4.5/5 ★ – delaydan17's review of Stellar Blade.

88/100 While I have long pined for a sci-fi soulslike from From Software itself, Korean game Stellar Blade satiated my desire for highly cinematic top-notch action gameplay. As an action RPG game, Stellar Blade overdelivers on the action yet fumbles the RPG elements. Overall, the game that Stellar Blade reminds me most of is Sekiro. Like Sekiro, Stellar Blade is one of—if not the most—cinematic action games I have ever played. What’s more, both Stellar Blade and Sekiro have absolutely incredible action gameplay to match up to the cinematic battles. However, like Sekiro, the RPG element of Stellar Blade is really too shallow to even consider it an RPG. While both games have cool progressions, the ability to customize your character through RPG elements is virtually nonexistent. The follies of Stellar Blade’s RPG unfortunately don’t stop there, however. While the lore of the game is actually pretty good and interesting, the story is painfully predictable and the dialogue writing is painfully bad. I would be remiss if I wrote this review without talking about Stellar Blade’s awesome soundtrack. The soft Korean electro pop of Stellar Blade is consistently well made and diverse. What’s more, there are a lot of really good individual tracks that are just for a single location or moment in the whole game. Major props to the composers and music directors who worked on this game. If Stellar Blade was a book or a movie, I imagine I would have a hard time calling it anything more than mediocre. But video games are called games for a reason. It is through the incredibly responsive and cinematic gameplay, paired with some dope chill tunes, that make Stellar Blade an unforgettable experience.