Few would know this but sitting just behind me is the collector’s edition pistol from the original Bayonetta. That was kinda my thing back in the day, getting the collector’s edition sight unseen for many games, long before I knew if it’d be worth having something like that in my collection. Bayonetta was the one that broke the rule as I bounced off that game so immensely hard that I didn’t even make it past the first couple hours in the game before putting it down again. So you may be wondering then something like Stellar Blade would appeal to me, given the…similarities of the… let’s say aesthetics and gameplay. For whatever reason I’d had it on my radar for a while and, despite me getting the same feelings as I did with Bayonetta initially I managed to make my way through the entire game. I will say that I don’t think I’m the target demographic for this kind of game, but it does have it’s moments that make parts of it worthwhile.
Earth has been overrun by the Naytiba, an alien looking race of hideous creatures that violently attacks anything that crosses their path. You are Eve, member of the 7th Airborne Squadron, who’s been sent down to Earth by the great Mother Sphere to rid it of the Naytiba infestation. However your force is completely decimated on the way down and, in an attempt to rally your remaining troops together, your close friend Tachy gives her life to save yours. You awaken not too longer later having been saved by Adam who takes you to the last bastion of humanity on Earth: the city of Xion. It’s from here that you’ll continue your quest to track down the leaders of the Naytibas and eradicate them once and for all.
Stellar Blade is a grand showcase of how well developers are getting to know the PS5 as a platform as it’s absolutely one of the best looking games I’ve played on the console to date. The environments, set pieces and character models are all exceptionally detailed looking great from both near and afar. The animations are highly stylized which can on occasion make things look a little stiffer than they should, but it’s all in aid of those big action moments you’ll be endlessly chasing. Performance remains solid throughout as well with only some of the larger environments seemingly pulling the framerate down to less than acceptable levels.
One thing that did stand out to me though was the music which had the same weird out-of-place feel to it that Nier: Automata did. Like combat music and boss encounters are fine, but there’s a bunch of background tracks with lyrics in them which always feel a little out of place (especially when they’re playing during a cutscene). The game also transitions between combat music and overworld style elevator tunes with reckless abandon, making it a rather jarring experience sometimes when you find yourself in camp. I don’t necessarily count this as a bad thing, it’s just a tad weird.
Stellar Blade is weaving it’s own path between soulslike and Devil May Cry territory as, ostensibly, it’s marketed as more the latter than the former but it’s hard to shake the souls influence on the main combat mechanics. The game starts off relatively linear but does open up significantly as you play through the chapters, giving you more options to ignore the main campaign mission should that be your jam. Progression comes to you at all angles with your standard talent trees and equipment upgrades all the way through to rather strange inclusions like the wild number of cosmetics, many of which require you to go through quite a bit of work to obtain them (despite there being absolutely zero gameplay impact to doing so). For game that’ll demand $110 of your dollarbucks to play it there’s thankfully enough to justify that price point.
Combat is one of those things that is equal parts amazing and frustrating. It’s amazing when you manage to pull off 3 parries in a row, fully charge yourself up and simply rip through enemies without a second thought of it. Then there are the times where you misstep once, get out of sync with your normal combat rhythm and then find yourself struggling with the most basic of enemies for seemingly no reason. Like with many games this frustration is more prevalent in the earlier sections when you don’t have as many tools available to you in order to deal with unforeseen situations. Later on, as your power level goes up, you have more things to use and are more familiar with the general movesets of most enemies things get better but you’ll always be carrying the baggage of those first few hours with you.
Boss fights are definitely a highlight with them all being grandiose in scale, the effects department having an absolute field day in coming up with all sorts of weird and wonderful particle effects to throw at you. There are, of course, numerous bosses which are more frustrating than challenging with a good number of them having what feels like unfair mechanics that you just have to push through than them having a direct counter that you can work with. I will admit to not bothering as much with looking up the specific mechanics as much as I would with other similar games so it’s entirely possible that every single thing I found frustrating has a simple counter that I just didn’t pick up on. I will also admit to turning it down to Story Mode difficulty for the last two bosses as whilst I could definitely see a path to beating the second to last one I had just run out of steam for grinding away at it for another couple hours. This seems to be a relatively common practice by many it seems, so I feel a little justified…just a little.
The game certainly has an opinion about how best to play it. Once you reach Xion it’s clear that they’re expecting you to grab every single side quest and do all of them before you look towards progressing the main campaign. It doesn’t tell you this of course, but it became pretty clear that the game’s difficulty ramp was built around this idea, as well as the fact that each new chapter brings with it a new set of side quests to complete. The side quests are also the main source of your base progression in the game, with a handful of short side quests giving just as much (if not more) XP than a full chapter of the campaign does. Once you realise this though it’s really not a bother to jump out and do a few side quests, especially with the “Return to client now?” pop up that appears when you finish one. Super neat.
If you want it progression can come rather fast although you’ll likely have not a lot of need to once you have your preferred build down. Once I’d maxed out the skills I was using routinely it didn’t take long to max out the base trees as well, leaving me with not much to pursue in terms of base skill progression. To be sure there’s still a bunch of upgrade materials for your weapon, heals and other ancillary equipment which are all direct upgrades so are definitely worth seeking out. Of course you can also play dress ups (with different hair styles too!) almost all of which are hidden behind minor grinds that require you levelling up your “reputation” with the various shops around Xion. So if you want stuff to do, it’s there, but your gameplay probably won’t be impacted too much should you opt out.
Technical issues err more towards the annoyances more than game breaking which is something I’d expect for a second party title like this one. There’s a struggle going on between Eve’s rigging, the environment and the anime-esque animations that the developers want her to do. This means she’ll get all tangled up in things every so often which is honestly kinda hilarious. Platforming is a bit wonky too, being nowhere near as precise as you’d expect it to be. But, all being said, it’s a mostly seamless experience all round and that’s pretty much all I’m after these days.
Now to the narrative…hooo boy.
There’s a lot to like here: the overall setting, the abundance of time given to most of the characters to build themselves out and the overarching narrative that’s setup early but continues to evolve over the course of the game. However that’s delivered in the most weirdly robotic way by the main voice actors and I’m not sure it’s supposed to be like that. I’m seemingly not alone in this assessment either and, for what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s the voice actor’s fault either. The trouble is though without that believable chemistry between the main characters it just feels like robotic performances delivered at each other rather than together. This took me out of the story more times than I could count as it just didn’t feel as believable as it should.
Which is a shame as I do want to see more of this world. The game does commit the cardinal sin of not so subtly hinting there’ll be a sequel, which I’ll forgive, but I can only hope that they put as much effort into the english dub as they did the others next time around.
For me then Stellar Blade is chaotic mix of greatness and weird missteps. The visuals are amazing, the attention to detail for the most mundane things on the same level as other top tier Sony developers. The combat is slick and fast paced but still suffers from the usual “lack of tools” early hours teething problems that many in this genre do. The world and narrative are great but it’s marred by a terrible performance by the vast majority of the voice actors who were seemingly given little direction. So I feel conflicted in giving this game a score as, on paper, it’s should be middle of the road but there’s vanishingly few games of that nature I’ve spent that much time on. Once again perhaps it is me, not the game, who’s in the wrong here.
Rating: 8.25/10
Stellar Blade is available exclusively on PlayStation 5 right now for $109. Total playtime was 19 hours with 42% of the achievements unlocked.
