The most important thing is to have fun!

The hype around “Stellar Blade” has been abnormally huge.

Introduction

Aside from what men would refer to as a “well-equipped” main character, the game is back-to-roots gameplay-focused with playability in the same league as NieR:Automata, Sekiro, as well as the Dark and Demon Souls games. Players tired of the focus on anything other than gameplay have also embraced Shift Up’s focus on playability and not other bullshit.

Incidentally, Korean Shift Up has no previous experience with console games, but has in a short time acquired a fan base that cheers them on and hopes they succeed. The studio’s message is simple, but difficult to execute: “we want the game to be fun.” Plain and simple, but difficult. Have they reached their goal after five years of development and learning?

The world and graphics

It quickly becomes clear to me that the story is not that important, and not what drove me forward and made me go back. The reason is that you are served the same story as always, i.e. about the downfall of man, interspersed with AI to make it current… as you fight in the post-apocalyptic world. I know; shocking! I couldn’t care less about the storyline and the boring dialogue that for some inexplicable reason can’t be skipped until you’ve been fed a few words.

Stellar Blade is perfectly fine visually, but nothing that blows me away. Instead, it bears the stamp of being a classic Unreal Engine 4 game, without advanced shadow and light technology. The player is rarely out in an open world, but is sometimes served a larger open landscape, but without taking any particular advantage of it.

I don’t mean Shift Up must just because open-world games never go out of style, but it’s not a game in that genre. Instead, there are classic, smaller maps with a focus on fighting, often “up close” that repeat mission after mission. Speaking of main missions, it is possible to carry out side missions, pick up collectables and talk to NPCs, but the side missions must be actively tackled, otherwise you seamlessly end up continuing main mission after main quests, and the NPCs are as boring as the world they sort of live in. It’s basically not something I mind, but it’s worth being aware of.

In short, I wasn’t blown away by either the world’s visual appearance, dialogue or story, so then I guess it’s just a matter of giving the game 2 out of 10 plus the fact that, after all, the studio has never made a game for consoles before and take the evening?

Playability

No then, fear not, fans-of-the-game-before-you-have-tested-it! The hype is in many ways well-deserved, because Stellar Blade is a smooth-polished sword in the playability department where every time you die, you want to blame the game for being unfair, but always deep down you know you can’t blame anyone but yourself, and end up trying a new tactic against the same enemy at least 20 times.

The gameplay’s main premise is about two things: dodging incoming attacks and parrying them with perfect timing. If you succeed, you are rewarded with “Eve” lighting up and the dopamine center in the brain being rewarded. In fact, Shift Up knows exactly what they’re doing, despite the communication that they’ve never made a console game before.

Everything from picking up items to upgrade health and attack power, to reading logs, is designed in such a way that you never get enough – you always have to have a little more. Chopping the enemy to pieces is beyond satisfying, and there are almost as many animations as there are attack combos that just feel so incredibly good in your fingertips.

I’m basically really bad at games like this. Therefore, I must painfully admit that I ended up activating the “story mode” skill level. The problem: it’s a little too easy. I wish there were three levels to choose from, but at least everyone can finish the game without tearing their hair out and throwing the gamepad.

Conclusion

Stellar Blade is no revolution, although the hype may have suggested it was. It’s nothing original in any aspect, but it’s polished to the tips of your fingers and it’s fun to play! Yes, the developers at Shift Up have managed to create a game that is fun. Nothing more, nothing less. If such games were a thing in the 90s along with “boomer shooters,” Stellar Blade would have been a classic. In 2024, gamers are a little too spoiled for a good selection of good games in the genre, and in that way this game doesn’t push boundaries, but it’s fun. And that’s enough in an industry that tends to take itself too seriously.