[Thoughts] Stellar Blade Demo

Excitement levels have risen!

Recently, a demo released for Stellar Blade on the PlayStation store. It covers the opening moments of the game up until the first boss fight. I have now played this demo multiple times and with this, I now have some thoughts about the game.

~ Gameplay ~

I want to start this off by saying I am not really much of a fan of souls like games as they are a bit slow paced for me. Stellar Blade is not like that at all though. While it may have many traits from those games, it feels quite fast and fluid like an action RPG game to me. This is even more so the case when EVE has more abilities unlocked, which can be previewed in the boss challenge mode. The opening level was interconnected well and had several branching paths for you to explore. You get rewarded quite decently for exploration actually, so its a good idea to do it. The gameplay isn't just combat and exploration though, in the demo there are other things such as platforming sections as well. I have no doubt there will be even more to the gameplay in the full game. 

~ Narrative ~

I can't say too much about this at the moment as we haven't really seen or found out too much. I do like the premise of the story though and feel there is lots of room for growth. I definitely want to find out more about the world and these monsters that are named Naytibas. Just in the opening sequence there are already some hard hitting and epic moments, so I can't imagine how crazy it's going to get later on in the game. It seems like they have set up some things for the story already in the opening sequence of the game, and I am interested to find out where it goes. I will also mention that there are little sprinkles of narrative spread throughout the demo in the form of files, which you can pick up. It's always nice to get little extra pieces of lore like this.

~ Visuals/Sound ~

The game looks stunning. I played on the performance setting but it still manged to look really good, while playing amazingly. Cutscenes are beautifully animated and are really smooth. They also transition to gameplay really well. The environments are loaded with details. You really get the sense of human life once living there. The sound in the demo is, no pun intended, stellar. From the music tracks to the sound effects it's all really good. In fact I have listened to several of the tracks from the demo many times. There is a great range of calmer music and super intense action music. I also love how the game uses dynamic music, thats always a plus. 

~ Closing Thoughts ~

I really cannot wait for this game to release now. I wasn't sure how much I would like the gameplay but I have been pleasantly surprised by it. April 26th can't come sooner. If you haven't tried this demo for yourself I would highly recommend you do.

That's it for this blog, stay connected!