Stellar Blade is a great to excellent game. 27 hours in. Gorgeous visuals, great audio and excellent combat and gameplay. Story is very similar to Nier Automata but that’s a good thing in my opinion. The biggest negative is the writing and performance of the characters. There’s no emotion at least when playing with English voice acting. It may be different in Korean but im not sure since I only use English voice acting.
If you want to see how the game is, there’s a free demo on PSN which is literally the opening two hours or so of the game.
I’ll probably pick it up when it eventually comes to Steam.
The good thing is when Playstation refuse to release games on multiple platforms day one, the hype will be gone when it eventually comes to PC and it will be dirt cheap within a week or two .
Its very disrespectful to Nier to say its similar storywise. Have you played Nier? From the reviews ive read they all say the story is Mid. But everything else is solid
I completed Nier Replicant and played the first half of Nier Automata, fucked up the save file and never went back to the game. Me saying that the story is similar to Nier Automata is because it is in terms of plot, themes and whatnot but that doesn’t mean that it’s as good or better than Nier Automata.
I like the characters in Stellar Blade but the writing isn’t that good and there’s no emotion or personality with the characters. The only character 40 hours in that has shown any personality or emotion is Lily who’s your engineer. The acting direction isn’t good.
Visuals are far better, combat and gameplay is better and the world(s) are a mix of Nier Automata with Horizon, Cyberpunk, Terminator and Dead Space survival horror. And it all works and gels perfectly. Enemy design is far superior in Stellar Blade and boss battles are insane.
For reference, Replicant was an 8.0/10 overall for me while half of Automata was an 8.5/10. As of now, Blade is already an 8.5/10 for me and will most likely be my second 9.0/10 game of 2024. I just reached a new area that unlocks another skill tree with more abilities that I haven’t even tested yet.
Still a ways to go but I will say this - I would love to see Shift Up work with Yoko Taro for a sequel to Stellar Blade because holy shit, that could perhaps be perfection.
How on earth is something that you say has bad writing and no character emotion or personality, and poor acting direction an 8.5 or 9? For me I don’t are how good the fights are, that would barely be worth trying / completing.
Iron nails it. Visuals, Audio and Gameplay are all at least a 9.0/10 for me personally and could go higher by the time I complete the game. Story and characters are still enjoyable and has kept me interested and is good (7.0/10) enough for me because I will always favor gameplay and especially the combat over the story and characters because at the end of the day, im playing a game, not watching a movie. Now if the game does both at a high level, even better but for me, if I had to choose which one to be superior, I would always choose the combat and gameplay over the story and characters.
The world(s)/maps have been varied, unique and have kept me wanting to explore it all and collect everything which I don’t always do in games. When im not playing, I want to be playing the game and when I am, im fully immersed into it. A weak/disappointing story isn’t going to change that plus im only halfway through the game. As long as it’s stays “good” (7.0/10) for me and keeps me interested until the credits roll, I will be more than happy because the main reason im playing the game is because of the combat and gameplay.
I liken it back to the Itagaki-helmed Ninja Gaiden games. Its been a while since I’ve played them, but I don’t recall the acting, story, and writing in those being anything but servicable. They looked, sounded, and played great though, and are easily 9/10 games for me.
Never played them but that’s exactly how im feeling with Stellar Blade. Everything else in the game is at an excellent level which makes the game extremely fun and enjoyable to play. Now, I just unlocked a new skill tree which gives new attacks and in order to increase the energy to use these attacks, you have to do other stuff so you build up the energy and can then unleash these attacks. Seriously, im not even half way through the game and I already want a sequel and this IP to be a trilogy.
Yeah - not saying it’s trash, but it couldn’t be that high a score for me if it doesn’t have feeling to it. Gameplay is definitely important but it needs more than that to be a “great” for me. Immersion requires story & good characters when I’m playing a story. Something like Wreckfest that isn’t a story- sure, but dunno. Oh well, to each their own
The story isn’t great but it’s not bad at all. It’s as of now a solid 7.0/10 minimum. What makes it better without increasing the score is the lore of the worlds, how everything is destroyed, what led to it and just collecting documents, reading them and getting a sense of how everything was. Of course, im really enjoying the story and the world because it all fits. If the story gets better, great but if not, doesn’t matter because everything else is a 9/10 minimum so am I really going to complain about one aspect being weaker than the others when the main focus on the game isn’t the story and characters?
Look at The Witcher 3 which I love and was my PS4/XBO GOTG but gameplay/combat was an 8.0/10 at best. Everything else (visuals, audio, story and characters) carried the game. But unlike Stellar Blade which is an action Nier Automata/Devil May Cry type game, The Witcher 3 is an RPG and the story/characters are far more important than the gameplay and combat.
Also, Stellar Blade is Shift Up’s first console game which is extremely impressive. Nailing the combat/gameplay, the world, progression, game design, game direction, audio, visuals, etc. is far more important in this type of game than the story and characters is so for me personally, they can improve the story and characters if there’s a sequel which I hope there is and hope the format is the same (open areas with some linear areas as well, don’t want a full open world) because they nailed everything else.
I was only reacting to your words where you said it was bad - and that’s what I wasn’t seeing how you were ending up at a “great” score when part of it was in your words “bad” - I can see enjoying it a lot, etc. but not a score that is like “this is a great game - maybe one of the best this year” score. It sounds like your opinion of it now though isn’t what you initially wrote - and we definitely value different things in games. Glad you are enjoying it.
The story and characters in Stellar Blade isn’t bad in of itself but if you compare it to say Nier Automata, it probably is but in general and in of itself, it’s not. Can a few things be better? Absolutely but it is the weakest aspect of the game but every game has a weak aspect to it because the other stuff in the game is just more vital and important depending on what type of game it is.
At worst, story/characters is a good 7.0/10 for me in Stellar Blade but I am liking and enjoying it a lot. There’s games that have a far better story and characters yet I didn’t enjoy it as much as I am in Stellar Blade. The main reason is because of the game itself. Everything else is just so damn great and so satisfying to play that what may be a bad story to/for some (like Skill Up due to him loving Nier Automata) may also end up being good or better for others.
Thanks. I’m enjoying Stellar Blade a lot and perhaps even more so than I did Final Fantasy VII Rebirth which is saying something since I put in 140+ hours. Stellar Blade is just nailing everything that I care about in games and best of all, it plays great and is highly polished which is what games should be first and foremost when they get released.
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