Recently finished up Stellar Blade and I really enjoyed it overall. In fact it's my second favourite game this year after FF7 Rebirth.
Quick review in bullet points:
Pros:
- Combat is really engaging and fun, especially the parry system. There's a ton of additional moves and enhancements to unlock, which actually change the feel of the game for the better the further in you get.
- The visuals are very nice and clean (especially if you turn off the awful film grain effect). Framerate on performance mode was rock solid.
- The soundtrack is legit incredible. One of the best game soundtracks in recent memory. It's hard to pick which I liked more between this and Rebirth, both are just fantastic in their own right.
- The open world areas were fun to explore and opened up as new moves such as double jump became available.
- Plenty of environmental variety and a great art style throughout.
- Costume collecting was fun and there were some really good ones. I especially liked the Evangelion style black suit and Punk Rocker one.
- Boss battles were fantastic, especially the final 4/5 at the end of the game.
- The final few hours were fantastic. Full of great encounter design, set piece moments and banging tunes.
Cons:
- Side quests were decent but not all that engaging, outside of a few highlights.
- The request missions were way too fetch quest like and honestly boring most of the time.
- While I enjoyed the collectibles and endings tied to lore discovery, much of the data logs were honestly pointless nonsense.
- Eve is a decent character and I enjoyed Lily at times, but Adam and most of the side characters were forgettable and badly written.
- Voice acting was super hit and miss... mostly miss.
- Platforming was a bit janky and led to a few frustrating moments.
Overall I really enjoyed the game and even took the time to Platinum it. I'd love a more focused sequel with some of the fat trimmed and a better story. The story was ok but didn't really pick up until the end. Still, it's cool to see Korean teams making games so impressive.
www.youtube.com
