Stellar Blade

More than just a Soulslike with a protagonist to serve as eye-candy, Stellar Blade has far surpassed our expectations, offering varied gameplay, outstanding visuals, a sublime soundtrack and an engaging story. It's a must-play for action game fans.

Stellar Blade is an excellent PlayStation 5 action game that blends tight defense and stylish combat in an impressive post-apocalyptic package.

Stellar Blade has great merit when we see it from a production point of view and as Shift Up's letter of introduction to the international market. As an exclusive to the PlayStation 5, it lets us see that the industry is willing to expand and show us the AAA proposals that other regions have for us. Despite its positive points, the title offers us a generic story and gameplay mechanics that lack depth, although the presentation and production levels are impressive.

Stellar Blade is collage filtered through kaleidoscope, its myriad influences bleeding together in a neon swirl that produces vibrant new colours and dull familiar ones at an uneven pace. When it chooses to use its building blocks to reach new heights it’s a dizzying achievement in combat presentation and approachability, with EVE’s toolset fun and varied enough to carry the weight of the game’s lesser components. It leaves you wanting to see what else this studio could accomplish, even if they’ve gotten this far on borrowed wings.

Stellar Blade is shallow in terms of narrative and has a problematic protagonist, but it has great graphics, soundtrack and action gameplay. The package delivers less than promised, but it is possible to have fun with the game.

Here is “Stellar Blade,” an authentic slice of Korean cyberpunk, like Eve, beautiful in its own absurd way.

Had Eve been a character with agency and personality, who actually responded to the drooling and leering that she’s meant to embody, well, she’d be Bayonetta.

My 2nd PS5 exclusive Platinum after Spider-Man 2, Eve should have been the PS5's mascot for this generation.

Let me make one thing clear: when it comes to keeping you in the flow, this combat system might be one of the best out there. Trading blows in a tight fight, parrying incoming strikes, dodging unparryable moves, using specific combos to evade special attacks, and then completely unleashing on enemies with Beta and Burst skills... man, it feels so damn good. I admit it’s not a flawless or highly creative system—Lies of P, which I consider a similar game, feels much better in terms of pure combat design despite being simpler—but Stellar Blade’s combat is incredibly refined. You never get bored, and it keeps you completely locked into the flow. Plus, since our leading lady fights with such aesthetic style, the visual feedback alone keeps you hooked. Hats off to them for this, pure and **** game also features a lore and clue system that fits this combat perfectly—it's simple and easy to follow, but has some decent depth if you actually want to dig into it. My guess is that the story draws heavy inspiration from The Matrix and its philosophy. My only real gripe is that—maybe South Korea doesn't have deep exposure to Abrahamic religions, I don't know—the game does some incredibly basic foreshadowing and straight-up spoils the ending through the character names. I swear, during the opening sequence, I predicted the exact logical conclusion of the ending, even if I didn't know the exact plot points. Because it failed to surprise me where it tried to pull twists, I can't say I loved the story or found it highly successful, but at least it being simple and consistent was enough for me. In the narrative, we are an elite warrior and basically a detective unraveling the mystery, even if the gameplay doesn't really reflect that (I wish that detective aspect actually made it into the gameplay; it would've created an amazing narrative synergy).I also want to mention the soundtrack. The music is beautiful and does a great job of building the world, but for some reason, after a while, it felt like the tracklist was too limited, and I was just listening to the same tracks on **** game has some serious pacing issues. To be honest, I was bored out of my mind until the final stretch; if the core loop wasn't so straightforward and easy to get into, I might have just dropped it entirely. Early on, the game dumps you into highly repetitive semi-open worlds, giving off this mindless MMORPG grind vibe. You’re just killing enemies scattered across a mostly empty map, solving a few puzzles, and heading back to the hub over and **** later on, the game shifts into a strictly linear structure, and from that point, the tempo never drops. It delivers the exact climax I always look for in a game: pushing us straight into back-to-back boss fights with zero filler, sending the adrenaline through the roof, and wrapping it up with a phenomenal final boss. Speaking of the final boss, I think I saw two different versions. They aren't unlocked through gameplay milestones; you just choose them directly via a decision at the very end. I highly respect the game for this, and thanks to save scumming, I got to experience both. Two incredibly fun and distinctly designed final boss **** Game Plus is also incredibly well done and actually makes you want to replay it. Since it becomes relatively easier, you can just skip past the boring parts, rush to the endgame, and enjoy the pure power fantasy of being completely overpowered.

Stellar Blade 𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 7.9 ----------------------------------------------------------------- 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆/𝗟𝗼𝗿𝗲: 7.7 Art Direction/World/𝗔𝘁𝗺𝗼𝘀𝗽𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲: 7.8 𝗢𝘀t/𝗦𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗲: 7.9 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀/𝗗𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗵: 7.5 Gameplay: 8.4

Visually impressive, but the story is unappealing and fails to create much attachment to its characters. The combat can also feel confusing rather than satisfying, particularly when trying to distinguish when an attack should be parried versus dodged. The soundtrack didn’t click with me either and became repetitive. The game has strong presentation and flashy combat, but these elements weren’t enough to compensate for the narrative and combat frustrations.

Eve is hot as hell. She has a model’s body and her ass looks amazing, always front and center on camera! …And that’s about all the nice things I have to say about this game. This game is boring AS HELL. It very obviously takes inspiration from NieR: Automata, which is another game I didn’t like, but somehow I think this one might even be… worse? What I didn’t like about NieR were the story and the side quests. Here the story and the side quests are somehow even worse, even more boring and annoying as hell. There’s that desert section that lasts forever and it’s an absolutely unbearable slog. I honestly have no idea how this game managed to sell so much on PlayStation or get nominated for GOTY, because I find it bland and uninspired like few others.