Stellar Blade (April 26th, PS5)

Don't see a thread for this and feel like it's gonna be kind of a big deal, so here's one.

Played the demo and this game is pretty awesome. Not sure it does anything particularly new, but it has a cool futuristic vibe and some insanely hot women (thanks, Korean devs) alongside very Nier-like gameplay (Souls-like but quicker and more forgiving).

Of course, a lot of the value depends on how the finished game is. Will it have an big world with lots to do, or will it be a quick linear game? Who knows, but I did find the demo compulsively playable. As someone who is pretty much over AAA games entirely at this point, this one grabbed my attention.







Demo progress carries over to the launch game. Couple notes from the demo:

-There's Graphics, Performance, and Balanced modes for this one. Which is great, 3 things to give me choice paralysis instead of 2. On a current 65'' LG OLED I found that Balanced actually worked really well. Framerate difference between Performance and Balanced is negligible and barely noticeable, compared to how far both are above Graphics, while Balanced keeps some of the improvements of Graphics like better shading and less blur/fuzz.

-Tap-tapping block won't work for doing a perfect parry, like it does in Sekiro. Game demands good parry timing, and if your timing is off you're better off just holding block. Whenever I'm off on timing (usually because the enemy is swinging too slowly), and try to do a second block to catch the attack, I always get hit. So there seems to be a brief vulnerability window after dropping block or attempting a parry. This could be annoying, or it might be easy enough to get used to.

I was actually thinking the MC's proportions are unrealistic (and thus less appealing to look at than, say, a Tifa). Then I come here and find out the MC was motion-capped from a real woman.

So I guess that kinda nullifies that argument. Still would prefer if she were a little less "idealized" and more like an actual hot woman you'd see walking around who wasn't 75% leg. Because she does kinda look like someone's idea of a perfect Realdoll or something.

I left the Long Ponytail on for the entire demo and enjoyed how it swished all over the place. However it does kinda get in the way and look ridiculous at times so I could see most people turning it down to Short Ponytail.

Finished the demo. After you beat the boss, it doesn't let you go back to where you were, you can only start over. So that's pretty lame. I wanted to explore more (had a bunch of side areas I hadn't looked into yet) and maybe grind a few levels (Enhanced Dodge, Enhanced Perfect Parry, and Double Dodge are super good skills for a grand total of 6 levels). However you can't go back in and explore or grind. Maybe they just didn't want you to. The only option is to start over. I assume the main game will pick up with whatever your stats were when you beat the first boss. In any case, anyone who wants to grind levels in this, do it before fighting the first boss. Then again, enemies in the first area give so little EXP that I'm thinking maybe you're not supposed to grind there and enemies in the release game will give far more EXP.

Not sure if I'll actually buy this at launch, doubt it, but I do like it and I'll play it eventually. It needed a thread either way.