Stellar Blade First Impressions – More Than Just Eye Candy

Stellar Blade – Demo Teaser | PS5 Games

What is Stellar Blade?

Stellar Blade is an upcoming third-person action-adventure game developed by Shift Up. Originally known as Project Eve back in 2019, the game officially took up the name Stellar Blade back in 2022. The game was supposed to be released as a PlayStation 5 exclusive back in 2023 but was sadly delayed. Now, the game has an official release date of April 26, 2024. Although we’d love to tackle the game’s gameplay, story, and more right now, we’ll instead go through each of them in turn so that we can give our first impressions of Stellar Blade.

Gameplay

Stellar Blade – New Gameplay Overview | PS5 Games

Based on earlier trailers, Stellar Blade’s gameplay appeared to rely heavily on dodging, parrying, and twitch reactions. After playing the demo, it would appear that they kept their promise. The game plays a lot like SoulsBorne games, and that’s one of the game’s biggest strengths.

For starters, parrying feels great and is very reminiscent of Sekiro, complete with the loud noise it makes. The only downside is that the timing for parrying does have a delay of sorts. When I followed their instructions to block just as I was about to get hit to parry an attack, I ended up getting hit more often than not. That’s when I figured out that players should block a little earlier. While this does take some getting used to, you do get used to it after a while. Not only that, but they even allow players to upgrade their parry skills. This increases the parry window, allows the player to carry out follow-up attacks after a parry, and more.

Dodging also feels great, but only once players unlock the Perfect Dodge ability. Once it it unlocked, however, it gives players even more tools to avoid damage from enemy attacks. Dodging does take some getting used to, as it is not all-powerful. Players will still have to mind the direction that they are dodging into, as well as continuously dodge if the enemy is attacking multiple times. Players can also upgrade their dodge capability, similar to the parry skill. This lets players carry out follow-up attacks, dodge specific moves, and more.

Combat is self is very satisfying. The game heavily discourages button spamming, as spamming an attack button locks you in an animation, both during and after the attacks. As such, players are encouraged by this to mix up their attacks, as well as do some parries and dodges. My only problem with combat is that the game does not teach you how to do combos. Instead, players will have to look at their skill tree to see the combos that they have unlocked. Thankfully, players can enter a training area so that they can practice said combos, instead of having to find enemies to practice them on.

Outside of combat, the exploration part of the game feels smooth, with some minor inconveniences. For example, while the lack of an invisible wall is something I don’t mind (as it’s a common practice in Soulsborne games), it becomes a problem in locations where the walkable path is very small. There were at least two times when I tilted my analog stick a little too much and ended up falling to my death. The second is that the game has a weird vacuuming problem when it comes to swinging on poles. While this is helpful in exploration, it just seemed jarring whenever it happened. Thankfully, these minor inconveniences do not take away from the entire game.

Overall, Stellar Blade’s gameplay is very much polished. Some of the problems I found, such as the parry timing, are things that can be fixed once I get more used to the combat mechanics. As for the exploration problems, that’s likely more of a skill issue on my part than a problem with the game itself. Although the game does not advertise itself as a Soulsborne game, its gameplay mechanics are close enough that it might as well be one.

Now, let’s move on to Stellar Blade’s story.

Story

Stellar Blade’s story in the demo is a fairly simple one. The demo opens with a shot of Earth, with ships slowly crossing across the screen as if getting ready to invade it. The invasion force gets attacked, wiping out basically the entire invasion force. Of course, our character, Eve, survives. With the help of Tachy, another soldier, they are able to defeat a strong Naytiba who had wiped out their squad. That is, until an Alpha Naytiba arrives and, in an effort to kill Eve, dismembers Tachy and kills her instead. The game then cuts to Eve working together with Adam, a survivor who lives on Earth. They must work together to fight back against the Naytiba and figure out how to save humanity and reclaim Earth.

The story may seem very cliche, and other players may think that it is pretty similar to the opening premise of games like Nier: Automata. However, it doesn’t feel like a copy. It does a great job of building a premise in just a few minutes: a world that is overrun by enemies, with Eve and her fellow soldiers working towards reclaiming it, and said reclaiming efforts not going well. While this may not give players a whole lot to work on, it does give just enough information to serve as the foundation for the rest of the game.

One thing that I didn’t like was during the game’s early story sequence when Eve had flashbacks to her interactions with Adam. At first, Adam rescuing Eve was a fully animated sequence. However, when it showed their first actual interaction with each other after the rescue, it just showed still images of the interaction. It felt like there was a lot of dead air during those moments, especially since I feel like the flashback sequence might have done better if it was a moving sequence. Who knows? Maybe they will change it up in the full release.

Before moving on to the next part, I would just like to point out that since I used Nier: Automata as a comparison for my first impression of Stellar Blade’s story, I fully expect this game’s story to not be as simple as it seems. There is definitely something that the game is hiding from us with regards to the story, and I am looking forward to what

Graphics

As for the graphics, the game looks stunning, to say the least. The set pieces were all well done, easily setting the mood for the mission. The first mission, for example, used a lot of warm colors and reds to create this energized feeling, as well as that sense of danger. The second mission, on the other hand, used a lot of cool and dark colors to set a depressing and sad tone for the mission. This non-verbal storytelling is great to see in games, and Stellar Blade’s graphics helped in that regard.

I also appreciate the ability to change the game’s graphics settings, allowing me to switch between prioritizing performance, prioritizing resolution, and a balance of the two. I played the game on Balanced, and I did not notice any huge drops in frame rate from the graphics. Not only that, but the game still looked pretty. I also tried playing it with the game prioritizing performance, and the game still looked great. There were some noticeable differences, like the physics objects moving at around 20 frames per second or so, but other than that the game still looked amazing.

The enemies also looked amazing, and very much disgusting. Even in performance mode, you could see the various details on the enemy models, like the veins, blood vessels, wrinkles, and more.

One funny thing I did notice is during the opening segment when Tachy pulls Eve out from her pod. There was some liquid physics that looked funny, with the water moving at around 15 frames per second or the like. It looked slightly better in graphics mode, but it still had a slower frame rate. Understandably, liquid physics is hard to show nicely, but it still threw me off when I noticed it in the game.

Overall, judging from what I saw in the demo, my first impression of Stellar Blade’s graphics was that it looked amazing. You can tell that the graphics team poured love into all aspects of the game’s graphics and look, not just on Eve and the other character models.

Music and Sound Design

Stellar Blade’s music was one of the first things I noticed in the demo, and my first impression of it was that it gave me Nier vibes. The music worked well with the gameplay, working alongside it to make the experience overall enjoyable. For example, the opening combat sequence had music that evoked this sense of urgency, a sense that I had to be moving and doing something. The vocals also worked well with the song, adding to it while not being too distracting. Then, when the game switched over to the exploration of a desolate city, the music followed suit. It became sad, melancholic even, and gave me a sense of sadness as I roamed through empty streets.

Of course, we can’t forget about the boss music. The first boss you fight, the Brute, had a theme that was very fast and upbeat and contained a lot of drums and percussion. It gave that sense that I was fighting that was way out of my league, and they would be right, as this was my first real fight in the game. With limited capabilities and upgrades, unprepared players would be outmatched in this fight, and the music helps tell that story.

Then, there was the Abaddon boss theme, which was so different from the Brute theme. It retains the drumming and percussion that tells you that this was a serious fight, but it also has vocals that sound a lot like a chanting choir. I’m no beginner at games, so whenever I hear a choir singing and chanting in my BGM, I know that the boss is going to be a hard one. Additionally, I loved it when the music switched over to a more EDM vibe, as the boss used electric powers during the fight. I love it whenever games include things like this in their music, as it complements the fights really well.

As for the sound design, I would say that Stellar Blade has done well. Hitting enemies with my sword actually sounds like I was doing a lot of damage, and hitting hard parts of the enemy also sounds like it. Also, as mentioned above, the parrying sounds in the game are so satisfying, as the echoing sound of metal against metal just sounds right. This is also the case for dodging, as the audio seems to slow down for a bit to match the slow motion that accompanies a perfect dodge. The monster sounds are great, and the environmental audio sounds appropriate. From combat to exploration, Stellar Blade does a lot of things right in the sound department.

Verdict – Should you play Stellar Blade?

Based on my first impressions of the Stellar Blade demo, its gameplay, and its story, I would say that this is a game that you cannot miss out on. If you are a fan of Soulsborne games, or just trying to get into them, then this game will be up your alley. If you want a good story that has twists and turns, I believe this game would be able to satisfy that too. For those who are looking for great music in their games, Stellar Blade has your back as well. If you just want to look at Eve and her great character models and costumes, then this game definitely is the one for you.

That’s it for our first impressions of the Stellar Blade Demo, its gameplay, story, and more. Again, the game comes out on April 26, 2024, exclusively on PS5.

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