I Was Wrong About Stellar Blade

June 25, 2024

Written by Jamie Galea

Do you ever feel like you got it wrong about a video game? It’s a feeling that’s happened to me while playing Stellar Blade. Playing the pre-release demo left me cold on the game, to the point that I wrote it off as “Nier Automata at home”. It very much didn’t make an impression on me, and I mentally filed it as a game that wasn’t for me.

I’ve been playing the full game thanks to a code sent by Playstation Australia, and after spending quite a lot of time with it, I felt pretty embarassed as to my initial thoughts. I won’t lie and tell you that Stellar Blade is this under the radar masterpiece, but I wish I could go back and tell myself from right before release that I was too harsh in my initial assessment of the game.

Basically the core of my hangups on the demo, and the game as a whole, were due to two main reasons. Firstly, the setup and core of the game’s identity felt like a pure rip-off of Nier Automata, but without any of the attempts at trying to be deep or to tell a reasonably good story like Nier. The second was the game’s combat, which you’d think would hem closer to a character action game given the style and presentation, but instead goes in a slower and more deliberate direction. Think a Souls game, except flashier.

Both of these hangups, after having spent significant enough time with the game, couldn’t be any less accurate to what the full game is like. Even at launch, developer Shift Up were continuing to tweak the game from the demo, making these hangups look even more ridiculous and purely knee-jerk responses.

The first point is pretty easy to explain, since it’s not hard to see a very clear inspiration from Nier Automata. It’s a game where you play as a well endowed and shapely lady robot who crash lands on a post apocalyptic planet, defeating monsters with a sword and quipping with a drone that’s constantly following her. She also gets a spunky assistant that’s very good with technology to assist her.

Allow me to be clear, this isn’t a game you’re playing for the plot. Stellar Blade isn’t interested in trying to tell a particularly deep story about humanity or attempting to subvert your expectations. Eve herself is kind of a plain character, and there’s really not much to say about her as a protagonist. The most exciting thing I’ve seen her do is get weirdly hype when she finds old cans, posing like Link when he discovers a new item.

Yet I think Eve being distinctly boring is probably to the game’s benefit. Stellar Blade doesn’t want you to bogged down in story, but it tells it in service of the gameplay. Even if you’re wishing you could skip cutscenes or dialogue, I think it’s worth it because the reward is moving to new locations, and with that, some of the coolest enemy and boss designs I’ve seen in ages. I absolutely wish the story could’ve been more engaging, but I think the trade off is worth it.

The second point is harder to explain, and ultimately where I knew I got it wrong. There’s no denying the game hems close to the usual elements of a Soulslike, such as campfires, enemies with distinct attack patterns, and combat that’s slower and more methodically paced. Where it sets itself apart is trying to split the difference between a Soulslike and a character action game, two things that shouldn’t really work together but somehow actually work.

The easiest way I can explain it is that the while the game plays like a Soulslike for the most part, the finers of the combat feel closer to Sekiro, FromSoftware’s finest game in recent memory. There’s the usual elements like perfect parries and dodges, but actual special attacks and counters for most enemy moves. This is also on top of a heap of additional moves and combos for you to unlock and experiment with.

It helps significantly that a lot of this feels really good to pull off. One of the big things added in a Day 1 patch is the parry and counter timing was modified to be more lenient in the final game from the demo. It’s not the easiest timing sure, but it’s modified enough that you should be able to hit them with ease. All of this is to say that it hits a really nice balance that feels challenging without being overly difficult.

Yet despite the game playing closer to Souls as far as pace goes, the cutscenes will have you think otherwise. Every so often, the game will throw up a Quick Time Event that shows the game off in a much more stylish and over the top fashion than the actual game. And it’s the old style of QTE too, where if you fail them, it’s an instant game over.

This element feels like a genuine throwback to me, and it’s honestly kinda neat. I don’t think it’s quite evoking the spirit of the PS2, a sentiment on the game I’ve seen shared online quite a bit, but it’s a quaint reminder of what action games used to be. At the very least, you can set the game to automatically complete the QTEs if you’d just prefer to watch the super stylish cutscenes.

With all that said, don’t let the grifters and their idiot followers trying to fabricate a culture war around this game deter you from trying it. I genuinely went into Stellar Blade thinking that there’s no way the final game would change my mind that drastically, but I am happily eating crow on my previous thoughts.

It’s not a perfect game by any stretch, and there’s definitely elements that could’ve been ironed out, but I whole heartedly urge you to at least try the game out and open your mind and heart up.