Stellar Blade | NG+ Patch Details

[Dragon Lord]

Just played the demo for a while and oh. my. GOD.

This game is going to be absolutely glorious. The combat is great, the visuals are great, Eve's assets are great, the music is GREAT. Everything in this demo feels so damn good. This is going to be another legendary god-like game on the levels of NieR Automata.

Also, the reason why the music sound so similar is because the composer who did Automata's music owns a music company and that company did the music for Stellar Blade. While he himself was not involved in the project, obviously the quality of work is going to be similar since its his company running on his standards (which are obviously very high and amazing).

I tried to re-create the issue with debris in the water making the camera get stuck and I couldn't do it. Not sure what happened in your case (perhaps just a random glitch?). No matter how hard I tried to get the camera stuck on something, it just wouldn't happen.

The dodging in this game feels very, very tight. Reminds me a LOT of Lies of P dodging where you have to be pretty precise in the timing, otherwise you're going to eat the hit.

Parrying also seems to be pretty tight, but I did see in the skill tree that there's an upgrade to make it easier, so we'll have to see how much that effects it. Doesn't feel quite as punishing as Lies of P parrying though. The window for Stellar Blade seems bigger than that, though still much smaller than Souls games.

I can see where this game has a lot of Souls inspiration though. Combat is definitely more Automata feeling, but the camps and enemies reviving after resting are obviously Souls-like. Parrying would probably be considered something Souls-like for the game, although a lot of enemies require multiple parries to be able to riposte in this game, rather than getting to riposte after each parry.

The very little I've played of the demo has left such a good taste in my mouth though. I really do think this game is going to blow people away. Korean devs have been absolutely cooking lately. They've gone from only being known for gacha games and pay2win PvP MMOs to coming out with one of the best games of 2023 (Lies of P) and soon coming out with what is definitely going to be a top 3 game for 2024. Hopefully this is an upward trend that continues for years to come.

[Moonface]

I tried to re-create the issue with debris in the water making the camera get stuck and I couldn't do it. Not sure what happened in your case (perhaps just a random glitch?). No matter how hard I tried to get the camera stuck on something, it just wouldn't happen.

Hmm, maybe I was just having some bad luck there. I stopped playing the demo right by that rest spot so maybe I'll go back into that water and see if the issue happens again or not.

Parrying also seems to be pretty tight, but I did see in the skill tree that there's an upgrade to make it easier, so we'll have to see how much that effects it. Doesn't feel quite as punishing as Lies of P parrying though. The window for Stellar Blade seems bigger than that, though still much smaller than Souls games.

The parry window feels wider than it did in LoP even without the upgrade for me, but I'm almost at enough SP to get the bigger parry window so I'll see how it feels once I get that upgrade. I was annoyingly at 99% SP when I got to the second rest stop so I need literally the bare minimum to get another SP.

I can see where this game has a lot of Souls inspiration though. Combat is definitely more Automata feeling, but the camps and enemies reviving after resting are obviously Souls-like. Parrying would probably be considered something Souls-like for the game, although a lot of enemies require multiple parries to be able to riposte in this game, rather than getting to riposte after each parry.

Yeah, it reminds me of Sekiro or LoP where you have to parry an enemy multiple times to trigger a stagger. I do like that in this game it shows you how many times an enemy needs to be parried to become staggered.

The very little I've played of the demo has left such a good taste in my mouth though. I really do think this game is going to blow people away. Korean devs have been absolutely cooking lately. They've gone from only being known for gacha games and pay2win PvP MMOs to coming out with one of the best games of 2023 (Lies of P) and soon coming out with what is definitely going to be a top 3 game for 2024. Hopefully this is an upward trend that continues for years to come.

Yeah, it's really impressive to see multiple Korean developers putting out games that can hang with the top of their respective genres despite being their first home console entries as well as first entries into the genres too. Hopefully it means we see more developers following that trend and none of them using this blooming positive reputation/trend for the wrong reasons like western AAA developers have done when they jump on a bandwagon.


Seeing someone playing the demo on a stream right now I forgot to mention the difficulty options at the start. I wonder if there's going to be more than just Story and Normal in the final game (even if harder difficulties are unlocked for a NG+ run)?

[Dragon Lord]

Finished the demo. I need this game to release already. Holy shit. I was already 100,000,000% sold on this game, but this demo has some how increased my hype for the game so much more. Those boss fights were FANTASTIC. The combat in this game is SO satisfying.

Also, the easier parry timing is indeed a significant increase. Made perfect parrying so much easier.

[Moonface]

I restarted the demo last night just to show it to @ShiraNoMai, and stopped again at the second rest point. The camera didn't give me as many issues in that one body of water as it did before; the only thing I do notice is if you don't dive fully right away the camera takes a moment to figure out it should go below the water to let you see yourself.

Also I won't be surprised to discover Tachy is somehow alive. I know we see her get her shit rocked and chopped but I never trust someone is truly dead if we don't see the body in the aftermath.

[Dragon Lord]

We do see her body lying on the ground during that scene of Adam racing in to save Eve. Though I agree that I don't think Tachy is actually going to be dead. There's no way they make her design look that good just to kill her off in the first five minutes of the game. Then again, that might not be the exact start of the game and we might have a few hours with Tachy before they kill her off, just so we can get attached to her only for them to rip her away from us.

Guess we'll find out in a month, haha.

[Moonface]

I'm sure the demo is the full opening, because it says you'll start the full game right before the boss fight the demo ends with I think. If she somehow doesn't make a return later in the story though then I'd wish we got to play as her to fight the alpha and then whether we lose or win the same cutscene we've already seen plays out.

If she hadn't lost her arm I'd probably be less inclined to think she survived somehow, but it seems to be a trend in games that if someone loses an arm they're magically protected from death no matter what happens to them in the immediate aftermath.

[ShiraNoMai]

The marketing for this game really didn't do it justice; it definitely sold it to an audience they knew they'd attract but I think it undersells it's greatest "assets" which is the gameplay.

Definitely reminds me of the Platinum Games-style action, a la Nier: Automata and Bayonetta, with the latter specifically coming to mind because of the perfect dodges and parrying. However, it does seem to retain more of a focused approach in combat, making it more precise and methodical allowing for input combos.

Anyway looks great. Glad it's not just BOOBA the game.

[Moonface]

Stellar Blade | EVE Character Trailer
Looks like we might be getting brief character trailers in the lead-up to the games release, with EVE being the first one.

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Nothing really new in it, but still neat to watch. I did try to find the Korean version but I haven't managed to locate one, so I get the feeling this marketing isn't being done worldwide.

Also I saw comments that there's an input delay on attacks of about 1/10th of a second that the developers have said will be addressed for the games launch. No idea if people found other issues with the demo but if so and the developers are planning to address those too then it sounds like this game will be getting tweaks and refinements post-launch in a similar way to Lies of P, which is comforting to know if that turns out to be the case.

[Moonface]

Stellar Blade | NG+ and Additional Costumes Coming Post Launch
In a recent interview, game director Kim Hyung has said that Stellar Blade will be receiving a NG+ mode and additional costumes as free updates after the games release. There will also be no microtransactions added to the game except for costume collaborations with another company's IP.

We want to make it clear at this point that Stellar Blade will not require any additional expenses that gamers are not aware of beyond what they paid for the package. The only exception is if we create collaboration costumes with another company's IP, those may be sold for a fee. Also, there is no New Game+ in the launch version, so please look forward to it being updated very soon.

Source: https://bbs.ruliweb.com/news/read/195030

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I'm hoping that the game lacking NG+ at launch means all the trophies can be obtained in a single playthrough. I don't really want to have to restart the game from scratch to get the Platinum unless I want to wait for whenever NG+ drops. I also hope that NG+ coming later means they'll be doing some interesting stuff with it and maybe something good enough to go back and replay the game if I've done everything in it by the time that update comes around.

Not too sure why they'd bother with costume collaborations though. I feel like most players wouldn't care to buy those by the time such things would be added to the game due to moving onto other things by that point.

[Dragon Lord]

Stellar Blade Developer Shift Up confirms that the game will be uncensored worldwide.

Amongst fears of Sony's censorship history and the cries over Eve being too sexy from Western game "journalists" (IGN KEKW) and Twitter freaks, Shift Up has come out and laughed in the face of them all by confirming that no region will have any censorship in the game, and everyone will get to enjoy the glorious Eve in all of her wonderful beauty.

Just when you thought these guys couldn't get any more godly than they already are, they ascend even higher by delivering a huge middle finger to all of the whiny bitches on Twitter/IGN, letting them know that nothing will stop the storm that is Stellar Blade.

Shift Up and Stellar Blade deserve all of the support in the world. I was considering if I wanted to buy digitally for all of the bonus goods or physically because that's what I prefer, but with this latest showing of being absolutely based (as the kids would say), I will now be doing both. Take my money you glorious bastards.

[Moonface]

I believe the non-censorship announcement was actually due to Japan's CERO rating board surprisingly not taking issue with the amount of gore in the game, even though other games with similar or even less levels of gore have had to either censor the gore or only offer the game digitally. That was why the developers specifically pointed out that even Japan is getting the uncensored version, because that market was expected to censor the gore present in the game. Understandably, developers who had their games censored in Japan over gore are now questioning CERO over the ratings given to their games for gore that this game has somehow not been censored over.

For me the latter is what I hold more interest in because of how much it brings CERO's ratings into question. I don't want to see Stellar Blade censored because other games with gore got censored too; I would rather CERO actually re-evaluate ratings they've given to recent games that had to add censorship or limit their distribution models.

[Dragon Lord]

I know one of the big ones being questioned in Dead Space, but as far as I know (I've never actually played Dead Space, so correct me if I'm wrong), the gore in that game is pretty brutal compared to what you might find in Stellar Blade, no?

There were a lot of people hoping that Sony would come in with their censorship on Eve so they could rub it in the faces of the fans of the game enjoying her design, so while the dev coming out and stating no censorship may have been more for the CERO rating issue, it's still nice to know that those people are also getting denied what they wanted so very much to happen). It's also a nice sign that perhaps Sony is finally easing off the censorship button a little bit. Of course we'll have to wait for a game with a more anime aesthetic with fanservice to come out first before we can know for sure if Sony is backing off, but this is definitely a promising sign (Shift Up should try to get NIKKE on PlayStation to test it out KEKW).

[Moonface]

I would say Dead Space Remake probably does have more gore than Stellar Blade, but I think CERO broke down what they had issue with rather than just saying "too much gore" and things like blood and dismemberment were things that came up, which are both seen in the opening of this game. I don't know if when CERO applies censorship to a game if they just request all gore out or only certain aspects of it; if the latter then it does present the question why blood and dismemberment had to come out of DSR but remain in SB.

I'm trying to think of recent games that aren't viewed as inherently gory (i.e. Dark Souls) but feature gore that wasn't allowed in Japan. Resident Evil 7, 8, and 4 Remake would probably be good candidates to see if they had to censor the gore in those games because I can't even think of anything those games contain that's worse than this game.

[Moonface]

Stellar Blade | NG+ Patch Details
The PlayStation Blog has shared the full details of what players can expect from New Game Plus, which will be available tomorrow alongside the launch of the game via a patch.

Expanded Wardrobe
34 new outfits for Eve can be earned in New Game Plus, including five accessories, and two cosmetics each for Adam, Lily, and the Drone. These new items can be found by re-opening chests where you obtained costumes in your first playthrough or revisiting shops that sell them.

Level Expansions for Eve’s Gear
In addition to continuing your progression, you’ll be able to collect Cores to power up Eve’s weapons, HP, and Beta Energy further than what is obtainable in the base game. Additionally, your Tumbler can be enhanced to increase the amount of HP it heals at once, and upgrading your Drone can increase the power of its ranged attacks.

Level expansions for Weapon, Body Core, Beta Core and Tumbler:

• Weapon – 15 -> 40
  
• Body – 6 -> 9
  
• Beta – 6 -> 9
  
• Tumbler – 5 -> 13
  
• Remaining cores can be sold at SP0-tt2r’s shop to acquire Vitcoin, which can be used to purchase new costume items.
  

Cores can still be earned even after completing all additional upgrades, and can be sold to earn SP0-tt2r to purchase new costumes.

New Skills
You’ll be able to earn Infinite skills that are enhancements to existing Beta Skills. Not only can Beta Skills be enhanced, but Burst Skills as well, so be sure to defeat the enemies and earn SP (Skill Points) to unlock them all.

• 4 new Beta skill moves
  
• 8 new skills to enhance Beta/Burst skills
  
• 5 new Drone skills
  

Some examples of what players can expect for Infinite Skills include:

• Infinite Pierce, an enhancement to Quadruplet, lets you unleash a devastating blow to enemies.
  
• Infinite Breaker can shred enemy shields.
  

Other New Game Plus Changes
Here are other features players can expect from New Game Plus that don't warrant their own dedicated section:

• Eve’s gears and Exospine will also receive new enhancements. These Mk2 enhancements to existing gear will allow players to personalize their approach to the game.
  
• Enemies on harder difficulties are stronger.
  
• Enemies may also be repositioned in New Game Plus, so keep your guard up!
  

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I really like the enemies not just being harder but also moved around too. It'd be cool if they build on that down the road with a mode that randomizes enemy spawns per run (I think Lords of the Fallen just had an update that does this or something sorta like it) so you can be kept on your toes even after doing a NG+ run. I'm also happy this is coming alongside the game launch and not later on like what happens with a lot of first party Sony games nowadays.

I did want to buy the game tomorrow but I'm going to force myself to wait until after I finish my last final project due on Monday so that I'm not distracted and can also use it as a reward for myself.

[ShiraNoMai]

Definitely looking forward to watching this be played. It definitely looks like a great watch.