(Fembot Fatale) Stellar Blade
You know, I've had my fair share of games that had sexualized MCs. From the likes of Heavy Metal, Oni, like the majority of games that do this, have others to say and show for to substantiate themselves. Most recently, Nier Automata.
So what does Korean smut-dream action game has to say? Not a lot, actually. Not even inanely deep enough to be invested, immersed into its world, narrative. It's very competently created, but it felt super familiar with various games that the inspirations had worn off as paper thin much later on. Stellar Blade isn't perfect, but there are things I do like, that in design does work for it.
Gameplay and action is superb, world design provides ample amount of engagement, there are good puzzle sections, not bad for a collectathon either. Like, fan servicing done mostly right, and that makes sense considering these guys work on popular gacha games.
A cutscene plays out where a battle ensues between the alien forces named the Naytibas, and the humans who escaped from the colony. Fighting to reclaim the earth. And it looks like a real bloodbath, I'm sort of on the losing side. But my hot character survives.
Honestly speaking, her squad commander, Tachy is more my type, but alas, moving on. She sacrifices herself to save EVE. From here, the game opens up, but with many questions, whom are the Naytibas, why is civilization in ruins, and the intrigue came to be thanks to how well established the presentation is. Drawing my curiosity to continue playing.
Combat is heavily leaning towards mastering the parry mechanics, there's room for dodging and finding open windows to attack, but not every enemy will provide it. There are gadgets to subdue and alternative healers, though, they're expensive, limited, and for very specific use.
But there's so much room to grow here, thanks to the vast skill trees available. Perfect parry, with the right skills unlocked, allow for great counters. Same with enemies have special attacks highlighted in blue or purple, it's all about timing, and inputting them right. Which is where it differs from the majority of action and soulslike titles. Gameplay is more methodical here.
I also say this, it's not that highly challenging, and it's not because of the learning curve. The fundamentals are well familiar, and all it takes is proper practice, where the skill tree allows testing helps a lot. Enemies are few in numbers, but there will be challenging points where they can surround me, and have me fighting with everything I got, their numbers grow eventually. There's no way to perfect dodging, and parrying all the times, but with so much practice, everything else just sinks in.
Way to use beta skills is by holding the parry/defend button, and pressing the face buttons to deploy. They consume beta energy, which is filled through attacks, parries, and so on. The four of these are for thrust damages, wave clearing, shield breaking, and range blasts.
The safe spot allows resting, which respawns everything, skill unlock, item purchases, and more. You get to teleport, and upgrade weapons and gears at full resting spots. This one is interesting, I'm guessing finding the parts to do so are very difficult to find, so exploration is encouraged more. Yet, particular areas are progression locked, which kind of sucks too.
What I really like about the enemy design is how they're implemented in particular areas, you have these creepy crawlies that'll surround you and have difficult attacks to dodge. Tall slashers hard to kill, yet slow, and at the right rhythm can easily be dispatched. They also look like eldritch horrors made of science going absolutely wrong, adding extra tension.
It doesn't help they sneak around, then you have those with shields that are hard to kill, crawler mothers, fast types, spewing acid, like an entire bestiary of these types to fight against, and later parts of the game, will have rogue drones, flying types, and so on.
Right, so I explained the combat, RPG elements, exploration, and progression right? No, that was scratching the surface. There's so many to take grasp at. The first level I've finished my encounter at was Eidos 7, the bombarded city zone with various Alpha Naytibas to fight.
Boxes to find, where they are code locked, and you have to find dead human legionnaires who also have lore codexes as well as codes. Civilian corpses will increase both beta energy, and maximize health, they're hard to find. Other boxes are locked out entirely for later parts of the game, and this is a form of progression lock you'll have to deal with early on.
The boss battles are also crazy, I already fought 3 of them in Eidos 7, and boy, the last one was really putting what I learned to work. I missed out the strong attack counters, but manage to parry enough attacks to exhaust them before pulling a retribution. This is straight out of a large boss, crazy parrying too unrealistic, then again, her blade is literally a hairpin.
From here, EVE eventually finds another squad member named Lily, and with Adam who saved her, go to Xion, the last bastion left of humanity. It's kind of like a Final Fantasy Midgard in a post-apocalypse town, filled with fetch quests, and various NPCs to help.
Remember, I said something about the inspirations wearing it too thin? Well, I'll insert some names here: NGE, Nier Automata, Akira, Ghost in the Shell, The Matrix. Like, the character design, world-building, lore, story, and vibe all feel familiar from those. It's good that they aren't copy-pasted, but after the first 10hrs, I pretty much really gave up on getting into anything here. Fortunately for me, there's still plenty left to do, like the whole fanservice stuff.
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Find beer cans scattered across, and you'll increase inventory for certain items with the last item being a dress, hell, there are dozens of dresses for her to unlock and try on. You can even change her hair once the hairdresser quest is done. Don't get me started on the Nier Automata DLC.
Oh yeah, after Xion, and getting into the Wasteland, I unlock what is called a freaking drone gun. There are stuff to unlock like higher scan range, and shotgun rounds. But the gist of it is, I can shoot lasers beams, fire rockets, and later other kind of projectiles. Even with limited munition, requiring me to farm and buy, these are so super useful against large foes of enemies. And good to use after perfect parrying as well. Much like my gear, these can also be upgraded.
I love that the combat gives you so much to experiment on, especially with the beta skills. You can add combos after use as well for full combat efficacy. Allow for energy rebate on use, and increasing their damage output. It helps if she wears powerful gears, tho, more slots get unlocked later on.
You want double jump too, just to wall-run past the point I'm trying, and it's progression locked. Meaning, I can't joyfully explore the world fully till I've done parts of the story. Even a few chests are locked out too. Ok, why not introduce those later on? It's frustrating I have to revisit areas to backtrack, and find them once more.
Also, you have to spam the drone's scanning ability, like a lot. And the detection time, and waiting to do it again, is taxing both on time and mentally. Drone upgrades does alleviate that, but it's for much later in the game. I made the mistake of veering off, and now realizing it. I also hate the platforming, it's stiff, and I died more times doing it than fighting monsters.
To wrap this up, I'll say that working for Sony pretty much gave this a 9/10 polish, despite it feeling like a 7/10 game. It's a 2024 title, yet there's a number of things it could have done a lot better. 8/10 game? Certainly, you have the visuals, art style, and dare I saw, Stellar soundtrack to thank for too.
P.S: I know some of those are aware game has so much sex-appeal, and the controversies it draws. I want you to know that there's a point in the game when you realize the plot twists, it somehow becomes irrelevant to lose sleep over those.