(Pretty Stellar Time) Stellar Blade

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Ok, I probably gave a scornful first impression of this game, it wasn't till I've gone through several stages and chapters, that in the middle and late game, every locked mechanics soon comes to access, it excels so much in being an open-world action title.

Plus side is that Eve's costumes are almost endless to try out on, honestly, part of the reason I played hours on stretch and scouting areas is to look for those outfits to unlock. It's like its own dress-up doll mini-game, for cosplaying, and that includes the Nier Automata DLC. Eve's combat abilities have transcended with Burst skills, and Tachy mode, of which are even tougher to master.

The overarching experience somehow gotten to me, made me want to continue looking past the fanservice and realize it's a passion project that seemingly had so much care put into different places. Just not the story, I still retain my opinion on that.

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The world might have gone down the crapper, but having long hair, and hyper-sexual clothing is somewhat of a priority. But you know what adds to that appeal? Fleshy monstrosities, augmented humans from Pinterest cyberpunk art section, and lots of robots.

What's more? I managed to enjoy the game more than usual. Avoid the english dub, and go for the korean one, it's more impactful, dramatic, substantial even. Works even better with the tone of some of the side quests, a number of them depressing, twisted, and even shocking. Sometimes even heart-warming. The kind of gravitas that the main story is pretty much lacking.

I've gotten addicted to the photo mode as well, I mean, look at this shot inside Altess Lavoire. Peak visual galore. From a freaking PS5 even. It's using the high concepts, and amazing visual presentation to build its atmosphere. Decent world-building as a surplus.

Now for combat, this one had surprisingly shifted after finishing Matrix 11. Burst is different, it's more aggressive, you press ✖ (Overdrive) which instantly increases attack speed and damage for a short duration. ◯ (Tempest) is being invulnerable to damage before supercharging a slash attack, damaging shields with high damage, and if fully upgraded, can heal EVE as well.

▲ (Descending Break) is a dive attack from high altitude, breaking enemy's posse, and ◼ (Punishing Edge) is a quick clearance attack for knocking enemies down with lots of damage. Last one isn't as useful as the others, but it's cheaper than Tempest in using Burst energy. Their use is more amplified with passives unlocked from the skill tree. Of course, there's a story twist involving Tachy turning into one of them which unlocks my new ultimate.

I already knew the main gameplay was very tactical and methodical, it rewards practice and good execution. Providing breathing room against enemies onslaught of attacks, majority of them later on, including the bosses who punishes anyone who are bad with the fundamentals.

Again, skill tree lets you test new individual skill moves from Beta, Burst, and Tachy upgrade trees. Tachy ultimate mode especially has no limitations to using skills, crazy parry attacks that are hard to master to due to their button mapping, screen goes absolutely orange with a flurry of attacks. EVE's attack combos changes too, this is where the action leans more into the RPG elements.

Remember, perfect parrying attacks is the best way to reorient the offense, and if things get too tough, I can definitely use the skill moves I have. But, there's so much of these to memorize already. It's no longer a case of fancy moves and how cool they look, but the status effect, and added passives they bring. That's 8 moves, 12 if I use Tachy often.

And unlike other games, this one has the most useful tooltips to describe what each passive and upgraded skill moves actually do in gameplay. Funny enough, the new and better gears and exospine slots made it simpler to farm enemies. Factoring in crit dmg, bonus shields, easier parry timing, etc. While getting enough skill points to unlock and experiment with everything else. Catering to my playstyle, while I practice the hard stuff for other battles.

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I made the earlier mistake of focusing on the side stuff without realizing just how much the main campaign was helding back. All of this now unlocked, I can easily venture places to get things done. Involving some backtracking, but becomes very rewarding in the end.

Finding out a love one lost, someone who decided to risk themselves venturing, missing people, people who died, or some even secretly killed by their requestees. Some of these quests are needed to get very important items later on. I mean, how else can I increase my gun's ammo? The one thing I forget exists until I come across tougher enemies?

The soda cans I have to pick up, which increases my gadget and ammo capacity. A funny droid that needs help cleaning up his junkyard. Straight out of a Pixar movie, if it was made in Korea. He sells me components too, upgrading my gun droid even.

Some of the puzzles to solve are even mentally taxing and requires certain arithmetic maths to solve or finding digital boards with riddles to memorize too. Then there's ones rearranging pipelines to bypass a lock or inputting the right inputs under limited time. The busy work coming from devs mostly known for gacha games. These are so well-intuitively created.

Then there's the fishing mini-game, which is kind of basic, but I stopped caring soon as I started capturing a koi fish or one of those giant halibuts or freaking sharks even. Ok, I get it, she's a femme fatale, not someone who extincts every fish in this post-apocalyptic hellhole.

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The last series of side quest I finished involves a sentry soldier who tasked me to restore this cyborg woman. She couldn't talk at first, she had no legs to walk, and now I helped her find out she was a major singer diva who transferred her consciousness. Stuff like this adds emotional heft.

Sure, many other video games make far more objectively better stories with sentimental value. But give me a break, the music gets me hooked, the visuals are superb, atmosphere is pretty well setup, and the characters they do feel alive. It stopped feeling like a checkmark typical action game, and one where it was telling me my choices matter.

And they do, this has multiple endings to conclude with based on who I helped, and how far I came along. Another level like Eidos 9 is locked out till Lily's affinity got maxed out. Sure, it has some weird quest bugs, like when I get to a new area, and I get tips on how to progress. Only to realize it's quest locked, and I wasted 20 minutes for nothing.

I also don't like the PS5's performance, I literally switched to framerate mode instead of balance. Resolution mode is worse with subpar 30FPS performance. And the enemies in the last few levels, even the Desert get super tough. But 30+hrs, man, this game has been something. I don't think I'll easily forget, despite even the terribly written main narrative.

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! [Extra Content] This is the spoiler content.