Stellar Blade (formally Project Eve) - Korean Sci-Fi Bayonetta/Nier: Automata/Sekiro Edition

[FakeSympathy]

As I've stated numerous times, I get excited whenever fellow Koreans releases a game that isn't multiplayer, MMO, mobile, or exclusive to Korea. And after Lies Of P was met with near praises from everyone, I was excited to see how well this game would do while getting international attention.

Sadly, I think SB is kinda disappointing.

I am not gonna talk about character designs. I don't really simp over fictional characters anymore, and quite frankly I feel nothing towards Eve's design. That is something people on twitter can flame each other about.

What I am ready to talk about is the comparison to Nier: Automata. Similar to how Lies Of P borrowed a lot of ideas from Bloodborne, I think SwiftUp was also taking ideas from NA to create SB. The difference is that LoP managed to take the ideas and fully develop its own identity, while SB took the ideas from NA and just.... stayed there.

I am a huge fan of world-building and the characters that resides within, and I feel SB falls flat in that regard; We have a post-apocalyptic world, overruned by machines, evolved human race, and androids fighting the machines..... And I think that's about how deep the game gets. All characters are really boring, and I don't think "better voice acting" could've fixed the dialogs either.

The combat gameplay does look fun, though! But so did NA. And I'm sure NA didn't receive all the praises for the combat alone.

 

[BrawlMan]

The combat gameplay does look fun, though! But so did NA. And I'm sure NA didn't receive all the praises for the combat alone.

The combat in NA is fine, gets the job done, and is slightly above average overall, but most people are there for the story, characters, and bat shit insanity. It and Nier Replicant are the best Yoko Taro games with the combat, because Platinum worked on both. There's little to no reason to go back and play Drakengard series for the combat, unless you're already a die hard fan or that curious.

 

[Dreiko]

As I've stated numerous times, I get excited whenever a fellow Korean releases a game that isn't multiplayer, MMO, mobile, or exclusive to Korea. And after Lies Of P was met with near praises from everyone, I was excited to see how well this game would do while getting international attention.

Sadly, I think SB is kinda disappointing.

I am not gonna talk about character designs. I don't really simp over fictional characters anymore, and quite frankly I feel nothing towards Eve's design. That is something people on twitter can flame each other about.

What I am ready to talk about is the comparison to Nier: Automata. Similar to how Lies Of P borrowed a lot of ideas from Bloodborne, I think SwiftUp was also taking ideas from NA to create SB. The difference is that LoP managed to take the ideas and fully develop its own identity, while SB took the ideas from NA and just.... stayed there.

I am a huge fan of world-building and the characters that resides within, and I feel SB falls flat in that regard; We have a post-apocalyptic world, overruned by machines, evolved human race, and androids fighting the machines..... And I think that's about how deep the game gets. All characters are really boring, and I don't think "better voice acting" could've fixed the dialogs either.

The combat gameplay does look fun, though! But so did NA. And I'm sure NA didn't receive all the praises for the combat alone.

I think this game is way different in just about every element outside of the atmosphere and music to Nier. This game is much more focused on being a classic action adventure thing. Like from the 80s. Simple. Nier is way more about the narrative and uses the visuals and atmosphere to reel you in so you can enjoy the story. This game is all about the action and gameplay, and uses the visuals and atmosphere to make those elements more fun. It's basically a lot more gamey of a game, not trying to be a visual novel or a book or a film, just about the gameplay. It won't change your life but it's a crapton of fun, kinda like the DMC games which also are kinda not amazing on a pure storytelling aspect and use the story to just concoct fun action scenes for you to experience.


And yeah Korean games are moving up in the world. Last year we got DNF Duel, which although was designed by arcsys and the marvel people, they had a big contribution by the korean dnf people in most areas beyond the mechanics and graphics. I remember back 20 years ago the only things you'd hear about from Korea were mmos, and then I guess it became mmos and phone games, somehow the normal games got skipped. Hopefully more like these will come out.

 

[CriticalGaming]

I played a section of the game where you can't use the sword at all and must kill everything with the drone gun, complete with a real boss at the end. I was worried and I thought I would hate this, but you know it kinda just plays like Remnant From the Ashes, it's fine. But it is also another example of how Stellar Blade basically just copy and pastes other games directly in without much rhyme or reason.

The funny thing was to even enter this section you have to battle a guard to test your mettle, in which it's just a normal combat encounter. Why wouldn't you have this test be a test of gun control, to prepare the player for the section they're about to do? That would be good game design, but nope can't have none of that here. Stellar Blade works for the most part right? But it works because everything it does it just copied right out of other games with very little changes.

It's like getting a hamburger at a mexican restaurant, it's probably a fine burger but it doesn't make sense to be on the menu in the first place.

 

[BrawlMan]

It's like getting a hamburger at a mexican restaurant, it's probably a fine burger but it doesn't make sense to be on the menu in the first place.

I've had a few Mexican burgers better than actual American burgers.

 

[Dreiko]

I once was at an asian buffet and they had pizza, I was baffled, but I still tried a slice. It wasn't fresh out the oven but it was better than frozen by a lot. I dunno, maybe they put some msg in the sauce, but it was good sauce.

 

[BrawlMan]

I once was at an asian buffet and they had pizza, I was baffled, but I still tried a slice. It wasn't fresh out the oven but it was better than frozen by a lot. I dunno, maybe they put some msg in the sauce, but it was good sauce.

That's nothing new. There are several Chinese buffet places around me or in my neighborhood that had served pizza at one point or another. There's not as many of them as they used to be though. One of my favorite and local Chinese buffet places got shut down due to tax evasion back in 2013.

 

[CriticalGaming]

I have no completed about 50% of the game to as close to 100% as possible (there are later quests that will have me repeat areas). 18 hours of playtime and I think I can put a pin into my thoughts on this game.

I 100% would NOT be playing this game if there were more things out to play right now. Stellar Blade's biggest benefit is the lack of anything notable on the horizon, (im sure there are indies there are always indies you dont need to remain me brawlman thanks), because while the combat does in fact get better the more you unlock, the story and the world exploration is borderline abysmal.

Traversal is the biggest issue imo, the open world zones are too large and Eve's running speed fucking sucks. She has a sprint that you have to run for like 5 seconds before it'll trigger and it's not much better than her normal run speed. There is no stamina system so why do i have to hold the run button, why can't it just be a toggle when out of combat? So you're always holding the run button everywhere you go and it's annoying. Additionally her environmental interaction mechanics are really wonky and unresponsive. Sometimes she'll grab a ledge, other times she wont and this will yield to several failed jumps, and even missed items because Eve fails to grab a ledge she absolutely should. There is also a wall running mechanic available in marked areas and Eve's picky about whether or not she attaches herself to the wall running gimmick or not.

The level design itself is a problem because places the player can go are really not very clear and require experimentation when reaching places a lot of time where it looks like you are going places you shouldn't but actually are the intended path. It's like mountain skipping in Skyrim except the developers intend for it to be this way rather than the player abusing collision mechanics. They could absolutely have labeled and out indicated where they want the player to explore better. The game even has Yellow paint, except it doesn't use it for areas where it would really be helpful. Instead Yellow paint marks the stupidest more obvious of locations.

Quest marking is also extreme inconsistent where some quests will have specific map markers telling you where to find whatever the fuck you need. Other quests are just "find the things at the place" with no marker no nothing. Either of these would be fine, but not both. Either mark all of it, or mark none of it. The bigger problem is that these marking systems can happen in the same quest. There is a quest to find an Ark in the main city and the quest markers lead you the first three steps of the quest, then it says find the code at terminals around the city and all markers stop for the rest of the chain. This led me to believe that I either was in the wrong city or that something broke. Finding unmarked terminals around the city was a process of me rubbing my face along every wall in the town until I got to a panel I could interact with, it was frustrating and took way more time than it should have.

Still there are some things that I do enjoy. Namely finding the soda cans. These are little colleectibles and Eve does a cute (not sexy at all) pose with the can whenever she finds one and I really like that. The exploration process itself sucks, but the rewards feel good as well, you get parts, HP and Beta upgrades, and outfits which always feel good to get and see what Eve's new outfit will look like. So that's really good.

The story....gotta be honest I stopped paying attention it's incredibly bland and boring and every character sucks. Nobody has any believable personality and a lot of people have the same fucking problem, namely a missing/dead little sister. Seriously there are like seven or eight NPC's all asking about their sister or waiting for a missing sister to return and I don't understand. Does nobody have brothers, fathers, mothers, to go missing instead? Why only sisters? Is it a Korean trope or something?

The biggest disconnect in the story is that Xion is the last city of humans but there are no humans really, everyone has some sort of android part to them like in Cyberpunk but even more extreme, and that people that do look fully human act like robots so there just isn't anything to really attach to or give you a clear cut goal to fight for.

While the combat has gotten "better" I don't think it's really great. There are inconsistancies with the special dodges that only seem to work when they want to, even the normal dodge will sometimes not go far enough to avoid an attack. You could argue I just have bad timing, and I probably do, however when dodges and parries actually work I don't feel like my timing is any different, even when fighting the same enemy. It just comes across as unresponsive and worse yet inconsistent. That being said, I've not really died to anything major more than once or twice, overall the game's not particularly difficult, and most of my deaths are from failing a jump that I SHOULD have made.

The best thing I can say is that Stellar Blade is Okay. Like I said if I had more games to play, I'd have dropped Stellar Blade by now. 5/10

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

> While the combat has gotten "better" I don't think it's really great. There are inconsistancies with the special dodges that only seem to work when they want to, even the normal dodge will sometimes not go far enough to avoid an attack. You could argue I just have bad timing, and I probably do, however when dodges and parries actually work I don't feel like my timing is any different, even when fighting the same enemy. It just comes across as unresponsive and worse yet inconsistent.

*nods vigorously and spastically points to every freaking game since Elden Ring*

yes.... yes.. that... f'n thing you just said.. that's what I'm talking about... freaking everywhere!

Thanks for the detailed write-up

 

[BrawlMan]

(im sure there are indies there are always indies you dont need to remain me brawlman thanks),

I wasn't going to do it a second time, but thank you.

You want to play Hi-Fi Rush again or did you already do that on PS5? If you already did that, then I suggest you start working on your backlog.

Right now I'm playing with some PS1 games. Gekido and Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold.

 

[CriticalGaming]

If you already did that, then I suggest you start working on your backlog.

the backlog was more or less my plan. There are some games that I'm like 80-90% of the way to the platinum that I wanna finish and if this year stays this way it'll be a good chance to do that.

I also wanna play Dave the Diver again on Ps5 at some point.

Either that or do another "play the whole series" challenge.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Notice how I didn't express my opinion of the game at all and that the sentiment towards is was more pity then contempt. Rather than not ''liking'' it my post implied the game deserved better

So dickheads who think they are the betters of others?

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

View attachment 11096
View attachment 11097

Maybe people just look different outside of a fucking photoshoot headshot, I dunno

I'm sorry she still looks better than the in game character, like did they give the character a crooked nose too now?

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Not to be the guy who complains about minor shit but it seems to be using some ai generated art assets.



There's a chance that they just put some gibberish text as a placeholder and left it in but considering there's plenty of art with perfectly legible english in the game, and in fact there's one right next to it, I'm pretty sure it was generated.

 

[Chimpzy]

Not to be the guy who complains about minor shit but it seems to be using some ai generated art assets.

View attachment 11103

There's a chance that they just put some gibberish text as a placeholder and left it in but considering there's plenty of art with perfectly legible english in the game, and in fact there's one right next to it, I'm pretty sure it was generated.

This game's director is an outspoken proponent of using AI in games, so yes, it almost certainly is generated art.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Not to be the guy who complains about minor shit but it seems to be using some ai generated art assets.

View attachment 11103

There's a chance that they just put some gibberish text as a placeholder and left it in but considering there's plenty of art with perfectly legible english in the game, and in fact there's one right next to it, I'm pretty sure it was generated.

Those glaced donuts are a dead giveaway.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Not to be the guy who complains about minor shit but it seems to be using some ai generated art assets.

View attachment 11103

There's a chance that they just put some gibberish text as a placeholder and left it in but considering there's plenty of art with perfectly legible english in the game, and in fact there's one right next to it, I'm pretty sure it was generated.

Now I'm hungry for some Balirs' Boits.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

Now I'm hungry for some Balirs' Boits.

Made with fresh quims!

 

[CriticalGaming]

Made with fresh quims!

And sesame seeds on frosting, which is...for texture probably.

 

[Chimpzy]

Maybe they're savory donuts? Is that a thing?