You know, after a week of being trapped in the vice grip of Hades 2, it was nice to hop into a super short experience like Buckshot Roulette.

This game is finished in around 20 minutes if you're absolutely cracked at being really lucky and stumbling into the right plays like myself, but the core mechanics are so fun that it's easy to hop in for quick sessions. It's actually refreshing to play something so stripped back. Everything the game is exists within any given play session, and that's it. When you lose, the whole thing resets. It sounds a little silly because it's not like Buckshot Roulette invented that kind of design, but I haven't played something like it in a while, so I appreciate it.

I've actually been pleasantly surprised by Stellar Blade. Culture war shite aside, I find the explicit difference between the depictions of men and women in this game to be pretty lame. It's bizarre, since the world itself seems entirely unconcerned with gender, and there's never a moment where someone objectifies the protagonist or other women, at least from what I've played. In a game where sexuality is barely a factor at all, you're left to wonder why it's present at all, for any reason other than the assumed benefit of the ogling player.

To be honest, it's not a particularly significant feature in the game overall, so the fact that conversation around the game always comes back to that is a shame, though the developers do bring it on themselves when it is what appears on the box when you buy in.

What I find to be a more interesting part of Stellar Blade is the clear influence by NieR Automata, and more specifically the way that fact didn't bother me as much as I'd expected. It can feel a little hacky at first to see right away the ways in which this game mirrors its major influence, but as I continued to play, a lot of the creative decisions for this game felt surprisingly authentic. In every side quest, every collectible, every costume is a glimmer of humanity. A lot of blockbuster games these days are so bloated, and can often feel arbitrarily lengthened by studio mandate. Stellar Blade trims a lot of the fat, so what's left straightforwardly feels like an idea that somebody had on the dev team which was then built for the game.

It would be quite easy to call Stellar Blade shameless given the discourse surrounding it, and it's sort of true, but as a result it feels more human. This game is a series of Shift Up's personal indulgences, made manifest with a triple-AAA budget.

It's oftentimes a little tone-deaf, but it's also full of strangeness, just like a person. It knows what it is, wears its influences on its sleeve, and doesn't waste time feigning otherwise. I don't know if I'll finish it, but I enjoyed my time!