HEY. Someone’s gotta do it! FOR THE PLOT. The Video Game industry is in a really rough
spot. We’ve been seeing all sorts of titles come out in bad shape, a plethora of Live
Service titles sunsetting and the occasional banger not being enough to keep the studio
afloat. Combine that with countless layoffs, a shrinking market and a scarcity of AAA game
releases and 2024 has been one of if not the worst years for the game industry. Even Final
Fantasy VII Rebirth isn’t safe from lackluster sales. 5 months into the year and the idea
of non-franchise non-sequel AAA titles is becoming an increasingly rare occurrence. Rise
of the Ronin kinda just… happened? Everything I just said makes something like Shift Up’s Stellar
Blade and it’s success all the more interesting. No planned DLC, no battle pass, no
microtransactions minus the deluxe version. Just a single player campaign which
seems WILD considering it was developed by the people behind famous mobile gaming
Twerk Person Shooter Goddess of Victory: Nikke which at least 4 of my friends
have privately told me they play on the reg. I DON’T BLAME EM, IT’S
GOT GOOD GAMEPLAY… APPARENTLY?? Originally known as Project Eve and targeted
as a 8th generation video game release, it had a long development cycle lasting at least 5
years from the original announcement. Over time it eventually became a first party release from
Sony exclusive to the PlayStation 5 and you could REALLY see that NIKKE mobile game money in
action. Stellar Blade looked EXPENSIVE, and with single player spectacle action titles becoming
increasingly rare was something me and a lot of others were looking forward to. Even if some
were looking forward to it for… *other* reasons. WELL, is it good? I heard enough noise and
discourse on the internet to want to try it for myself SO we’re going in deep. TOO deep, Sum 41
style. I’ve spent hours reading lore and datalogs, I’ve tackled every single ounce of content Stellar
Blade has to offer. Every trophy, NG+, I’ve even become the MASTER of fishing, yes Stellar Blade
has a fishing minigame. Get ready for hamfisted biblical references and lots of comparisons
to cheesecake from the past. PN 0.3 Anyone? So YO, it’s Austin and today we’re going in 100%
on Stellar Blade so you don’t have to! I feel like despite this game having a decent amount of
showings across multiple press conferences, there wasn’t much to *really* go off of until the last
few weeks before release. Sure it was an action game, but where was the sauce? We’re gonna be
talking a look at as much as possible, the world, the small stuff, the challenges and of COURSE
some of that reception. Also HEY we’re doing a brand new release for one of these! Is that
directly because of that one youtube comment I got saying that I only review games on sale? THAT’S
RIGHT, I BOUGHT IT MYSELF DAY 1. SO… M-maybe? SPEAKING OF, before we get into the thick of
it I’ve got a word from today’s sponsor VITURE! This here’s the VITURE Pro XR and these
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so you can play for a while! There’s no blurry edges and the myopia adjustments
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with tons of functionality. There’s apps for watching movies and tv shows as well
as Cloud Gaming and Remote Play support. 8BitDo’s also partnered up with VITURE to make a
cool Limited-Edition Bluetooth controller that you can pair up with a device and… really get lost in
the sauce. I’ve been enjoying these things quite a bit, I even played a bit of Stellar Blade on it
FOR this video! SO VITURE is teaming up with us to make a deal just for y’all! If you click the
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free! Check the link in the description today! Thanks to VITURE for the sponsor but for now… It’s time for Stellar Blade. Did anyone else
feel like this game came outta nowhere? I only ever *saw* Stellar Blade, or as it was
originally known “Project: Eve” tucked away in various showcases where they’d reel out game after
game after *Xbox WORLD PREMIERE*. I dunno why but it never really stuck in my brain. The original
Teaser Shift Up released just showed bits of a deserted world before a woman, PRESUMABLY ROBOTIC
steps out of a pod and does a dramatic turn with a monologue. Kind of nothing, though it’s cool to
see how much her design has changed since 2019. Fast forward to 2021, the first *actual*
trailer would happen in the PlayStation Showcase in September and you can clearly see…
Ol’ Project Eve here would not be escaping the Nier comparisons. BUT with gameplay we can
see that Shift Up was gonna be aping a bit from Dark Souls combined with that spectacle
actions of something like Bayonetta and Devil May Cry! You want witch time? You got it!
Just starring a badass android chick and some funny camera angles. The premise is
simple, “We’ve gotta retake earth”. SURE! If the character outfits and designs look
kinda familiar and you’re unsure as to WHY, there’s a reason! South Korean developer SHIFT UP
Corporation was founded by long time game artist Hyung-tae Kim who you MIGHT recognize from the
MagnaCarta series! No not the british document, the RPGs that hit the PS2 and Xbox 360! Maximalism
is very common with Korean character/outfit design which should be obvious if you’ve played any
number of free to play mmos from the past. Which also means yes, anyone who played
Magna Carta was already familiar with his… *interesting* character designs. You ever wanted
man side butt cleavage? HERE YOU GO. According to an interview Hyung had with GameDeveloper in
2010, this was supposed to make the audience feel a little awkward but if you ask me Sydney
Vagrant Story walked so Magna Carta-Man could run! Ridiculous outfits and body contortion fit
for cirque du soleil? That’s MY Magna Carta! Which brings us to Project Eve. OR as it
became known in the Sept 2022 State of Play, PS5 EXCLUSIVE Stellar Blade.
Now we’ve got more characters, a better look at the story they
are trying to tell and of course, old man beard physics. HONESTLY it’s more of
the same but that same looked interesting! Regardless of all these trailers, the
interesting looking gameplay and bleak world they showcased it seemed like all anyone
wanted to talk about was the main character, Eve! Which if we’re being honest, is in the same
vein as your 2Bs, Bayonettas and Juliet Starling. It’s cheesecake, kinda grindhousey and not even
as ridiculous as some of those. Maybe there’s a little Dead of Alive age parameter settings going
on but I think anyone going to purchase a copy of Stellar Blade knew what it was about. Me? I just
like robots and the color green, I’m a simple man. SO, close to release, April 2024 Stellar Blade
hit store shelves while being surrounded by some of the most annoying discourse of all time and
all people wanted to talk about was costumes being altered by the day one patch. Hyung Tae
Kim did an interview saying a WHOLE bunch of stuff but mostly “This is the final product
that we want to show as the intended result”. Stellar Blade finally came out with strong 8
on Metacritic, an even higher user score and now that people are making their way through
this exclusive it’s EVIDENT that Shift Up made something that people are interested in. SO
YEAH, COOL. LET’S TALK ABOUT THE VIDEO GAME. SO, Stellar Blade. I went digital so I can’t hold
something up… which ALSO means it’ll forever be with me in spirit. I was originally
hesitant on if I wanted to cover this but I made sure to click that record
button and BY GOD I’M GLAD WE DID. When I first started playing Stellar Blade
I had two hopes. 1, it would fill that Spectacle Action need that only gets a
handful of releases every year and 2, that it would be something truly original
to help launch a new studio into prominence. Is that what we got? Let’s get into it! We really ARE in the 9th generation of
video games huh? Right out the gate, from just about every angle you look at
Stellar Blade is one of the most visually advanced games I’ve ever seen. At *least* with
the character models. The amount of *actual* high fidelity AAA games coming out is few and far
between so when something pops out with this many ridiculous particle effects, reflections
and shiny textures I guess I’m easily wowed. There’s an obvious framerate dip when you swap
things into quality mode but oh is it worth it. Stellar Blade throws you right into the action.
The main menu goes from a view of the planet into a very to the point “send Airborne Squad 7 in to
kill or capture the Alpha Naytibas THEN retake earth” It’s a sci-fi concept that’s almost as old
as the genre itself. A futuristic version of the Normandy Invasion starring a bunch of women
in pods who can kick a*s. You’re a soldier for Mother Sphere and the colony of humans
above the planet and you’ve got a job to do. You may be asking, “What are Naytiba?” or as
they were originally known in Korean “NA:Tives”, they’re the supposed alien lifeform that’s overrun
the planet and it’s up to you to stop them! Except it’s a massive failure that ends with everyone
dying and Eve being the sole survivor. It’s… surprisingly violent? Earning that M rating.. At
this point I assume that all of the characters are aware that they are androids as they refer
to their physical forms as “Body Frames”. And YES, that was the Estus
Flask! DARK SOULS COMBAT IT IS! You’re being strung along by your fellow
Squadmate Tachy before a violent encounter with an Alpha Naytiba that ends
PRETTY GRIM before a title card. Honestly a really solid opening! Then in
a moment I can only describe as jarring, we’re taken into a completely different
situation with a different character and there’s no immediate explanation as to what happened.
ENTER Adam. The most boring uninteresting man there ever was. You might also notice we now
have two main characters name Adam and Eve and if that doesn’t IMMEDIATELY set off your plot
detection sensors, I have no idea what will. Stellar Blade’s story… is… THERE I guess>? It was a strange choice to go from hot in the
action into a totally different situation. Adam reveals to Eve in little brief moments
of dialogue that happen across the Campfire derivatives that he saved Eve after the
battle and in return has recruited her to help him out. Adam’s a scavenger working
alongside a city named Xion looking for “Hyper Cells” which are a power source hidden among
different sectors of the planet. SPECIFICALLY, you start off in Eidos 7, an urban environment
overrun by all sorts of vegetation, robots and Naytiba. It wouldn’t surprise me if you blinked
and thought this was a nicer looking Code Vein. SO, Adam decides to accompany Eve via a drone that
follows her around which can eventually become a full on gun you can use in combat. This little
robot just floats around and is used to create conversation on the fly or whenever you sit down
at a camp. These are super cute actually, Eve will activate these little areas that’ll pop up with
chairs, vending machines and a record player for good measure. You wanna zone out to some Bossa
Nova in a deserted city? It’s a vibe for sure. Adam and Eve… ugh, make their way through Eidos
7 killing big fleshy creatures in what I can only refer to as “Sekiro plus Nier?”. It’s got the
fancy movement and multi button heavy light combos of Nier but with the need to parry and stagger of
the former. It strikes a balance between the two by being a little more forgiving about getting
smacked around with more than enough time to parry or dodge. Speaking of, opens up the door to
new entire combos you can whip out, some of which look real fancy. You’ll just need to unlock them
in the skill tree. There’s a real gradual increase in Eve’s moveset and power as you progress through
the story. The basics might feel kinda slow but eventually you’re zooming and double jumping all
over the place. AT least you’ll be doing it to what I can only call a TRULY banging soundtrack.
40% of the OST was done by Nier COMPOSER, Keichi Okabe’s studio MONACA. Meaning once again, Stellar
Blade won’t be escaping the Diet Nier accusations. Ah… yeah, that’s good s**t. Eventually you run into an alpha naytiba, take em
down, it wasn’t very challenging (PSST, THIS GAME IS NOT REALLY DIFFICULT LIKE YOU MIGHT EXPECT)
and then you’re introduced to the final part of your main trio, Lily! She’s an engineer who
was sent down prior to Eve arriving in the 5th Airborne Squad who got separated, stuck and is
just kind of vibing in a pod before being rescued. She’s uh… Well. She’s here? Lily’s taking up
the goofy younger sister slot in the story where she’ll bicker with Adam and admire
Eve as a colleague but similarly to Adam, doesn’t have a real presence. A vast majority of
these two character’s dialogue takes place in the field through a robot with no real expression
so it all comes off robotic. Pun intended. With our generic standard cast
of characters we reach Xion, deliver the Hyper Cell to their elder leader
Orcal and HERE’S where the real Stellar Blade experience begins. Collect more Hyper Cells, bring
peace to the citizens of Xion, discover little bits and pieces of humanity, and EVENTUALLY,
RETAKE EARTH. And by that I mean FASHION! And also CANS! Everything I’ve described sounds like a real
game huh? Uninspired narrative aside there’s a lot going on here that I sure didn’t expect
based on… well, frankly the focus on butt. NOT THAT IT’S BAD, IT’S BASICALLY ON
THE MIDDLE OF THE SCREEN AT ALL TIMES. Which really begs the question… What
exactly IS Stellar Blade? Well I’ll tell you ONE thing… It’s a video
game without a photo mode. With everything surrounding this game, HOW’D WE SKIP OUT ON A PHOTO MODE? Even
freakin’ Balan Wonderworld had a photo mode. Stellar Blade is, at least to me, a game with
a pretty big identity crisis. Which MAY or MAY NOT tie in to some of the central story
beats actually. It’s clearly ok with being cheesecake in some of the movements with
it’s silly over the top body physics and certain outfits I’m not gonna highlight for too
long because I want to pay my BILLS. But also, with a singular exception, puts no attention
onto Eve’s body. Maybe I’m used to seeing games like Senran Kagura or the vast majority
of fan-servicey anime where there’s a goofy noise and high pitch screaming AYIEEEAHHH.
Eve instead is a very serious character who goes through serious things and has one
thing on her mind… THE MISSION. And uh, cans I guess. Walking into a cutscene with one of
those over the top outfits on is like a Saints Row create a character moment where serious stuff
is happening and goofy McDoofus over here is ruining the moment. It’s funny but has me begging
the question once again, WHAT IS STELLAR BLADE?! Once you reach Xion you gain access to all sorts
of video gamey things. There’s plenty of quests to do from NPCs as well as a bulletin board
of tasks. You can talk with various citizens, pick up datalogs on the ground that range
from important lore to someone saying the same thing over and over which is
totally not ominous at all! Hey, let’s get our hair done! We just first gotta
pick up a Straightener in the desert! There’s a surprising amount of customization here with tons
of outfits, accessories, hairstyles and colors to pick from to where you can really make Eve look
like whatever you want. It reminds me a lot of Onechanbara Z2 Chaos… Just with WAY more clothes
and a little less… uh, Banana Split edition. A handful of NPCs actually have a series of quests
to go along with them. There’s Kaya, the current owner of Sisters’ Junk, currently without sister.
You can guess what’s going on with that. There’s Su and Enya who frequent the bar “The Last Gulp”.
This questline is actually really interesting, it follows a severely damaged android who is
hooked up to a machine and over a series of quests with Su you gradually put her back together.
She’s got this whole well written story where she’s trying to recover some of her memories,
especially of the song she sings in the pub. Outside of Xion you come across a little robobuddy
named D1G-g2r living in a scrapyard in the wasteland. Just going through the old fashioned
“Who am I” schtick. He’s got a series of quests where he wants to pull off his “Fantabulous
Plan” where he’ll eventually move into Xion. There’s Barry, the chef NPC who studies the art
of cooking for no reason other than the Gordon Ramsey-esque art of it. Roxanne sits by the Quest
Board saying edgy things and flirting with Eve. WOW RUDE. Also there’s Kasim, the barber
who doesn’t mind talking mad S**t. I guess that was deserved… Lastly, later on when you reach the great desert there’s Clyde! A bit of
a loner who just wants to fish. ANNNND there it is. Angels. You’re gonna
be hearing that a LOT, hell you’ll be called Angel more than Eve throughout this
entire experience. Beyond Adam and Eve, Stellar Blade flirts a LOT with the idea
of religion. The entire populace of Xion refers to Eve as “Angel”, as they view
her as a gift from Mother Sphere in order to retake the planet and make it safe for
them. Which also means there’s detractors. By the way every NPC minus Digger refers to
themself as a Human. These are the humans that are fighting and waiting for Earth’s liberation.
Yet whenever sometime DIES you retrieve their memory stick that’ll well, have those memories
and usually last words. Anytime you teeter around death or pick up a body core a character might say
“May your memories live on, forever” so there’s a CLEAR thing Shift Up wanted to establish
with humanizing these very robotic people. Confused yet? DON’T WORRY, I WAS
TOO. OH HOH, MORE ON THIS LATER. Anyways, besides the very dead Tachy
and a few spoiler characters that’s your main cast of “friends”. Each has
a trophy related quest to get through, tons of cosmetic rewards and dialogue that
is 4/5 times monotonous and unmemorable. I thought Digger was cute, Su and Enya were
interesting and uh. That’s about it. Just about every character interaction in
this game just sorta happens and Eve takes a minimal level of interest. Babe’s more
interested in CANS and well, I don’t blame her. LET’S TALK ABOUT THE GAMEPLAY. The Gameplay and World of Stellar Blade As you can tell, I was initially confused by what
exactly they were trying to do with the narrative with Stellar Blade. However considering
I grew up playing video games without any dialogue or skipping ENMASSE, this
isn’t necessarily a deal breaker. SB is an action adventure title on the
shoulders of giants. Does it hold up? For the most part… YES! If there’s one aspect of
Stellar Blade I have practically no complaints on it’s how the thing feels in your hands. The
crew at Shift Up clearly prioritized combat and moving around because it feels just as good as
any top tier AAA game… Minus the platforming, it can get a lil stiff. But the amount
of time you’ll be spending perfecting jump angles is miniscule to
how much you need to PARRY. Eve feels familiar right out of the gate. Her
moveset hits that middle ground and any Souls or Spectacle Action fan should be right at home.
You can lock onto enemies, flick between them, use iframes to dodge to the sides or try and
pull off parries. You’ve got a shield meter on the bottom left that’ll deplete anytime you
get hit while blocking but a perfect parry will allow you to deflect, stagger and get in for your
own combos. A VERY standard action game setup. The big part are the skills! You’ve got skills
for additional combos, skills to unlock branching combos from parries and perfect dodges as well as
the usage of burst and beta abilities. Yeah that’s right we got the Beta tree, with 4 different
upgradeable Beta Skills all which consume Beta Energy. The uh… the jokes write themselves. Beta
energy can be gained by parrying or hitting dudes in combat or with special equipment you find lying
around. AND you’ll be finding stuff all over the place. STELLAR BLADE IS DENSE. There’s chests,
special crates, items on the ground, cans, costume blueprints in boxes. If you use your Nier-Esque
environment scan ability anything you can interact with appears yellow and you’d be hard pressed to
NOT find SOMETHING. Datalogs, Body and Beta Cores, weird environmental story telling ALL of
which gives you experience points for finding. That XP turns into skills and by the end of
it you’ve maxed out your Beta tree and you’re ready to do some big attacks. So ESSENTIALLY the
game becomes dodge and parry, get your hits in, save up for a big Burst or Beta attack. Enemies
don’t necessarily have a stagger meter but any bosses you encounter have an entirely separate bar
for shields which you wanna break down in order to really get some damage in. YOU MIGHT be thinking
about the drone gun and how t hat factors in and… Well that’s probably the weakest bit of combat.
The Drone gradually unlocks different bullet types, there’s a standard pistol, a shotgun,
homing rockets and even a charging laser. When you’re in the heat of battle, especially with
a boss you might think you don’t have time to whip these out? But actually, a vast majority
of bosses get briefly stunned with each blast. Meaning… I guess I was fine to conserve
my ammo til the last ¾ of a health bar, knock the shields down and spam bullets
til I won. THIS HAPPENED… MULTIPLE TIMES. I almost felt like the guns made combat a
little too easy but we can probably just consider that rewarding myself for being
a good gamer beforehand. Speaking of, not all bosses are made equal?? FOR SOME REASON
while most bosses I could take down within 3 attempts there was ONE that decided to whip my
a** up and down the street for a solid hour. You get a little miniquest where you have to
retrieve some cargo that got lost in the sauce and upon reaching the destination there’s a bunch
of dead bodies and memory sticks all of which are screaming and very dead. THEN a revamped version
of the first major boss, the Gigas comes down and beats the crap out of you. I DU NNO IF IT WAS
HIS ERRATIC JUMPING PATTERNS, but throughout the entire experience until the end NOTHING
came close to this difficulty wise. Or maybe it was just 3 in the morning and I was sleepy,
I dunno. My Eve lookin good in death at least. Beyond just dodging into counters you’ve also
forward and backwards dodging mechanics that’ll occur. A blue flash around the enemy means you
can get a special counter for dodging towards, and purple means you can dodge backwards
into a strong counter that’ll usually stun. Getting the timing of these down
can be tough but when you pull off a big Beta combo right after a stunlock
where MAYBE the armor also shatters, IT FEELS GOOD. DOPAMINE OFF THE CHARTS, VIDEO
GAMES ARE BEING PLAYED. BUT THAT’S NOT ALL. Various random minigames that occur a single
time? CHECK? New attack burst forms? CHECK! CRAFTING? CHECK. Well, Lily will do it anyways.
Younger Sister-Chan and what not. Look basically what I’m saying is Stellar Blade is a fully
featured… one of these and it’s hard not to have fun while playing it. That’s not even touching
on New Game Plus, which we’ll get into later. Which brings me to the world of Stellar Blade.
Combat and slapping dudes around is one thing, but this ain’t Dynasty Warriors, we’ve got
variety! Blade’s divided into a few types of action zones. You’ve got the regular soulsy bits
like Eidos 7 and then immediately after leaving Xion you’re brought into the Wasteland. A big
desert-y map filled with all sorts of desecration, lore and secrets to find around every
corner. You can Matrix yourself through payphones as fast travel points, set up
camps throughout the map and stumble into mini “areas” that’ll have all sorts of stuff
for Eve to collect. This and the other open world area the Great Desert are where you’re
gonna be spending around 60 percent of your playtime with Stellar Blade, which
to SOME might actually be a negative. There’s only these two open world areas,
which is a shame because they both look REALLY similar. You like Sand? How about Dirt?
I suppose there’s not much I can ask for from a post-apocalyptic setting, though anytime
it shifts to one of the linear zones there’s a stark contrast in visual variety. There’s
the VERY Resident Evil like Levoire dungeons, the abandoned train station Matrix 11 has
some massive vistas and a glimpse of the prior civilizations architecture… Which
was I guess Nier Automata again SORRY- There’s a few more locales as well but those are
spoilers… SO, SPOILER WARNING I GUESS. LET’S TALK ABOUT THE BACK HALF. I thought that Stellar
Blade had a bit of a wonky start after a solid beginning but right around the midway point things
begin to ramp up… quite literally into space. Stellar Blade is grounded for a good bit of the
experience. It follows a very standard structure where you’re doing the main quest, grabbing the
macguffins in order to power the city while also discovering that NOT EVERYTHING IS AS IT SEEMS.
Truthfully, this story has been done before, countless times. A bunch of world building
and smaller quests reveal the true nature of Mother Sphere, the reason some of the citizens
of Xion resent Angels. The quote unquote TRUTH of what’s really happening. It is as you’d
expect… the Nier thing. The organization you were working for might *actually* be
the bad guy? W-WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT? It’s so obvious out of the gate that it wasn’t
much of a revelation. Early on you’re able to find all sorts of Memory Sticks warning you about
Mother Sphere which puts the doubt in your head just as much as the fact that the main characters
are named Adam and Eve. What do you MEAN the giant colony sending super robot soldiers down to
earth to “Retake it” is bad? W-What? But that does leave one major mystery, the Naytiba and here’s
where stuff gets interesting… also complicated. Stellar Blade has two Levoire dungeons
and they serve as major points for plot progression while also removing Eve’s
ability to use her sword. It was here where I finally recognized that her
weapon was her ponytail accessory, WHY’D IT TAKE ME THIS LONG? Well it’s revealed
that in order to find the true Elder Naytiba, the city of Xion needs to retrieve all the
Hyper Cells in order to form a “Master Core” to get there. These are tucked away in the
Levoire and are essentially underground labs functioning as LORE DUMPS. Here the game
does straight up go survival horror for a bit. It’s actually a nice change of pace from the
open world format even if everything inside is, uh HORRIFYING. That’s a lot of… flesh?
It’s at the end of the first Levoire that you find a datalog from another survivor
of a previous Airborne Squad named Raven who reveals that these places were
made to study Naybita and PRIOR, were used as bunkers for humanity to hide
out during war. There was The Final War, but also a war before that war where Naytiba
pushed back really hard leading to an exodus to the colonies. Man it’s crazy that this bunker for
humanity to hide out in got overrun by Naytiba!! ANYWAYS, Raven states that she’s gonna look
further into the matter, and FURTHER she does! From there you eventually make your way to the
Great Desert and into the Abyss Levoire. HERE’S WHERE THE NARRATIVE DECIDES TO THROW EVERY IDEA
AT THE WALL. This ones even more messed up you might think as you walk through entire rooms
filled with giant pods of living organisms. You’ll find little data logs revealing
a character named Raphael Marks who was responsible for creating Mother Sphere out of
a want to ascend humanity. This ALSO led to a conflict between Androids and Humans that opened
the gate for a little Parasite Eve action. YES, TRULY MITOCHONDRIA IS THE POWERHOUSE OF
THE CELL! One that takes Tachy from the beginning and turns her into an Alpha
Naytiba you’ve gotta kill. Poor Eve. The Levoires became a breeding ground for
human experimentation under the guidance OF Raphael Marks and an AI in attempt
to fight back against the Androids, dubbed Andro-Eidos. HOWEVER, they all decided
to prioritize strength and survivability over intelligence which ended up turning people into
these violent animalistic creatures you’ve been killing the whole time. You find another Raven
log where she states that humanity? Extinct. NONE LEFT. The Andro-Eidos are the new humans
that Mother Sphere is protecting in what I can only describe as a corporation “Moving the
goalpost til they’re right”. APPARENTLY it is supposed to be a big reveal to the player that
ALL of the characters that they aren’t human. THIS WAS AN EARTH SHATTERING REVEAL ON THE
PLOT THAT COMPLETELY MISSED THE MARK. The audience knows they aren’t human, we see the
Xion natives and people who are all robotic, literally talk about the fact that
they’re cooking even though they don’t need it! I love the concept of Androids
replacing humanity and being unaware of it, but I’m not so sure it works from the narrative
standpoint of your main character having that revelation. A minor gripe for sure but the
first of a few as we go through this story. The Orcal reveals that yeah, humans made
Andro-Eidos and the Naytiba running around are the traces of humanity from the previous
war and you should maybe feel a little bad for slaughtering them without prejudice. I mean
just look how choked up Eve was about it? Mother-Sphere decided humanity was bad and
gave em a little Gundam X colony drop. We’re the villains! Except not really since Androids
are now considered humanit- It- It’s a little messy but moving in a direction I dug. It’s that
2000s Parasite Eve bleak future type of plot that we don’t see as much of these days, just without
a CG shower scene and instead Eve simply existing. SO, From here we get one of two choices. Anytime
you pick up a collectible related to “humanity” in game a little icon appears on the top right
with a percentage meter and a picture of Lily. No this isn’t an affection meter, this is
determining which ending you’re going to get! Stellar Blade has 3 different endings, and one
of them might be Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core. In the interest of saving time here in my 100%
journey I decided to make a backup PS+ Save so I didn’t have to play through the entire game 3
times. Can you blame me? However I wasn’t aware of this “point of no return” so we’re going with
that full meter ending first. Let’s get there! After Abyss Levoire and a run in with the
Orcal you’re given a choice. Orcal states that the final Hyper Cell is located atop a
space elevator, Spire 4. BUT Lily expresses concern about something and wants to make a
pitstop at a place called Eidos 9. This is another city district completely destroyed and
mostly flooded by water. You plow through this thing in your cool jean jacket fighting hundreds
of Naytiba while grinding down a rollercoaster before finding a beautiful Greenhouse
Garden filled with animal life and trees. It’s a brief moment of respite while
Lily works on finding a USB drive from a deceased colleague. This is the Iberis Code which
allows hacking! What for? Don’t worry about it, but don’t forget to pick up the little
datalog that essentially tells you what endings you’re gonna be picking between. Send
the memory to Mother Sphere, or don’t? HMM. This little chapter is the entire purpose of that
meter and if you’re not maxed out at 100 it’s simply skipped over and INSTEAD you pick up your
bootstraps from Xion STRAIGHT into Spire 4. AKA, the best part of this entire game AKA a nearly
nonstop barrage of PEAK GAMING. Your mission is simple. We’re on the ground floor, we need
to get back up to the colony and also Adam’s leaving the party for a while to “Return
to Xion” which is not suspicious at all. I had spoken about my concerns for visual variety
earlier. WELL they decided to toss it all into this 2 hour sequence at the end of the game.
Spire 4 starts you off in a snowy mountain side, the massive Orbit Elevator in the distance.
Then you hop into a military installation, grab a cute rabbit skin for your drone gun,
and being totally weirded out that all your enemies here are these vile fusions of Machine
AND flesh. A lot of baddies will do the thing after you destroy their robot bodies and
claw around looking for a new host. It’s pretty gross and a bit of foreshadowing for
what’s coming next. BUT BEFORE THAT, HYPERTUBE! It’s really the second you enter this tube that
the most memorable parts of Stellar Blade happen, a lot of stuff from those initial trailers too.
You’re attacked by a Robot/Flesh hybrid known as Bellal while sliding down the tube, it reminds
me a LOT of Blackheart from Marvel vs Capcom. Dudes got freakin chainsaw swords and you
get to fight him multiple times as he runs away from the first encounter. It’s the first
time I feel like we’re getting those super cool action cutscenes where Eve is doing over
the top anime nonsense and I’m loving it. What’s next? Terrible turret sequence where you
die almost instantly but don’t worry about that, WE GOT A SPACE ELEVATOR! As you approach the Spire
the visuals turn into this dystopian techy white, the series of 4 boss fights have awesome
rocking soundtracks and you get what’s probably my favorite outfit in the game.
At this point the bits and pieces of lore you pick up are indicating that the
Naytiba ended up infecting it’s way up the entire space elevator and into the colony,
causing Mother Sphere to drop entire pieces onto the planet for self preservation. THAT
created devastation like the Great Desert. The story has basically unfolded into
this situation where humanity screwed itself over leading to a never
ending conflict between a self preserving robot AI and a self preserving
naytiba AI while a new race of humans, the Andro-Eidos suffer thinking they’re the
remnants of humanity. IT’S ALL SO SCREWED but less interesting when you realize it’s copying
Nier Automata’s homework. Different in execution of course but following such a similar
path that it’s hard not to draw parallels. But none of that matters, LOOK, I’m fighting
a japanese Geisha robot! Some of the Alpha Naytiba designs are awesome, and Karakurl
is up there. IT DOESNT STOP THOUGH. Next up, The Demogorgon, the MASSIVE Naytiba that’s
taken over the entire colony? Look I’m not saying the visual of Eve flying through
space while firing a laser through a giant hellish creature AND colony isn’t the coolest
thing of all time… But it’s pretty up there. Surprising no one, Adam’s absence led
to the city of Xion being under attack, hence the point of no return, you fight that
”Unidentified Naytiba” from the beginning that introduces you to a instant kill mechanic like 20
hours into the experience and find out that HEY, it’s actually Raven! TIME FOR MORE LORE.
This time through a nasty old dying man. Alpha Naytibas? To add a bit more weirdness into
the mix, these are an attempt at fusing Naytibas and Andro-Eidos to become a new race. Orcal here
was the original and upon learning about this Raven went mad and had a full heel turn. Mother
Sphere, seen as “God” to the Android-Eidos has essentially redefined what it sees as humanity
which caused it to turn on the original humans and then Naytibas. So SOMEONE wanted to
create a union of Android and Naytiba in order to achieve peace. Gee, I wonder who that
could possibly be. Hey, has anyone seen Adam? After an exciting showdown with Raven
that has the best battle music in the game you enter “The Nest”, the final
breeding grounds for Naytiba. In a twist surprisingly absolutely no one you come
across One Winged Adam who is revealed TO be Raphael Marks. The dude who created
Mother Sphere, the dude who guided humans to experiment on themselves. THIS DUDE RUINED
EVERYTHING, BASICALLY DOOMED THE WHOLE PLANET, HAS LITTLE TO NO PERSONALITY and we’re now
expected to care about him. Really, this guy? He had attempted to fuse Naytiba and Andro-Eidos
together before but it never ended well, hence the case with Raven. Turns out
Raph IS a Naytiba and thinks his fusion with Eve could result in a perfect
ending. A union between Adam… and Eve. *sigh* This was… a miss. I think Stellar Blade
had a lot of cool narrative stuff going for it but right here at the ending it feels like Shift
Up threw as MANY ideas at the wall as they could hoping one would stick but I don’t think they
pulled it off. I feel like I said earlier, they failed at writing characters. Adam just isn’t
interesting, he’s got no discernible personality and nothing to attach me to him at all. So NOW
I have to hear him ramble and make a choice. WELCOME BACK TO PICK. YOUR. ENDING! Our
Contestant Eve’s gotta make a choice! Does she A, take Adam’s Hand and attempt to
create a true successor for humanity? OR B, REJECT IT and go back to Mother Sphere!
The uh…. CORRECT answer is A actually. Side with the most boring man on
the planet and become super Eve. ENDING 1 the TRUE Ending, Making New Memories!
You take Adam’s hand, fuse together and talk Lily down and onto your side but disliking
the outcome, Mother Sphere hijacks her mech Providence and you have to fight that instead.
Midway through the battle since you’re on that 100% route Lily activates the Iberis Code,
escapes and you demolish the thing. Mother Sphere in physical form greets you on the ground
and is like “That was pretty sick. I’m just gonna make sure you’re the future now though ok?” and
you’re sent out with a reverse Crisis Core as the screen fades while Eve fights off hundreds
of Angels. IT’S PRETTY SICK AND ALSO ANIME. Cut to the final Hyper Cell powering the
Master Core and Eve standing watch over Xion ready to help lead and usher a new
era for a new humanity. Science? SCREW IT, FULL ON SHONEN ENDING with Eve in LITERAL
ANGEL WINGS watching from above. The journey continues on! This ones definitely the
canon ending if they’re gonna make a sequel. ENDING 2 the Cost of Lost Memories! If you don’t
pick up the Iberis Code and still side with Adam, you still fight providence except Lily is
unable to eject herself. Instead Mother Sphere decides to just zap her dead, hence the
COST of the battle. Also Lily says she “prefers the old Eve” as she dies in your arms before
passing away which is the games way of saying Mother Sphere once again comes down
and says haha man that’s crazy. And you Crisis Core your way out again but with
no resolution. Her journey does not end. ENDING 3! This one doesn’t matter if you
have the Iberis Core or not. Instead of taking Adam’s hand you’re deciding to REJECT
it all leading to PROBABLY the coolest boss fight in the game. After Adam just sits there and
takes it for a while he ascends to HIS true from, the Elder Naytiba and it’s full on Elden
Ring Bloodborne Boss Arena. Beat this dude, defeat Raphael Marks for all the stupid stuff
he did and truly doom the existence of humanity. You can tell both Lily and Eve feel instant regret
over it since the Nest completely shatters as they leave. Once again Mother Sphere pops down, says
thanks for your service and provides you with a VIP spacecraft directly to the Colony! Too bad the
system’s decided earth isn’t worth having anymore. AND THAT was the story! Mostly kinda dire but
one that shifted into full anime territory. Let’s see we’ve got Robot people that think
they’re human establishing religious beliefs, a generic Retake Earth Plot, the ending
being spoiled by the names of the characters that turns into a Shonen Anime fight
against God AND of course a little bit of human experimentation sprinkled on top. Stellar
Blade had a LOT of things… excelled at none but it sure was fun to play. But that’s not all,
there’s New Game Plus and a few extra things too! Going 100% on Stellar Blade was relatively
easy. If you grab all the collectibles prior to the point of no return, you’re good
to go. Nothing is missable and even so it’ll stack into New Game Plus so you can make
sure you’ve collected all the cans to unlock a see through piece of lingerie. Yeah whoops, I
briefly forgot this game was gooner adjacent. Most of the other trophies are a series of
doing specific hits and parries a certain amount of time, using Tachy Mode to get kills
and OF COURSE getting all the costumes and FISH! It’s a relative breeze to complete although
I wouldn’t blame anyone for wanting to use a guide to get some of those hidden collectibles.
Sometimes they’re just kinda buried in a weird spot and there’s so many datalogs you might lose
track of which dead body you’ve interacted with. But you know what’s more fun than doing trophies
here? Going through New Game Plus! Shift Up… didn’t need to do this, but instead of just giving
us number increases on enemy health or whatever they decided to go all out. Every costume?
Has a variant. Not just a different color too, sometimes it’ll have differing textures
or a slight change to make it stand out! You also gain access to a whole new set of
skills that make your previous Beta Energy attacks not just stronger, but more flashy.
The armor destroyer goes from an upwards kick into a full video game-a** shredding spin
and all the other abilities go that hard too. You’re rewarded for continuously playing
the game with more content that WOULD TAKE A LOT OF TIME TO DESIGN. According to the
trophies only 7.5 percent of players have completed New Game Plus too so that’s a lot
of effort for such a small audience number. This is a very old school
PS2 era video game design philosophy and I applaud Shift Up for doing it. Ding, get the platinum trophy,
everything unlocked, GOOD GAME. You know typically I do these 100%
videos for games that have a negative or weird reputation and rarely something
that’s GREAT but I decided to tackle Stellar Blade because all of the discourse surrounding
it had barely anything to do with the actual VIDEO GAME itself which to me, is absolutely
worth playing. WITH AN ASTERISK OF COURSE, cause I’ve definitely got a few gripes.
Some final thoughts, if you would! Stellar Blade is kind of a reverse Saints
Row 2022. That game had decent gameplay but an extremely negatively received story
that caused people to turn it away. Eve here ALSO had a pretty lackluster story but in a
different sense. I wasn’t rolling my eyes, I was mostly disengaged because it failed to
really bring me in. On my first completion I was like “Uh, ok” and it wasn’t until I
consulted a ton of data logs, lore and random reddit threads that I really understood
what was going on. The POTENTIAL of what COULD have happened reeled me in more than the
cutscenes in front of me did and that’s a shame. Guns made combat a bit too easy at times
and there’s definitely an issue with some platforming. Precision jumps don’t work
well early on, especially during little bits of parkour involving air dashes.
You can also get stuck early on and have to reset. Some of the NPC dialogue seems far
away and low quality in comparison to Eve’s. There’s also this one weird side quest where
my favorite character decided to be a freakin weirdo. Clyde, the fishing NPC is this lovable
dude who WE GET REMINDED is a social outcast. He’s just like yeah I got lots of respect for
anyone on the rod. I of course got addicted to the fishing mini game as I’m a sucker for that and
once you get everything there’s a brief cutscene where he’s like “you’re so good at this, I’m
gonna give you the ultimate tool for fisherman” Though his life was devastated
by the Colony Extinction, he manages to find the laughter
in life. IT'S JUST A PRANK BRO!. Anyways, fishing. Yeah that rules. The
minigame itself is pretty decent too, although I had to turn off the adaptive triggers
because I could barely hold that in place. While we’re at it I might as well praise
some of the little things. I love that you can change Eve’s Ponytail from long to short
in the menu. Heck I love the sheer variety of outfits you can unlock, ESPECIALLY with
the New Game Plus versions! The light blue sweater is one of my faves. There’s two quests
you can accept from the board that are asking Eve to do darker things like find drugs
and even if the player accepts the quest Eve will turn it down. It’s one of the only
instances of her personality shining through. I think combat really excels in the boss fights
and it looks like Shift Up is going to be adding a Boss Rush sometime real soon too so you’ll be
able to test your mettle there. Pulling off a series of parries when an enemy is throwing the
kitchen sink your way is IMMENSELY satisfying. Whenever there ARE little bits of character
moments and dialogue they stand out a ton. There’s just not enough of them to
really turn me around on the cast! The music as I’ve stated before is OUTSTANDING.
The composer team here really knocked it out of the park and I can put on multiple of the
open world tracks on my car stereo and no one will blink an eye. The Wasteland theme and
Raven’s boss fight are two big standouts for me. All in all, I think Stellar Blade is a next level
AAA debut from a newer studio and it’s told me one thing. More Gacha game developers need to invest
in real a** video games. You saw it earlier this year with Granblue Fantasy Re-Link being pretty
good and the jump from Nikke to Stellar Blade is crazy. If they were to invest a bit more in
the moment to moment character interactions, making Adam, Eve and Lily more interesting,
having more of Xion’s townsfolk be like Su and Enya… I think Stellar Blade could have EASILY
been a 9/10. It’s interested in telling its main story more than anything, and that main
story is ground that’s been tread before. Even IF Yoko Taro himself comes out
and says “Stellar Blade is a really amazing game. I’d say that it’s
much better than NieR:Automata.” You heard the man. The original
gooner himself. Just instead of 2B covering her butt when you move
the camera, Eve will stare directly at the player if you look at her for too
long. YEAH YEAH, SHE KNOWS WHAT YOU ARE. SO, there we have it! Stellar Blade 100% so
you don’t have to in the bag… but hey maybe you should too? BASICALLY the whole TL;DR for
this whole video is… Despite the round figure, Stellar Blades got a flat story. Out of
all the deep dives we’ve done in recent memory this was definitely my favorite to play.
I mean it didn’t have a NOVEL for me to read or anything but… wow Balan Wonderworld was really
3 years ago huh. We need more video game novels! If I had to give Stellar Blade an arbitrary score,
I think it’d be… an 8? 8.5 for sauce, why not! It absolutely got better as I played through
a second time and did the research for this video which might as well be a form of
indoctrination. The 8 that SHOULD have been a 9 and if anything it just has me excited for
whatever Shift Up Makes next! Comedy gold btw that they drop a brand new update on the day I release
this video. Meaning ASTERISK, No DLC. Sorry. If you liked the video, check out todays
sponsor, back the channel over at patreon, pick up a t-shirt over at the pixel empire,
give me a subscription a like or just drop a comment! Are there other deep dives you
wanna see me do? I wanna open this up to good games as well because I can only dabble so
much in garbage before I start stinking myself. ANYWAYS, I’m gonna head out
for now! Thanks for watching, I’ve been Austin and catch me
next time when we… do the thing!
