REVIEW: Stellar Blade — A fine blade, albeit hollow

Stellar Blade has generated a lot of hype leading up to its release, for obvious reasons. Now that it’s finally here, its time to find out whether or not there’s any gameplay substance on offer to match all that sex appeal. 

STORY

If you’ve seen a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk once, you’ve seen them all, and though notable titles like Death Stranding stand out amongst the crowd, Stellar Blade’s story is as predictable as they come.  It’s not a snooze or cringe fest that makes the story repulsive or unlikeable, but it doesn’t do much of anything unexpected. It also doesn’t help that most of the character lack any compelling, well, character, that’s enough to get invested by. I doubt the story will win any narrative-driven awards but even as the developers themselves expressed their focus outside of the story, it does still serve its bare minimum purpose – a reason to beat up monsters and look good doing it.

GAMEPLAY

In a nutshell, Stellar Blade’s gameplay has strong souls-like and hack’n’slash elements melded together. You explore an interconnected world that promotes lots of backtracking whilst slowly world-building through environmental context and lore. Combat is a ballet of dodge parries mixed with flashy photo finish combos that would make any son of Sparda cry. Unfortunately, the game lacks any of the polish that I’ve grown used to from the games they’ve taken inspiration from.

For the casual gamers out there, you’ll probably be okay with Stellar Blade’s gameplay. Heck, you might even love it. But for any aspiring hardcore hack’n’slash/soulslike players out there, I have a few gripes. First off, combos are pretty cool, however, many of the moves are so elaborate, that it takes forever to finish, and due to the fact that the combos trajectory is locked in to which ever direction you started it in, its quite easy to get hit with quick cheapshots at off-angles. This is easy enough to work around by being careful not to over-commit into combos, but in terms of fun-factor, it lacks the seamless polish of being able to re-orient your combo between each attack.

Second is the parry system. At first I thought it was too tough, like the window was too narrow. (For context, I’d like to think I have some merit to critique a game’s parry system considering this is my top genre and I have the no-damage boss clips to prove it) That was before I realized the game actually rewards you with a ‘perfect’ parry by blocking too early. Worst still, after much testing, I found out that you could pretty much get away with spamming the L1 button for majority of the attacks. And when a boss does their ‘unblockable’ you actually gain skills that lets you do high-reward counters on ‘em, making those more like moves you wish for rather than fear.

The game certainly introduces itself as hardcore until you spend a few points on skill tree. I would call this game easy right off the bat if not for the weird and inconsistent attack animations. Even the hardest boss in any soulslike still telegraph their attacks one way or another, but some enemies in Stellar Blade either have very jarring animations or very subtle that it makes defending against these attacks largely inconsistent. This creates a weird rollercoaster of difficulty curve where some encounters spike up hard simply because of janky attacks.

VISUALS & PERFORMANCE

Stellar Blade has three graphics modes – Performance, Balanced, and Quality. Two of those are settings we’re used to but I would actually recommend setting it on balance as the game is still largely above 30 fps but retaining some better textures. The game is definitely a visually appealing game, including in elements outside the game’s obvious strongest ‘assets’. Characters and Monsters are crafted with very intricate and intimate details (yup, that’s a double entendre). The attack animations and its accompanied special effects are very flashy and satisfying. Even some simple environmental objects are chalk full of detail. But even after all that praise, the game still manages to create some very dull stages. Some are certainly eye-catching, particularly distant sceneries. But there’s definitely lots of boring corridors and hallways that are less than interesting to explore.

VERDICT

Stellar Blade is no doubt a visually impressive game. However, this extreme focus on eye-candy comes at the cost of unrefined combat, some dull level-designs, and an uninspired story. That being said, it’s still certainly a fun little action title. So, If you don’t care for precise combat, an emotionally immersive story, and impressive level-design, grab Stellar Blade, unless you can wait for a discount. But if you ARE that kind of gamer, definitely wait for a discount. 

[this review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher]