Stellar Blade
Released: April 26, 2024
Developer: SHIFT UP Corporation
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Systems: PS5
If this game doesn’t show enough skin for you, you might like to try hardcore pornography.
Frankly, I feel really sad for the game that its been overshadowed by pathetic culture war bullshit, and it's even sadder that so-called "fans" chose to do that to a game they allegedly love. Well, I'm certainly not going to crowd out Stellar Blade's merits with my political opinions like they always do. That's all I've got to say about that.
Hahaha.
Stellar Blade stars a sword-wielding synthetic woman with a thick juicy ass who breasts boobily around an apocalyptic world, occasionally waxing philosophical while background tunes brim with soft feminine vocals. Talking to her remote drone that can shoot bullets, a thick-thighed protagonist with cross-country hips does stylish battle and ocassionally it all gets a bit meta.
If that sounds a little like Nier: Automata, you’re wrong. It does in fact sound a lot like Nier: Automata.
Remarkably sizeable mommy milkers.
No secret is made of what inspired Stellar Blade, so obvious in its mimicry that it’d look like a ripoff if it wasn’t so honest. However, while Stellar Blade has a lot of what made Nier: Automata good, it has none of what made Nier: Automata incredible. A good deal of fun is on offer, but a forgettable story and entry-level “what if robots were people?” musings add little weight to what is ultimately a surface-level aping of Platinum Games’ work.
The protagonist’s tits are huge and wobbly though, plus her dumper is massive. Both of these jiggling attributes are shown off via a constant stream of unlockable outfits, each designed to compliment her more spherical aspects in their own special way. Any outfits with high socks or stockings will do that squeezy thing with the thighs, and which is objectively a positive thing.
If you would like to masturbate over this videogame, and some of you would, it has been made eminently easy for you. Stellar Blade stops just shy of requesting the cum tributes.
It’s an entertaining action experience for the most part, as protagonist Eve (oooh symbolic) slashes her way through visually cool but narratively dull bug zombies called the Naytiba. You’ve got plenty of things to upgrade, skills to unlock, and maps full of secrets to explore. Breasts. There’s a lot to dig into and enjoy. Large breasts. Fast-paced and rich in content, among so many games inspired by the gang at Platinum, this is most certainly one of the highest quality efforts. Even so, there are notable drawbacks.
Stellar Blade’s gameplay provides an excellent example of form over function, as genuinely great mechanics are forever undermined by dodgy controls and overly luxurious animations imposed upon every action Eve performs.
Attack combos certainly look fantastic, as she dances with her sword to pull off some beautiful moves, but every step of a sequence has its own flourish and the frequent delays can throw off the sense of rhythm. The way enemies stagger around and use multiple combos of varying lengths can make them downright misleading. Controls are occasionally awkward, due in no small part to the amount of enemy attacks with specific but very disparate methods of evading and countering.
Some can be dodged or blocked regularly, others mandate dodging in different directions, others should be blocked or parried, and when you're also trying to perform combos or fire off abilities with their own control schemes, fingers can easily get confused or fail to reach the right buttons in time. Each of these requirements are denoted by different flashing colors, and there are a silly amount of them to try and recall during frantic fights.
Whenever you successfully parry, perform a perfect dodge, or pull off a combo, everything looks and feels amazing, but I’ve never quite gotten used to the “overflow” of motion that comes with Eve's aforementioned flourishes. If one does struggle - and it’s not a hugely difficult game for the most part - I’ve found just hammering block and hoping for the best is an amusingly reliable way to counter enemy offense.
I must talk about how Eve handles in general, which is fucking awfully. Twitchy, imprecise movements and poor steering make for an unwieldy protagonist, bad enough in her awkwardness that even opening a door or using a ladder requires parking her like a swimsuit-clad forklift truck. At the very least, SHIFT UP could have given interactive objectives a wider activation radius rather than make players stand in very specific positions at a perfect angle. It's a terrible design conflict that has no reason to exist.
Because cool animations have been prioritized over useful ones, Stellar Blade truly suffers when it insists on frigging platforming. There’s no accounting for Eve’s inability to jump without landing like she's got soap on her soles, and if you approach a guardrail she’ll automatically hop over it with a lovely spin even if nothing but a chasm is on the other side.
She swishes around with flowery abandon no matter how precise you need her, and the game often demands way more precision than it should need.
The result of all this is a game that commits a cardinal sin - it can’t be trusted. I can’t trust that when I move Eve, she won’t overshoot the destination. I can’t trust her enough to grab a rope when she jumps, or to even jump the way I pointed her. I can't trust her precision or responsiveness outside of combat. I cannot trust a single area where climbing and platforming are required, because it's an unwieldy mess and the player character keeps doing her best lemming impression.
It’s a game that looks impressively graceful but is in actuality clumsy as all fuck.
One thing I’ll say to its extreme credit is that in spite of everything Stellar Blade does to bury them, the controls themselves are incredibly responsive when you're on the ground. Blocking or dodging will cancel your attacks with dependable swiftness, which helps maintain a fast, aggressive pace. A variety of extra gadgets such as stun grenades or mines are really useful even in the tougher boss fights, and there is no shortage of cool, flashy, powerful special moves that power through enemies with nigh indomitable poise.
What's funny, though, is that Stellar Blade's best part has nothing to do with Eve's swordplay, and everything to do with her gun. Usually, the drone gun is just a backup weapon with a measure of utility, but there's an area where Eve loses her sword and is stuck in a dark laboratory with mutant monsters screaming at her. For a short moment, Stellar Blade becomes a third-person horror shooter, and it's really, really fucking good! It's spooky, bereft of bad platforming, and just a lot of fun.
I would very much enjoy it if a future Stellar Blade just happened to be a full-on horror shooter based on what we see here.
Systems and features haven’t been skimped on, to the point where you may forget to use all those abilities, upgrades, and equippables that continue to accrue throughout the campaign. Though lacking traditional XP and leveling, Eve can strengthen her gear with crafting resources while her suite of maneuvers constantly expand thanks to a generous dripfeed of skill points.
All that said, many of the attack skills feel interchangeable enough that just picking one and maxing out its tree is a lot more worthwhile than trying them all. You acquire the energy to use them at a slow enough rate you hardly benefit from variety anyway, at least without equipping specific gear to boost energy gains. Whatever you use though, it’s all pretty effective and, more crucially, it's effectively pretty.
Speaking of visuals, Stellar Blade confuses me a little. Every individual asset is gorgeous, every individual animation is exquisite in motion, and yet when everything comes together it all looks a little disjointed and cheap. It might be an effect of Eve’s everso slightly elongated limbs, reminiscent as they are of several Steam Direct games that tried and failed to copy Bayonetta's character design.
I need to reiterate - the game is graphically gorgeous and smooth as silk. There’s just something vaguely off about it. Meanwhile the soundtrack is best described as Nier’s music, if Nier's music wasn't quite as good as Nier's music is.
Stellar Blade is at war with itself in a conflict between style and substance. Sadly, style wins with merciless regularity, but there’s a strong core of genuinely good gameplay fighting through an ocean of bells and whistles. Finally, let us never forget: titanic titties, one caked up ass, and thighs that could feed the five thousand.
7.5/10
