Just over five years after being announced as Project Eve, Stellar Blade is finally here as a PlayStation 5 exclusive. It’s quite a journey for the console debut title of developer Shift Up, best known for its popular mobile third-person shooter RPG Goddess of Victory: Nikke. Originally planned as a PlayStation 4, PC, and Xbox One release, Stellar Blade pivoted to PS5 as an exclusive in 2021 after Sony Interactive Entertainment became its publisher.
It sparked my interest those years ago, during the 2022 State of Play where it debuted its story trailer, but Stellar Blade mostly dwindled in the back of my mind until the more recent 2024 Sony showcase. Its fast-paced, intense gameplay and sprawling world rekindled my curiosity, and I watched the action game for hints of my favorite ingredients.
At its core, Stellar Blade has the world and aesthetic choices rooted in Nier: Automata, with storytelling ambitions in pursuit of those same highs — though they don’t reach them. Gameplay remains more akin to Dark Souls over anything else, but as a fan of both, the mashup was enough to keep it firmly top of mind by just the promise. And finally, after a roughly 30-hour playthrough, I can say there’s plenty there worth its namesake curiosities, but it’s not without rough edges. Stellar Blade is full of points of excellence scattered throughout its journey, ping-ponging between those rewards with stiff combat and a far more linear, contained experience than I expected.
Stellar Blade (PS5[reviewed])
Developer: Shift Up
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Released: April 26, 2024
MSRP: $69.99
Glory to Mankind, again
Stellar Blade takes place on a post-apocalyptic Earth ravaged by strange alien creatures, the Naytiba. Humans have been forced to flee the planet, creating a Colony in outer space to live until an opportunity to drive back the Naytiba presents itself.
The player takes on the role of EVE, one of the members of the 7th Airborne squad being sent to Earth from the colony to take out a threat called the Alpha Naytiba, and hopefully eradicate the Naytiba from Earth and reclaim it for Humanity.
Unfortunately, the mission immediately goes south. Most of the squad is obliterated upon entering the Earth’s atmosphere, and even EVE’s Squad Leader Tachy sacrifices herself to save EVE from a deadly unidentified Naytiba. EVE is saved by a Human scavenger named Adam who lives on Earth and comes from the last surviving city of Xion. The two agree to work together as EVE sets out to fulfill her mission while also aiding the desperate people of Xion. Remotely piloting a robot drone, Adam joins EVE in her adventure, helping her along the way.
Story-wise, Stellar Blade definitely took inspiration from Nier: Automata. Which, let’s be real, is not a bad thing. Nier: Automata is one of my favorite video game stories ever, if not the favorite. But despite the inspiration, Stellar Blade is indeed its own story as well, weaving its way through a variety of topics like “What is life? What is it to be Human?”. There are a couple of underlying plot points told over time as you progress through Stellar Blade as well. What are the Naytiba? What happened on Earth, exactly? All told through the eyes of EVE, who also has to analyze these questions as she encounters them.
The story of Stellar Blade is one of its strongest elements and a worthwhile endeavor for anyone who’s a fan of Science Fiction, thought-provoking narratives, or of course, Nier: Automata. There are also three different endings you can experience as well, depending on certain choices you make near the end of the game. I’ve only seen the ending I got naturally. And while I am happy with it, I am curious to see what other routes the ending could explore.
Emotions are prohibited
With such a strong narrative-driven experience that Stellar Blade ends up taking, it’s equally as important for the world to feel alive. If you’ve played Nier: Automata, you know exactly what I’m talking about here. Even though it wasn’t exactly a massive open world, it felt like it was. Giant wide-open landscapes that allowed you to explore and traverse at your own pace were some of the key components of the world.
But in Stellar Blade, while most of the backdrops and surrounding landscapes appear open and massive in scale, the actual areas in which you can go are rather linear, contained, and in a lot of cases even closed. At some points, the game unexpectedly restricted my ability to explore the few areas it seemed like I could, which was quite disappointing.
Early on you swim through an area of the city submerged in water, with the ability to even dive down and fully explore underwater. But in the very next area when I attempted to jump into the water I immediately started taking damage and quickly died, with Adam alerting me that the water must be receiving an electrical current. It was a weird flip-flop from being able to swim and explore an underwater portion only for it to be used as a “you can’t go here” prop soon after. I also encountered a couple of literal invisible walls that took control of my character, turned her around, and told me to look around elsewhere first. I hate invisible walls.
There are a couple of areas in Stellar Blade that offer more open environments like the desert. However, these areas are rather empty and barren compared to the other parts of the world that actually seem worthwhile to explore. The environments and overall world design in Stellar Blade are well done. I just feel like the actual level design itself is far too restrictive and linear at points. I had a similar issue with Final Fantasy XVI, though even that felt more capable of actually being explored.
A future is not given to you
It should be no surprise that by being compared to Dark Souls, the combat in Stellar Blade is well…tough. There are only two difficulty modes in Stellar Blade: Story and Normal. Normal is the intended difficulty, but I have to admit, certain encounters—primarily boss encounters—gave me quite a challenge. For the sake of making sure I actually saw my journey through to the end, I had to switch to Story Mode a few times near the end.
For the most part, combat is done in the form of melee battle using EVE’s one-handed blade, the Blood Edge. This Stellar Blade…hah…allows you to carry out quick and weaker attacks as well as strong heavier but slower attacks. Pretty standard for this style of action combat. You can also block with the L1 button to negate most attacks or dodge out of the way completely with the Circle button.
As you progress, you’ll level up and earn Skill Points that allow you to unlock various skills and passive buffs from five different skill trees. There are actually a ton of skills available, so you can really build EVE to cater to your preferred playstyle.
Attacking enemies will charge up your energy, which allows you to then execute Beta Skills that you’ve unlocked from the Skill Tree. Beta Skills are strong attacks that I found I typically relied on to get through some of the more intense encounters in Stellar Blade.
Where I had a problem with the combat of Stellar Blade, is that in almost every aspect it felt quite stiff, or even rough around the edges. While games with similar combat systems like Dark Souls have fluid free-flowing combat, many aspects of the combat in Stellar Blade feel clunky and unrefined.
Early on you unlock the ability to Blink through your enemy and counter-attack them from behind when you pull off a properly timed dodge. I’m not sure why but it only actually works for me maybe 70% of the time? At first, I thought it was my controller so I tried another one, but still had the same result. The execute the Blink you have to push up on the left-stick and hit Circle at the same time; a very specific maneuver. However, sometimes when I’d do this exact maneuver I had done many times before, it simply wouldn’t work, resulting in the enemy wailing on me.
Unfortunately, this happened with some other skills as well, which led to be finding a very specific set of skills I preferred to use and for the most part, stuck to the whole game. Ones I knew worked, at least mostly. Even outside of the seemingly broken skills, the default melee combat itself feels heavy and clunky at times, with no rhyme or reason as to why. At times I’d get stuck in a combat animation that other times I’m able to easily dodge out of. Or when I could properly dodge backward from an enemy attack, sometimes the enemy would float forward just a bit to still be able to land a grab attack on me even though I had just dodged it the same way before without issue.
Of course, the boss fights are where Stellar Blade truly shines. There are just over a dozen boss fights in total, each with their own unique playstyle and approach required. The boss encounters actually felt more polished than most regular enemy encounters throughout the game, which priority-wise is probably not such a bad thing. Some of the encounters near the end are brutal and unforgiving, but it’s rewarding to finally take them down. You know, the classic Souls-like mantra.
Do you think games are silly little things?
The world is littered with many different things for you to collect, including Exospine’s and Gear that you can equip and upgrade to enhance and alter your playstyle of EVE. For example, some gear may increase your defenses such as offering damage reduction bonuses, while others may increase your energy recharge rate or attack damage.
You can really mix and match the Exospine’s and Gear to cater to a specific build when matched with the skills you choose, creating a really rewarding experience when it comes to trying new builds. I can’t wait to see what insane builds theory crafters come up with for Stellar Blade with all the possibilities that are here.
There are 30 different outfits you can find and craft to change the appearance of EVE, as well as glasses, masks, earrings, and even alterations for your drone. These are purely cosmetic, but as you can tell from the various trailers for Stellar Blade showing off the many costumes EVE has at her disposal, this is a very important feature.
A myriad of collectibles can also be found throughout the world, helping tell the backstory and narrative of Stellar Blade. Some will document life on Earth before or during the Naytiba attacks, as well as dealing with the aftermath. I actually like this style of offering more detailed story elements through collectibles, and I always found myself looking forward to reading about the world in the Data Bank as soon as I picked up a new collectible.
Everything that lives is designed to end
In terms of both the graphics and the audio, Stellar Blade is spectacular. The overarching world is beautiful and some of the landscapes and backdrops in certain areas are literally breathtaking. Paired with the remarkable score, it really helps you settle into the world of Stellar Blade. Once again, the actual storytelling and worldbuilding are second to none in Stellar Blade, and I really have to applaud Shift Up for knocking it out of the park. I plan to add a few songs from the soundtrack to my playlist because they are just absolute bangers.
Oddly enough, there are two major features I thought would be present in Stellar Blade that aren’t there: a Photo mode and New Game Plus. I usually don’t care much about Photo mode, EVE with all the available cosmetic unlocks feels like it was made for such a feature, not to mention the flashy combat. After I completed Stellar Blade, I was looking forward to knocking out some of the side quests I opted to skip due to time constraints in NG+, but was surprised to find out no such mode exists. Certainly, these aren’t features that are required, but feel as though they’d be a perfect fit here.
Overall, Stellar Blade is a journey worth experiencing. If you’re a fan of games with a unique and compelling narrative, Stellar Blade has fired on all cylinders in that regard. While there are some flaws along the way, it’s nothing too detrimental to ruin the overall experience or make it any less worthwhile. I feel like with some improvements in certain areas, Stellar Blade could be a legendary landmark experience like those it clearly draws inspiration from. But even in its current form, Stellar Blade offers a fast-paced action combat system in a unique world with a rewarding narrative. It’s not quite stellar, but it’s certainly solid. Solid Blade.
[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]
Published: Apr 24, 2024 09:00 am