You’d be forgiven for thinking that someone remastered NieR Automata under a new name given the premise of Stellar Blade. A legion of sexy female robots make a desperate assault on the unknowable aliens that are infesting Earth, and they’re picked off one by one until a single unit remains, who will be our best, last hope for making Earth safe again for the humans living off-world. In fairness, Yoko Tarô himself has given the thumbs up to Shift Up’s efforts in multiple interviews, and Nier series composer Okabe Keiichi’s studio handled around half of the (admittedly excellent and atmospheric) soundtrack. It just would’ve been nice if Stellar Blade had enough of its own identity to make those comparisons worthwhile.
NieR Automata isn’t one of those games that AAA publishers have latched onto and sucked all the creative juice out of, so a brazen clone at least has the passive benefit of being somewhat unique. The catch, though, is that NieR Automata abounds in astonishing and near-constant surprises. It’s a game of boundless creativity that gleefully shatters every cliché of its genre. Stellar Blade, by comparison, is hampered by its fealty to convention. The story instantly falls face first into a predictable, milquetoast anime sewer the second we learn that our protagonist’s name is Eve, brought back from near death by a handsome wasteland mechanic named Adam.
From the fact that regular humans are nowhere to be seen despite our heroes supposedly getting their marching orders from them, to Eve’s partner in the early stages of the game seemingly dying (a body is conspicuously never shown), players will be five steps ahead of Stellar Blade’s narrative at every turn. The result is an experience where tension and the excitement of discovery don’t really exist. That isn’t helped by just how same-y the environments can get, despite the journey taking players from beautifully rendered ruined cities to deserts and sewers.
There’s one genuinely striking and imaginative environment to break up the monotony, an elevator ride into space, but it’s so extremely close to the endgame that it’s too little too late. Many of the game’s sidequests and collectables are similarly monotonous, with the intriguing tales at the outset mostly involving going out to a remote location and investigating a corpse, with no real sense of play or emergent storytelling in the adventuring.
For what it’s worth, Stellar Blade has got its charms in terms of raw gameplay, with the game playing offensively like NieR Automata but defensively like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. There is a simplified but effective combo system and a laundry list of ranged options. Those pair rather nicely with a satisfyingly tricky parry system that’s the one truly effective way to take out fortified, massive enemies. Those enemies are also a bright spot, with some truly gnarly, freakish mutant designs, and some intense higher-level boss fights that demand full attention, especially since the unorthodox designs do make incoming attacks harder to telegraph.
Ironically, given the controversy leading to its release, much of the game’s innovation comes in the form of the character customization, with a breathtakingly extensive number of outfits, accessories, and hairstyles for Eve, in exchange for maxing out the game’s meager relationships with various vendors in the hub city of Xion by buying more and more items. Yes, the outfits are outlandish and cool, but you may find yourself wishing that all this was for a character more interesting than Eve, who reacts to the horrors of the world and its sad, lamentable history with the same enthusiasm reserved for finding out Starbucks is out of macarons.
Had Eve been a character with agency and personality, who actually responded to the drooling and leering that she’s meant to embody, well, she’d be Bayonetta. If her emptiness was hiding deep existential secrets that the game revealed with patience and empathy, she’d be 2B. Instead, Eve is a busty, long-legged cipher of a doll who has no idea just how far up her hind quarters the game’s camera is designed to go, and seems somehow quite comfortable wearing sci-fi heels that make her feet look like horse hooves. Perhaps it’s unfair for this to be the sole focus for some players, but, unfortunately, there isn’t a whole lot else going on to draw their gaze away from it.
This game was reviewed with code purchased by the reviewer.
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In few words, the developer is ShiftUp and not Square Enix, since this game is much better than Final Fantasy XVI, another beat’em up that you rated 4 stars being extremely repetitive, with empty maps, ridiculous secondary missions and a a broken 60fps mode…
Saying 2B had agency and more personality is pretty wild, seeing as she barely spoke and when she did she was mostly super robotic. Also Bayonetta is just as sexed up, but not as good looking as Eve, the only difference is Bayonetta both looks sexy and acts sultry as well. Nothing wrong with any of the three character but saying one is better than the other is purely subjective and not based in any kind of fact. I can tell you one thing though, Stellar Blade has a much more rewarding combat system, as both Nier and Bayonetta are super easy. I love all the games but this whole article seems to be based out of pure emotion and not fact. The world of Nier is very empty, that’s a fact, same with Bayonetta, they’re fairly bare bones when it comes to world design. Character design is great on all 3. The upgrade system is a lot better in Stellar Blade and the world is nice to look at, gorgeous and awe inspiring in some areas. There’s also a bit more variety in the basic enemies you find throughout the world in Stellar Blade. Seems like another review based on activism instead on the actual merits of this great game. The current social climate is the only reason all these game activists…I mean, “journalists”, bag on Stellar Blade. If it featured a male protag instead of Eve, or a typical western style “female” in gaming with strangely masculine characteristics, these critics would be raving about it. I guess 2B and Bayonetta are getting a pass, probably because they’re too rooted in gaming culture to be changed. These tourists in gaming sure did everything they could to derail Eve though, but it was all for naught, as Stellar Blade is currently enjoying a very high user score and a pretty high critic score and its still being updated with blue hair enraging outfits and other features.
Anyone praising Bayonetta as a “good example of female character” loses any arguments it is trying to make. It is all about who made the character, and not the character per se.