Stellar Blade – Test, Action-Adventure, PlayStation 5

Stellar Blade: Similarities to other video games are not coincidental

Please stop me if you like the plot of Stellar Blade sounds familiar: Earth is overrun by monsters called Naytibas, a large part of humanity has to flee into space and sends a group of super soldiers to the blue planet to eradicate the threat – only for everything that could go wrong goes wrong in the attempt, and one remains a single survivor who is now entrusted with this mammoth task. Yes the Parallels to NieR: Automata are obvious and game director Kim Hyung-tae already revealed in advance, that they were inspired by Yoko Taro's work. Just like the dynamic duo 2B and 9S, Eve, a member of the 7th landing party, is the only hope in which humanity can still trust.

A blessing in disguise, as one Marauder named Adam picks up the elite fighter who is about to die and from then on accompanies her as a helpful drone, which can later be mounted on Eve's arm and used for explosive long-range attacks. Together with the rescued mechanic Lily, they travel to Xion, the last city inhabited by humans Bastion against the Naytibas, where they eventually join forces with Elder Orcal to wipe out the monsters once and for all and give humanity back their freedom. The inspiration from NieR: Automata would be superficial if the fairly straightforward plot didn't also have a few twists and turns, although these can't keep up with the Japanese model.

No chemistry: The trio consisting of Lily, Eve and Adam unites the mission, but no real bond can be observed between the three.

Although the story as a whole is quite interesting despite the already familiar premise and motivates you to flit from main quest to main quest, they work Dialogue often lame, unnatural and functional. There are a lot of duplications, exposition is thrown around and conveying emotions isn't necessarily Stellar Blade's strength. Almost all the characters, even the trio around Eve, Adam and Lily, work lifeless and one-dimensional, lacks depth and understandable motivations. It's doubly strange that they, especially Eve, are often over-animated and gesticulate wildly or nod their heads repeatedly even when making the simplest statements. How practical, then, that all of this only plays a minor role: conversations and cutscenes definitely make up a small part of the gaming experience in relation to the gameplay.

If the world captivates you despite the half-baked characters, you can do this Scanning corpses and collect more background information by finding notebooks; However, they largely fall into the same patterns, in which the fallen curse the evil enemies, doubt their own faith at the last second or mourn their lost loved ones. A bit more worldbuilding comes from it Advertising posters in the city of Xion or crazy novel serieswhich can be found among all the rubble and dust and paint a picture of the lost civilization.

Great thirst for research

Why exactly does Eve present the soda cans she found so proudly? No idea. But collecting is worth it!

Aside from corpses and tomes, there are plenty of other reasons to walk through the world of Stellar Blade with your eyes open: there are valuable upgrades for your health and beta energy bars; Weapon Cores to strengthen your blade; Improvements to your healing and your drone as well as one whole range of new outfits for Eve – one of them more physical than the next, but more on that later. Additional collection items exist in the form of drink cans, which Eve holds up to the camera with an expressive pose every time she finds them, and which also give you smaller bonuses.

Exploration feels very rewarding thanks to the many secrets and useful items, while there is plenty of variety along the way different level structures taken care of. The desert, for example, offers a large, open area, only occasionally broken by ruins of high-rise buildings; de Planet Eidos 7, on the other hand, relies on a nested urban jungle in which urban clearings counteract the claustrophobia. The organic-feeling world prevents progressing through the levels from wearing out at some point optical variance is also generated using icy mountain areas or high-tech laboratories.

Open your eyes: Some corpses contain valuable cores that permanently increase your status values.

Objects are displayed reliably even from a distance and do not have to be reloaded. However, you can take out the virtual binoculars every now and then Enemies stuttering around at low frame rates watching in the background. The map also gave me mixed feelings: On the one hand, the navigation tool is only available in the more open areas and not in the tube levels and, on the other hand, although it is very clear, it would benefit from additional markings. Discovered locations are not marked, nor are treasure chests for which you still lack the necessary code You can't set your own pins either – a good memory is required here.