106 reviews liked by stealthblade


This DLC is the most overhyped DLC ever. Only good parts of it is the Sister Friede fight and Sir Vilhelm in generall.

It's pretty overly difficult and the level design is counter-intuitive. Bosses are pretty good though.


Sonic Advance if it was bad and had the worst fucking bosses and level design you've ever seen in your life.

This game is interesting and I have quite a bit to say about it as it has quite a few areas especially with having 4 characters to play as.

First off, story and unfortunatly I think im gonna have to say, this is the worst Yakuza story thus far, dont get me wrong, its still good but compared to the others, even the first game, its the worst one. And I think the problem comes down to writing and somehow making it so all 4 of the characters storys comes together fluidly and I dont think they accomplished that. Each of the characters though were really compelling and I loved each of them in there own way but the problem is, there starting point is just too different from each other apart from Kiryu's because he just kind of comes in to clean up the mess but ironically I think his is the worst in that because thats the chapter thats meant to unite everyone together. And I think its kind of a shame since it had good potential but it kind of just whiffed how everything comes together as well as its villain. The problem with its villain is, you dont know who the fuck it is half the time lmao. It keeps changing through betrayal and new information coming together to the point it just feels like there's no real villain and at the end it definitely shows it as they even bring in a fourth one just right out of left field which...doesnt make any sense at all why this guys there lmao. But apart from that, its still a good story, in terms of the individual story of each character, there actually really good and cool and each one did its character justice. They also perfectly captured each character and made each of them feel unique, like with Saejima's, your spending half of it underground because he's fleeing from the cops and Tanimura introduces the secret asian gateway section of the town you couldnt get into with the other characters before, so in terms of individual storys, they were really good...its just bringing everything together was its downfall.

Now lets talk about everything else, combat, is a huge improvement from 3's and it might even be up there in terms of top 3, every character felt so different to play as and I honestly cant decide who was my favourite to play (though im leaning toward Akiyama, the GOAT of a man lol).

The side content this time around was a bit plain and meh in my opinion, apart from Kiryu's in which you reunite with a lot of characters from the 1st game which was a really nice touch. I also liked a few select substorys from each character, especially Saejima's final one, that ones so cool hehe. I also liked all the trainers two, they were really fun. Quick shoutout to the chase minigame, they made them somehow even better in this game compared to 3's. I thought 3's was fun in most places but now it might even be my favourite mini game to play (Apart from with Saejima where your fleeing the cops and there's always that one prick outside near Serana's, that one pissed me off because there's no way to avoid him when you want to take the nearest taxi.)

Final subject, Amon boss, real disappointment. I spent freaking so long preparing for that getting so many weapons for all the characters and spreading the stamina's equally between them...and the fight's turn out to be the easiest in the series. Even 3's was harder then that shit and that one was just super long and annoying in spots but it kept me on my toes at all times. The toughest one was Jiro but it was more bullshit then hard because he kept on regenerating his health whenever you did damage but if you just lay into him with loads of weapon heat actions, he's pretty much done for.

Even though ive layed into the game in a few places, I say overall though, this is a pretty great game. Its combat is pretty fun and every protag is unique and awesome in there own way. Its story may not be up to par with the others in terms of how everything pans out at its end, its still good and the individual character chapters of there own story I think saves it hard because of how good they are.

this... is art. if you like 2D platformers at all, please try this. it's my childhood game.

Having to make my own decisions was a terrifying experience. I will never do it again. And before anyone asks, I did it, everyone! I fixed her! (I got the good ending)
It was one of the best visual novels I have ever played. Great voice acting, great story, and the voices in my head are accurate. It's impressive that they are still updating the game, and a big update that'll extend the game by 25% is on its way. It's also not a very long game; I finished it in 5 hours because I took my sweet time and wandered around.
There was a sequence where I refused to continue doing what I was told, and the game shut down after the entity told me, "I will be here when you are ready" or something. I was flabbergasted. Next time I opened the game, that same entity welcomed me, and I continued where I left off.
I just wished that the Voice of the Hero and the Narrator's voice wasn't so identical.
It is truly a unique experience and a must-play.

Alright, strap in. I have a lot to say.

Let's get the elephant out of the room before I actually talk about this game. I am going to bring up issues I have with the game's art direction later on but none of that has to do with how sexualized the character designs are. I am fine with all of those other characters you want to use as a counterargument. That is not the core of my issue with this game, but before I get into that, I'll talk about what I DO like because I do still like this game.

I think on a graphical level, the game looks amazing. It runs consistently well and has been thoroughly play-tested which I shouldn't have to appreciate, but most great games usually have at least some small level of bugginess that this game does not have. Additionally, on this aesthetic front, I love the game's soundtrack, probably one of the year's standouts alongside Rebirth and Prince of Persia. I also think the linear and open-world missions in the game are, for the most part, quite fun! There are some survival horror-type missions that I found particularly memorable, even if they clash really hard with the rest of the game, but we're not there yet!

But the place where I have the hugest amount of praise for this game is its combat and enemy encounters. I'm gonna talk more about the game's "identity" later but this is where Stellar Blade's identity is strongest as it can't really be put in any camp for these 3D hack-and-slash games. It's not slow-paced and deliberate like a souls-like, but it's not super quick and combo-heavy like a DMC or a Bayonetta. The combat feels like a good mix of light comboing, really nice feeling parries, strong finishers, and a good amount of diversity in the way that you can approach combat. The enemies and bosses are also very well-designed and super difficult. The game shines brightest when focused on its great combat and there is a sequence near the end that works well for this game. It's great!

The game for the most part is really fun, super polished, and not particularly painful to go through. If someone might not have some of the same issues I do later on in this review, then I can see someone loving this game to pieces. But.. I have some SERIOUS issues with this game.

Starting off is the one that everyone, even the people who like the game is bringing up. On a narrative front, Stellar Blade is an absolute mess. The game's script is written so awkwardly, almost like it was machine-translated rather than actually localized. The dialogue is super awkwardly written and some moments in the side missions just feel kind of... embarrassing? The story setup is mildly interesting (until you notice something I'll bring up later), but the story's themes are barely explored apart from naming conventions and a couple of moments at the beginning and end.

The narrative didn't even need to be particularly deep or anything. Bayonetta and DMC games don't have deep stories, but A, they're not really trying to, and B, they do have a memorable cast with personalities at least. When I heard from reviews that Stellar Blade's cast isn't the strongest out there, what I DIDN'T expect to find was the most emotionless and barebones main character this side of The Callisto Protocol.

Eve is such a remarkably bland character, lacking a single actual personality trait. They try to develop Eve in a couple of ways regarding her ambiguous relationship with Tachy, who is also boring and has no character and then dies. They do a scene with this relationship in particular near the end of the game and it just felt so stilted and not super earned. But surely the other characters are better, right? I mean... I guess so? Lily at least has.. a personality and Adam, as boring as he is, at least has some interesting things happen with them later on, but the character writing is so incredibly weak in this game and the voice acting, both in Korean and English only makes it worse.

Okay, so that's the narrative stuff out of the way, what's that other major problem I have with the game that I've been edging you out of? This game does not have a fucking identity. I've been trying my best to hold back on comparing this game to NieR Automata up to this point, because I wanted to judge this game on its own, but it's so blatantly apparent just HOW MUCH of this game was derived from it. You play as a sexy android lady from a space base and are sent down to get rid of all of the bad guys that took over the Earth. You run around a semi-open world with a little drone that follows you around everywhere and talks to you. The game goes into detail on who the guys you are fighting and who you're working for REALLY ARE and there are themes of Identity and Religion and Life. The main character is very stoic and emotionless, but unlike 2B, here it's because they aren't written to have one. Hell, there are characters named Adam and Eve IN NIER AUTOMATA.

I know this all seems super surface level, but these comparisons wouldn't be such a huge problem if they had a super strong identity on their own and it really REALLY doesn't. The most distinctive thing about this game is that you're fighting Semi-religious gross penis monsters called Naytiba instead of robots. But that feels more like it clashes with the game's sci-fi aesthetic more than anything. Speaking of clashing, the character designs don't even really feel like they belong in the same game, most notably when you compare Eve, Lily, and Adam's designs. And they are the main 3 characters of the whole game. And most of the side characters don't even have faces, which is super weird? Why does the hairdresser have no hair? What are we doing here?

This also extends to the locations, Xion just feels like a pretty generic post-apocalyptic world. Half the time, in these linear missions, you fight in ruined cities and sewers and the two semi-open world areas you get are both bare empty deserts. I know asking for visual variety in a post-apocalyptic game is asking the wrong questions, but maybe have at least one of the open-world areas not be a desert??

All of these things combined, the art style clash between the different characters, friend, and foe, in this game, the super generic areas, the basic and derivative story, the lack of any characters with more than one personality trait, and the themes it doesn't touch on very much at all, leads to a game that doesn't really have an identity of its own. Hell, even though I love the music, it sounds very much like NieR music. The game's identity shines brightest in its combat, in its missions, in its boss encounters, and in one section near the end of the game that I thought was actually excellent.

This is clearly a talented team and the fact they were able to make a big console game this good on their first try is astounding. I can only hope their next game has more of a unique identity.

TLDR; The game is well-polished, has some great music, some decently fun linear and open world missions, and some exceptional combat and boss fights, but the character designs clash super hard with each other, the environments don't feel distinct, the story and character writing are incredibly bad, and the game just doesn't have a strong identity outside of copying NieR Automata's homework.

Main character seems like the kind of guy who would review games on backlogged.