unfortunately held back by a less responsive and flexible control. Hard Mode difficulty being locked before completing your first playthrough is also a bummer for those who seek challenge. Aside from that and a somewhat predictable story, Stellar Blade has its own strong points and weaknesses that make up for each other and make for a solid experience.

For their AAA debut title, SHIFT UP should be proud because their passion truly shows and Stellar Blade will be marking them on the map. Hopefully, the team could learn from Stellar Blade’s release, and craft better and superior games in the future. All in all, Stellar Blade, like EVE herself, is one hella sexy title that is remarkable in many ways and will charm you in for a wild ride.

Stellar Blade is slated to launch exclusively on the PlayStation 5 on April 26, 2024, and a playable demo is now available on the PlayStation Store.

The game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5. Review code provided by Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Stellar Blade

Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Developer: SHIFT UP

Release Date: 2024-04-26

PlayStation 5

Ravaged by strange, powerful creatures, Earth has been abandoned, and what is left of the decimated human race has fled to a Colony in outer space. After traveling from the Colony, 7^th Airborne Squad member EVE arrives on the desolate remains of our planet with a clear-cut mission: to save humankind by reclaiming Earth from the Naytiba – the malevolent force that has devastated it.

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