It’s really a shame that reactions to Stellar Blade are more focused on the fanservice or the coomer reactions. You got one group of people who just focus on the fanservice and hail the game to be the savior of sexualized women in gaming, and then you got the other group who view the game in a negative light because of the first group. And you know what? I can’t even blame them because the first group is really insufferable.

I don't care in the slightest about Stellar Blade having a "sexy" protagonist. I saw a trailer for it once and was immediately interested, because of how fun and unique it looked.

But coomers saw the female Protagonist’s butt and were obnoxious about it ever since. Like come on, it’s bottom of the barrel fanservice you’re going all crazy for. Literally everything I've seen about this game online is people with underaged anime character avatars cream their pants over how this game is "destroying wokeness" or whatever. Nothing against Eve, because she is really pretty and I actually really like her, but she looks like every female character in every korean MMO ever made. It's like people going to war over white bread. Apparently, these guys are now whining about censorship, signing petitions, and making videos of themselves (they look about as you'd expect) about why their cause matters lmao. These pathetic gamerbros will never not be incredibly annoying and cringe to me.

Because Stellar Blade is just so much more. Picture all those apocalyptic gachas and their really great world-building, fantastic atmosphere but really cheap and dull (chibi) gameplay, then amp it up to AAA levels – that's the magic of Stellar Blade.

The environments are beautifully crafted and the atmospheric soundtrack is another aspect I deeply appreciate and thoroughly enjoyed in this game. There's nothing quite like losing yourself in a captivating melody as you journey through vast, lonely landscapes and cities. Just like Nier, Stellar Blade really nailed its soundtrack.

The gameplay is just so much fun and showcases an exceptional level of refinement and polish. Every movement, dodge and parry hit the mark perfectly. The more skills you unlock, the cooler and more fun the combat gets. There's never a dull moment - the gameplay remains consistently exciting and stylish from start to finish.

I found the plot to be really intriguing, and I really enjoyed uncovering plenty of secrets and snippets of lore. But what really surprised me were the sidequests. Sure, some were usual filler content, but most served to make the world feel alive and deepened the lore. Completing them was enjoyable, they never felt like a chore. So good job there.

Oh, and I'm pleasantly surprised by Eve! Initially, I expected her to be the typical "waifu" (ugh, I hate that word), merely there for visual appeal with little personality beyond conforming to generic “anime girl” tropes. Most of these tropes revolve around being “innocent”, "naive" or a "sweet flower girl." But Eve defies those expectations, and I couldn't be happier about it.

Even though Stellar Blade took huge inspiration from Nier and other apocalyptic gacha games, it's still an extremely unique and fun game that everyone should give a chance. Don't listen to the manchildren throwing tantrums or all the buzz about the “fanservice," which is honestly vastly overexaggerated due to some optional skins. Honestly, aside from the optional skins, there are absolutely no horny aspects present in the game.

There are just so many little touches to the point where you can tell the developers really cared about making this game great, and they succeeded. Stellar Blade is simply a beautiful game.

Remember when Running with Scissors would show up to gaming expos with a bunch of half-naked pornstars and models in tow to promote whatever the Postal franchise was doing next? Man, the 2000s were wild. The whole "Postal Babes" marketing campaign was apparently so successful it led to the ladies appearing in the actual games themselves, spawning a now defunct website where the company would post naughty pics of them, and starring in their own official spin-off title here.

A single glance at its name and artwork will tell what this mobile excursion is all about. Namely letting you play an action game where you get to look at chicks in their underwear. While I'm sure this was absolutely outrageous back in its day, in our modern era where we have witches clothed in hair who will show you everything but their cooter or nipples and the romance scenes in RPGs have long since turned into softcore pornos, the occasional sight of a pixelated thong-clad booty is hardly salacious enough to shock or offend anymore. Heck, it barely even gets the blood pumping.

What will get you worked up is the gameplay however, as this is unbelievably and stupidly hard. I'm talking that old-school unfair NES level of difficult that would have you questioning if the devs didn't know what they were doing or were just sadists, and leave a younger James Rolfe foaming at the mouth with rage. It starts off fine, but goes right down the crapper the second guns are introduced. At that point the whole thing becomes a torturous trial-and-error process of memorizing enemy placements so that you can try to shoot foes from offscreen before they do the same to you. I feel legitimately sorry for those who bought this on smaller devices because finishing this becomes borderline impossible on narrower aspect ratios.

A shame, as there are genuinely a few touches like the handful of sniping sections and a larger than usual for the format number of stages that show HeroCraft did at least attempt to make the project fun and something of quality. Unfortunately, the list of agonizing faults only continues to compile to include instant-death bomb defusing, bafflingly few health pickups, and needing to carefully manage the ammo in your more powerful weapons to use at the right spots. Turning what should have been a cheesy, sleazy good time into a source of unmitigated pain and suffering. Which I suppose if you were a teen trying to get his rocks off to a steamy-looking cellphone cocktease game in 2009 (why would anyone play this on the go?!) is probably what you deserved. I'm merely somebody who thought it would be amusing/interesting to marathon the entire Postal catalogue though, so I didn't. 🥺

2/10

70€ single player game + denuvo + mtx + atrocious perfomance + crashes

I've waited 12 years for this. I'm tired, boss. I'm tired of people defending all this shit.

Also, if you don't see how these mtx and the performance issues are two facets of the same issues, you're hopeless. They are both born of the same greed. They cut corners in optimisation and testing, resulting in the crap performance issues, due to the same greed that makes them milk idiots for mtx.