I was intrigued by Stellar Blade, by developer Shift Up and publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment, since the first teaser trailers when it was still being called Project Eve. Something about the visual design and cinematography just drew me in, and I’m not just talking about the protagonist, Eve. No, the visuals of the actual fights scratched my action-adventure itch in the same way that games like Bayonetta and NeiR Automata did. Upon learning that the game was inspired by those two titles, I was hooked. I downloaded the demo, played that to completion, and waited patiently. Then the game came out and I dived in.
Stellar Blade begins its story with a brief synopsis of the situation. Humanity and creatures known as the Naytiba are at war. As a result of the war, the planet has been devastated and conquered by the Naytiba, and it is up to Eve and the members of the 7th Airborne Squadron to find the “Elder Naytiba”, the commander and source of all Naytiba, and eliminate it so that Mother Sphere and the colony can begin to reclaim Earth. Almost immediately, things go wrong. Eve and her sisterly mentor are blown off course and must fight through a few tutorialized waves of Naytiba before encountering a stronger Naytiba who dispatches all of their comrades, and then an Alpha Naytiba who attacks Tachy and nearly kills Eve before she’s rescued at the last second by a man named Adam. If you think that’s too on the nose, we’ll soon meet another character named Lily and travel to a city called Xion. Stellar Blade is very not-subtle about quite a lot of things, sort of like a magician makes dramatic movements to hide something from you in plain sight. These scenes here actually contain some of the only instances of Eve being pre-rendered in the entire game outside of the last moments of the game, which is fascinating that everything is done in-engine.
After being rescued, Eve and Adam travel to the flooded ruins of a city, Eidos 7, in search of the entity that killed Eve’s friend Tachy, and for a futuristic power cell as Adam’s half of the bargain. Here they find and fight their first Alpha Naytiba – essentially generals of the army who have part of the keys needed to find and gain access to the Elder – and find their third travelling companion, Lily, who is an engineer from one of “humanity’s” previous assaults against the Naytibas. After meeting Lily the trio travel to the hidden city Xion, the last outpost of humanity on earth. Here they meet the leader of the city, Orcal, an old cyborg who has access to a complex detecting network who promises to help you find more Alphas, just so long as you promise to bring him more power cells to restore the city to full power and function. This sets up narrative loop for the next several chapters. Eve must travel to an abandoned site in search of a power cell- in a segment that makes Stellar Balde‘s genre shift from hack and slash to survival horror shooter – and once they collect that, she is told where to find an Alpha and can go defeat it. At each stage she will come across relics of the past, hastily scrawled notes, advertisements, last wills and testaments, and holographic projections that tell of a much darker reality than the one Eve and Lily had been led to believe.
I liken Stellar Blade to a magician, using flash to disguise subtlety, and one of these happens extremely early on when you learn that the details of the mission that you were given at the beginning of the game are not what you were told, that who you are fighting and what you are fighting for are not what you expected, and that your mission to “eliminate” the Elder Naytiba might have darker implications than you first thought. This early game twist, while revealing some major plot details, also slips in several seeds of future twists, one of which it doesn’t fully reveal until the last moments of the game.
The narrative is nothing groundbreaking, but it never needed to be, and there are plenty of great moments in the plot. There are tons of extremely effective moments, both in the main story and in the sidequests, though there are also several plot beats in both that just sort of… end. While there are several well executed and fully fleshed out sidequest plot lines, there’s also one that just ends as soon as it begins.
The Voice Acting and character moments are also a little hit or miss. While the animation of each moment is excellent, I couldn’t help but feel that there might need to be more connective tissue. This is especially apparent with the sidequest dialogue which activates based on your physical location, and it’s not always clear which dialogue relates to which quest, necessarily.
In general, I wish there was more breathing room in the plot, maybe more explorations into ancient ruins for a change of pace, give all our characters more chances to interact with each other and make their emotions regarding each other weightier as a whole. Nothing felt fake or forced, rather like we only got the condensed form of things.
Also, there are basically only three choices in Stellar Blade, and only two of those have any impact on the narrative. One of the choices decides if you have access to the best ending or not, and the other decides if you get the best ending (or a less good version depending on your previous choice) or a different one. Once you make these decisions you are locked in, so you either need to play through the game multiple times – thankfully there’s an incredibly robust new game plus mode – or back up your saves before the two decision points that matter.
A lot of people have called Stellar Blade a Soulslike, and this isn’t wrong, but it’s not wholly correct either. It takes just as much of its DNA from hyperkinetic action games like the two mentioned above, including granting slowdown and other bonuses for executing perfect dodges. Stellar Blade‘s combat is about rhythm and momentum. The basic combat encounters will see Eve move in to attack an enemy a few times before an enemy can get its first attack in, a dodge or block (or parry if you time things perfectly) to avoid its attack or the attack of other enemies that have also aggroed you, resuming Eve’s attacks as soon as there is a gap in the enemy’s assault. So, you want to learn an enemy’s pattern to anticipate its attacks and react to or in some cases prevent its activation. Eve has a host of basic and complex combos at her disposal, with more complicated combos being more powerful, more stunning, and better in general, but also putting Eve at more risk as you can’t always cancel them into dodges and blocks. Eve also has some more powerful abilities such as beta chains, beta skills, burst skills, and a super mode, all of which unlock as the game progresses.
As Eve fights using normal attacks, guards, dodges, and takedowns, she builds beta meter. This meter can be used at the end of a combo to turn the last hit into a “beta chain” an even stronger attack that momentarily stuns an enemy. You can also use more of the meter at any point, even mid combo, to execute a beta skill. These need to be bought in the game’s skill trees (and upgraded) but each of them are powerful, stun enemies, give Eve combat options above and beyond her basic combos, and also, build burst. Burst is the level of power above beta. You only build burst when perfect dodging, parrying, or using beta chain or skill. Burst skills are incredibly powerful. One of them overcharges Eve to enhance her movement and boost her basic attacks by roughly double for an extended time, and the other three are incredibly powerful attacks that can entirely destroy any non boss enemy, destroy a boss’ shields, and deal significant damage to even the final bosses of the game. They are also effective room clears if you are getting overwhelmed by an enemy mob. Both beta and burst skills grant momentary super armor, so you can’t get knocked out of them.
Burst would be the ultimate move, except for the super form you can unlock about halfway through the game that’s even more powerful, but can only be activated for extremely short durations. While none of these are strictly necessary to defeat the game, they all make your life considerably easier, as does searching through Stellar Blade‘s many levels to find health upgrades, beta meter upgrades, weapon and health restorative upgrades, collectible cans for expanding the number of consumables you can carry at once, and specialized equipment like the exospines and ‘gear’ items that enhance Eve’s attributes, like making her stealthier, making it easier to dodge and parry, or giving her damage reduction and another layer of shielding. The clothing options you can find and craft in the world, as well as the hairstyle options, those are purely cosmetic.
As for the question of if Stellar Blade is a Soulslike? I’d say it’s almost a Soulslite. Combat is brutal, death is often, but your progress isn’t lost if you die. In fact, the only thing that changes when you die is that you return to your last checkpoint and all defeated non boss enemies respawn. You still keep any items or collectibles you gathered. Any consumables – grenades, instant revives, and any healing items besides the standard refilling healing pot – will remain spent, but you will jump back to your last save or checkpoint with all your items refilled from your supply chest, and your beta, burst and super meters exactly as they were when you died. In fact, sometimes the best thing to do against a tough boss is to die a few times to build those meters up as you learn its patterns so you can unleash them at the best time when you’re ready to finish things.
Despite playing through Stellar Blade almost twice already, I won’t say it’s flawless. It only crashed on me once, but there are some quality of life improvements the game could stand to make. The English voice acting is nothing spectacular, and the script feels a bit bare bones at times. There is a map, but it’s not available in several of the areas where it would be the most use. Stellar Blade uses a location-based fast travel system, which is all well and dandy, but these are spread out in unusual density, and two of the games’ dungeons have either a single fast travel spot or none at all, and these are two of the most linear levels in Stellar Blade, and could benefit greatly from such. The game’s gun option feels like barely an afterthought outside of the shooting puzzles and the gun-only dungeons, which I personally could have done with more of. In general, Stellar Blade left me wanting a little more. Not just in the sense of a sequel – which is teased, but just in terms of meat on this particular game’s bones. Maybe a filler dungeon or two between Stellar Blade‘s main plot beats? There are tons of side activities, but not a single one of them is actually required unless you want the best ending.
If you like kinetic action titles like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta and don’t mind dealing with Souls level brutality in your combat, Stellar Blade is well worth your time and money. If you loved NeiR Automata, Stellar Blade will absolutely scratch the same sort of itch with over the top action mixed with a protagonist who grows to distrust and doubt the very mission she was made for, culminating in a choice of sides. And to address the elephant in the room, yes Eve is pretty but that’s not the reason you should be buying or playing Stellar Blade. Play it for the action. Play it for a story that’s trying to be something good, even if it fumbles a bit. Play it so we get more over the top action games in the world.
Tim played Stellar Blade on PlayStation 5 with his own bought copy.
