It has been about a month since my last gaming round up. I continue to game hop maybe a bit too much, but there are just so many cool games to enjoy right now that it’s hard not to. Outside of shorter indie games and the upcoming Hellblade 2, there aren’t many big releases that I’m all that interested in over the next few months, so hopefully I will actually have some time to clear out games I’ve missed so far as the summer goes along. With that, here are some thoughts on what I have been playing!
Stellar Blade
I’m currently wrapping up some side quests from the first big open world area in the game, and I’d say I’m about a third of the way through as a whole. This is the first AAA game from Shift Up, a South Korean studio that was mostly famous for a mobile game before this. I’m at times really impressed with Stellar Blade, especially within the context of realizing that this is a “rookie” studio when it comes to big budget titles. But I also see plenty of things that could be better, which is probably inevitable when any studio makes a leap like this.
The core of Stellar Blade is the combat, and luckily, this is also the biggest strength of the game. While it is a touch slow for my liking, the game has some great animations, an ok amount of variety with what you can do, and maybe most importantly, a very satisfying parry mechanic. From the second I picked up the game, I was able to start parrying enemies pretty effectively, and it always feels excellent. If you hit enough parries, you are rewarded with a critical hit animation that generally finishes off any basic enemy, and that does a good amount of damage to any boss. It can be pretty fun to parry an enemy a few times, land one of your big skills, then even switch to a gun and get a couple of shots off with that as well. The boss fights aren’t overly hard so far, but they are mostly well done, and have me on my toes with parrying, so I have also enjoyed utilizing all these elements to fight them, too.
While it’s not bad as it is, I do wish that I had a few more options in combat to string some longer natural looking combos together when I have openings. The dodge is also really rough early on, and doesn’t allow you to get any distance from your enemies outside of doing a perfectly timed dodge (which essentially works like a parry, but doesn’t feel quite as good to me). I have now unlocked a double dodge, which still doesn’t feel as smooth as a game like Rise of the Ronin, but at least alleviates a few of my concerns. In the end, Stellar Blade is at its best for me when I focus more on its parrying elements. It’s just the strongest part of combat by far for me.
The combat is also aided by some impressive visuals from a fidelity perspective. Character models and animations look great, and environments look pretty realistic. I will say that the areas are pretty generic and boring, for as technically sound as they are. So far, I’ve mostly seen a very standard looking post-apocalyptic city and a wasteland, which, well, didn’t have much going on as you might expect. The game does at least have some more exciting stuff when it comes to its costumes. There are costumes for both the main character, Eve, and her sidekicks. There are plenty of more provocative outfits for those who want that, and some fun/casual ones too. I am notorious for just sticking with the opening outfit in most games. I barely ever switched my costume in last year’s Spiderman 2, but I do actually find myself changing up outfits and even the hair for Eve here, so they did a nice job in that regard.
Unfortunately, they didn’t do as good of a job with Eve as an actual character. I’ve just found next to no reason to care about her, or really any of the cast thus far. Slightly awkward dialogue and somewhat shaky voice acting haven’t helped there at all. The side quests are equally boring, outside of the few that let you fight bosses. I’ve been clearing most of them so far, but I am getting close to abandoning them and sticking more to the main quest.
My early rating of Stellar Blade would probably be a 7.5 or an 8, and I’m deep enough in where I really doubt the game goes any higher than that for me. When it comes to combat, I vibe much more with Rise of the Ronin from earlier this year, which is a lot faster-paced and gives you way more options in combat. But this is a really good first crack from Shift Up, and I have faith that if they take what they learned from this, a sequel could really go to the heights that I think this game wanted to reach.
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
I’ve been wanting to try Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice out for a long time. But a game centered around psychosis and mental health combined with an extremely dark atmosphere always made it a hard one to get excited to jump into. I tried once a few years ago, but I just wasn’t in the right mental state to enjoy it. Finally, with the sequel on the way, it was time to just suck it up and really go for it. And so far, I am mostly glad I have. While this wasn’t a rookie effort from Ninja Theory, it was something very different. I see a lot of potential here, and playing this has made me very excited to finish it and jump into Hellblade 2 later this week.
I’d say I’m about halfway through the game so far. The biggest standout is definitely the production values in literally every facet. Despite being released 7 years ago, Hellblade would still hold up to most games if it was released today.
The character models, animations, and environments all look top-notch. The sound design is also excellent, and maybe most importantly of all, the voice acting is about as good as it gets. Chipo Chung as the narrator is constantly blowing me away with her slightly creepy and foreboding delivery. She is the early highlight for me, and I’m kind of surprised she didn’t at least get a nomination at the Game Awards for her work that year. Melina Juergens as Senua actually won the best performance award in 2017, and I would also say that she is excellent. Some of her lines where she literally looks at the screen and talks to you are so off-putting that I honestly get a bit uncomfortable. Hellblade is masterful when it comes to creating a compelling and eerie atmosphere.
The voice acting and atmosphere helped me get through the early parts of the game, where I just didn’t feel like I was given any real reason to care about Senua or her quest. The game has now slowly started to reveal more about Senua, and I am starting to feel more and more invested. She is starting to be a pretty compelling character that I feel a lot of sympathy for.
Unfortunately, the gameplay is a bit more of a mixed bag, though luckily, it is kind of a secondary element of the game. There are two types of gameplay in the game, the combat, and navigation. I’ve seen some people really shit on Hellblade’s combat, but personally, I would say it is fine. It is incredibly basic, with only a few different attacks, one slow motion power up, and the parry. Luckily, the combat sections are usually quick and painless. The game does make good use of its production values to make combat feel very visceral and cinematic, though. And I think the parry feels great. There isn’t enough there for me to say that it’s good, but it isn’t bad. The building blocks are here for Hellblade 2 to potentially have excellent combat at the very least.
I have fewer positive things to say about the navigation. Most of the navigation so far comes down to navigation puzzles, where you have to search the environment for certain shapes and zoom in on them. The game has little markers that tell you if you are in the right place to help guide you, but these are all incredibly boring and, at times, a bit frustrating. There is nothing about these that really get your brain going. They are just mindless “look around” exercises, and I’d say they were not needed in the game at all. It has gotten to the point where whenever one of these areas pops up, I’m starting to dread it. To me, these are by far the biggest flaw in the game.
I feel like the story is about to really ramp up, so I am pumped to finish up Hellblade over the next few days and then move on to the sequel. While I’d probably give Hellblade a 7.5 or 8 right now, I see the potential to give it as much as an 8.5 if the story really delivers. And I actually see enough good elements here to now think that Hellblade 2 could be something like a 9.5/10 for me. We have a long way to go before I actually give out these numbers, but I am feeling very glad that I jumped back into this game, and if you’ve been on the fence, I would say it is worth a shot before playing the sequel.
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Update: I played a few more hours of the game after writing this, and things certainly do end up ramping up. It seems like the entire game levels up once you get to the halfway point. They start introducing increasingly intense and disturbing set pieces, the art direction goes up multiple levels, and the writing and voice acting are the best that they’ve been. I’m starting to understand how this game has a bit of a cult fanbase. My final thoughts will likely end up being a mini-review at some point, but right now, I think I would go ahead and give the game the 8.5 I thought it could reach. And now I’m wondering if it could end up being a 9 to me. This has been such a pleasant surprise, and now I absolutely can’t wait to play Hellblade 2.
Unicorn Overlord
Yes, I am still playing Unicorn Overlord. Thanks to a bit of downtime on some trips, I have suddenly made more progress than I have in a long time, and I am starting to finally see the finish line. I’m about ¾ through the game now after about 45 hours of play time. I am not going to write much here, as my opinions have mostly not changed. You can see my past thoughts here and here. But I do want to add that between getting to the 4th of 5 continents and adjusting the difficulty up to tactical, things have now truly heated up in this game. I’ve been shocked at how quick the levels of enemies are starting to increase, and I’ve finally started making hard decisions with units that I had been putting off, oftentimes out of necessity. I’ve started drastically overhauling tactics and formations for several units. I’ve also started to grind for more “honors”, which allows me to promote units and expand formations. Luckily, this grinding mostly involves making simple deliveries of various materials I’ve picked up on the world map, which is next to no effort, especially with the easy fast travel in the game.
My full review will be coming next month, I imagine, but with this added difficulty, I am enjoying the combat on an even higher level now. There is legitimate stress, and I find myself making tough decisions regarding using items that I hadn’t done up to this point, as I’m actually pretty low on cash most of the time now.
I would say that I like strategy RPGs, but I do not usually love them. I have not finished any strategy RPG I have picked up in recent years. But there is no way that I will not finish Unicorn Overlord. If you are even kind of on the fence with this game, I’d say it is worth a go. Every bad thing I have to say about the gameplay is incredibly nitpicky. And yes, the story isn’t great, but there are still some cool moments tucked in there, and this genre isn’t exactly full of great stories either. I’m actually getting sad that I am almost done with the game because it has literally been my go-to on the switch for months, and I’ve never gotten tired of it. What an excellent video game, and I truly hope it gets some deserved accolades at year-end awards.
Big Nerd Gaming 
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