Stellar Blade
An ambitious work from Korean studio SHIFT UP with heavy investment in character modeling and monster design. Control feel and map exploration design still have room for improvement, and the post-apocalyptic atmosphere could be stronger, but overall it remains a sincere action game.
Art Appreciation
Rating Breakdown
Deductions
Maps and puzzle elements are very repetitive, with nothing new.
Exploring the map is barely any fun, all repetitive content. The desert map even has a sandstorm zone, and I assumed it would have some obvious idea like the map going dead, but it doesn't.
As an action game, the controls feel floaty, and its core technical level lags behind the big studios.
A flashy action blockbuster for a bit of fun, but it still falls short of letting players truly inhabit the protagonist.
Deductions
Resources all went to characters and monsters; unless you run the highest graphics settings, environment textures on the map look poor.
Many characters, NPCs included, have instantly recognizable Korean face models. But the protagonist is pandering to otaku to an uncomfortable degree.
Good! But mismatched. The few vocal tracks are well made, but they can't evoke an apocalyptic atmosphere, which badly undercuts the presentation.
I couldn't find a voice track that worked; I tried them all, Korean included, and none were especially immersive. Since it was all the same in the end, as a French learner I just went with French to train my ear. The collab event's voice lines weren't recorded in French (probably not in some other smaller languages either), so it suddenly switches to English, which really breaks immersion. The Traditional Chinese audio doesn't match the subtitles, an old problem in many big titles; there's no need to record two Chinese dubs just to save costs.
The interface after scanning has too many visual focal points, so for a moment you're dazzled and don't know where to look. Navigation guidance is also poor; much of the time you don't know where to go.
The button layout is poor: sprinting on land and swimming fast underwater use different buttons, and the logic for 3D movement, such as diving or using cranes, never feels natural. What I hate most is that "hang" and "jump up" are on different buttons, when normally the same button should "toggle state".
Highlights
My favorite is the little merchant girl in Xion; her expressions are the most detailed and best fit her shy personality.
Deductions
Many details are awkward: the Guardian Cannon keeps being mentioned but has no gameplay mechanic, until an awkward scripted story death late in the game; the Destiny suddenly showing up in space, and other scenes like that, are all awkward.
The protagonist has no real characterization; open the Community Hub and you'll see players are only here for the otaku-bait model.
Find monsters, find batteries: right from the start you're told to find four batteries, and sure enough, once you've found them it's over. Flat, and it feels like a chore.
It's basically simple side quests plus a side-quest boss; there are no really well-developed side-quest NPCs.
Three endings, all simple and clichéd.
Same problem as the voice acting: the Chinese translation quality is poor, with many outright mistranslations whose meaning is completely different from the Korean original.
The presentation is flat: in a scene of parting and death the protagonist suddenly cries, and players feel nothing at all.
A post-apocalyptic Earth, abandoned industrial aesthetics, the god everyone worshipped turns out to be the villain, and the player isn't even a real human — every setting is clichéd.
Deductions
There isn't much beyond combat; even fishing feels very forced and isn't much fun.
Main and side quest content is fairly monotonous and repetitive.
Highlights
No manual saving, so seeing multiple endings requires multiple playthroughs. New Game Plus brings new skills and the like; players who enjoy it will find a different difficulty more fun as a challenge.
The soda-can collectibles are pretty fun and not grindy; the pickup animations are wildly creative, different every time, and completely in the style of Korean ads. Collection rewards afterward keep them from becoming pointless filler.