Stellar Blade by developer Shift Up is probably one of my favorite things to happen to gaming this year so far (not counting the soon-to-drop Elden Ring DLC); in a year where AAA gaming is more or less going into the dirt with all the industry lay-offs and continuous releases of forgettable games, and suddenly a random Korean studio known best for making a mobile gacha game produces a title that puts most other AAA releases this year to absolute shame. The same thing happened earlier with Granblue Fantasy: Relink (see my review here), so I guess 2024 is the year of mobile game developers moving to traditional gaming platforms with a bang. Stellar Blade intrigued me at first because it draws a lot of inspiration from the Nier games (I have written reviews for Nier: Automata and the remastered Nier: Replicant), which have been some of my favorite gaming experiences ever. Stellar Blade felt in a way the opposite of Nier; I was somewhat disappointed by its story, which basically felt like a mish-mash of the narratives of Replicant and Automata but with little of the powerful emotional beats and complex characters that made those games’ stories so compelling, yet as an actual video game it is very well polished and addictingly fun (compared to Replicant’s gameplay which is pretty terrible and Automata where it is only really fun when playing as 2B).
The premise of Stellar Blade should feel very familiar to those who are acquainted with the Nier games; Earth is in a post-apocaplyptic state, inhabited by vicious monsters known as Naytibas, and humans are in a desperate battle to try and retake the planet from space, deploying soldiers in various airborne squads (who also happen to be conventionally very attractive women just like in the Nier games) to try and take out particularly dangerous Naytibas. The main protagonist is Eve, a member of one of those airborne squads, and the game follows her journey to try and ultimately defeat the Elder Naytiba, supposedly the big baddie whose defeat will finally give humanity the edge it needs to take Earth back.
Gameplay:
Stellar Blade’s gameplay is easily its crowning achievement. At its core, it is an action/exploration game with hack-and-slash combat, and the combat is stellar (pun absolutely intended). It is fairly straightforward to pick up with a lot of the basic inputs one would come to expect from most hack-and-slash games, but its mechanics are very fine-tuned and polished. One can get through most of the game with just the basic light and heavy attacks as different button sequences result in Eve performing different combo strings against enemies, but as part of her character power progression, she unlocks various new skills and mechanics to further expand her arsenal, and almost all of those new skills are very fun to use as well. The enemy/boss design is excellent, especially the bosses. I do not think there was a single boss I did not enjoy fighting, as each of them had their own unique move-sets and challenges to overcome. There were a couple of repeat fights over the course of the game, but I did not mind it that much considering the overall still diverse roster of big enemies to fight. The variety of smaller enemies does get a tad stale considering how big some of the maps can get and how long the game is (seeing those tiny four-legged wheel enemies literally everywhere does get a bit tiresome), but not to the point where I found it anything more than a minor complaint. For the most part, the difficulty scaling also feels generally pretty fair, with the later bosses generally becoming more difficult at a pretty good pace on par with Eve acquiring more upgrades. The only thing is that the difficulty does spike up significantly towards the end of the game; I found the last bosses of the game to be leagues more difficult than anything prior so it did take me a bit of time to overcome them but not to the point it was frustratingly miserable.
The level design and exploration is also quite good, with a lot of cool things to explore, and rewards for those who put in the effort to go the extra mile to comb through every nook and cranny. The open world levels were surprisingly fun to traverse, albeit I was not a fan of the desert/wasteland aesthetics as those feel incredibly over-used, even if they narratively make sense as a game taking place in a post-apocalyptic time. As far as the actual content is concerned, I had no complaints. For a lot of games I enjoy I generally take a completionist approach to them and try to explore as much as I can, and while I was able to discover a good amount Stellar Blade’s bonus content on my own without the need of a guide, I still missed out on quite a few things, with some of them being hidden in areas I would have never thought to visit, which is a testament to how great the game’s level design is.
Overall, Stellar Blade’s gameplay is almost flawless, and I have very few complaints. My biggest complaint about the gameplay is honestly a relatively minor one, and that’s with Eve’s drone gun that she can use to shoot at enemies with. Ammunition does not automatically refill every time Eve rests at camp, with the only ways of getting more ammo being finding drops from enemies, buying them, or getting refills at relatively rare ammo stations. Sure, at no point in the game does ammo actually become an issue if I really wanted to play a more gun-heavy style, but it just adds another thing I have to micro-manage instead of just having everything automatically refill on a rest. Maybe if ammo was intentionally made to be scarce I could understand the rationale, but it really is not, so it is really more of an annoyance if anything. If they still wanted ammo to cost money to refill they could just simply add an option when taking a rest to refill ammo for a cost as a singular prompt rather than forcing the player to manually go into the shop to buy more.
Story:
While Stellar Blade’s gameplay is amazing, unfortunately the writing is not quite on par. Not that I think it is bad by any means; it is at least competent. The story pacing is pretty decent and the overall narrative is cohesive with a few interesting twists, with also a plethora of lore to be found throughout the levels for those who want to explore more, but a lot of those story beats felt relatively flat to someone who has already experienced the storytelling of the Nier games. A big part of it is due to the characters, which for the most part do not feel super compelling. The two most prominent characters in the story besides Eve are Adam and Lily, and out of all three of them Lily is really the only one that actually has a semblance of a personality. I do not dislike the characters as I think they are fine for what the story needs and the voice acting is fine enough (but not particularly stand-out), but they definitely did not leave a super lasting impression on me. The side quests are pretty hit-or-miss; they were all generally fun to play and fairly well-designed gameplay-wise but there were a few side quests that had the potential to lead to some juicy story bits but then just ended on weird cliffhangers with no follow-up quests; not sure if there are plans for future updates to expand on those or if they are going to be elaborated more in potential sequels but it did feel unsatisfying to finish some of them without closure. There were a few great side quests though; I was a fan of Su and Enya’s quest-line and thought it was one of the better emotional story-lines in the game. I do think Stellar Blade’s overall narrative would hold up better with people who have not played the Nier games because a lot of the twists and surprise reveals would feel a lot fresher, but overall I would say it is fine. It is not nearly as amazing as the gameplay, but it does not have to be.
Ending/Misc. Thoughts:
Stellar Blade is a fantastic-looking game, and that’s not just referring to Eve. The visuals, from the landscapes to the individual character and enemy designs all look incredible, and the game runs very well on my PS5 (I always play in performance mode because I generally prioritize frame rate over graphical fidelity). The visuals are also paired with a top-notch soundtrack, which also draws inspiration from the Nier games; I heard rumors of Shift Up actually collaborating with people who have worked on the Nier soundtrack so if those rumors are true it comes as no surprise to me due to some of the similarities between the music in both games. My only gripe with the artistic design? They did not need two desolate landscapes; the game’s two open-world levels take place in a wasteland and a desert, and that is pretty excessive.
Overall, Stellar Blade is incredible. It is a well-made, polished product, which is already a lot better than most of the other garbage I’ve seen out of AAA studios this year, and it is clear Shift Up have put a lot of work and passion into it. The team has also been great about post-launch support, releasing updates that add more content, including an awesome Boss Rush mode that adds a ton of replayability to the game if NG+ was not enough. I was a bit disappointed in the writing, but the game is just addictingly fun with its incredible combat, and ultimately that is what games are supposed to be.
Rating: Stellar Blade absolutely deserves its AAA price tag. Ton of good content, replayability to go with its overall quality. Great game for lovers of hack-and-slash action games, Nier experience not required.
