Stellar Blade Review – Decent Blade

Stellar Blade is confused about the sort of game it wants to be. Protagonist Eve has the stylings and special moves of a character action heroine (back in the day we called ’em hack-‘n’-slash), but moves too slowly and with too little grace outside of battle to pull this slick persona off. Then the wave of giant, powerful, and often difficult bosses that ask you to parry with expert timing make it seem more like a Soulsborne, but if so it’s one of the more simplistic of the genre and the inspiration only extends to the bosses, not the skirmishes or the wider world.

Stellar Blade might not know what it is, but what it is underneath it all is ‘good’. But it’s not great, and this identity crisis is the main thing that holds it back. This confusion extends far deeper than just what sort of genre box it fits into – everything about Stellar Blade is conflicted in its execution. Sometimes when reviewing games that are okay we say ‘there’s a great game in here somewhere’. In Stellar Blade, there are two – but they cancel each other out far too often.

When you look at the narrative, there’s a temptation to call Stellar Blade ‘style over substance’. You fight a flurry of bosses who seem in your way for convenience rather than with any great purpose, and it loses itself in a narrative that is both messy and predictable – there are some plot twists telegraphed early on with the sort of subtlety you’d expect from a game about the fate of humanity whose central characters are named Eve and Adam. Nier: Automata it ain’t.

The problem with style over substance is there’s an even more titillating temptation to say ‘what style?’. There are moments in Stellar Blade that look great and the enemies have interesting (and often completely grotesque) designs, but Eve seems too much like a passenger. If you’ve seen that clip of her cocking her leg to the side to slide down the ladder, you’ve seen all the personality she displays in the entire game.

What’s So Special About Stellar Blade’s Eve?

I don’t like to bring outside context into reviews too often, but I am sure that any negative review of Stellar Blade – or any review perceived as negative in that it stops short of unabashed praise – will be written off as wokery unable to accept a sexy female character. But to that I counter, Eve’s not sexy. Sure she’s pretty, and you can unlock an array of revealing costumes including bikinis, cheerleader ensembles, and a bunny one-piece with a cottontail, but the world never acknowledges this and Eve is often fairly cold as a character.

On a surface level, Eve wears revealing clothes and has jiggle physics working overtime, but compared to characters like Rayne or Bayonetta, what’s the appeal? She seems to have no understanding that she looks like a supermodel and is wearing a dress slit up the sides with red silk. None of her movements are seductive, and characters often regard her with boredom. Is she actually hot in this reality? The game never answers.

It feels odd to be criticising a game for not making its pretty female characters twerk for my amusement, but given how hard Eve has been pushed as a frontline soldier in the culture war – including the developers emphasising the time spent designing the bounce of her behind and adding a naked costume as a pseudo-hard mode, it’s odd to see the final result. Maybe it was a reservation over being criticised for being exploitative, swinging past the Bayonetta sweet spot into Quiet’s skin breathing. Or maybe developer Shift Up is simply better at animating beautiful women than it is at writing them.

So, Is Stellar Blade A Character Action Or Soulsborne?

Even my own feelings for the game feel trapped in this cyclone of contradiction – I don’t think it’s that successful at being a character action game or a Soulsborne title, the narrative and themes are shallow, and the game fails to express itself much. And yet, I had a decent time with it.

Part of that is because there is a little more style in the world overall. We go through desert wastelands, scope out abandoned subway tunnels and crumbling bridges, and explore twisted and diseased scientific facilities. These are some classic video game haunts, but the commitment to making each enemy squelch to its own disgusting rhythm gives it a bit of freshness.

Then there’s the boss battles themselves, which are given appropriately epic scales and are complex enough to offer a challenge while never feeling impossible to overcome. There’s also great variety in these battles, both in terms of enemy design and strategies needed to defeat them, while Eve learns new moves as she goes to ensure she always has a new trick up her sleeve.

We Can Share Up To Ten Pics, So Here’s Some More

But the cyclone spins again – though the exploration of new areas holds intrigue, it also features some of the least charitable platforming I’ve ever experienced. The double jump disables at key times, Eve bounces off platforms of her own accord, and there’s a major lack of consistency over which ledges she will grab and which she will dash into then fall to her doom.

The bosses have an uncharitable air too – ammo for ranged weapons is in short supply and must be bought with Eve’s precious spending money after each unsuccessful boss encounter, though the boss will of course start back at full health. Healing is also a pain, you get rechargeable health packs and unlock more as you go, but the health packs you buy are reserved – even if you own 16, you can only use two per battle, and can only revive yourself once no matter how many revival kits you have.

Eve’s healing animation takes far too long, only heals her once it’s complete, and activates inconsistently too. Add that to the parry button being the same as the one to activate Eve’s special attacks and you’re often doing the wrong thing even as you press the right thing. As is natural in Soulsbornes, some deaths were just the result of me not learning a boss’ attack patterns, but it too often feels like Stellar Blade’s own fault that you died, and that encourages animosity even if player skill was a factor.

I’m as conflicted about Stellar Blade as it seems to be about itself. It’s competent and occasionally interesting with combat as unique and rewarding as it is repetitive and frustrating. Less style over substance than it is beauty over brains, there is a good time to be had in Stellar Blade, but it comes at the cost of knowing there are better versions of this game that will never be realised.

Stellar Blade

Reviewed on PS5

Stellar Blade is an action-driven game from Shift Up, originally revealed as Project Eve. It follows the aforementioned Eve as she battles the alien Naytiba invaders, in a bid to reclaim the Earth for humanity.

Released

April 26, 2024

Developer(s)

Shift Up

Pros

• Varied boss encounters
• Great enemy design
• Makes classic locations feel fresh

Cons

• Combat and platforming unnecessarily fiddly
• Eve lacks personality
• Shallow narrative