Platform(s): PS5
Genre: Action RPG

Stellar Blade by Korean developer SHIFT UP will be the last PlayStation PS5 exclusive in a while. That means a lot of hype and anticipation will be riding on the tail of this game’s release. Is it a game worthy of being a first-party PS5 exclusive?

Unfortunately, if I have to rank this game amongst the pantheon of PlayStation first-party exclusives, it will have to be standing alongside the likes of Days Gone or The Last Guardian; good & well-meaning entries, but extremely flawed games that ended up being forgotten. That’s what Stellar Blade is and no amount of T&A will be able to save it.

Broken Blade

Stellar Blade is a mash of many different genres and ideas. It could have been a much better game if the developer SHIFT UP focused on specific ideas and implemented them to the best of their ability. Instead, Stellar Blade is like a Frankenstein’s monster of a high-budget game, not doing anything particularly well enough. The only exceptions are perhaps the combat and the visuals.

The best thing and the biggest highlight of Stellar Blade is its visuals and graphics. There’s no denying that this is one of the best-looking PS5 exclusives to have been released to date, on par with Ratchet And Clank Rift Apart, Horizon Forbidden West and God Of War Ragnarok.

That being said, it’s disappointing that a lot of the game’s semi-open-world environments (more on the gameplay aspect later) look bland and generic. Many of them are simply empty arid wastelands and deserts, crumbling city areas and even goddamn sewers. God, I hate it when developers use the sewer trope in games. Who even likes sewer levels in games? It’s sad when a AAA game has to resort to featuring sewer levels.

It feels like most of the visual and graphics budget went to the character designs and characters themselves. That’s mostly what I meant when I praised its visuals and graphics. A majority of the work and resources surely went into making sure the characters look as meticulously detailed as possible, and that includes the body asset physics (you know what I mean, T&A). Still, I would have loved seeing some of that hard work being funnelled into more creative and memorable designs for the world and environments as well.

The story, narrative and plot in Stellar Blade are as generic and predictable as they come. I’m not kidding, this is definitely not a game you play for the story. If you’re a fan of sci-fi or anime, you’ll notice a lot of familiar and overused tropes and story beats in Stellar Blade. Of course, I won’t spoil any of them here, but I saw many of the so-called “plot twists” and ‘surprising’ reveals coming a mile away and I actually groaned loudly to myself when they took place.

In addition, Stellar Blade has multiple different endings, but they’re mostly based on only one pivotal decision at the end of the game. Oh, and in order to experience all the endings, you’ll need to replay a new game from scratch each time. Why? Because Stellar Blade doesn’t have New Game Plus yet. Sure, many games don’t have New Game Plus at launch. However, there are NO MANUAL SAVING or MANUAL SAVES available in Stellar Blade, so you’re forced to replay the entire game from scratch if you want to experience a different ending.

Having no manual saves do suck, but at least SHIFT UP does try to include other quality-of-life and accessibility options elsewhere. For instance, in Stellar Blade, you have to manually press R2 to pick up loot after defeating enemies or opening chests. The weird thing is that there is an auto-loot option in the settings. What’s weird is that there’s no reason to make the auto-loot setting optional in the first place.

Plus, it’s also bizarre how some of the semi-open world areas in Stellar Blade have maps but some don’t. This makes exploring a frustrating hassle, especially if you want to be a completionist. Another big reason why some areas not having a map is annoying as heck is because Stella Blade has Metroidvania (or Search Action) mechanics and elements.

You’ll do a lot of backtracking and returning to previous areas once you unlock new abilities or modes of traversal, which is why a map is essential for this reason. Again, imagine a Metroidvania game with no map and perhaps you’ll understand why this is a major issue as it makes exploring more difficult than it should be.

But that’s not all, hoo boy, the worst, and I mean the absolute worst thing about Stellar Blade is its platforming sections. There’s a reason why many third-person 3D PlayStation exclusive games like the new God Of Wars games don’t feature the ability to jump or do platforming. I also know there are many third-person 3D games like Uncharted, Horizon Zero Dawn/Forbidden West and even the recent Rise Of The Ronin that feature platforming as a major mechanic but let’s remember that a lot of the 3D platforming in these games are extremely controlled or guided, which is part of why many have criticized Uncharted for having almost an auto-platforming feel. I have to provide all this context to properly convey how horrible the platforming in Stellar Blade is.

There’s a reason developers go for the guided platforming like in Uncharted most of the time in third-person 3D games and it’s because platforming is notoriously hard to perform in 3D games. Therein lies the problem with platforming in Stellar Blade, since most of it is unguided platforming.

The platforming in Stellar Blade is so janky and clunky. It’s extremely easy to miss the mark because of how the protagonist, Eve, controls. Eve cannot double until like halfway through the game when it unlocks. Sure, you can also dash in mid-air but the distance is so pathetic.

It’s extremely easy to fall during the many and I say, MANY, platforming sections in the game, and it’s made all the worse due to the game’s terrible checkpoint system. There are even sections in the game where the developers implement a Subway Surfers endless runner gameplay segments and these are also bad. Why did the developers choose to implement so much unnecessary platforming and endless runner sections when they should have focused more on the combat? Perhaps all of this carried over from SHIFT UP’s mobile game tendencies, considering that Stellar Blade is their first single-player story-focused game.

Eve of Destruction

I have mostly been talking about the game’s negative points but what about what the game does best? Yes, the combat. The combat in Stellar Blade is best described as a hybrid of Soulslikes and Devil May Cry/Bayonetta. The game has lots of combos and special attacks, but it’s similar to Soulslikes and especially recent Soulslikes trends, which means that the combat is extremely parry-heavy.

Basically, the combat loop is mostly Eve getting as many hits as possible before having to parry or dodge enemy attacks. Rinse and repeat. So, if you don’t like parry-heavy games, you won’t like Stellar Blade because you’ll need to be decently good at parrying. That being said, Stellar Blade is definitely nowhere as hard as most Soulslikes but it’s pretty challenging for a PlayStation-exclusive game even at normal difficulty (yes, there are difficulty options and a Story Mode for babies).

Even at normal difficulty, a lot of the bosses are pretty punishing, especially near the late game and endgame where there is a major difficulty spike that some players might find a hard time to deal with. Those last few bosses kicked my ass almost as much as any Soulslike boss, but I stood my ground and defeated them even at normal difficulty. While the normal enemies in Stellar Blade don’t hit as hard as in Soulslike games, you’ll still die easily if you just button-mash.

While I described Stellar Blade as a hybrid of Soulslikes and Devil May Cry/Bayonetta, mechanically it’s more like the former. There are even camp checkpoints where you can rest and restore health as well as items, but enemies will respawn. Also, just like Soulslikes, you’ll have limited health restoration items to survive with. So, yeah, this is no button masher even if you’re playing on Story Mode difficulty (which I didn’t).

The special skills, abilities and moves do look cool during combat, but while there’s a skill tree in Stellar Blade, there’s not much variety to it. There are only four special moves (holding L1 and pressing any of the face buttons) and you’ll unlock four more near the end (holding R1 and pressing any of the face buttons), and that’s it. Most of the time, you’ll be attacking normally and parrying a lot, so there’s no depth when it comes to combat especially after hours and hours of the same thing.

That’s probably why the game tries to cheaply and unashamedly ramp up the difficulty in the late game by showering players with hordes and swarms of enemies. As good as the combat is, it gets almost mind-numbingly repetitive near the end when fighting normal enemies. The only times combat get exciting again are during the boss fights, but there are really not many of those, and most of the time in the first half of the game, Stellar Blade tends to reuse the same bosses over and over again.

Outside of the main combat, you also have stealth options but they’re basic and rudimentary at best. Eve can’t even crouch, and most of the levels aren’t really designed for stealth, so stealth feels like a gimmick thrown in just for the heck of it instead of a fully fleshed-out mechanic. Another major part of the combat that unlocks way too late (about almost halfway through the game), is the game’s secondary shooting skills using Eve’s drone. There are several types of ammo, including normal, shotgun, explosives, missiles and even a powerful chargeable laser.

However, it’s nowhere near as intuitive or feels as good as they are in games like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta or even Nier Automata. In order to shoot, you must hold the R2 button to aim first, which leaves you extremely vulnerable in an action-reflex-heavy game like this. This means that I rarely ever use my shooting abilities, unless it’s to kill weaker swarms of enemies. Using shooting skills in a boss battle only makes you a sitting duck, since you can’t parry or dodge while aiming.

There are two major sections in the game where there’s yet another trope; the game takes away your main weapons or powers. Without spoiling specifics, during these two major sections in Stellar Blade, you can only use your ranged weapons AKA shooting skills, turning the game temporarily into third-person shooter galleries. The only good thing about this part of the game is that developer SHIFT UP has inject some horror vibes (and jump scares) into Stellar Blade, so much so that these temporary sections feel like mini-Resident Evil games. Maybe this is a sign that SHIFT UP wants to make their own survival horror game, but my earlier aforementioned point stands, Stellar Blade feels like a messy mishmash of different genres.

On the bright side, if you’re playing this game for the hot girls or T&A, you’ll be happy to learn that not only can you unlock a bunch of different Nano Suits (costumes/skins) for Eve but also change her hairstyle so you can turn her into your very own waifu. As for the length of the game, it took me around 30 hours plus to finish my first playthrough on normal difficulty with most side quests being completed but if you’re a completionist, it will take a lot longer than that. That being said, having no manual saves and no new game plus at launch means that if you’re a completionist, you’ll have no choice but to play a new game from scratch to experience a different ending; the game has several, so good luck unlocking those!

Shattered Blade

Ultimately, Stellar Blade is a game that focuses on style over substance with aa developer being overly ambitious for their first AAA console title. Let’s hope that SHIFT UP continues to improve with their future games because with further refinement and a more specific tight focus on sharpening and honing its good mechanics instead of mixing everything in a mess like throwing crap at the wall to see what sticks, Stellar Blade could have turned out to be a much better game.

PROS

• Good combat that can occasionally be satisfying, good parry mechanics.
• Great visuals and production values worthy of a AAA first-party PS5 exclusive.
• Sure, hot women; let’s put that here because that’s what gamers will be buying this game for.

CONS

• No MANUAL SAVES.
• Forced platforming sections with frustrating janky and clunky controls.
• Forced sections where you lose your main weapon and the game becomes a shooting gallery for some reason.
• No maps in many of the semi-open-world areas.
• Generic story relying on overused sci-fi tropes.

FINAL SCORE: 60/100

Review copy provided by Sony Interactive Entertainment and PlayStation Asia. Played on PS5.