Stellar Blade review

Stellar Blade's opening hours are so mired by atrocious level design that I can only assume people are willingly ploughing through for the sake of seeing protagonist Eve's bum jiggle around in a skin-tight suit for a bit longer.

Do I blame them? Not necessarily, but it's a mighty tough beginning to get through before things start getting good. And they do, eventually. Though even after 30 hours I still couldn't shake the feeling that it was trying just a little too hard to be Nier: Automata on horny steroids.

After all, its running plot is almost identical: The end of Earth as we know it, now populated by monstrous alien lifeforms. A scantily-clad woman fighting to reclaim the planet and save humanity alongside a drone companion, soundtracked by eerie female vocals that almost stand parallel to the horrors of the world.

Now listen, I've been in these trenches before. I've been playing Shift Up's other title, Nikke: Goddess of Victory, since 2023. I am not new to the developer's particular brand of goonery. If you are new to it, however, Stellar Blade has ass shots, jiggle physics, and barely-there outfits out of the wazoo.

Does the world or its characters ever acknowledge this fact? Bar one backstreet merchant, no. It's a bizarre juxtaposition in a game that so heavily sexualises the undeniably glamorous Eve, despite being a wholly sexless personality existing in a sexless universe. In fact, Eve has very little personality at all. The same is true of supporting cast Adam and Lily who, despite me wanting to know more about them, never really offer up much information.

Stellar Blade also does very little towards building any rapport between the three, yet often expects me to believe that the rag-tag trio share heaps of chemistry. They essentially appear in Eve's story with a brief explanation, and then the game acts like I was supposed to care all along. I often wasn't moved by harder-hitting interactions between Eve and her companions, because I wasn't drip-fed many relationship-building moments to get me invested in their dynamic.

Adam and EVE

Story and worldbuilding is easily Stellar Blade's weakest point and lessens the impact of its plot twists. It doesn't help that it's narratively so close to both Nier games that I couldn't help but compare its attempt at a similar plot rather unfavourably. Hell, even compared to Nikke's own flavour of 'post apocalyptic landscape with hot military women' it didn't feel quite up to snuff for my liking.

Where Stellar Blade does differ from its inspiration, however, is the combat. I went in expecting a similar hack-and-slash style to Automata only to discover something a little more in between a Soulslike and Devil May Cry-style action.

Different enemies sport a variety of attack patterns, which Eve can dodge or parry. A perfect parry sends sparks flying, accompanied by an incredibly satisfying ching sound as her sword collides with her opponent. A perfect dodge sees time slow down as Eve flips around the enemy with the opportunity to swoop in and get a follow-up attack.

It did take me a little while to find my groove. There's a slight delay to the parry button that takes some getting used to, and the early hours see very few tools in Eve's toolbox to repel and counter hits. Handily, Stellar Blade sports a slightly easier story mode difficulty accompanied with a toggleable option to slow down time when a parry or dodge window is incoming, the input flashing up on the screen.

The game lets you freely switch difficulties at will as well as turn the slow-mo inputs on and off, which is a nice touch. It's a little sporadic when it wants to work—if you're mashing away for example, the game might not have ample opportunity to tell you to stop spamming the attack button and block for once in your goddamn life—but it's a handy option for those who want to give the game a try but aren't well-versed in the way of the parry window.

Things also dramatically improve once Eve gets a hold of all manner of skill tree abilities and gear to enhance or compliment certain playstyles. I was able to make my dodge and parry windows a little more lenient and pump a bunch of gear into improving my Beta skills—special abilities that require building up a meter through attacking and blocking before being able to unleash powerful attacks.

Though I'd argue nothing about Stellar Blade's combat reinvents the wheel, it does feel mighty satisfying once I started to get into the flow of things. I got a whole lot of enjoyment out of rushing into a foe, perfect parrying several attacks in a row and then unleashing a flurry of strikes in response. It's one of the game's stronger points, and getting to grips with its systems is one of the main things that kept me pushing through some of its sloggier levels.

Paint the way

Yeah, Stellar Blade's level design is a bit all over the place. It rears its ugly head the most in the game's tutorial level, Eidos 7. I'm usually a bit of a yellow paint apologist, but it's so abhorrent at the beginning of the game I was shocked that I not only noticed it, but was bothered by it.

Everything gets yellow paint. Secret path? Big streak on the corner wall. Need to cross a bridge? Yup, a splodge on that bad boy. Two branching paths? Screw it, stick some yellow paint on both of them.

All it does is highlight how poorly Eidos 7 flows as a level. I found myself regularly getting lost and confused about where I had already been, and a Home Depot's worth of paint cans hardly made things easier to parse. It does improve once I'm unleashed into large areas like the Wasteland and the Great Desert, or herded into more linear levels like Abyss Levoire.

In fact, smaller levels like Abyss Levoire were where I enjoyed Stellar Blade the most. Tightly-designed areas with nuggets of worldbuilding and some special ways of tackling combat—an early level has me only able to use ranged weapons, completely disabling both my sword and the drone scan I'd been using as a navigation crutch prior to this—were my personal highlights, and I'm looking forward to going through them again in a NG+ playthrough.

Because despite my overall 'it's fine' attitude of it all, I did enjoy Stellar Blade and am totally down to run it back to pick up all the things I missed the first time. The game has tons of costumes, for one, which I'll admit is one of my biggest videogame weaknesses. Even if you don't fork out for any deluxe editions or DLC, there are a ridiculous number of Nano Suits to find and collect. There are even accessories and hairstyles, and if there's one thing I do love, it's playing dress-up with fictional characters.

The game also runs like an absolute dream. I fear I've been traumatised by some particularly demanding games this year—looking at you, Monster Hunter Wilds—and my hopes are never high when it comes to PC ports of console games. Especially considering Nikke's PC version is, at times, rather scuffed.

Yet, Stellar Blade may be the smoothest, most optimised PC port I've played in a hot sec. I had minimal frame dips throughout, maintaining a smooth framerate all while looking pretty damn good while doing it. I even played through the final stretch on my Steam Deck, and was even more surprised to discover how bloody well it ran on a handheld. I was continuing to get a steady 60fps for far less crusty graphics tradeoff than I was expecting, and I imagine I'll be doing much of my NG+ playthrough portably as a result.

Does Stellar Blade do anything groundbreaking or innovative? Not particularly, but I suppose not everything has to be the next sliced bread. If you can look beyond a middling story and a painful tutorial level, you'll find a decently solid soulslite lurking underneath. Also a lot of latex. And lingerie. Lotta both those things.