I don’t know if there’s a universal winning formula for a great action game out there, but Stellar Blade sure has tried its hardest to reverse-engineer one. Like Bayonetta? Here, take an English lady zipping about in heels, annihilating monsters to a delectable soundtrack. Dark Souls fan? Rest at this camp to refill your potions, and better brush up on those parrying and dodging skills! You like God of War? How about a dozen different finishers that would make Kratos blush. Melee combat not for you? Have a gun.
Stellar Blade reviewDeveloper: Shift UpPublisher: Sony Interactive EntertainmentPlatform: Played on PS5Availability: Out 26th April on PS5
Turns out, cherry-picking from the last 15 years of video game action and pumping it into a single campaign of relentless hacking and slashing is fun. . The type of fun that turns “just one more hour” into “when did it turn 2am?”. Part of the appeal with Stellar Blade is just the sheer breadth of options: parrying, dodging, counter-attacking, dashing, ambushing, throwables, multiple ammo types for your gun, nine special abilities, and a dozen combos combining light, heavy, and air attacks. Add over 60 enemy types – the monstrous Naytiba – to slay, most with their own unique attack patterns, and Stellar Blade is far deeper than its flashy visuals imply.
To ease you in, only a few of these attacks are initially available to our protagonist, Eve, mirroring her rookie status as one of the cybernetically enhanced members of the 7th Airborne Squad, a super soldier group that operates from Earth’s orbit. Eve is fresh off a failed mission to eliminate the Earth’s supersized Alpha Naytibas, the monsters responsible for the planet’s apocalyptic demise, and as you journey through city ruins and dusty wastelands in search of these Alphas, you steadily unlock her powerful new skills. Exactly how you want to devastate each poor Naytiba you cross is up to you from here. Investing in the Ambush perk could turn Eve into an assassin, for instance, or maybe you’d like to get better at timing your parry? Perhaps guns are more your speed, so sure, unlock those targeting missiles and watch enemies blow up like a fireworks show.
There are specific ways you need to deal with some Naytiba, like the Test Subject, a wriggling body bag that explodes if you get too close. Or the Skulling, which attaches itself to a new body if you don’t kill it quickly enough. This can make for some quick thinking and a change of tactics as you explore both open areas and the more linear levels, but a lot of the time it’s your choice. With the addition of Exospine and Gear implants, you can build an Eve that suits your particular Naytiba-hunting playstyle, each as bloody and glitzy as the next.