Stellar Made(Demo impressions)

Uhhhh, wow? After finishing the demo I can't believe how high I am on this. If this hits like Lies of P then Korea is 2 for 2. And so far I think it has more than enough potential to do so. When I played a bit of Nikke(Shift Up's last game), I was worried that this would mostly be a shallow hack and slash with mega waifu bait. Its still got that bait but everything else around it shines bright enough that you don't even need the bait.

I'd say it plays like a more anime Sekiro with some neat tricks of its own. Its got flashy moves and I like that they implemented a combo system so it doesn't feel so hack and slash. Think DMC light. I can't believe how good some of these boss fights felt. There's an optional boss that was a really fun way to put yourself to the test.

Exploring the world, while mostly linear(not a negative to me), has a very Nier feeling to it. It is complimented in the same way by its somber enchanting music. It does a lot of things that you'll find familiar, however its all so tightly put together.

There is quite a bit of customization to be done here as well that I was pleased to discover. Plenty of stuff going on in the skill trees as well as equipment items. There is also the familiar find things in the world that will upgrade your health and various other stuff feature.

From what I can tell it offers a pretty decent enemy variety. There is a data bank for them and from memory only there were over 40 for sure. Which is good as the devs say its around 25 hours for the main story and 30-50 for doing everything.

I think that's about all for now. Might share more thoughts later. I'd love to get some comparisons to FFXVI since they likely share some similar DNA. I haven't played it so the demo is all I have to on. Give it a shot!

Edit: Performance was good. Game was pretty. Bums were jigglin.

I did the tutorial section of the demo and it didn't really grab me. To be fair, I'm in a Sega Genesis hole right now and I think this might be the first thing I've played this year that didn't come out in the 90s. I also fell off of Lies of P last year.

I didn't really notice any of the jiggle physics playing it. Maybe I'm just blind to that stuff at this point. The thing that got me though was the fricking option in the system menu for ponytail length, which I assume exists purely to see the character's ass better.

@brian_: Its kind of hilarious when her hair gets wrapped around her in an awkward way. I had a few instances where it all just sort of wrapped around her front. Pretty amusing.

You really can't see the jiggle? I notice it even when you enter then menu. And when you walk. Every time you guard her butt jiggles too.

I think once you get into fighting the tougher enemies is where it started to click for me. But if you weren't so hot on lies of P wellll......

@spacemanspiff00: Yeah. I didn't really notice any of the physic stuff. I mean, in these types of action games, I'm usually looking past the player character, and primarily at the enemy movements and environments anyways. So maybe that has something to do with it too. But also, I've played Senran Kagura games in the past. It's entirely possible that I'm just desensitized to it.

The thing with Lies of P for me was that it wasn't necessarily Lies of P's fault that I feel off of it. I've just been really down on modern releases lately and fallen into a retro hole.

I'd like to try it but i'll have to wait for a PC port, i'm glad it doesn't seem to be a souls-like because i fell off of the genre extremely hard, to the point where i'm even cautious about games like this or Tsushima which i still haven't played, i know they aren't like that but i feel like every sword based game got caught in the blast.

My impression is that it's pretty good, and I'm looking forward to playing it... once the price drops. It's basically a combination of Nier Automata, Bayonetta, with a little Dark Souls sprinkled in. The graphics are impressive. The combat seems like it can be thrilling once you get used to it and unlock enough skills. The story seems like it might be interesting. The vocalized K-Pop music didn't impress me, I'll need to hear the full soundtrack to judge.

Overall, it looks a lot better than I was anticipating.

I'm probably going to wait for a sale but my first impression is that it gives off a very "we have Nier Automata at home" feel, while switching out the Tim Burton style robots for more Code Vein or Resident Evil style enemies. And if that's what Shift Up is going for then more power to em I guess.

This seems like a potentially solid game that I think the internet will keep me from ever trying because people are already being hideously weird about it.

@dochaus: Well, I do not have a PS5 and nothing here makes me want to get one. Not to mention, I played Automata mainly because of one Patty Klepk, not sure what he think of this one.

@efesell: "Gamer Gate 2.0" or what ever the fuck those c***s call themselves is fouling thing up.

@efesell: Every time I see this thing mentioned it's in some "save this from the wokes!" or "THEY can't handle how sexy this woman is" and then I see exactly none of that in any analysis of it. The worst thing I've seen was a guy saying that what he played of the demo felt like a 7 out of 10 so he hopes the final game has more gameplay options and that was met with a "SORRY THIS GAME REFUSES TO BE WOKE".

I STILL don't even understand the controversy. Is it just literally COMPLETELY manufactured?

The idea is you're not allowed to make a character beautiful because it's unrealistic, they're allowed to be a space ninja fighting huge monsters jumping 20ft into the air with infinite stamina and walking off explosions to the face and impalement, but being pretty is taking it too far.

@sethmode: The controversy is created out of a tiny bit of truth where some people have said some dumb stuff about not wanting white men in games anymore or whatever. But its blown up from "hey some people said some dumb stuff, they should probably not be listened to or they should make their points more clearly" to "TEH WOKES WANT TO TAKE OUR VIDJA GAMEZZZZ!!!"

So it's 99% manufactured, as are most "controversies" from the right, where some rando says something stupid about how nobody should hire white men, and they compare that to things like actual real abortion bans that are being enacted, or racial disparities in wealth that have impoverished generations.

@cikame: There is a real issue here, which is that while it's fine to have any individual game feature some buxom girl in skintight clothes doing ass kicking things, when that becomes the default for all female characters it's a bad thing and alienating to women who don't want to be viewed as sex objects. Here I think it works okay, and there are plenty of games with more realistic depictions of women these days (as compared to 20 years ago) but it's a conversation worth keeping in mind. Like fine, give us this girl just like you give us stupid sexy Dante from Devil May Cry, but we also need to continue having characters like Selene from Returnal or Aloy from Horizon (remember that whole controversy about how she wasn't hot enough) or the female characters from Redfall.

But the gaming industry is doing (somewhat) better there these days so having one sexy lady in a very stylish game isn't a big problem.

@bigsocrates: I think where that falls apart for me is that there are girls out there who love the beautiful idealised female characters, and just because the voices of people who take issue are louder doesn't mean they speak for every woman. I'm not a woman, but as someone who has beloved video game characters i REALLY don't want to take that away from them, and i especially don't want to prevent artists from having the freedom to realise their vision, be it sexy, horrific, funny or pathetic.

@cikame: Is that what is happening here? Because honestly, I'm not seeing much of it...I'm seeing far more of an overkill version of what you said. Admittedly, it's purely anecdotal, but I only learned about Stellar Blade because I've seen so many people yelling about how the wokes want to censor it yet....I've yet to see literally any call for censorship.

Can you give me an example, particularly from games media and/or criticism, that outlines this pretty juvenile idea of "sexy girl in game is bad"?

@cikame: You can find someone from any demographic who likes just about anything. Of course there are women who like conventionally sexy women (including cishet women) and nobody is arguing in this thread that such women shouldn't be in games. Some games. The issue is that for a time it was basically all women in games. They were all conventionally attractive and skimpily dressed, with a few exceptions like Samus (which is one of the reasons she has such a following, though she too has been presented like that at times.)

And saying that it's the "artists' visions" doesn't really work because lots of artists have lots of visions and who decides which visions get enough budget to be realized at a high fidelity? Generally men. And often really horrible men like Bobby Kotick and Yves Guillemot, or their sexually harassing minions. There are lots of artists with incredible visions that never got realized because some horrible executive didn't want to try a game starring a woman who wasn't conventionally attractive.

If we look at the indie space, where artists have a lot more direct control over what they make and it's much more democratic, there is a much greater diversity in female characters than there traditionally has been in AAA. There are still some conventionally attractive and sexy characters, sure, but we also see characters like Celeste starring in big hits.

The point is not that any individual character is necessarily bad or any individual artist is necessarily wrong for having a certain vision, but rather that when an entire industry is tilting towards sexualizing women that's a very bad things. Improvements have been made and are ongoing. I'm not against Stellar Blade but neither do I think that it's not worth critically thinking about the sexualization of women in games.

Woke is just the latest of many racist code words in place of the more harsher words that people would quickly call out. If there is any media which has a decent number of characters who aren't white and male, the small but loud minority start crowing about it. Sadly, this can at times be effective. The Star Wars sequel trilogy is proof of this, among other things. And the Gamer Gate 2.0, in which a consulting firm is accused of forcing game developers to put people of color in their games, is gaining traction on the internet. The only way to stop hate is to fight against it, but sadly, many people are quick to give in, because it makes their otherwise empty lives feel meaningful.

As far as the design of Eve in this game, sex still sells. And attractive, young, Korean women who look like K-Pop idols are in vogue right now. It doesn't bother me. I only see it as an issue if that is all the game is about, looking at some attractive character design, while the rest of the game is trash. This has happened a lot in the past, but not so much anymore.

@sethmode: There is A LOT happening right now regarding all issues of representation in games, currently the conversation is mostly focused on race and sexual orientation, criticism of beautiful/sexy female depictions and weaker female character traits was a huge focus of Gamergate 1.0 and groups like Feminist Frequency.

The "uglification" (sorry, that's just what it's called) of female characters in western developed games over the last decade is often used as evidence, how much stock you want to put into that is up to you, there's also guidance from the platform holders themselves but whether these are hard rules depends on if MS will agree to host games like Stellar Blade in the future, we'll see.

@bigsocrates I wonder if it's worth having a discussion sometime about sexual liberation/appreciation vs sexual objectification, it probably comes down to how deep a character is, i think most people are fine with Bayonetta for being empowered so it probably should be judged on a case by case basis, i also don't hold developers up to a standard of creating something so complex absolutely perfectly, cutting some story content could be the difference between basic sexy content or something with meaning. Again i want everyone to be able to make anything they want, and if it deserves criticism it should come afterward and not by rules preventing you from even trying.

And if we have that conversation, we should also talk about why an 18 rated video game can't have sexy characters in it when Nicki Minaj is allowed to gyrate on tv in front of your children while singing about genitals.

I don't need sexy woman in all my games the same way I don't need Gears hulks in all my games. There's room for everyone. Jedi Survivor got some big ol' ginger representation.

Its funny looking at the mod scene. the 2nd most popular mod on Nexus for Horizon ZD is explicit outfits. "She's not even hawt, but ya I wanna see her naked!" You can imagine what most popular mods are for FF7 Remake too. Even sexy isn't enough for some people. The AI scene is looking pretty nuts right now in that respect. You can find entire galleries of mega hardcore stuff featuring an almost perfect looking Scarlett Johannson. I don't know if there is anything illegal about it but it makes me feel uncomfortable knowing that there was certainly no consent given.

As for Stellar Blade, I agree that what its doing is fine. I think I enjoyed it even more simply because it ended up being a lot more than I anticipated despite what Nikke is. Still not a day one though. I think ya'll covered the rest pretty well.

@cikame: This is probably an answer to somebody's request, but not mine. Is this game being censored? Is censorship being called for by any major outlets or journalists or industry people? Is anyone saying that this game shouldn't exist? Because I see a lot either alluding to this idea or saying it is outright happening, but I've yet to see the proof. I'm not saying you or others are lying, but it doesn't seem to be easy to find evidence despite how rampant people are claiming it is. Hence, why I'm asking for examples. It should be BEYOND EASY with how people are talking (yourself included).

Linking to MS business practices and goals seems....silly to say the least.

I mean this is Hyung Tae Kim I know their work im one of the 12 people who played Magna Carta so people act like this is some response to the current state of games but he’s Just Like This.

@sethmode: Censorship is a real loosey goosey term in this context sometimes. Tifa getting a sports bra is censorship to some of these folks.

@cikame: "And if we have that conversation, we should also talk about why an 18 rated video game can't have sexy characters in it when Nicki Minaj is allowed to gyrate on tv in front of your children while singing about genitals."

What?

I enjoyed the demo. Going to fire it up in a bit to mess around with some of the gear for the boss challenge, maybe see how story mode is (do worry it may get a bit hard for me as I'm not great at parrying). But I I liked it enough to go ahead and preorder as I'm in the mood for an action game.

Character design arguments around the net I'm pretty meh on. I like sexualized designs, but they aren't a must or anything for me of course. To me there's plenty of variety in games these days with sexualized and non-sexualized designs.

So I'm not very supportive of those thinking games like this shouldn't exist, but also don't think there's been some drought of attractive female characters dressed provocatively either. Just this year there's been FF7 Rebirth with characters like Tifa and Scarlett, Tekken 8, Unicorn Overlord etc.

End of the day, variety is a good thing and people should just play what they like and not play what they don't. This isn't ages ago when pretty much every female character was heavily sexualized. Plenty of games out there like Returnal, Horizon, The Last of Us etc. with non-sexualized characters. Having those doesn't mean games with heavily sexualized characters shouldn't exist. Again, variety is a good thing.

I've now played the demo and I am super on the fence on whether to buy at full price or wait. On the one hand I did like it and I'm kind of very in the mood for a game like it. On the other hand it feels like the price might drop relatively fast. I might pull the trigger just because it really feels like it's firing on the cylinders I want at the moment.

I suspect that in a few months this will be $40 and everyone will have found a different fake thing to yell about and I’ll load this up and have a fine time.

I have a PC :D, i'm glad the game turned out good i'm kinda desperate for things to look forward to.

But for now, back to PS1 games.

The Nier Automata comparisons will be complete once this game runs its course. You'll have the loud, vocal, minority crying about Eve, like those people were crying about 2B, while the rest are just having a good time playing a decent character action game.

But I also think this is more like a "wait for the price to drop" game for me. And I don't think it will take that long for it to happen. I'd say during the Summer, easily.

Apparently Stellar Blade, the savior from the tyranny of woke games, has betrayed the faithful and fallen by way of adding a nearly imperceptible amount of cloth to Eve's sexy leotard.

I love video games.

@efesell: This is almost as bad as when the puddles in Spider-Man got nerfed.

I don't understand people who care this much about tiny details in video games, let alone worry that their video game characters aren't sexy enough.

Eve isn't sexy at all anyway. Her proportions are cartoonish and her personality is a literal blank. If you are outraged because a fictional depressed alien-looking lady is not wearing sexy enough clothes then you are outraged about the wrong things.

@bigsocrates: I feel like the simple answer is that they don't *actually* care, they just need to feel like they're a part of some righteous fury movement. If it wasn't this that they were pissed about, it'd be something else just as stupid and imperceptible.

@sethmode: I think they DO care but not about the outfits. I think that ultimately this is a battle about who gets "heard" and catered to. Some people are very offended that their particular tastes are not the only tastes that matter (anymore) and that other voices might get heard. But they don't exactly want to say it that way.

@bigsocrates: I still find it fascinating that in all of these Gamergate-style culture wars, the side opposing real-or-imagined changes is almost always convinced that A) they speak for the silent majority of gamers, who are (without evidence) assumed to be straight men with similar tastes that support the status quo state of gaming, and B) that all of these changes are being forced upon the industry by a small group of ideologically-driven outsiders (or the corporations bowing to these outsiders).

Just wild that they can’t entertain the thought that any of the changes are genuine or spring up from within game developers themselves.

Then also, in this specific case, that the devs may have just erred on the side of caution and settled on a final version of the outfits that would dodge an Adult-Only rating in any and all territories.

@bisonhero: This kinda reminds me of those guys who tried to sue a studio that made a movie with Ana de Armas in the promo material and then cut her role. Just that same kinda energy. But just like this suit hullabaloo, people knew about it before the actual release so they had expectations, which of course they aren't going to let go of. Its really just hilarious watching all these Stellar Blade Stans immediately turn on Shift up the second a tiny piece of fabric emerges. So much for their savior.

These Stellar Blade weirdos/chuds realize that South Korea as a country has some of the strongest anti-porn laws in the world, right? They know it's not coming from a place of absolute freedom, riiiiiiiight?

@zombiepie: Honestly, I don't even know how many of these people are aware that the game is being made in South Korea. Or if they are they just think that's good because it's a patriarchal culture with "traditional" values (i.e. they think it's still okay to openly objectify women there without any attempt to recognize them as human, and to make media that's explicitly for the male gaze and consumption without trying to also appeal to women.)

With all of this said, maybe the funniest thing about all of this, is how ineffective it is. If you look on Metacritic, the game is received well by both critics and users. The game is actually higher rated among the users. There isn't a lot of review bombing going on, because people are pissed Eve isn't showing more skin in her outfits. So clearly the complaints are coming from a small, but loud minority. I also don't think overall sales will be affected by the so-called censorship.

Like I said before, I don't care either way, as long as the game itself is good. I'm someone who played some of the latest Onechanbara games. They were decent B level character action games and a good time waster.

If anyone thinks these people aren't serious, I'd invite you to the Mortal Kombat subreddit. I've enjoyed following it for years because I get to see what silliness the DLC characters can get up to as well as the absurd combos the best players come up with...

Unfortunately, a not insignificant portion of posts also consist of comparing how much more clothing the female characters are wearing compared to "the good old days", to the point of absurdity. I'm attracted to women, and I'm not against artistic portrayals of total babes, but I wouldn't be offended if Tifa wound up in a business suit. More, or back to, the point, it's comical that whatever Kitana is wearing would/should affect how enjoyable her moveset is.

I'm excited to dig into this game in a month or so, but I gotta admit Horny Gamers have tangibly, negatively influenced my decision to wait and see...despite by all accounts the game itself rejecting those clowns as readily as myself.

@nodima:I will go further than you. I have been a horny gamer. I not only bought but played Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball, and while it did, in fact, play a good game of Volleyball that wasn't the only reason I played it. IT WASN';T THE ONLY REASON.

I have also played as Ivy in Soul Calibur, and not just because she is masher friendly. There were other reasons. I PLAYED AS IVY AND I SET UP IVY IVY MIRROR MATCHES.

I have sinned with the photo mode in multiple games.

But while I have been a horny gamer, what I have not done is demand that developers develop to my specific horny gamer needs. A lot of people have been horny gamers. There are horny women gamers, as we know from numerous visual novels that cater to them. There's nothing wrong with being a horny gamer.

What's wrong is throwing a fit when your minutest whim is not catered to.

If you want to be horny be horny. We all know that a lot of game characters are designed to inspire horniness. There's a reason that Dante from Devil May Cry never wears a shirt under his coat. But to make a huge deal over every costume change and to act like this is an important moral stance is just...cringe. Well not just cringe. Also deeply misogynistic and dangerous, as Gamergate showed.