Stellar Blade Review - Mother Sphere Knows Best

Imagine, if you will, the Mount Rushmore of character action game heroes. If it were up to me, we'd have 2B from NieR: Automata, Dante from Devil May Cry, and Raiden from Metal Gear as the first three. That leaves one slot left, and after playing Stellar Blade, I'd say its main character, Eve, has earned the prestigious fourth spot.

This is high praise coming from someone who loves character action games, so believe me when I say Stellar Blade scratches that itch -- the itch that only pulling off bombastic combos and ridiculously over-the-top attacks can achieve. Stellar Blade is one of the finest action games of this generation.

Combat is Exhilarating in Stellar Blade

Stellar Blade certainly takes notes from other action games and refines these elements into something all its own. The combat in Stellar Blade oozes with style and pulling off amazing feats in battle is always exhilarating. Eve's capabilities grow exponentially as you play, so you'll grow from a strong warrior into the ultimate badass.

Combat in Stellar Blade begins simple, giving players the fundamentals to succeed. You have your standard light and heavy attacks, and these can be mixed together to create different attack patterns. Stringing together combos is easy and effective, so beginner players aren't going to feel overwhelmed.

Combine these attacks with parrying and dodging, and things become a bit more complex. Enemies -- called the "Naytiba" in Stellar Blade -- vary greatly in design and you'll have to identify and learn their attack patterns. Parrying and dodging are just as essential as attacking, especially when you consider you gain a huge advantage by perfect parrying attacks.

Enemy balance meter depletes as you attack, so perfect parrying will deplete that and eventually put Naytibas in a state to be attacked for extra damage. Striking a balance between going on the offensive or defensive is essential, so patience is key in Stellar Blade. In some ways, it reminds me of Sekiro's combat, especially with the parrying mechanic.

If I had one issue with combat, it's that the window to parry can be quite difficult to nail correctly. It takes some time to adjust and parry might feel sluggish at first. I eventually got better at it and found my frustrations alleviated, but mostly after finding an item that makes the perfect parry and dodge window easier -- these felt like a quintessential item.

There's also a drone that acts like a gun -- you're able to switch ammo types and use explosives, missiles, a shotgun-like blast, and others. The drone is a neat inclusion and can help soften up foes from afar while you take a breather. The drone adds just a bit more spice to the already hearty helping of abilities Eve can use.

There are a few story missions that restrict you to just using this drone, however, and those can feel repetitive. These missions don't drag on for too long and the gunplay with the drone is punchy and impactful, but it's not nearly as thrilling as using Eve's sword. It's a little confusing to include such missions when the blade is literally the star of the show.

Skills that Kill in Stellar Blade

But minor gripes aside, Eve's offensive capabilities grow exponentially throughout the campaign. She gains access to Beta and Burst skills, which add an entirely new layer to combat. Both tap into a separate resource, so the former is gained through actions like hitting enemies, and the later increases as you perform perfect parries and dodges.

This incentivizes players to use all mechanics at their disposal -- you really can't be too aggressive nor too defensive, or your fights will be all the more difficult. Using Beta and Burst skills will certainly make your life easier, and they look awesome. Most of these skills in Stellar Blade will do high damage, but they usually suit one specific purpose or another.

Stringing together combos is easy and effective, so beginner players aren't going to feel overwhelmed.

For example, there's a shield gauge on enemies that can be depleted as you attack. Some of these skills deplete shield in heavy chunks, while others might be suited for area-of-effect damage when you're surrounded; whatever the case may be, Beta and Burst skills are incredibly fun to use and add a bit more variety into this hearty combat system.

You can enhance these abilities through a skill tree, so there's always a fantastic sense of progression. Eve is always improving, so you can gradually gain more and more enhancements to your skills. You learn and gain access to abilities at a nice pace, which I appreciate since action game combos can often be overwhelming.

However, by the time I ended Stellar Blade, I wondered why I was still missing access to one of the skill trees. As I came to find out during the review process, there was a bug that prevented me from unlocking one additional ability with its very own skill tree. This should be fixed by the time it's in players' hands, but I can't help but wonder what I missed.

That said, missing out on a skill tree did not in any way hinder my enjoyment of Stellar Blade. If anything, it made my game a bit more challenging (because boy howdy, some of these bosses will make mincemeat out of you if you're not careful) but I was still left satisfied with how my Eve's build turned out by the end of Stellar Blade.

Getting Equipped for the Job in Stellar Blade

So yes, progression feels fantastic in Stellar Blade, and this is further enhanced by the various types of gear at Eve's disposal. Upgrades from bosses give a handy damage increase to your sword, while hidden robots scattered about offer parts for your drone, potion count for healing, and more.

The more intriguing pieces of equipment for use by Eve are Exospines. These are upgradable and offer more powerful upgrades that cater to a certain play style. The Exospine I opted for made perfect parrying and dodging easier, but others will alter the way some of your attacks behave, or assist in survivability.

Then there's "Gear" which offers a percentage increase in damage to your attacks, just as an example. Progression feels even more robust when you consider there are quite a few different Exospines and gear to find, so you're not only getting more powerful through the allocation of your skill points but also through these different items you'll pick up along the way.

A Beautiful Game, but Stellar Blade's Story? Well...

Stellar Blade's presentation is on a whole different level. Graphically, it is a gorgeous game with realistic visuals and, and the world design is executed splendidly. The post-apocalyptic setting will take Eve through rundown cities, sci-fi laboratories, and vast, open deserts, all of which are detailed meticulously well.

Some segments in Stellar Blade are linear, but other times you'll have the opportunity to explore an open world and complete side quests while you work your way to the main objective. It's in these open areas, combined with the frenetic, flashy nature of Stellar Blade's combat, that I became more and more impressed at how flawlessly it ran on my PS5.

The strongest aspect of Stellar Blade's presentation is the soundtrack. It is easily the best soundtrack of the year, which I don't say lightly when we consider Persona 3 Reload and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth came out recently. Stellar Blade uses a mishmash of music genres to create a serene and enchanting audio experience.

This soundtrack reminds me of NieR: Automata's stellar score in more ways than one, as both games share beautiful vocal tracks. When you fight a boss, Stellar Blade goes absolutely hard with the OST. Boss tracks ranged in genre and included metal, opera, and even one song that reminded me of K-pop. This soundtrack does not miss.

The story, though? Well, things are complicated. The world itself has great potential to be engaging from a narrative perspective, but Stellar Blade fumbles in its writing. Humanity is nigh wiped out, while "Angels" from above (like Eve) descend from a colony to liberate Earth from the Naytiba threat. It's not the most original concept, is it?

Mother Sphere is this presence from the colony that is revered like a god, and as you play you'll learn more about this entity, humanity's fate, the cause behind the Naytiba threat, and Eve's place in all this. It's all so very derivative and even reminded me greatly of NieR: Automata's story. Every twist and turn I saw coming a mile away.

Stellar Blade uses a mishmash of music genres to create a serene and enchanting audio experience.

The English dub for Stellar Blade is also not so, well, stellar. Eve is flat as a character and her performance reflects that, and most other characters just sound very unnatural. Adam, a companion in your journey, probably talks the most in this game and the English performance lacked emotion or proper direction.

Stellar Blade Review | Final Thoughts

Let's not disregard the fact that, as a studio, this is Shift Up's first console game release. It's an impressive feat, to say the least, when you consider the quality of Stellar Blade as a title. It's certainly an amazing-looking and sounding game, but even more than that: I can confidently say Stellar Blade stands toe-to-toe with the greats of the genre.

Stellar Blade was reviewed on PS5 with a code provided by the publisher over roughly 27 hours of gameplay. All screenshots in this review were taken by the reviewer during gameplay.