3/5 ★ – Smabbott's review of Stellar Blade.

Imperfection Stellar Blade may well be one of the most difficult games I’ve had to review. I was certain this was gonna be a 4 or a 5/10. The use of the parry mechanic was a great idea, but the way the game was animated through very specific fluent animations made it incredibly tedious to use. The player had to react for a perfect parry way before the weapon would make contact with you. I hated it. I had no idea why anyone was defending this when games such as Lies of P, Sifu and Sekiro thrive off precision timing with a parry when a weapon makes contact with the player. The game prioritises predictive combat rather than reactive combat. I’m not a fan of this approach. Although there is nothing wrong with this design, it creates a sense of not interacting with moves as they occur, but rather reacting to memory. The animations during fights are grand and epic. The way certain mechanics such as the blink dodge and reversal are used to break up the combat is impressive and it’s a great time. The perfect dodge is hit or miss where it isn’t clear when the player is safe to dodge. The combat focuses on button configurations in order to create variety. But whenever a heavy attack is used, it can make you vulnerable to the enemy at the time as animations have to complete before moving to the next line of code. The story of Stellar Blade is by far the weakest part of the game. The bland attempt of depth to planks of wood as they were does not help the game whatsoever. Reveals are seen in the first hour when they’re revealed in the tenth. Eve is a bland protagonist with nothing to say. Her friends Adam and Lily are even worse. The character designs of the trio feel as if they’re all meant to be in different games. Eve feels like your no nonsense stoic protagonist with literally nothing to say. Adam feels as if he’s a recluse Resident Evil character just without the charisma. And Lily feels as if she’s meant to be a side character in a Final Fantasy game. All three characters are bland and uninspired up until the final five minutes of the game. The level design is rather simple in its visual design. Consisting of sewers, underground areas and more sewers. The game is short if you don’t do any of the side activities. But I wouldn’t advise you do this because the game soft locks the player where you can’t go back to the open areas and upgrade your gear. I knew this, but I didn’t think I couldn’t upgrade my character if I did this. The point of no return is 5 hours before the end of the game, with 5 bosses to go. That is ridiculous. After beating the game, you cannot return to the world. So if you miss it, you’re screwed. That’s what happened to me. I got to the end of the game and hit a brick wall. With a +7 weapon. Two health upgrades it wasn’t looking good. The max you can get is +15 weapon and 7 health upgrades. So overall I had to complete the game with a very weak Eve. I would die in a single hit and each fight was 5+ minutes. Realising I couldn’t do this, I started the game again and did all the side missions. They all sucked. I collected as many outfits as I could. The outfits may well be the best part of this game. They’re all creative, attractive and just a massive vibe. If you’re not dressing Eve up to be the most gorgeous android, you’re lying. Eventually though, I got half way through the game and I couldn’t be asked to finish the game a second time. So I clutched up and played like a god for the last two fights. And do you know what, both fights were fantastic. The last 3 fights set such a high bar for the fights which make you sad what you fought before hand. The enemy design is good. But it does feel as if they threw designs at a wall and saw what stuck. There’s no cohesion to anything in the game. The music is absolutely brilliant thanks to the inclusion of Keiichi Okabe the composer of Nier Automata, the game shines in the music department and all the while you’ll be thinking. Damn, they really did try to do Nier didn’t they? It’s nowhere near Nier. But it is a good time and it’s a dumb fun action game that thinks it’s deeper than it is. Stellar Blade is a muddle of reused concepts, wearing inspiration on its sleeve without innovating on any of it. But it is a good time. I just hope when we get a sequel, they think about the story more. But we’ll see.