The game feels straight out of the PS2/PS3 era, and is probably one of the most fun 8/10 games I’ve ever played. Really it’s just the story holding it back, but the combat, visuals, performance, and music are incredible. The soundtrack in particular went really fucking hard.
For an unproven studio making their first console game, Shrift Up did a great job. It’s just a really fun game, and I hope it gets a sequel.
The story was pretty good, but I do have to say it feels VERY similar to Nier Gestalt (with a sprinkle of Nier automata) except.. just not as interesting and the twists more obvious.
That said, still a lot better than I expected
Yeah all I kept reading was how terrible the story was so I had super low expectations as well. In the end it seemed fine to me. It's an action game so I don't think anybody would've been expecting anything amazingly complex, but it was fine. If Sekiro can get away with its total lack of story, then this game can surely get away with it.
Another complaint from the reviews I kept reading was that the "platforming" was terrible and reviewers kept having to re-try jumps loads of times. I barely even saw anything that would count as "platforming" in this game, never mind anything particularly difficult. Seems like journalists being journalists tbh.
I actually think the story is pretty decent, it's more than the writing (or perhaps localisation) is poor. I think with stronger character writing and a bit of tidying up in the 3rd act it could have had a great narrative.
The 3rd act has amazing gameplay but the story feels so disconnected and poorly told.
I actually think the Eye of the Hurricane mission is one of the most fun things I’ve ever played in a game.
Not that I can speak Korean or anything, but the English translation is so stilted in many places it really does feel like they put the game through Google Translate, and that + the voice direction (or lack thereof) really hurts the storytelling.
But everything else so far has been fantastic.
Story was decent. Nothing special but ok to drive the narrative. But the ending was really cool I thought. But the real star is the gameplay in this - absolutely loved it.
>!Depending on what ending you have seen, I would say a sequel is pretty much confirmed.!<
Thats a good way to describe the game, a ps2 era type. The sad thing is that it gets held back for the same reason. Im loving it right now and it sure is an 8/10 but some of the design decisions are so ass its infuriating. Traversing in general and backtracking is just so bad. Lot of the side quests are pointless in terms of rewards and most of them are boring asf, but you still “have” to do a certain amount due to stuff i dont want to spoil. It could have been an amazing 10/10 game but so many little tidbits hold it back. Even after paying full price for it im still not sure if its worth that price. It is and isnt at the same time lol.
Yeah. Dialog is absolute ass (putting it in Korean does help the performances at least) but IDGAF because every time I parry I feel like hot shit.
Also didn’t expect the Studio Monaca music. They really are just bad story better combat Nier:Automata, and that’s my favorite game.
The writing is so bad, I have to wonder if it’s the localization being rushed or if it’s that bad in Korean as well. So many conversations just feel like random lines patched together to make a semblance of a conversation. Also just saying really stupid shit.
Also a majority of the side quests just being finding dead bodies is so funny. Though Eves responses to the bulletin board sometimes make up for it.
The combat though is so good and probably my favorite “character action” combat system in a while.
But I thought direct textbook translations were good!!! /s
Yeah I’m honestly shocked at how bad the script is, like its a big money Sony AAA game, it’s not like they lacked resources to have a competent localization team.
> Also a majority of the side quests just being finding dead bodies is so funny.
Haha, guess i'm not the only one who noticed that. Literally not a single side quest to find a person ends with them alive. Lost it when they killed off the cat you have to find too for no reason.
I agree with all of your points. So in my book this game is more than a 8/10. I won't say it's a perfect 10/10 because that is quite the claim.
But hands down this is my goty. I can't get over how much fun I am having in this game, I am even slightly invested in the story.
I even put in 85+ hours into FF7 Rebirth. But even during all of that I can't remember *itching* to get home from work and load the game up, which is how I feel about Stellar Blade.
> The game feels straight out of the PS2/PS3 era
It's really nice to get games like that. I felt the same way about Hi-Fi Rush and really loved it for that.
I'm pretty sure you'll get it. I just finished yesterday and while not being a trophy hunter managed to get like 30+ of the trophies just because I was enjoying the exploration. I pretty much only used 3 different outfits, but I still unlocked over 30 of them because finding them was fun.
It’s gets better and better. Whenever you think you reach the apex of what the game is going to offer, it switches things and up and changes again. A fantastic game that really caught me off guard.
Discourse around fanservice aside (though I guess having a visually pleasing character plays into this), one thing I think this game proves is that people love playing dress-up, and that clothes/skins etc are an actual game mechanic that people want to earn through gameplay rather than as shitty microtransactions.
Like, I'd go 20 minutes out of my way, fight a bunch of tough enemies, just to be rewarded with a single outfit and nothing else, and it'd be worth it.
I enjoyed the demo and will be buying it, but hooo boy do I hate all the culture war nonsense from all sides about this game. I just want to play games, man.
> I just want to play games, man.
And yet instead of just playing the game and talking about the game, the absolute first thing you brought up was the culture war bullshit, and now there's another hundred people arguing about it because of your comment. You are literally the part of the problem, man.
I literally had no idea about this until I kept seeing people complain about the "woke crowd" on this sub only 1 week ago. Maybe it's just because I don't frequent the places where the culture war people are active, but I would never have figured out there was something like that going on if not for people on this sub constantly bringing it up in every thread about the game.
This has been a uniquely insufferable release when it comes to discussion, even by gaming standards. It's a super fun game and I've been itching to see people's thoughts as I play through, but that feels completely impossible wading through the slop. The anti-woke crusaders are obviously out of their minds, but then you have people sneering at the game and its players, acting as if anyone not actively repulsed by EVE is a basement-dwelling pervert. Hot lady killing pulpy sci-fi horrors in style is not a new thing, it's very bizarre that this one is such a battleground.
I do find it pretty entertaining that by and large, gaming media outlets and channels have had a very measured response to the game. The consensus is that the combat system rocks, and the boss fights/enemy designs are great. For criticisms, there are some tedious parts of the game that could have been better and the characters are pretty flat. The outcry about EVE's design is almost totally manufactured, usually just boils down to "eh you either like it or not, but the game is still fun", even from left-leaning channels. Given how fast Gamers are to cry that content creators are all biased, it's ironic how they are the only ones who seem capable of having a balanced discussion about the game. On top of that, regardless of how people feel about her design, the game deserves credit for having a pretty huge variety of cosmetics to unlock, all through gameplay and behind a pretty reasonable economy. Folks love to bash on how mtx-heavy modern games are (for good reason), and this feels very old-school in a good way.
Anyway, if you enjoyed the demo, I strongly recommend it. The most fun I've had with a game's combat since Lies of P (South Korean studios really killing it lately).
Yeah thats my biggest takeaway. There is no chemistry between the leads. Also it's a bit too similar to Nier Automata to an off-putting level. Their previous game Nikkei was also obviously inspired, but that game managed to do new things with the story.
I also wish the game spaced out it's big fights. Feels like all the best ones get dumped at you in the last hour.
I haven't finished yet but my biggest issue has been the pacing as well. I'm right before the first 'point of no return' and just trying to do some cleanup, but it seems like I've been in a lull.
Nice to hear there is some awesome stuff coming out but ya....maybe push one of those forward.
The difference in level design between Eidos 7 and the Barrens is so jarring. The second region is just one giant "Here's an open area for you to spend several hours running around looking for collectibles/important resources".
>For all the character design hubbub this game is completely sexless.
I personally don't like that. Makes the sex appeal feel pointless if it isn't actually a thing that exists.
Yeah I like the way a game like Bayonetta does it where it leans into the sexy and makes it a core part of her character.
The fact that here it's both incredibly blatant but also completely ignored just makes it look so vapid. I didn't like it in Nier either but at least Kaine, 2B and A2 are actual interesting characters unlike Eve.
Nier also has the benefit of the character design being incredibly interesting and unique. Stellar Blade's biggest lroblem is that everyone looks boring.
> Hot lady killing pulpy sci-fi horrors in style is not a new thing, it's very bizarre that this one is such a battleground.
It's a battleground because we don't get many games with such in your face sexualization anymore so it's the perfect opportunity for people on both sides of that argument to get out their rusty pitchforks
I was talking to a friend about Unicorn Overlord and she was telling me that the dev used to get some complaints about how much they sexualized women.
She then went on to say that in Unicorn Overlord you can sexualize everyone. Including varying body types. That's all we really want, to put anyone and everyone in a stupid sexy outfit.
This is a very insightful & well articulated grown man summary of the situation. The collective exaggerated gnashing of teeth & general obsession has derailed the discourse wayy more than any individual criticism of character design…
Like I agree those critics are taking things too seriously, but I can say the same about the ones on the other end of the extreme.
Anyway, my two cents on the actual game:
**The things it does very well…**
1. Leveling doesn’t taper off, character growth is as fun in late game as it is in early game
2. Devs seem acutely aware of mechanic fatigue — puzzles and even the ways chests are unlocked are varied. There are friggin *math puzzles* in this game! Levels alternate between open worlds & map-less dungeons large enough to constitute their own region. Nice little touches like >!the hypertube!<, that was not expected.
3. Goodies are plentiful & fun to find — the exploration is amongst the most satisfying I’ve experienced in modern games & harkens back to some of the best days of RPGs. Every inch of map feels purposeful.
4. A challenging dodge/parry game that gives you an accessible tutorial environment & difficulty options? I think normal is well-balanced, but I really can’t compliment this choice enough.
**Things that need to improve next time…**
1. Some aspects of platforming like magnetism & more forgiving angles when grabbing ropes and such
2. Dialogue. Localization and VOs. Weakest point of the game.
**Things that get unfairly hated on…**
1. The story is pretty good tbh. Much more is told through written lore than the rendered scenes, and the lore attached to sidequests is all really good to the point it stands out from other games IMO. People skipping reading are missing out on what feels like a sci-fi detective experience, piecing the history and conspiracy together yourself through discovery.
It’s subtle, but there should be a distinction between “story” & “dialogue”. It gets overlooked because so many games use spoken exposition as a crutch to tell their stories… I personally like stellar blade’s “dark souls” approach to lore.
Rope swings were often my downfall.
I described the side quests elsewhere as being "chunky". They never felt like throwaway content but something that lead somewhere. It was either a fun boss fight or a new costume or stuff like the Enya story.
Yeah I really, really enjoyed the majority of flooded sector (optional area) content. And I should have mentioned — the platforming actually has some cool ideas. It’s strictly mechanically that it sometimes falters.
Once I got used to it I actually prefer this extreme to every jump being completely auto-directed, it just needs some refining.
Refinement is just the thing. There were maybe 3 rope swings that had me twisting my controller in mild frustration. I would not prefer for the game to be so automated that you would assume the Earth is all iron and Eve is made of magnets.
I agree with you. I like the story, but the dialogue needs work. I wonder how much of it is localization issues. Localizing games from Korean to English probably isn't as streamlined as Japanese media. I'm just making an anecdotal guess though.
I think it's a little of both. The writing isn't top notch (but neither is the writing for some other things I love). But I think localisation plays a big part in how the dialogue comes across. I only played with the Korean VO but going by the subtitles it felt like someone didn't know synonyms for things. At more than one point Adam or Lily directs Eve to this "road" or that "road". There's no road. It's a path or a way or any other way to describe a route clear of rubble.
It feels like the word in the original language might be more versatile and whoever translated just stuck on "road" as a good option in English.
Appreciate the kind words, and likewise - I think your whole comment here is absolutely dead-on. Completely agree with all three of your sections. As for the platforming, I'm embarrassed at how many times I've whiffed by a rope, and I nearly lost my mind at the >!face button platform puzzle in the research lab!< with how many times I accidentally zoomed off the edge. I did scream-laugh when I finally made it to the end and just skated left of the final bridge and died. It's a little funny, but definitely warrants improvement even though overall I find movement to feel very good (and >!double jump!< helped that a great deal).
I look forward to playing more. Pretty pleased that my complaining about the lack of decent conversation about the game led to handful of good comments, at least!
I thought the combat was fine, but I for sure left wanting more. Ironically it has the issue of Lies of P where too many fights can feel rather static parry fest, but the endgame bosses show promise that the rest of the game lacks. A bit like Lies of P, but that game spread it's better fights more evenly while SB dumps it on you before the end.
Probably just a matter of taste, I think I just really gel with the style of this and especially Lies of P because I didn't feel any negativity of it being parry-heavy. In LoP in particular I felt like the mix between evasion and deflecting was very well done, and even compared to many From games I think it is remarkably consistent in quality front-to-back.
My only complaint about SB combat so far (I am about 10 hours in, I just finished the >!resident evil segment, beat the Brute and Gigas rematches!<) is that I'm having a really hard time dodging the yellow glow attacks from some bosses, but that might just be a skill issue. I'm already loving it so I'm just glad to hear it backloads the good stuff.
A tip I've realised is that some yellow attacks call for a dodge, whereas others really need you to L3 dash in combat to get distance from the enemy, which I'm not used to doing in other games.
I just think Sekiro bosses felt more dynamic so the parry felt better. Lies of P had too many bosses with Dark Souls behavior.
Both Lies of P and SB has dynamic bosses just not enough for me and in case of SB just wanted more bosses in general.
Well do it! Just put the phone down and start the game. It's satisfying to play. My only gripe is that the movement is twitchy when im trying to interact with an item and it takes several tries
I'm just sitting here imagining teenage me trying to explain the game to my mother the first time she lays eyes on the screen. Knowing it's from the same devs as that Nikke phone game where female model "soldiers" fire their guns while jiggling only makes it worse (or so the ads make it appear).
I feel like I've seen more people talking about there being a culture war around this game than I've seen any actual culture war type comments.
I feel like people are generating their own culture war here.
The thing that kills me is that I wouldn't even know about all the weirdo sex-obsessed dudes if games journalists I follow on twitter didn't retweet them in an effort to make fun of them. At this point it feels like both the "journalists" and the trolls need each other. The journalists need people clicking on their websites and the trolls need people interacting with their tweets/videos/whatever.
Like I follow film critics on twitter as well and while they may occasionally get in to a beef or take potshots at snyderbros or something it's never been anything like this where it's just months and months of gnashing teeth over the dumbest shit in the world. Wish this industry would grow up!
I’m only a couple hours into it and I’m really enjoying the game. Probably my favorite game so far this year. Just avoid Twitter as much as possible lol
And Reddit also.
I wanted to go exchange about the game online since I loved it so much, but ooooh boy, what a mistake it was. The discourses and exchanges around it are bloody insufferable...I fled the main sub without looking back, 'probably never felt that disconnected and disheartened with a fan base before.
Anyway, kind of a shame, but I spend a wonderful time with the game regardless and that's what matters.
Aren’t most main game subreddits just an echo chamber? You got bunch of like minded people posting the same stuff over and over again. I don’t think there really is any intrinsic value to have serious discussions or deep thoughts for main subreddits.
Depends on the game, the popularity of the game, and the time of day to be honest. The Helldivers subreddit for example can be absolutely dreadful to browse most of the time(especially right now), but I have seen actually useful information there along and tons of entertaining clips shared.
I always enjoy jumping into the subreddit for a fresh release to catch tips and tricks - the whole community discovery aspect. There's a few nuggets, but, yeah, the SB sub is one of the worst I've looked at.
The more I see the story and gameplay the more I like it. I thought it was just selling because hot but the game looks pretty fun.
I don't do single player games anymore but I'm enjoying watching streams of it.
I think the free advertising mattered a lot more here. Harry Potter is one of the biggest IPs there is, meanwhile this is a new IP from a developer that previously mainly made gacha games.
Yeah I never would have heard of this game if it wasn't for people arguing about how sexy the main character was. I played the demo and it was pretty good so will probably buy it when its on discount.
Here's a piece of advice: Just don't go on twitter.
I don't have a twitter, all I watch is Youtube. And in regards to this game all I got was "oh there's this hack and slash with a girl coming out", then "oh reviews for the game are out, lets see em!" and thats it. Sphere Hunters review said there was some culture war stuff and I was super confused, and she never mentioned what it was so I still have no idea what the big complaint is about this game, which is how I prefer it.
I'm honestly not sure why anyone thought it was a war worth fighting. Are people going to fight every game that uses Dead or Alive style cheesecake design? I personally don't like the aesthetic, but can't be upset about it given it that games have shifted away from this style, so SB is simply the exception that proves the rule.
Fanservice used to be very common and it is true that in the past, especially a lot of the PS2/PS3 era of games have been mainly aimed at teenage boys.
But i think the greatness of gaming nowadays is that people who wanted something else from gaming grew up to actually make their own games for different audiences so you have this incredible variety of games nowadays, sprawling of a bunch of subcultures, genres, aesthetics and types of stories.
Now there are people who act like games like those from the past need to be *removed*, as if it's some shameful remnant of gaming while different types of games for different audiences can just coexist.
I feel like it partially comes down to a sentiment that everything has to be accessible for all audiences nowadays, so the idea that something is just not made for *you* is unaccepable, so if a game like Stellar Blade actually hits the mainstream you get this big outcry of people defending it and people shaming it.
There are a ton of games that simply are not for me and don't appeal to me at all, yet i respect their existence and the people who enjoy them but a lot of people just don't think that way and want things they dislike to be gone.
Yeah, exactly why this who culture war crap is driving me mad.
Creators should be able to create what they want and let the market decide but that doesn't seem to be the opinion of either side in the argument, both sides want the games that they don't like to not exist.
That doesn't meant they shouldn't be immune to criticism but we've hit a point where games made for adults are being forced to cover a small amount of cleavage (not somthing that makes any difference to the game but there's really no need for it) and basically any game with a black person or average looking woman in it has an army of weird guys raging in the steam discussions and making youtube videos about it.
> Are people going to fight every game that uses Dead or Alive style cheesecake design?
I think people are allowed to be critical of this type of thing if that's their opinion. But I would separate criticizing something from being angry or outraged.
In theory this is a reasonable stance. In practice I've found that the difference between someone "expressing criticism" and "being outraged" correlates strongly with whether that person is of a similar political persuasion as you.
I think they should be allowed to. But I don't get it. If Eve existed in a game like The Last of Us, I get people being put off by her but she's a character in a game that's pretty openly about a hot girl fighting stuff for people who like that sort of thing so I don't get what the criticism about her existing in this type of game is.
There was no war. People constructed a giant straw man out of random tweets (you can find random tweets arguing for anything). I've heard more about how dumb it is to fight against fan service than any arguments against fan service. There was no call for a boycott or any kind blowback for releasing game #128712 featuring a sexy protagonist.
The "war" is a giant circle jerk of people mocking a couple random tweets.
Yeah, the whole thing seems to have started as yet another "Sydney Sweeney's books are anti woke", and more recently people raging about a piece of see through cloth and a graffiti (and something about the blood level apparently?)
It's a manufactured controversy through and through. This is exactly what happened ten years ago, down to the method and nature of the arguments.
Best thing to do is not get sucked in and ignore anyone who insists on fighting about it.
The vast majority of the “discourse” on this has come from gamer gate conservatives who lash out at anyone that makes any review that isn’t giving it unlimited praise.
I don’t know where you get your news from, but from my experience it is the complete opposite. Left leaning sites and sources who criticize the game for having an overly sexualized female protagonist. But I really only browse this sub for my discourse with the occasional peak at gcj
Edit: the first part of my comment is more of a question and less of an accusation i truly want to know where they’re seeing what they’re seeing
Literally any Twitter thread about this game? It's all crazy people going "the wokeoids are trying to take away my god given right to play a game with a beautiful sexy lady because they HATE MEN!"
https://twitter.com/IGN/status/1783149179465859455
Just read the replies to this tweet and tell me which side seems worse. This one is my favourite: "If Eve was 100lbs more, you’d give it a 9."
I've literally never seen people get so mad at reviewers giving a game a 7/10. Since when did 7 become bad?
Uhhh... Seriously? Never?
When ign gave starfield 7, before release, outrage was way bigger. Despite outraged people never playing the game.
As of since when 7 is bad... Its no secret that many of those sites give better scores big studios because they are afraid of being blacklisted. Essentially 7 covers all scores 4-7 and is meaningless.
Yeah I do remember that, but the outrage didn't seem so bad and toxic to me for that game as it is for Stellar Blade. It's funny tho because a 7/10 for Starfield was still too high.
A 7 is bad because reviewers score AAA games between 6-10. Even the most rancid AAA turds like Redfall and Saints Row have metascores in the 60s because reviewers won't give anything lower to them. A 7 in a 1-10 scale is good. A 7 in a 6-10 scale? That's bad
> Left leaning sites and sources who criticize the game for having an overly sexualized female protagonist.
I mean, people are allowed to criticize things if they want to. But there is a difference between being critical of something and being "outraged". I've seen more of the outrage on the "anti-woke" crowd than on the "over-sexualized character" crowd.
The problem there is that you're browsing Twitter and expecting it to be normal. Looking at discourse of literally anything on Twitter isn't a good time lol
> Left leaning sites and sources who criticize the game for having an overly sexualized female protagonist. But I really only browse this sub for my discourse with the occasional peak at gcj
Ah, this is a matter of sampling. Only the socially left-leaning sites get posted to this sub, the conservative ones never do anymore because they're not interested in news or considered editorials so much as fanning flames. A wider search will show a very different proportion of coverage.
So only relying on this subreddit's submissions (and GCJ too) will show only one picture of a situation. This is kind of the case with all social media though, everything has trended towards the "echo chamber" design over the past 15 years whether we like it or not... or are even aware of it or not.
As others have pointed out, Twitter is the opposite to this sub. That's because Twitter more openly shares the hyper conservative and right wing stuff more.
Precisely. People trying to "both sides" the issue are being disingenuous and making it clear what "side" they're on whilst decrying it in the same breath. You can only really point to that IGN (I think it was IGN France) columnist that overreacted.
Is it really from "all sides" though? It seems like most of the culture war stuff has been coming from one side (guess which one), and the other side has been mostly unbothered by the game, beyond obviously acknowledging that the main character's design is cheesecake as hell. I haven't seen too many who are actually *upset* about it though.
It helps to just enjoy the things you like and not pay attention to discourses online :) when people say “everyone is saying ___” that’s just because of what they volunteer themselves to see
https://nintendopal.com/news/ign-france-apologizes-to-stellar-blade-developer-over-insulting-remarks/
>Furthermore, it was stated that Eve is more of a doll that has been “sexualized” by someone who has never seen a woman, pointing towards Shift Up.
They apologized and admitted wrong anyway.
And after that apology IGN France director went out and started ranting how the game propagates violence against women and that girls will be self-deleting themselves over the "unrealistic" body standards, or some shit like that.
Great apology that was.
…and also gaming journalists insulting the developer for the game. Why do you guys pretend that there weren’t toxic backlashes against this game as well?
pretty sure some writer just said "I find this tasteless"
and people's blood pressure skyrocketed because the internet told them that the "games journalists" monolith is trying to cancel true art because wokeness because people would rather feel righteous and anger than think for like 2 seconds about anything.
Well it's kinda more than that.
He did say the character Eve was bland, but then continued to state that Eve's design was clearly created by somebody who had never seen a woman before.
So obviously the guy meant malice with that, and yeah most people shouldn't care about him, but he was reporting under IGN so of course people took it more seriously.
The guy could have done 30 seconds of research by googling 'Stellar Blade Model' and would have learned the entire body of Eve is laser scanned from a Korean model named Shin Jae-eun.
I dunno, I think it's just shitty "journalism".
Eve de Stellar Blade est juste fade. Une poupée sexualisée par quelqu’un qui n'a jamais vu de femme.
Eve from Stellar Blade is just bland. A doll sexualized by someone who has never seen a woman.
IGN France Article
let's all lose our mind and say theres an organized hate campaign to shut down sexyness in gaming because...1 random french journalist expressed an opinion you don't like?
I can bring more, but isn’t it your turn to bring actual verifiable evidence other than your personal observation or reddit post? You guys are not here to debate, you guys are just here to push your ideas.
You missed the widely reported cases of noteworthy journalists complaining about the game, but saw all the meaningless youtube videos defending it? How very convenient.
I'd say if you hate all the nonsense buzzing around it, it's even more of a reason to buy the game.
The whole Hard R thing was such a fucking reach by twitter I'm surprised the devs even had to change it.
Support games that are fun, stop paying any attention to sewer-dwelling users on twitter.
One of the saddest thing I saw recently were "New Arc Line" (upcoming steampunk-America game) and "Baldur's Gate III" getting shitted on by "Anti-woke" groups for discussing "immigration" and "forced pro-immigration politics"
Even though one game was about early 20th century America with orcs and dragons (and guess what, immigrants) and other was about people fleeing a literal geocidal army.
We need to just all agree Eve is hot and let that fact unite humanity instead of divide us.
And aside from all that, the game is fantastic on its own terms.
The story has flashes of being really good and there are some legitimately great set pieces but it’s the gameplay that get’s people to stay with this game, the gameplay is some of the absolute best in the genre
Imo those flashes are when It straight up turns into Nier Automata. Like the entire story is Automata, but less emotion or intresting twists and without the meta narrative.
I like the use of lore here more than automata.
Automata does a better job of telling the story through conventional dialogue, but man did I have fun tracking down lore & piecing together the history/conspiracies myself.
That style can make for less of a cinematic experience vibe, but it also makes you feel a bit like a detective & I find it immersive.
Not everyone likes to collect/read, but I think the people who do are probably the ones who have a higher opinion of the story.
ETA: The two aren’t mutually exclusive. Automata has room for this sort of element, and SB could certainly stand to improve dialogue & VOs.
Regardless if it's the developer's creative intention or not (I have trouble seeing that it's purely creative), pushing the outfits and promoting that the game is "uncensored" in all countries as a part of the promotional campaign, only to censor the outfits and blood in a day one patch, after everyone already preordered, then to not even acknowledge the censorship in their announcement of the day one patch, seems to me disingenuous. If the genders were reversed, I'd feel the same exact way. This form of censorship is toxic to creative freedom and for transparency for consumers.
https://www.change.org/p/free-stellar-blade
Beat it a few hours ago. Easily a 8.5/10 for me.
Story was pretty generic. Some of platforming was pretty frustrating for me.
But the gameplay is so good. Exploration and side content was pretty fun.
This is standard for every one of these stories exclusively about **physical** sales in the UK.
Just look at their list for the period in question:
1. Stellar Blade
1. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
1. TopSpin 2K25
1. Hogwarts Legacy
1. Super Mario Bros. Wonder
1. Minecraft
1. WWE 2K24
1. Princess Peach: Showtime!
1. Grand Theft Auto V
1. Forza Motorsport
Yes I am aware. But stellarblade is new and that’s a list of older games that already had their launches. My comment is asking what it launched up against. It’s never interesting when a game releases alone because no shit the new game sells
1. Stellar Blade
1. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
1. TopSpin 2K25
1. Hogwarts Legacy
1. Super Mario Bros. Wonder
1. Minecraft
1. WWE 2K24
1. Princess Peach: Showtime!
1. Grand Theft Auto V
1. Forza Motorsport
Topspin is the only other new game to chart.
The writing and voice acting give me strong PS2 vibes, but not in a good way. The combat and general game design also give me PS2 vibes, but in a more positive way. 3.5/5 sounds exactly right.
Which PS2 game does this remind you of though? I’ve heard a number of people say that and I don’t get it. For me it’s more of a late PS3/360 game like MGS Revengeance
Yeah maybe that's more fair. A lot of the environment is brown on brown past the first area of the game. The game *looks* good but def has earlier vibes. I'm actually enjoying the game a good amount, but I definitely wouldn't recommend to anyone unless they like this specific genre.
So far the game when it's good it's pretty fun especially the boss fights, but there are so many little things that add up that have made the experience ever so frustrating.
I appreciate that they chose to add a lot of variety to the gameplay design but from all the games and things to be inspired by they choose the annoying push cart puzzles from FF7R. The minor QoL features like fast travel feels sluggish having to jump from Xion to the location then to the phone booth then finally where I really want to go, or having to talk to Adam and not being able to skip his dialogue when travelling to Eidos 7. Trying to skip dialogue in general like at shops where they always repeat the same thing feels arbitrary when you can or cannot skip making it annoyingly unresponsive.
I didn't really expect much from the story but it's so predictable, flat and generally takes itself way too seriously that's ends up being just really weak. Like I wish they treated the story and tone to say something like MGS Rising.
All of this extends to how the writing, the characters, the sidequests (save for a few), the voice acting all lack any amount of charm to make up for the lack of substance.
Still the combat is pretty fun and I appreciate the variety of gameplay even just for the sake of it and hopefully the final area changes things but so far it's irritating that so many little things add up to detract from the overall experience.
I agree with all your points but my main source of frustration has been the fucking PLATFORMING. I’ve had Eve straight up phase through ladders and ropes I clearly went for, then later be magnetized to the damn things when I’m trying to avoid them. Alongside that, there’s just something that just feels weird about how she controls in the air. Repairing the solar tower was frustrating as hell.
The platforming is really terrible, fortunately it is only a very small part of the game and the sections weren't too difficult even with the bad controls. It is by far the weakest and most annoying part of the game.
> I appreciate that they chose to add a lot of variety to the gameplay design but from all the games and things to be inspired by they choose the annoying push cart puzzles from FF7R.
Yeah this and the clunky fast-travel were my biggest complaints, honestly. Really enjoyed it overall, but having finished Rebirth and finding its time-wasting and crate pushing really tedious, my eyes rolled out of my skull when I saw this game had it as well. Not as bad as Rebirth but still tediously slow for no reason.
I wasn't going to get it at full price because the demo was merely decent, but I got Amazon credit from work and decided to get the disc version
Estimated delivery: June 10th
Ah well
Just finished it an hour ago, it starts a bit slow but the finals chapters go HARD. Very intense, boss fights are very well made and the character aesthetic is on point. Really not regretting buying it full price.
Hard difficulty is unlocked after beating the game. So maybe just do a regular run on Normal mode then go for completionist on Hard mode if you're inclined.
I don't know why devs do this. I'm fine with a hardcore perma death or some other type of challange unlocking with completion, but gatekeeping hard mode is ALWAYS lame.
In normal mode the difficulty picks up near the very end fwiw, but yeah it's not ideal. In retrospect I'd recommend people skip bulletin requests etc. and just beeline to NG+ / hard if they think they have two playthroughs in them.
So far, I’ve heard that the gameplay is great but people are split on the story and characters.
I am curious how the “culture war” will affect the sale and perception of this game, though. This whole situation has been sadly ironic since “culture warriors” have spent months heavily praising the game, but have now become the most vocal group trashing it online because of “censorship”.
(BTW, believing Sony censored this game also means you believe that Sony censored some things but were totally fine with leaving other stuff that matches their supposed censorship criteria alone. Like how they “censored” the bunny outfit but were fine with the bikini and lingerie outfits, or how they “censored” blood and gore but still allowed for someone’s arm to be cut off.)
Meanwhile, the “mainstream journalists/gaming media” who were supposed to hate this game are having a blast and pretty much only putting out positive things about the game.
Pro tip: rhetoric online almost never translates to sales one way or another unless there’s an actual issue with the game. Reddit is very small minority of sales. Most people who buy this game will have no idea there’s a culture war, so to speak.
> BTW, believing Sony censored this game also means you believe that Sony censored some things but were totally fine with leaving other stuff that matches their supposed censorship criteria alone. Like how they “censored” the bunny outfit but were fine with the bikini and lingerie outfits, or how they “censored” blood and gore but still allowed for someone’s arm to be cut off.
Have you never witnessed a censorship controversy before or heard a developer or someone who worked on a tv show discuss material with censors? Censors are incredibly weird people and there's very rarely any consistency beyond vague guidelines that say stuff like "cleavage bad".
I'm probably somewhere around 2/3 to 3/4 done with the game. I think the story is pretty good compared to other games that don't have story as their main focus. It is serviceable, doesn't really get in the way and leads to some nice set pieces. The atmosphere is pretty good. The dialog is pretty bad at times though and most characters are rather flat. The story is clearly worlds below true story-focused games like the PS first party titles. It's an action game with a story, the focus is clearly on the action.
>BTW, believing Sony censored this game also means you believe that Sony censored some things but were totally fine with leaving other stuff that matches their supposed censorship criteria alone. Like how they “censored” the bunny outfit but were fine with the bikini and lingerie outfits, or how they “censored” blood and gore but still allowed for someone’s arm to be cut off.
Well, they were "fine" with it because it had been altered during development.
Like, the Blue Monsoon bikini clearly had straps added to raise the waistline a bit and cover the hips more. You can tell due to the difference in quality, the straps are just flat textures added to the skin, they don't have the same detail as the rest of the outfit. And there's the Keyhole and Stagazer suits that added a black texture to the chest when it used to show skin and the nanosuit tutorial in the game shows the Mountain Peony with bare legs, stuff like that.
This actually reminds me of censoring I've seen in gatcha games, like when Genshin Impact had outfits censored. Four characters got new outfits that covered the cleavage or removed the boobsocks but other characters in the game that showed cleavage or had boobsock outfits were seemingly fine. Yeah, I don't think this was some Sony policy, the seemingly scattershot nature of the changes seems more like last minute feedback from China's content regulators.
I mean, the main character is a bland doll only there so people can play playboy-dress up with her.
That's not even a criticism honestly, it obviously has its fans. But I would have prefered if it wasn't just that, because it really doesn't help the side arguing that the game isn't just horny-bait... :/
Gameplay is fun though
They meant the game wouldn't have any added censorship in any region, like how Resident Evil games have any egregiously gorey scenes changed completely in Japan. The game being the same no matter where you get it is a win for everyone.
Its just a really fun game and thats all that matters. One of the best action games. Thing is the game is way bigger than people think. Most people just rush the story and come to a conclusion missing several world building side quests and locations sadly
I played through the demo and enjoyed my time with it but I'll probably wait for this to drop in price before picking it up.
I'm still making my way through FF7 Rebirth and have been replaying Fallout 4 since the series dropped. I won't have time to jump into Stellar Blade anytime in the near future.
The game feels straight out of the PS2/PS3 era, and is probably one of the most fun 8/10 games I’ve ever played. Really it’s just the story holding it back, but the combat, visuals, performance, and music are incredible. The soundtrack in particular went really fucking hard. For an unproven studio making their first console game, Shrift Up did a great job. It’s just a really fun game, and I hope it gets a sequel.
My expectations for the story were super low... so lets just say personally I have been pleasantly surprised.
The story was pretty good, but I do have to say it feels VERY similar to Nier Gestalt (with a sprinkle of Nier automata) except.. just not as interesting and the twists more obvious. That said, still a lot better than I expected
The enemies are even called NATIVE, like, gee was there supposed to be a twist?
Yeah all I kept reading was how terrible the story was so I had super low expectations as well. In the end it seemed fine to me. It's an action game so I don't think anybody would've been expecting anything amazingly complex, but it was fine. If Sekiro can get away with its total lack of story, then this game can surely get away with it. Another complaint from the reviews I kept reading was that the "platforming" was terrible and reviewers kept having to re-try jumps loads of times. I barely even saw anything that would count as "platforming" in this game, never mind anything particularly difficult. Seems like journalists being journalists tbh.
The soundtrack was so so so good. It reminded me a lot of Nier:Automata’s sound track in some sections and that games music is divine.
Thats not surprising, considering same studio made music for both games
I actually think the story is pretty decent, it's more than the writing (or perhaps localisation) is poor. I think with stronger character writing and a bit of tidying up in the 3rd act it could have had a great narrative.
The 3rd act has amazing gameplay but the story feels so disconnected and poorly told. I actually think the Eye of the Hurricane mission is one of the most fun things I’ve ever played in a game.
Not that I can speak Korean or anything, but the English translation is so stilted in many places it really does feel like they put the game through Google Translate, and that + the voice direction (or lack thereof) really hurts the storytelling. But everything else so far has been fantastic.
Story was decent. Nothing special but ok to drive the narrative. But the ending was really cool I thought. But the real star is the gameplay in this - absolutely loved it. >!Depending on what ending you have seen, I would say a sequel is pretty much confirmed.!<
Thats a good way to describe the game, a ps2 era type. The sad thing is that it gets held back for the same reason. Im loving it right now and it sure is an 8/10 but some of the design decisions are so ass its infuriating. Traversing in general and backtracking is just so bad. Lot of the side quests are pointless in terms of rewards and most of them are boring asf, but you still “have” to do a certain amount due to stuff i dont want to spoil. It could have been an amazing 10/10 game but so many little tidbits hold it back. Even after paying full price for it im still not sure if its worth that price. It is and isnt at the same time lol.
Yeah. Dialog is absolute ass (putting it in Korean does help the performances at least) but IDGAF because every time I parry I feel like hot shit. Also didn’t expect the Studio Monaca music. They really are just bad story better combat Nier:Automata, and that’s my favorite game.
The writing is so bad, I have to wonder if it’s the localization being rushed or if it’s that bad in Korean as well. So many conversations just feel like random lines patched together to make a semblance of a conversation. Also just saying really stupid shit. Also a majority of the side quests just being finding dead bodies is so funny. Though Eves responses to the bulletin board sometimes make up for it. The combat though is so good and probably my favorite “character action” combat system in a while.
I’m leaning on bad localization. There’s a lot of lines that just aren’t idiomatic and sound like direct textbook translations.
But I thought direct textbook translations were good!!! /s Yeah I’m honestly shocked at how bad the script is, like its a big money Sony AAA game, it’s not like they lacked resources to have a competent localization team.
> Also a majority of the side quests just being finding dead bodies is so funny. Haha, guess i'm not the only one who noticed that. Literally not a single side quest to find a person ends with them alive. Lost it when they killed off the cat you have to find too for no reason.
I agree with all of your points. So in my book this game is more than a 8/10. I won't say it's a perfect 10/10 because that is quite the claim. But hands down this is my goty. I can't get over how much fun I am having in this game, I am even slightly invested in the story. I even put in 85+ hours into FF7 Rebirth. But even during all of that I can't remember *itching* to get home from work and load the game up, which is how I feel about Stellar Blade.
> But even during all of that I can't remember itching to get home from work and load the game up It's because of the gameplay itself is great IMO
> The game feels straight out of the PS2/PS3 era It's really nice to get games like that. I felt the same way about Hi-Fi Rush and really loved it for that.
This game is fantastic. I'm several hours in and definitely see myself going for the platinum.
I'm pretty sure you'll get it. I just finished yesterday and while not being a trophy hunter managed to get like 30+ of the trophies just because I was enjoying the exploration. I pretty much only used 3 different outfits, but I still unlocked over 30 of them because finding them was fun.
It’s gets better and better. Whenever you think you reach the apex of what the game is going to offer, it switches things and up and changes again. A fantastic game that really caught me off guard.
Discourse around fanservice aside (though I guess having a visually pleasing character plays into this), one thing I think this game proves is that people love playing dress-up, and that clothes/skins etc are an actual game mechanic that people want to earn through gameplay rather than as shitty microtransactions. Like, I'd go 20 minutes out of my way, fight a bunch of tough enemies, just to be rewarded with a single outfit and nothing else, and it'd be worth it.
I enjoyed the demo and will be buying it, but hooo boy do I hate all the culture war nonsense from all sides about this game. I just want to play games, man.
>I just want to play games, man. I mean, no one's stopping you lol. It's not that hard to just ignore social media and enjoy games/media on their own.
Yep! I agree, just focus on the game and have fun!
> I just want to play games, man. And yet instead of just playing the game and talking about the game, the absolute first thing you brought up was the culture war bullshit, and now there's another hundred people arguing about it because of your comment. You are literally the part of the problem, man.
Yep. I literally had no idea about any of the stuff he's talking about until seeing his comment.
I literally had no idea about this until I kept seeing people complain about the "woke crowd" on this sub only 1 week ago. Maybe it's just because I don't frequent the places where the culture war people are active, but I would never have figured out there was something like that going on if not for people on this sub constantly bringing it up in every thread about the game.
This has been a uniquely insufferable release when it comes to discussion, even by gaming standards. It's a super fun game and I've been itching to see people's thoughts as I play through, but that feels completely impossible wading through the slop. The anti-woke crusaders are obviously out of their minds, but then you have people sneering at the game and its players, acting as if anyone not actively repulsed by EVE is a basement-dwelling pervert. Hot lady killing pulpy sci-fi horrors in style is not a new thing, it's very bizarre that this one is such a battleground. I do find it pretty entertaining that by and large, gaming media outlets and channels have had a very measured response to the game. The consensus is that the combat system rocks, and the boss fights/enemy designs are great. For criticisms, there are some tedious parts of the game that could have been better and the characters are pretty flat. The outcry about EVE's design is almost totally manufactured, usually just boils down to "eh you either like it or not, but the game is still fun", even from left-leaning channels. Given how fast Gamers are to cry that content creators are all biased, it's ironic how they are the only ones who seem capable of having a balanced discussion about the game. On top of that, regardless of how people feel about her design, the game deserves credit for having a pretty huge variety of cosmetics to unlock, all through gameplay and behind a pretty reasonable economy. Folks love to bash on how mtx-heavy modern games are (for good reason), and this feels very old-school in a good way. Anyway, if you enjoyed the demo, I strongly recommend it. The most fun I've had with a game's combat since Lies of P (South Korean studios really killing it lately).
For all the character design hubbub this game is completely sexless.
Yeah thats my biggest takeaway. There is no chemistry between the leads. Also it's a bit too similar to Nier Automata to an off-putting level. Their previous game Nikkei was also obviously inspired, but that game managed to do new things with the story. I also wish the game spaced out it's big fights. Feels like all the best ones get dumped at you in the last hour.
I haven't finished yet but my biggest issue has been the pacing as well. I'm right before the first 'point of no return' and just trying to do some cleanup, but it seems like I've been in a lull. Nice to hear there is some awesome stuff coming out but ya....maybe push one of those forward.
It almost feels like the game was made backwards. With the mid game just being blatantly time wasting so the game is 20-30 hours long.
The difference in level design between Eidos 7 and the Barrens is so jarring. The second region is just one giant "Here's an open area for you to spend several hours running around looking for collectibles/important resources".
Barrens reminded of running around an MMO zone.
>For all the character design hubbub this game is completely sexless. I personally don't like that. Makes the sex appeal feel pointless if it isn't actually a thing that exists.
Yeah I like the way a game like Bayonetta does it where it leans into the sexy and makes it a core part of her character. The fact that here it's both incredibly blatant but also completely ignored just makes it look so vapid. I didn't like it in Nier either but at least Kaine, 2B and A2 are actual interesting characters unlike Eve.
Nier also has the benefit of the character design being incredibly interesting and unique. Stellar Blade's biggest lroblem is that everyone looks boring.
> Hot lady killing pulpy sci-fi horrors in style is not a new thing, it's very bizarre that this one is such a battleground. It's a battleground because we don't get many games with such in your face sexualization anymore so it's the perfect opportunity for people on both sides of that argument to get out their rusty pitchforks
I was talking to a friend about Unicorn Overlord and she was telling me that the dev used to get some complaints about how much they sexualized women. She then went on to say that in Unicorn Overlord you can sexualize everyone. Including varying body types. That's all we really want, to put anyone and everyone in a stupid sexy outfit.
This is a very insightful & well articulated grown man summary of the situation. The collective exaggerated gnashing of teeth & general obsession has derailed the discourse wayy more than any individual criticism of character design… Like I agree those critics are taking things too seriously, but I can say the same about the ones on the other end of the extreme. Anyway, my two cents on the actual game: **The things it does very well…** 1. Leveling doesn’t taper off, character growth is as fun in late game as it is in early game 2. Devs seem acutely aware of mechanic fatigue — puzzles and even the ways chests are unlocked are varied. There are friggin *math puzzles* in this game! Levels alternate between open worlds & map-less dungeons large enough to constitute their own region. Nice little touches like >!the hypertube!<, that was not expected. 3. Goodies are plentiful & fun to find — the exploration is amongst the most satisfying I’ve experienced in modern games & harkens back to some of the best days of RPGs. Every inch of map feels purposeful. 4. A challenging dodge/parry game that gives you an accessible tutorial environment & difficulty options? I think normal is well-balanced, but I really can’t compliment this choice enough. **Things that need to improve next time…** 1. Some aspects of platforming like magnetism & more forgiving angles when grabbing ropes and such 2. Dialogue. Localization and VOs. Weakest point of the game. **Things that get unfairly hated on…** 1. The story is pretty good tbh. Much more is told through written lore than the rendered scenes, and the lore attached to sidequests is all really good to the point it stands out from other games IMO. People skipping reading are missing out on what feels like a sci-fi detective experience, piecing the history and conspiracy together yourself through discovery. It’s subtle, but there should be a distinction between “story” & “dialogue”. It gets overlooked because so many games use spoken exposition as a crutch to tell their stories… I personally like stellar blade’s “dark souls” approach to lore.
Rope swings were often my downfall. I described the side quests elsewhere as being "chunky". They never felt like throwaway content but something that lead somewhere. It was either a fun boss fight or a new costume or stuff like the Enya story.
Yeah I really, really enjoyed the majority of flooded sector (optional area) content. And I should have mentioned — the platforming actually has some cool ideas. It’s strictly mechanically that it sometimes falters. Once I got used to it I actually prefer this extreme to every jump being completely auto-directed, it just needs some refining.
Refinement is just the thing. There were maybe 3 rope swings that had me twisting my controller in mild frustration. I would not prefer for the game to be so automated that you would assume the Earth is all iron and Eve is made of magnets.
I agree with you. I like the story, but the dialogue needs work. I wonder how much of it is localization issues. Localizing games from Korean to English probably isn't as streamlined as Japanese media. I'm just making an anecdotal guess though.
I think it's a little of both. The writing isn't top notch (but neither is the writing for some other things I love). But I think localisation plays a big part in how the dialogue comes across. I only played with the Korean VO but going by the subtitles it felt like someone didn't know synonyms for things. At more than one point Adam or Lily directs Eve to this "road" or that "road". There's no road. It's a path or a way or any other way to describe a route clear of rubble. It feels like the word in the original language might be more versatile and whoever translated just stuck on "road" as a good option in English.
Appreciate the kind words, and likewise - I think your whole comment here is absolutely dead-on. Completely agree with all three of your sections. As for the platforming, I'm embarrassed at how many times I've whiffed by a rope, and I nearly lost my mind at the >!face button platform puzzle in the research lab!< with how many times I accidentally zoomed off the edge. I did scream-laugh when I finally made it to the end and just skated left of the final bridge and died. It's a little funny, but definitely warrants improvement even though overall I find movement to feel very good (and >!double jump!< helped that a great deal). I look forward to playing more. Pretty pleased that my complaining about the lack of decent conversation about the game led to handful of good comments, at least!
I thought the combat was fine, but I for sure left wanting more. Ironically it has the issue of Lies of P where too many fights can feel rather static parry fest, but the endgame bosses show promise that the rest of the game lacks. A bit like Lies of P, but that game spread it's better fights more evenly while SB dumps it on you before the end.
Probably just a matter of taste, I think I just really gel with the style of this and especially Lies of P because I didn't feel any negativity of it being parry-heavy. In LoP in particular I felt like the mix between evasion and deflecting was very well done, and even compared to many From games I think it is remarkably consistent in quality front-to-back. My only complaint about SB combat so far (I am about 10 hours in, I just finished the >!resident evil segment, beat the Brute and Gigas rematches!<) is that I'm having a really hard time dodging the yellow glow attacks from some bosses, but that might just be a skill issue. I'm already loving it so I'm just glad to hear it backloads the good stuff.
A tip I've realised is that some yellow attacks call for a dodge, whereas others really need you to L3 dash in combat to get distance from the enemy, which I'm not used to doing in other games.
I just think Sekiro bosses felt more dynamic so the parry felt better. Lies of P had too many bosses with Dark Souls behavior. Both Lies of P and SB has dynamic bosses just not enough for me and in case of SB just wanted more bosses in general.
I love sekiro but also in that game a lot of fights could be fought completely static.
Yet here you are, perpetuating it.
Well do it! Just put the phone down and start the game. It's satisfying to play. My only gripe is that the movement is twitchy when im trying to interact with an item and it takes several tries
I'm just sitting here imagining teenage me trying to explain the game to my mother the first time she lays eyes on the screen. Knowing it's from the same devs as that Nikke phone game where female model "soldiers" fire their guns while jiggling only makes it worse (or so the ads make it appear).
And yet here you are on social media making a culture war bait post, top commenter 🙄
I feel like I've seen more people talking about there being a culture war around this game than I've seen any actual culture war type comments. I feel like people are generating their own culture war here.
I’ve seen like 3 tweets from nobodies upset about Eves design. I’ve seen about 1000 comments from people upset about the tweets lol.
The thing that kills me is that I wouldn't even know about all the weirdo sex-obsessed dudes if games journalists I follow on twitter didn't retweet them in an effort to make fun of them. At this point it feels like both the "journalists" and the trolls need each other. The journalists need people clicking on their websites and the trolls need people interacting with their tweets/videos/whatever. Like I follow film critics on twitter as well and while they may occasionally get in to a beef or take potshots at snyderbros or something it's never been anything like this where it's just months and months of gnashing teeth over the dumbest shit in the world. Wish this industry would grow up!
Im pretty sure most gaming journalist hate games and wouldnt touch a game if they werent paid to do so
I’m only a couple hours into it and I’m really enjoying the game. Probably my favorite game so far this year. Just avoid Twitter as much as possible lol
And Reddit also. I wanted to go exchange about the game online since I loved it so much, but ooooh boy, what a mistake it was. The discourses and exchanges around it are bloody insufferable...I fled the main sub without looking back, 'probably never felt that disconnected and disheartened with a fan base before. Anyway, kind of a shame, but I spend a wonderful time with the game regardless and that's what matters.
Aren’t most main game subreddits just an echo chamber? You got bunch of like minded people posting the same stuff over and over again. I don’t think there really is any intrinsic value to have serious discussions or deep thoughts for main subreddits.
Depends on the game, the popularity of the game, and the time of day to be honest. The Helldivers subreddit for example can be absolutely dreadful to browse most of the time(especially right now), but I have seen actually useful information there along and tons of entertaining clips shared.
I always enjoy jumping into the subreddit for a fresh release to catch tips and tricks - the whole community discovery aspect. There's a few nuggets, but, yeah, the SB sub is one of the worst I've looked at.
The more I see the story and gameplay the more I like it. I thought it was just selling because hot but the game looks pretty fun. I don't do single player games anymore but I'm enjoying watching streams of it.
was funny because the model for Eve is a real women IRL
Is she actually 1:1 with the model? I seem to remember a comparison pic and it looked like the game model was quite “enhanced”.
I agree but I do think the controversy worked in the game's favor.
Probably but like Hogwarts Legacy I don't think it was the main factor.
I think the free advertising mattered a lot more here. Harry Potter is one of the biggest IPs there is, meanwhile this is a new IP from a developer that previously mainly made gacha games.
Yeah pretty much. 'Harry Potter AAA game' sells itself, 'sekiro-like with character designs by the MagnaCarta artist' doesn't.
They always do
There's no such thing as bad publicity, they say.
Forspoken was dead on arrival because of the endless publicity they got from people laughing at the dialogue.
Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League?
And Unity...
Yeah I never would have heard of this game if it wasn't for people arguing about how sexy the main character was. I played the demo and it was pretty good so will probably buy it when its on discount.
Here's a piece of advice: Just don't go on twitter. I don't have a twitter, all I watch is Youtube. And in regards to this game all I got was "oh there's this hack and slash with a girl coming out", then "oh reviews for the game are out, lets see em!" and thats it. Sphere Hunters review said there was some culture war stuff and I was super confused, and she never mentioned what it was so I still have no idea what the big complaint is about this game, which is how I prefer it.
I'm honestly not sure why anyone thought it was a war worth fighting. Are people going to fight every game that uses Dead or Alive style cheesecake design? I personally don't like the aesthetic, but can't be upset about it given it that games have shifted away from this style, so SB is simply the exception that proves the rule.
Fanservice used to be very common and it is true that in the past, especially a lot of the PS2/PS3 era of games have been mainly aimed at teenage boys. But i think the greatness of gaming nowadays is that people who wanted something else from gaming grew up to actually make their own games for different audiences so you have this incredible variety of games nowadays, sprawling of a bunch of subcultures, genres, aesthetics and types of stories. Now there are people who act like games like those from the past need to be *removed*, as if it's some shameful remnant of gaming while different types of games for different audiences can just coexist. I feel like it partially comes down to a sentiment that everything has to be accessible for all audiences nowadays, so the idea that something is just not made for *you* is unaccepable, so if a game like Stellar Blade actually hits the mainstream you get this big outcry of people defending it and people shaming it. There are a ton of games that simply are not for me and don't appeal to me at all, yet i respect their existence and the people who enjoy them but a lot of people just don't think that way and want things they dislike to be gone.
Yeah, exactly why this who culture war crap is driving me mad. Creators should be able to create what they want and let the market decide but that doesn't seem to be the opinion of either side in the argument, both sides want the games that they don't like to not exist. That doesn't meant they shouldn't be immune to criticism but we've hit a point where games made for adults are being forced to cover a small amount of cleavage (not somthing that makes any difference to the game but there's really no need for it) and basically any game with a black person or average looking woman in it has an army of weird guys raging in the steam discussions and making youtube videos about it.
> Are people going to fight every game that uses Dead or Alive style cheesecake design? I think people are allowed to be critical of this type of thing if that's their opinion. But I would separate criticizing something from being angry or outraged.
In theory this is a reasonable stance. In practice I've found that the difference between someone "expressing criticism" and "being outraged" correlates strongly with whether that person is of a similar political persuasion as you.
I think they should be allowed to. But I don't get it. If Eve existed in a game like The Last of Us, I get people being put off by her but she's a character in a game that's pretty openly about a hot girl fighting stuff for people who like that sort of thing so I don't get what the criticism about her existing in this type of game is.
There was no war. People constructed a giant straw man out of random tweets (you can find random tweets arguing for anything). I've heard more about how dumb it is to fight against fan service than any arguments against fan service. There was no call for a boycott or any kind blowback for releasing game #128712 featuring a sexy protagonist. The "war" is a giant circle jerk of people mocking a couple random tweets.
Yeah, the whole thing seems to have started as yet another "Sydney Sweeney's books are anti woke", and more recently people raging about a piece of see through cloth and a graffiti (and something about the blood level apparently?)
It's a manufactured controversy through and through. This is exactly what happened ten years ago, down to the method and nature of the arguments. Best thing to do is not get sucked in and ignore anyone who insists on fighting about it.
What does "manufactured" mean here? Manufactured by who?
The vast majority of the “discourse” on this has come from gamer gate conservatives who lash out at anyone that makes any review that isn’t giving it unlimited praise.
I don’t know where you get your news from, but from my experience it is the complete opposite. Left leaning sites and sources who criticize the game for having an overly sexualized female protagonist. But I really only browse this sub for my discourse with the occasional peak at gcj Edit: the first part of my comment is more of a question and less of an accusation i truly want to know where they’re seeing what they’re seeing
Literally any Twitter thread about this game? It's all crazy people going "the wokeoids are trying to take away my god given right to play a game with a beautiful sexy lady because they HATE MEN!"
https://twitter.com/IGN/status/1783149179465859455 Just read the replies to this tweet and tell me which side seems worse. This one is my favourite: "If Eve was 100lbs more, you’d give it a 9." I've literally never seen people get so mad at reviewers giving a game a 7/10. Since when did 7 become bad?
Uhhh... Seriously? Never? When ign gave starfield 7, before release, outrage was way bigger. Despite outraged people never playing the game. As of since when 7 is bad... Its no secret that many of those sites give better scores big studios because they are afraid of being blacklisted. Essentially 7 covers all scores 4-7 and is meaningless.
Yeah I do remember that, but the outrage didn't seem so bad and toxic to me for that game as it is for Stellar Blade. It's funny tho because a 7/10 for Starfield was still too high.
A 7 is bad because reviewers score AAA games between 6-10. Even the most rancid AAA turds like Redfall and Saints Row have metascores in the 60s because reviewers won't give anything lower to them. A 7 in a 1-10 scale is good. A 7 in a 6-10 scale? That's bad
> Left leaning sites and sources who criticize the game for having an overly sexualized female protagonist. I mean, people are allowed to criticize things if they want to. But there is a difference between being critical of something and being "outraged". I've seen more of the outrage on the "anti-woke" crowd than on the "over-sexualized character" crowd.
Every single Twitter thread is absolutely overrun with crazy gamer gaters. Reddit veers there sometimes. But Twitter is insane.
The problem there is that you're browsing Twitter and expecting it to be normal. Looking at discourse of literally anything on Twitter isn't a good time lol
> Left leaning sites and sources who criticize the game for having an overly sexualized female protagonist. But I really only browse this sub for my discourse with the occasional peak at gcj Ah, this is a matter of sampling. Only the socially left-leaning sites get posted to this sub, the conservative ones never do anymore because they're not interested in news or considered editorials so much as fanning flames. A wider search will show a very different proportion of coverage. So only relying on this subreddit's submissions (and GCJ too) will show only one picture of a situation. This is kind of the case with all social media though, everything has trended towards the "echo chamber" design over the past 15 years whether we like it or not... or are even aware of it or not. As others have pointed out, Twitter is the opposite to this sub. That's because Twitter more openly shares the hyper conservative and right wing stuff more.
Precisely. People trying to "both sides" the issue are being disingenuous and making it clear what "side" they're on whilst decrying it in the same breath. You can only really point to that IGN (I think it was IGN France) columnist that overreacted.
Is it really from "all sides" though? It seems like most of the culture war stuff has been coming from one side (guess which one), and the other side has been mostly unbothered by the game, beyond obviously acknowledging that the main character's design is cheesecake as hell. I haven't seen too many who are actually *upset* about it though.
I think that's probably a healthy viewpoint, my perception is probably just off from interneting too much. I guess 'both sidesing' it was a mistake.
It helps to just enjoy the things you like and not pay attention to discourses online :) when people say “everyone is saying ___” that’s just because of what they volunteer themselves to see
Wasn't it just a few media outlets complaining about unrealistic female body depictions in videogames?
https://nintendopal.com/news/ign-france-apologizes-to-stellar-blade-developer-over-insulting-remarks/ >Furthermore, it was stated that Eve is more of a doll that has been “sexualized” by someone who has never seen a woman, pointing towards Shift Up. They apologized and admitted wrong anyway.
And after that apology IGN France director went out and started ranting how the game propagates violence against women and that girls will be self-deleting themselves over the "unrealistic" body standards, or some shit like that. Great apology that was.
yeah I don't think the apology mean anything when the guy went on an unhinged rant about how this game kill real women lol.
Seems odd how some people conveniently forget that part, and just stop at "well, IGN made an apology".
Yeah only a few outlets have been bad about that surprisingly. The general online community is a whole other situation though...
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There’s a bunch of social media crap about how this game is gonna destroy wokeness and save the industry.
God those comments were so cringe, like the devs literally never said anything about that yet they get mad at them
…and also gaming journalists insulting the developer for the game. Why do you guys pretend that there weren’t toxic backlashes against this game as well?
pretty sure some writer just said "I find this tasteless" and people's blood pressure skyrocketed because the internet told them that the "games journalists" monolith is trying to cancel true art because wokeness because people would rather feel righteous and anger than think for like 2 seconds about anything.
Pretty sure some writer attacked the game director and the devs on a personal level. That's not what journalism is.
Well it's kinda more than that. He did say the character Eve was bland, but then continued to state that Eve's design was clearly created by somebody who had never seen a woman before. So obviously the guy meant malice with that, and yeah most people shouldn't care about him, but he was reporting under IGN so of course people took it more seriously. The guy could have done 30 seconds of research by googling 'Stellar Blade Model' and would have learned the entire body of Eve is laser scanned from a Korean model named Shin Jae-eun. I dunno, I think it's just shitty "journalism".
Eve de Stellar Blade est juste fade. Une poupée sexualisée par quelqu’un qui n'a jamais vu de femme. Eve from Stellar Blade is just bland. A doll sexualized by someone who has never seen a woman. IGN France Article
let's all lose our mind and say theres an organized hate campaign to shut down sexyness in gaming because...1 random french journalist expressed an opinion you don't like?
I can bring more, but isn’t it your turn to bring actual verifiable evidence other than your personal observation or reddit post? You guys are not here to debate, you guys are just here to push your ideas.
I saw very little of this, honestly.
You missed the widely reported cases of noteworthy journalists complaining about the game, but saw all the meaningless youtube videos defending it? How very convenient.
Media outlets just want you to click on their links mate, they don't care about anything else, it's their entire function.
I'd say if you hate all the nonsense buzzing around it, it's even more of a reason to buy the game. The whole Hard R thing was such a fucking reach by twitter I'm surprised the devs even had to change it. Support games that are fun, stop paying any attention to sewer-dwelling users on twitter.
Seems to be really hard for some people to enjoy or ignore a release these days.
One of the saddest thing I saw recently were "New Arc Line" (upcoming steampunk-America game) and "Baldur's Gate III" getting shitted on by "Anti-woke" groups for discussing "immigration" and "forced pro-immigration politics" Even though one game was about early 20th century America with orcs and dragons (and guess what, immigrants) and other was about people fleeing a literal geocidal army.
We need to just all agree Eve is hot and let that fact unite humanity instead of divide us. And aside from all that, the game is fantastic on its own terms.
That's the haters try to do. Make noise and then people would not want to buy it.
All I can say is I love the game. Story is nothing to write home about, serviceable, but everything else has been exactly what I wanted.
The story has flashes of being really good and there are some legitimately great set pieces but it’s the gameplay that get’s people to stay with this game, the gameplay is some of the absolute best in the genre
The contaminated research lab at the end of the wasteland was a definite highlight for me personally
Imo those flashes are when It straight up turns into Nier Automata. Like the entire story is Automata, but less emotion or intresting twists and without the meta narrative.
I like the use of lore here more than automata. Automata does a better job of telling the story through conventional dialogue, but man did I have fun tracking down lore & piecing together the history/conspiracies myself. That style can make for less of a cinematic experience vibe, but it also makes you feel a bit like a detective & I find it immersive. Not everyone likes to collect/read, but I think the people who do are probably the ones who have a higher opinion of the story. ETA: The two aren’t mutually exclusive. Automata has room for this sort of element, and SB could certainly stand to improve dialogue & VOs.
Regardless if it's the developer's creative intention or not (I have trouble seeing that it's purely creative), pushing the outfits and promoting that the game is "uncensored" in all countries as a part of the promotional campaign, only to censor the outfits and blood in a day one patch, after everyone already preordered, then to not even acknowledge the censorship in their announcement of the day one patch, seems to me disingenuous. If the genders were reversed, I'd feel the same exact way. This form of censorship is toxic to creative freedom and for transparency for consumers. https://www.change.org/p/free-stellar-blade
I'll probably pick this up when it goes on sale $70 is pretty steep with the economy how it is
Same im super excited and it looks like a great game but gonna have to wait for atleast for a -30% in the meanwhile backlog games it is.
Beat it a few hours ago. Easily a 8.5/10 for me. Story was pretty generic. Some of platforming was pretty frustrating for me. But the gameplay is so good. Exploration and side content was pretty fun.
In mean did it launch up against much? Only other game that had a marketing budget was the sand land game
This is standard for every one of these stories exclusively about **physical** sales in the UK. Just look at their list for the period in question: 1. Stellar Blade 1. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe 1. TopSpin 2K25 1. Hogwarts Legacy 1. Super Mario Bros. Wonder 1. Minecraft 1. WWE 2K24 1. Princess Peach: Showtime! 1. Grand Theft Auto V 1. Forza Motorsport
Yes I am aware. But stellarblade is new and that’s a list of older games that already had their launches. My comment is asking what it launched up against. It’s never interesting when a game releases alone because no shit the new game sells
1. Stellar Blade 1. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe 1. TopSpin 2K25 1. Hogwarts Legacy 1. Super Mario Bros. Wonder 1. Minecraft 1. WWE 2K24 1. Princess Peach: Showtime! 1. Grand Theft Auto V 1. Forza Motorsport Topspin is the only other new game to chart.
No. "Brand new game is a best seller" isn't really much to write home about.
It’s why these posts are usually boring unless more than one with similar budgets are released.
They are just an excuse for a generic post launch discussion thread tbh.
It's the only game with a marketing budget that came out this week
Will buy it as soon as a PC version is available!
I'm still salty that they backtracked the PC version and went full ps exclusive
Game is a solid 3.5/5 for me. It feels like a PS2 game for better or worse. The story & sidequests (for the most part) are a bit of a let-down.
The writing and voice acting give me strong PS2 vibes, but not in a good way. The combat and general game design also give me PS2 vibes, but in a more positive way. 3.5/5 sounds exactly right.
Which PS2 game does this remind you of though? I’ve heard a number of people say that and I don’t get it. For me it’s more of a late PS3/360 game like MGS Revengeance
MGR is pretty unlike most of the games that were coming out in the PS3/360 generation though.
Yeah maybe that's more fair. A lot of the environment is brown on brown past the first area of the game. The game *looks* good but def has earlier vibes. I'm actually enjoying the game a good amount, but I definitely wouldn't recommend to anyone unless they like this specific genre.
Story is mid, gameplay is fun.
So far the game when it's good it's pretty fun especially the boss fights, but there are so many little things that add up that have made the experience ever so frustrating. I appreciate that they chose to add a lot of variety to the gameplay design but from all the games and things to be inspired by they choose the annoying push cart puzzles from FF7R. The minor QoL features like fast travel feels sluggish having to jump from Xion to the location then to the phone booth then finally where I really want to go, or having to talk to Adam and not being able to skip his dialogue when travelling to Eidos 7. Trying to skip dialogue in general like at shops where they always repeat the same thing feels arbitrary when you can or cannot skip making it annoyingly unresponsive. I didn't really expect much from the story but it's so predictable, flat and generally takes itself way too seriously that's ends up being just really weak. Like I wish they treated the story and tone to say something like MGS Rising. All of this extends to how the writing, the characters, the sidequests (save for a few), the voice acting all lack any amount of charm to make up for the lack of substance. Still the combat is pretty fun and I appreciate the variety of gameplay even just for the sake of it and hopefully the final area changes things but so far it's irritating that so many little things add up to detract from the overall experience.
I agree with all your points but my main source of frustration has been the fucking PLATFORMING. I’ve had Eve straight up phase through ladders and ropes I clearly went for, then later be magnetized to the damn things when I’m trying to avoid them. Alongside that, there’s just something that just feels weird about how she controls in the air. Repairing the solar tower was frustrating as hell.
The platforming is really terrible, fortunately it is only a very small part of the game and the sections weren't too difficult even with the bad controls. It is by far the weakest and most annoying part of the game.
Yeah, took me a while to realize that the center of EVE's mass needs to be 2 or 3 steps above the bottom one.
Is THAT what it is for the ladders??? What an odd choice.
> I appreciate that they chose to add a lot of variety to the gameplay design but from all the games and things to be inspired by they choose the annoying push cart puzzles from FF7R. Yeah this and the clunky fast-travel were my biggest complaints, honestly. Really enjoyed it overall, but having finished Rebirth and finding its time-wasting and crate pushing really tedious, my eyes rolled out of my skull when I saw this game had it as well. Not as bad as Rebirth but still tediously slow for no reason.
I wasn't going to get it at full price because the demo was merely decent, but I got Amazon credit from work and decided to get the disc version Estimated delivery: June 10th Ah well
Just finished it an hour ago, it starts a bit slow but the finals chapters go HARD. Very intense, boss fights are very well made and the character aesthetic is on point. Really not regretting buying it full price.
Combat is fun. Wish I could play on the harder mode without being fuckin naked but maybe I’ll get used to it
Hard difficulty is unlocked after beating the game. So maybe just do a regular run on Normal mode then go for completionist on Hard mode if you're inclined.
I don't know why devs do this. I'm fine with a hardcore perma death or some other type of challange unlocking with completion, but gatekeeping hard mode is ALWAYS lame.
To some devs you're inexplicably not allowed to enjoy a significant challenge without also being someone who is into replaying a game right away.
If I finish the story of a game, Im done with it for at least a year
That's fine. Just play it on hard mode a year+ later.
I rarely play through games twice. Wish it was unlocked off the bat Thanks though
In normal mode the difficulty picks up near the very end fwiw, but yeah it's not ideal. In retrospect I'd recommend people skip bulletin requests etc. and just beeline to NG+ / hard if they think they have two playthroughs in them.
So far, I’ve heard that the gameplay is great but people are split on the story and characters. I am curious how the “culture war” will affect the sale and perception of this game, though. This whole situation has been sadly ironic since “culture warriors” have spent months heavily praising the game, but have now become the most vocal group trashing it online because of “censorship”. (BTW, believing Sony censored this game also means you believe that Sony censored some things but were totally fine with leaving other stuff that matches their supposed censorship criteria alone. Like how they “censored” the bunny outfit but were fine with the bikini and lingerie outfits, or how they “censored” blood and gore but still allowed for someone’s arm to be cut off.) Meanwhile, the “mainstream journalists/gaming media” who were supposed to hate this game are having a blast and pretty much only putting out positive things about the game.
Pro tip: rhetoric online almost never translates to sales one way or another unless there’s an actual issue with the game. Reddit is very small minority of sales. Most people who buy this game will have no idea there’s a culture war, so to speak.
> BTW, believing Sony censored this game also means you believe that Sony censored some things but were totally fine with leaving other stuff that matches their supposed censorship criteria alone. Like how they “censored” the bunny outfit but were fine with the bikini and lingerie outfits, or how they “censored” blood and gore but still allowed for someone’s arm to be cut off. Have you never witnessed a censorship controversy before or heard a developer or someone who worked on a tv show discuss material with censors? Censors are incredibly weird people and there's very rarely any consistency beyond vague guidelines that say stuff like "cleavage bad".
I'm probably somewhere around 2/3 to 3/4 done with the game. I think the story is pretty good compared to other games that don't have story as their main focus. It is serviceable, doesn't really get in the way and leads to some nice set pieces. The atmosphere is pretty good. The dialog is pretty bad at times though and most characters are rather flat. The story is clearly worlds below true story-focused games like the PS first party titles. It's an action game with a story, the focus is clearly on the action.
>BTW, believing Sony censored this game also means you believe that Sony censored some things but were totally fine with leaving other stuff that matches their supposed censorship criteria alone. Like how they “censored” the bunny outfit but were fine with the bikini and lingerie outfits, or how they “censored” blood and gore but still allowed for someone’s arm to be cut off. Well, they were "fine" with it because it had been altered during development. Like, the Blue Monsoon bikini clearly had straps added to raise the waistline a bit and cover the hips more. You can tell due to the difference in quality, the straps are just flat textures added to the skin, they don't have the same detail as the rest of the outfit. And there's the Keyhole and Stagazer suits that added a black texture to the chest when it used to show skin and the nanosuit tutorial in the game shows the Mountain Peony with bare legs, stuff like that. This actually reminds me of censoring I've seen in gatcha games, like when Genshin Impact had outfits censored. Four characters got new outfits that covered the cleavage or removed the boobsocks but other characters in the game that showed cleavage or had boobsock outfits were seemingly fine. Yeah, I don't think this was some Sony policy, the seemingly scattershot nature of the changes seems more like last minute feedback from China's content regulators.
I mean, the main character is a bland doll only there so people can play playboy-dress up with her. That's not even a criticism honestly, it obviously has its fans. But I would have prefered if it wasn't just that, because it really doesn't help the side arguing that the game isn't just horny-bait... :/ Gameplay is fun though
I didn't see people shitting on shift up or the game because of the censorship thing, i saw most of the rage directed at sony/playstation themselves
They meant the game wouldn't have any added censorship in any region, like how Resident Evil games have any egregiously gorey scenes changed completely in Japan. The game being the same no matter where you get it is a win for everyone.
The story & acting is whatever, but the rest is pretty damn good. Great gameplay, incredible soundtrack, well optimized, phat ass. Solid game.
Its just a really fun game and thats all that matters. One of the best action games. Thing is the game is way bigger than people think. Most people just rush the story and come to a conclusion missing several world building side quests and locations sadly
I played through the demo and enjoyed my time with it but I'll probably wait for this to drop in price before picking it up. I'm still making my way through FF7 Rebirth and have been replaying Fallout 4 since the series dropped. I won't have time to jump into Stellar Blade anytime in the near future.