837: REVENGEANCE (Stellar Blade Review w/ Imran Khan)

Hey, everybody, It's Friday. Welcome to BombCast Revengeance powered by NZXT.
It is April twenty six, twenty twenty four. And that's right. We're
back in the kitchen. We're eating things up because in my apartment, things
are exploding. Manifolds are manifesting disasters or trying to prevent disasters. Drywall is
drying, paint is also drying. And Scout and I or hang out in
the kitchen studio yet again. I'm Jaana choa host BombCast, joining me as
always co captain of the ship. He's communicating to me via tiny robot that
will eventually evolve over time. Jeff Grubb awdy, Can I guess what a
manifold is? I your guests would be as good as mine. I think
it's like a kind of flapper that like like if something flows in one direction,
it lets it through, and it goes in the other direction, it
stops it. But if there's so much weight is on top of it stops
it. That's my guest. That's a manifold that sounds right to me.
Uh banging away in his little space pod until we discover him and then befriend
him and he joins the Gang, Seawn Turboshaan McDowell. Uh, taking one
year of engineering courses in the one year of college. I did that sounds
right As far as I was not sure what you were going to say there,
I was very scared and confused, just like Stellar Blade makes me feel.
But I want to know how Stellar Blade makes our special guest feel.
Im Ron Khan joining the pod today. I think Manifold is a video game
where a bunch of illusions happen when it's in a fresh person. I like
it. Yeah, I like it. That makes sense to me. I'm
glad none of us made like a man i fold joke, but that's not
having mic on this episode. That's right? Should we should we do it
again? Should we? Should we just like reintro the pods so we can
do that. Yeah? Yeah, gentlemen, uh grub, thank you so
much for for producing the pod today. Because problem my pleasure is not on
fire. It turns out I was under the assumption poop pipes were flooded.
It turns out my neighbor's water just wouldn't stop watering. And then yeah,
yeah, and then the plumber that they got to fix it on Tuesday,
wasn't uh the landlord. Yeah, yeah, the landlords were not confident that
he fully solved the problem because he walked away from the situation going like yeah,
yeah, yeah, no, no, no, it's good, it's
good. It's good. It's good. It's good. It's good, it's
good. It's good. Yeah. And then when do you get to go
back to your house? Janned, I don't know. Okay. I got
an email from the leasing office thing like, yo, dog, it uh
does not look the best right now. Maybe you'll be able to go home
later. I'm like, okay, cool, I'm glad all the plumbing is
happening in my office with all of the expensive computer gear. So yeah,
it's great. I packed my bags and went back to the kitchen. I
do have a sump pump right here, and I like it always, just
like I can hear it pumping water back up out of the basement. The
basement's like pretty waterproof. But I'm like, I gotta remember to check this
thing someday because if it breaks, then all this computer stuff is fucked.
So yeah, I'm I'm I'm like looking at what you're dealing with and seeing
my future, and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna stay away from that.
If I can just just buy like three different versions of a manifold,
brub I think that'll okay. Yes, I'm gonna I'm gonna triple manifold,
Yes, triple manaji fold. Manifold was like an umbrella. I'd be like,
yeah, that sounds right. Yeah, sure, Like if you asked
me to identify a manifold in like a police lineup. And I swear to
God that I heard the word manifold when my landlord was talking about it.
I don't think I could pick it up from like pipe other pipes. That's
a sorry nuts. But the worst part is not uh being semi unhoused for
a little bit. It is my landlords and these maintenance folks, lovely folks,
dirty jobs. I appreciate them and what they contribute to society. Uh
not. The landlord part is them coming into the office and then seeing like,
oh, well you got so many screens, Oh June, you go
to a microphone in here? What are you? Are you streaming? Are
you a streamer? And then having do the dance of like ah no,
yes, yes, that is what it's like. Yes, It's like when
Dango said the barbershop is mister mister beasts in here, and then you know,
they just see all these all my cables everywhere, and then I have
to describe to them, and then they're like, hey, like what's it
like reviewing a game? And then I have to tell them about like have
you ever like looked into a void? And people are just angry about butts
in vagina, bones in the void And they were like, no, that
sounds like sucks. So that's why we're already talking about Stellar Blade. Am
con. You reviewed the game for GameSpot dot com, and I believe you
gave it in eight out of ten, right, a score that by GameSpot's
own like spectrum is great. You really the word great? Yes, yeah,
I am ad Mentally, I have not completed the game yet. I
am about like seven or so hours in. I think I am on the
way to saying that this game is also great. Yeah. It is a
actually very fun video game that does most things right, and the things that
does not do right it like they're wrong in a way. That's like,
okay, so you're just you just wait, this part go on a little
too long. That's that's what you did wrong here, is that you made
this fun activity require like unlocking four doors, which it really what you need
to unlock one. Yeah, but otherwise it's good. It's good, it's
good. I enjoy playing that game. It just you know, there are
a couple of foibles with it. Character Action Expert Sean, how far are
you in the game and how have you been enjoying your time with it?
So I got the game a little bit later, so I was, you
know, run up against the clock here, But combined with the fact that
I did do a little side questing because there are you know, there's side
QUESTI stuff, there's Hub world elements to it. I did do a little
bit of that. But I did finish the main story last night. So
I can't talk about the entire game its entirety without spoilers. But reading Imron's
review, which hey everybody should oh regamespot dot com, I agree with a
lot of the points they brought up, and also agree with the score.
You know, we don't formally put review scores on stuff here at Giant Bomb,
but I always like to throw a number out there so people will get
a vibe check. And I would also say that yeah, on a ten
point scale, is an eight. I do think it's a great game with
some pretty noticeable rough edges. Is how I keep referring to it. It's
a game where I think it's the rare instance for me where my critical opinion
does differ from I don't do a separate personal score any think, but just
my level of enjoyment of it. I do think this is an eight out
of ten, but such a solid eight out of ten. That is exactly
what I was looking for out of this game, and I think I'm just
really looking forward to where they could go from here with this. It's a
very solid foundation that I had a lot of fun playing. Greb. You
checked the Stellar Blade out for us on UPF a couple of weeks ago during
the demo period, and I think you've had some time to check it out
as well, right, Yeah, Well I've played a little bit more.
Yeah, And I think what I noticed first is that I am pretty happy
with how the timing works for the peries, the dodges. It's something when
I was I was streaming, it was like a little off, and it's
like once I was playing on the TV and game mode and all that stuff,
it's like, oh, I think they dial the stuff in and the
like. There're's a little bit of a backlash to like this animation priority for
some of the like the the Perry window, where it's like, if you
hit the perry it takes a half second for the animation to load, but
the window itself for the actual action is right there. I'm like, No,
that all feels pretty good to me when I'm playing it, so I
have very few complaints about what I was expecting from it, Yeah, which
is like I'm like, I'm going to go in and it seems to me
this first boss I'm going playing this feels pretty like a lot like Sekaro or
a Frumsoft game, and I'm playing it that way, and it's mostly meeting
me at those expectations. So I really appreciate that that it's like nailing that
stuff, and then like as I'm unlocking more, it's like, oh,
okay, there's this is trying to do kind of a bunch of different character
action things as well as the frum Soft stuff. It's like it's clearly inspired
by a ton of different games, and it's made by people who really like
those games, is how I would describe it, and I can that comes
through in the final action. Yeah. For me personally, I never quite
got the Secoro feeling because Eve just didn't seem super super agile despite the character
design. One of the weirdest double jumps in a game though, yeah,
the summrsault. That didn't quite give you enough elevation. But anyway, it
did feel more like it did leave me feeling like I wanted another Devil May
Cry game in like a Platinum joint like that, what your time with it,
what didn't work so far? Usually just what is it working? Is
that the stuff that is I look at this world, I'm like, it's
really well conceived in terms of style, but I can see pretty quickly through
it that it feels derivative and that is obvious across the board. For me
right away, I'm like, I'm not far enough in to be like,
well, maybe they do some more stuff with that. My expectations are that
they don't, and I think that's mostly okay because they, like Sean was
saying, this is what I'm expecting from this game, you can kind of
tell what they're going for, like, hey, they want to be like
near automata or automata, which which one is, right? Automat up?
Sure, Yeah, they say in the game Automata, so that's what I
always go with. So like, yeah, so I'm writing a book about
Near at the moment, and in the interviews i'm doing, the transitor is
pronounted different ways during the same interview, and I'm like, difficult for me,
But what was that first way they said it? Because then I think
they're like self editing. Okay, so maybe it is a who knows.
So either way, it's like I could tell this is made by a developer
that played that game, and like I think what show was saying about,
like the critical eye that like turns on be like, Okay, well that's
what they're doing here, and that's a little bit disappointing and it's not really
because that was my expectations. So yeah, nothing's really not working for me.
And again, like I'm really happy with how it feels in combat,
which was the most important thing for me when it came to Stellar Blade.
Yeah, the thing that ran through my head a lot, like because you
were saying it's a lot like Near that. Remember back when Deadly Premonition came
out and people ask Swarry like why did you rip off like twin peaks this
badly he's like, I've never seen twin Peaks. I have no idea you're
talking about. Then years later he's like, yeah, it was about twin
Peaks, Like that's what this thing was. When they were saying like,
oh, we were happy to be compared to the Automata even though it wasn't
intentional, then like a month later had an interview next to Tarro being like,
yeah, we this is completely like Near Automata. We really wanted to
be like that game. There are parts of this game where just like you're
in a desert just because two B was aid at one point and that's yeah,
like that's what this game is. Yes, I think it mostly just
like I love Near a fantastic game. I think sometimes those comparisons don't do
any favors. If I've just done its own thing a few more times,
it would have been better off for it. Yeah, I think the other
very like in combat though, I'm like, well this is more fun for
me, right that you nailed You're right that way. It is like they
that the combat it has more going, it is better. You see.
I always roll my eyes because of how much crap you give me over Near
Automa, But no I do think that is a better combat system. Like
the Automa does so many things amazingly well. Combat is the one where it's
one of Platinum's more basic outings overall, especially once you realize that you can
just hold down the pod fire butt and just get a constant stream of damage
on enemies. It's not the most satisfying all the time. So I see
why you might like something that is a little more deliberate like this. And
like I was saying when we were talking about the demo a couple of weeks
ago, after you had played that on UPF, I think everyone's gonna see
what they want to see because it is drawing from so many different places and
so many different places in the action game scene, and a lot of people
are saying souls sacero, tossing those terms around. I very much think that's
true for the early game. But it does end up being what I thought
it would be. It is very Devil May Cry, where it is a
more deliberate game, but very much character action. It's just the way you
spec out Eve will also influence everything I learned going forward. So it felt
solesy in the beginning, especially once you own't have a lot of movement options,
the bosses themselves. The pace of the boss fights changes as the game
goes on. They get faster as the game goes on and you get more
familiar with the systems. It ends up being very DMC, I would say,
especially somewhere in the middle, maybe like DMC three or four for a
lot of the game. But then by the end, especially once, you
can just straight up change Eve's attack speed, and that's what I end up
doing. I widened the Perry window, which, by the way, the
Day one patch they did widen the Perry and Dodge window system wide, so
everyone's gonna feel real little differently from how we felt it. Yeah, but
I put on something that widened the perier window and increased our tag speed.
So by the end of the game, I was straight up playing it lights
Melgear Rising with very fast paced, very just slash slash, slash, dodge,
slash slash slash dodge. It was super fast paced. By the time
I did the final boss fight last night, I was having so much fun.
As a big fan of Melgear Rising, I think that is one of
the cool things about this game is the way that you can you can affect
a lot of things about the combat specifically, the RPG elements are very light,
you know, they try to have them in there because it is again
so near inspiration wise, but I think it does end up feeling distinctly character
action, and yeah, I really love that about the game. There is
a not a final boss, but like a penultimate that is like it's the
classic character action fights your rifle kind of thing, and it is. It
did feel like should have be a second row, metal gear kind of revengeance
like kind of thing. It was very just stream Sam. Yeah, they
wanted to a character that was like you but turned twe eleven and I think
that just worked out extraordinarily well for that game. And I wish there were
just more of those bosses throughout the game. You fight that character like twice,
I think towards the end, and they could have spread that out a
bit more throughout the entire pacing of the game. Yeah, and along the
lines of that, I think that gets into the negatives of this game.
Is just anything related to the story. It's Yeah, it's so just derivative
is the word they're clearly drawing from near a lot but not quite understanding what
makes the storytelling in that game good. And that affects the plot, the
characters. Everything just feels, I would say, even unfortunately, just flat,
which is in some ways almost worse than being bad, because I kind
of just found myself a little bored with where they are going with some of
it, as the flat gamator is going to hate that. Oh yeah,
I know, I can't believe they censor it, but uh, everything about
that is just so average in the way that I could see everything coming a
mile away. And I found myself saying last night when they were wrapping up
some plot threads, oh, that's a plot twist. I thought we knew
that. I thought that that was just information that we were supposed to have.
While all the characters are reacting like, oh my god, that's what's
happening. I'm like they changed a couple of us in the word native and
act like the actual plot twist around it is really like mind blowing, Like
no, you signaled this a long long time ago. Actually, like you
also named two of the characters Adam and Eve. Where did you think I
would think this is going? Yeah, which is just it's I don't know,
it's not so egregious that ever distracted me though, because it is the
kind of game where you get, like, you know, a ten minutes
a series of cut scenes that you were walking between, but then you get
several hours of gameplay, so it never feels like it's completely dragging the experience
down. It's like this just whatever. If you just watch the sci Fi
channel on Saturday nights, if you would watch it like Saturday night anime stuff,
you're like, I don't know what, I've never heard of this movie,
but fine, Like that's basically what this is is a mid nineties anme
movie. Yeah, and that especially comes through when you context is very important.
I want to talk about a couple of things as quickly as we can,
but that interview that IGN did with the director of the game and Yoko
Taro is very enlightening because, first of all, it seems like they're kind
of just like pals now talking about, Oh, I love your game.
No, your game is better. I love your game. It's a great
read, I think. But also they talk about, yeah, this game
was clearly inspired by Automatas specifically, but also so all these different manga and
anime that we love growing up, and everything is drawing from so many different
sources. But as I also want to really quickly go over the studio itself
Shift Up. So this there's a lot of context here that I think is
gonna be relevant to some of the things I want to talk about. So
quick history lesson is that Shift Up. This is their first console game,
and that asterisk there is important console because they have done a couple of mobile
games before. I didn't even know about the first one. I just found
out about that recently. The one they're really known for is goss of Victory
Nike. This you may have seen gifts of it when it first came out
or heard me refer to it here on this show as the Giggly Anime Lady
game where they just write it's the gameplay actually is kind of fun. It's
a time crisis on your phone. It's like cover. Just the ladies just
shoot big guns because the guns are so big it makes their bodies to go,
and then there's waves of enemies. Right, well, that makes sense.
Sure you have targeting me. That's how physics works, right, Yeah.
Yeah, it's if I were shooting a big gun, I'd be jiggling
too. It's very fancer, the very cheesecake whatever term you want to use
there. But I checked it out when they did a crossover with Near Automata
where yeah, they got the jiggly Android lady in the game about jiggly android
people. Hey, well, you know, it was a really good crossover.
But what I noticed when I checked it out for that was when you
hit the near bun in the app, like everything switched to be near Automata
theme, the menus and everything, the music, even the screen transitions,
you know, the little digital triangles that they flourished throughout Automata. There was
so many little touches where I'm like, Okay, this is just a you
know, cheesy fanser of CEE Gotcha mobile game, But there's some effort here,
like they actually there's a team here who wanted to make something cool.
And that energy, that passion that I felt in this you know, silly
little mobile game, I felt instellar blade. I felt that there was a
team here who they saw these games. They had these inspirations in anime and
manga and everything that they wanted to bring forward here, and they said,
let's go for it. Let's make this game. Yeah, it's going to
be fan serviucy nonsense, which doesn't always land, but it's mostly harmless,
and I think you can really tell that just a passionate team worked on that,
and I think nowadays that is it just feels so incredible to play a
game that feels like it's made by humans. Because I heard some people talking
about this with Dragon's Dogma two earlier in the year. They were saying how
it's very rough, and you know, there's obvious issues with like performance and
everything, but that makes it feel like a team worked on it. You
can feel that there, and I appreciate that in this era of yes Triple
A games, you know, they want to appeal to mass so they do
hyper polish them. But sometimes a little of some rough edges can be nice,
just to remind you that people are working on this. And you know,
I won't say the contest there are, but when we got the review
guide and they had the little note from the developer, I just thought it
was sweet the way they were talking about the project they've been working for for
so long. Yeah, that's what I That's kind of the takeaway I have
here is like this feels like it was the game they always wanted to make,
and they and when they did get inspired by Near it was because they're
like they saw the like, oh man, I wish we made that,
and so they did, and I think, like you said, that's sweet.
Actually that's it's derivative. And again that the critical brain goes okay when
that's a problem. Really, my heart says no. I'm glad that the
team's out there, especially from South Korea Sea and hey, we saw a
game we really like. We want to make a game like that. We
want to put it on console just like they did. And they did it
and they accomplished everything, and here it is, and it's a fun game
to play to be. That's win win win. That's awesome. Yeah.
And not to draw fanboy I or anything on this, but in an age
where a lot of PlayStation games kind of have a similar feel, this does
feel like a PS one PS two era Sony Partnership game because this was originally
going to be a multi platform game on last generation. The fact that was
originally last generation shows a little bit in some of the assets, but the
fact that PlayStation came in scooped it up, and the way they talked about
in the aforementioned ign in review of oh Yokutara said, I think Japanese audiences
will really like this because of how manga and anime focused. Is that the
light bulb went off in my head of oh, that's why PlayStation scooped up,
because you know, the Japanese audiences would like it. The Western audiences
are getting more into that kind of stuff. This feels like a freshening up
of the PlayStation portfolio that I think, you know, whether you like this
game or not, I think it's good that something like this is there and
that they did support it. I do. I do wish it wasn't just
a PS five exclusive. At least I wish it was on PC so if
nothing else more people could play it and it will eventually of course. But
yeah, I think the diversity there in the catalog was needed. Yep,
I will say this. This does. The game at least starts with Sony's
favorite trend of two people beating up one in me, and I'm glad that
that trope can continue because I guess, I don't know, maybe PlayStation is
just waiting for a friend to beat up another big bad greby. You're about
to say, yeah, I was just gonna say, like, when I
think about the kind of the story and that being the negative, it's it's
very hard to write a game as well as Neu Automata. That's that's something
that you know, really stands out and people love it because it's like,
man, they really knew what they were doing, and the gap feels so
wide because the comparison point is to something like that. I think if you're
like, if you compare this to like most video game stories or whatever,
it's like, yeah, it doesn't. As long as it doesn't get in
the way too much, that's not gonna be a problem. And it seems
to me like that's gonna end up being the case at least as far as
I feel about it at this moment. And inoffensive is maybe is the worst
thing I would say about it. It's like, it's an inoffensive story.
Sure that doesn't blow my socks off, but it's also not like frustrating me
or making me pull my hair out or something like that. I would say.
Part of the problem is that the voice act. I play an English
voice acting because like my role for reviewing games, I play like with the
defaults and like what an average player do if they're just slumbing to the Maine
start of the game. But like I played with English voice acting and the
stilted voice acting does not help that story at all. The I do not
understand what they were thinking with Adam, especially because he just sounds like a
guy they pulled off the street. Yeah, I think the performance is gonna
be like the kind of thing that's gonna be tough for a studio like this
to direct as well. So not yeah, just ever become charming? In
your opinion? Is it like charmingly bad, like a guy off the street
doing voice acting in a game? To me this these days, like that's
that could be fun, But is it ever fun? I don't. Personally,
I don't think so. I never found like there are a couple of
NBCs that like they do seem like they understood the assignment and they did a
better job than a lot of the main cast. But like it's a it's
one of those things where a bunch of symptoms of presentation all collide where the
story is not very good but the voice acting doesn't help. But so that's
probably not helped by the fact that the characters are meant to sound like robotics
sometimes, but that's also not helped by the fact that they it feels like
you're kind of just flashing through episodes, and you have to assume stuff happened
between episodes because like by the second mission, when you're working with like somebody.
I think Washington Post mentioned this one in the review. A character says,
Haha, classic Eve. It's like I just met you like two minutes
ago. How am I classic anything? Yeah? I think I will say
with Adams specifically, when you know where they take that character to the end
of his story, they were going for something, and I just don't think
it quite stuck the landing. Yeah. I think with a lot of the
voice acting, it's just yeah, like I said the top, it's flat
and in a way that I personally find inoffensive, but also doesn't help the
fact that so much of it is just kind of boring. It feels a
little through the running through the most I think it may be just a direction
problem on that because I think, like I it felt, especially reading the
cast at the end of the game, I feel like this is a lot
of unknowns being cast. Yeah, I didn't recognize any names. Yeah,
yeah, if nothing else, I didn't recognize any of those names. But
I think some of the voice actors are good, Like I think Eve's voice
actor actually does like there's some talent there, but maybe some of the line
reads they should have done another take, or just they should have directed her
a bit differently. That's what a lot of voice acting is nowadays. It
comes down to the direction. I think that that was a part of it
where they messed up a little bit. This reeks to me as someone who
has worked like as a producer of a Japanese studio, like for foreign language
developers, when they pick line reads without actually fully understanding what the intonation is,
yeah, and like they're like, oh, this sounds good. It's
like, no, these don't sound good together. Yeah, exactly right,
yeah, yeah. I think that was also one of my problems because I
really enjoyed, like a lot of the character designs of the side characters.
Like one of the first ones you meet is like a dude building a robot
lady, and that seemed very tragicous to look at, and like the character
designs across the board. But like whenever i'd meet someone, I'd be excited
to meet them, and then I'd remember how like the cadence of their speaking
just winds up being and it just doesn't feel natural. And I think that
you're y'all are right about the direction being off in that sense. Yeah,
can I take a more global like, look, did you guys think that
character action games are as important as they once were? Because I feel like
this game's coming out and a lot of people are like, yeah, it
just looks like one of those I know there's a lot of like a lot
of like talk about this game online, but a lot of that feels like
manufactured by reactionaries when you like, actually, like, look at like gaming
fans. Do you think people are excited for a game like this still?
You're invoking the Backler scale of importance here. Yeah, I am a little
For me, this is a video game, ass video game. I'm happy
about. This is what I want. But I'm like, I get the
sense that's like, I guess maybe part of as I ran that poll and
that's not scientific, but like twenty five percent like I'll get this, and
I know a lot of people don't have PS five, But is there anything
else happening there? Do you think part of that is just cost grub that
folks will see this and they're unfamiliar with the IP because it's brand new,
not familiar with the developer, that they think like, well, I don't
know if I can trust this. Maybe I'll just wait for this to go
on sale type of joint on top of like a PS five barrier, Right,
yeah, I think I think that's all part of the factors, Right,
Like people want familiarity, people want sure bets. They don't want to
spend money on things that they're not certain about. I think people do get
the like you can kind of sniff out a little bit of the generic elements
of the story. They're like, yeah, yeah, but I want like
something that feels important. And I don't know if this game is like presenting
itself that way to most people. And then and then it's a character action
game, and I think people think that's just spamming buttons or something like that.
I don't know. I think when you look when the mass audience looks
at character action games these days, what they see is not Oh, this
game really focuses on the common They see, Oh, this is like an
open world game without the open world, because like I'd argue, like Spider
Man is a character action game, the God of War is a character action
game, but like they have more things to do in between. They have
like this game trying to dips his toes into that, like I take a
side quest and I go out to an open area and do that stuff.
But like when people see something like Bandetta and see like I'm just going through
levels fighting people, they think that's inherently limited. And I'm not sure if
that's a just the way we've moved the audience over the years kind of thing,
or like that's because it by definition, open world games do have more
to them, not necesarily better, but more to those them than that.
But like I think people are gonna look at Soellar Blade and think, I
don't know, I could spend seventy bucks on this, where I could spend
seventy bucks on whatever the next big open world game is and probably get more
out of the ladder. And that doesn't really work in Soellar Blades favor unless
you're already bought in like me, like I'm assuming Sean is of like the
character action can be better than a open will game any day of the week
kind of mentality. Oh yeah, I'm I'm just not open world kind of
guy in general. And that's why it was surprising that I liked, you
know, Breath of a Wild and Tears of the Kingdom so much. Those
are typically not my kind of games. It was just the way those games
worked out. I really liked. It's why Mike brought this up last night
when we were talking on a podcast. But Final Fantasy seven Remake versus Rebirth,
and people are sort of like not necessarily debating, but like sort of
taking sides of which one do you like better? And I am in the
campup. I like Remake better because I don't like open worlds, and Rebirth
for me was a game where I was just going from point A to point
B to point C to advance the story and see all the cool character moments
and have fun with the action. And with Stellar Blade, I think REVI
you're onto something there with Does the general audience think the action games are still
just bun mashing. I'm a huge fighting game guy. I can tell you
they sure do, because fine game and action games that have a lot of
overlap there Where people do think you're just spamming square, You're just you know,
mashing a bun and if you mash better than your opponent, you come
on top. They don't necessarily see it in the way that we do,
where we look at combo paths we look at how can I implement all the
tools in my toolbox at any given moment. That is the fun to me.
And yeah, that's why I had so much fun with this, because
when I was wandering around the world, as Imran Khana said, I was
thinking to myself, you don't really do much in this game. When you're
not in combat. You kind of are just talking to people, and anytime
that they do, try to do some more in that. Sometimes. I
do think a couple of the side quests are kind of nice, the whole
thing with the singer who you're kind of rebuilding. I do think there's not
an amazing sidequest, but sweet one. I enjoyed that. But yeah,
so much of it is focused on combat that I think some people just aren't
going to see it in the same way. Yeah, jam on top of
the combat and people maybe perhaps being thrown off by the character action aspect of
it. I've been thinking about this a lot. And this isn't just because
of the discourse online about how Eve is designed and how other characters may be
scantily clad in the game. I don't care about that. I appreciate butts.
I support butts as we all know here the sub Giant Bomb logo is
thick thighs, Save lives. But anyway, I wonder if this game unfortunately
has the the anime stink that may be off putting to other people, where
just because of the design that they may think it is one of those games
and whatever those games may be, Oh, those games being Chambara and yet
exactly Yeah, No, I was thinking about this last night, jan as
I was a getting right for this. Yeah, it could be. Some
people were actually ask gave me about it too, because I put on my
Twitter thread of like my thoughts and earthing. I was asked like sort of
asked with a k uh nice like sort of where does the sexiness come in?
Like is it too much? Is it too fan service? And I
feel like early on you learn it's not that kind of game like you were
talking about, where it is gratuitously about Oh, your super move is to
have a clothing malfunction and focus on the characters' assets. No, it is
more just some female characters are scantily clad. You know, he's a curvy
character. Sometimes summer animations are yeah, very jello jiggle physics, sure,
especially when she does stand the gun jiggle, which is like one of those
questure like, Okay, that's a little too far. Maybe if you're gonna
move and do something, sure, but like when you're standing in a conversation
and like heaving up and down, that's that doesn't make that. That was
one of my rough edge things where I'm like, they sort of have the
uh, the anime over exam your animations in a cut scene that wasn't fully
choreographed, just to make it look a little more lively, and when you
have the jiggle physics, sometimes it does look that way, but I think,
what if it's really she's just flapping in the wind. But she's flapping
in the wind, God, but go ahead, it's just not really in
that vein. I think it's it's more just which sometimes almost does make it
more awkward than something like Benetta, because you have revealing outfits, some of
which are very revealing, but they're kind of just there, like Eva's not
owning that in any way, which, yeah, some story beats kind of
explain that, but it does seem like, oh, you're kind of just
looking at a pretty lady. But I don't know. At a certain point,
I almost just forgot about it, especially once I got in the cooler
outfits. I was like, oh, this this just looks like an awesome
futuristic outfit. I don't even care that she's showing her ass or whatever.
It does lose its novelty early on, like the sexonists quote unquote about the
game does lose the novelty because it's like, Okay, you're not really doing
anything with this. This is just like some visual titillation nothing else. It's
like I'm playing a piece Left for Dead mod or whatever. Yeah, that
like replaces it with I don't know, the lady Juliette start whatever from the
chill but like yeah, but like I think what breaks down between this and
Bananetta is that it always feels like whether you think it's egregious or not,
Bayoneta more or less owns her sexyonness. She tried. She makes a point
of I know I'm good. I know I had this body. Fuck you
if you care, Like if that's a problem for you, well, Eve
has like a weird doll like naivete about the whole thing, Like you can
dress her up in the little these Barbie clothes of here is a like like
you were at a NASCAR race kind of outfit like booty shorts and whatever or
anything like that. And that's the part that makes it feel weird is that
ultimately I'm choosing to dress her up in these outfits and it's never like she's
never she never owns it, and like you were saying earlier, she doesn't
she doesn't feel like she has the agency at part of it. And it
actually I just started to get annoying for me when I got to the point
of, Okay, so the uldimate reward for collecting all these Doda cans is
a half naked suit, So I'm just not going to bother to collect them
all because I don't need that, or like the doing this long involved side
quest led to another outfit when I would have rather a some gear that made
my weapon faster or something. And like, there is a world in which
this isn't about necessarily even about gender or who's playing, because I have some
friends who are ladies who play games like Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball,
and they really enjoyed unlocking like all the bathing suits. Like there's even something
like in that game which is clearly kind of doing this a similar thing where
it's like let's play dress up with these with these lady dolls in this game,
and there if I think this game probably will do that for some people.
I think some people will enjoy dressing up Eve and having fun with that
and expressing themselves that way, and I see it in this game. I'm
like, I'm not excited by that. And even if there was a world
in which I would be, it's like, I feel like this game is
not reaching those heights in any real way. It's it feels very perfunctory,
feels very like just there because we know who's playing this game and we're trying
to appeal to their the Crissis instincts. Sorry. A couple of years ago,
I did a like in bed report with like the Deneral Live fighting in
community and how they were struggling to get people to like take the game seriously,
so they were like banning out with stuff like that, and I remember
talking to one guy and he was like, yeah, we can ban the
stuff, but ultimately it's like buying Playboy for the articles. Like you could
tell people all day that they're buying it just to read it, but they're
not going to believe you. And I think that they kind of did the
game of disservice in some way by like taking what seems to be like is
actually a great game and saying, okay, but also here's the bunny outfit
that when Eve has these animations that she'll bend over a table and do nothing
else is just for you to look up the bunny outfit kind of thing.
And like, I think that that's where this did go a little far ultimately,
like that sexuality didn't really serve as a pro orcon for me. I
just kind of dealt with it and moved on or whatever. But I think
if you're gonna do that, either make it actually sexy and have a character
that owns it, or don't do it at all, like just shows it
with straight Yeah, it plays into so much of what I was saying of
just kind of being boring to a certain extent of oh, okay, you
put it in there. Maybe you were going for something I guess, trying
to be sentilly or whatever. It just doesn't land. I think that's yet
inner thing like that. And then Roun, like you said in game,
this morning is the ore day. If you're bricked up playing this game,
have higher standards. Man, what are you doing Also that's that's dangerous to
play a game that long brick. Yeah, you know, like I know,
we get podcasts ads across this network, but like, don't listen to
those ones. Still buy the product. Look, you're gonna spoil Nintendo's new
controller by that's not where you Oh jeez. I think the thing that I
want, sorry, Greb. I think the thing I walked away with this
game being the most hopeful from is what the development game development scene looks like
coming out of Korea, because like, I really really enjoyed Lives of P
last year. Yes, I saw the headline that this isn't a soul's board,
and it's a soul's board for like Korea like career, which is great.
And you know, I just like how the gaming development pool is just
becoming wider and wider and just seeing what could potentially come over there and their
interpretation of because you know, you could consider Lives of P Stellar Blades to
an extent not necessarily a love letter, but a loving homage to the games
that inspired them. And I'm curious as to, you know, what other
games have inspired folks in Korea or in other parts of the country. And
this is the weirdest compared and I'll ever make. But it's really cool to
see a game like Stellar Blade coming out of Korea and then a game that
is so heavily featuring like afro punk futuristic style like Tales of canzeraz Ou,
both very emotional tales, let me tell you, But like seeing the different
types of representation and other means. Now there's not like a lot of Korean
things coming out by do dig that this is coming out of a Korean studio,
and I'm really excited to see the future of what would Stellar Blade to
look like or another game coming from this studio. And I hope that like
this performs well enough that they do get a second shot at it. Well.
I think that, like the story of gaming right now, is a
lot of established publishers for many years now being unsure about continuing to invest more
and more and more. And I think when they look around, like a
lot of them look around right now at Capcom, be like, man,
we should be more like Capcom, maybe we should reinvest. But I think
they will also look at a studio like Shift Up and be like man,
okay, yeah, they're just going for it and they're making the stuff that
we used to make, and they're kind of doing it better in a lot
of ways, and they're doing it boldly at the very least, what's our
excuse, Like they came out of nowhere and started doing this. I hope
it is encouraging to people, not just like existing studios, but I think
I hope it encourages developers all around the world to be like, Okay,
they came from South Korea, a region that doesn't typically have a lot of
history with consoles, they put out a console game and they're sort of conquering
the world in some ways. I hope a lot of people treat that as
a tale that they can replicate. Yeah, like we're getting more like if
a couple of generations ago where the generation of like the West coming to prominence
essentially, then like now we're kind of going into Sony has correctly realized that
like China and Korea are like the next big steps for where game they all
that much would go. And I think maybe not in terms of like design
wise, but in terms of, like geographically, we are coming up against
types of games and types of cultures have not traditionally seen a game development.
And even if if you're the type of person that's like, I don't like
this game exists. I don't like though, And I totally understand that,
honestly, because, like women put up with a fuck ton of shit already
on an industry, it sucks that there are games that don't make them feel
friendly here as well. But if you was one of those people, I
think there's at least some good you can see in this and hey, they've
seen this. They have either does I have to double down on it or
they're decided to move it to a different way or different direction with it.
But either way, we're going to get more out of Korea and we will
probably get that one game that you absolutely love somewhere down the line. Like
there's there's moments in this game that reminded me of Dead Space, uh,
and like that influence is wearing like wholeheartedly on that sleeve. And I'd be
interested to see like this studio's take on a a full on horror game like
Go Send Me Off to Space. I want to see what y'all can do
with that, because like those moments I was actually like surprised to find in
them, because, like you say, I couldn't get that at all.
From that sense at all, from the demo at all. Yeah, I'm
okay. Well, since Jan brought up, I was not saying anything about
it to Mike in particular beforehand, but I wanted to help so bad.
I'm like Mike, there's a freaking Resident Evil homage in here, and it's
really good. Like it's cheesy because of something's happened, but it's really good.
And I had a fun time with that homage. And Yeah, there's
just so many moments in this game where I look at it and I think,
ah, I want to see more of this. I want them to
do more of this and to borrow from you one more time. In ron
on GMM when he said I don't think people will be talking about Stellar Blade
in five to ten years, because they'll be talking about Stellar Blade too,
or whatever Shift Up does next. And that's that's absolutely what I feel,
because I think this is such a strong start for the company in the console
space, and I really want to see what they do next. I want
to see if they can take some feedback from this and take some of the
things that didn't quite work out and make whether it's a Stellar play two that
is, uh, does sand Away the rough edges I keep mentioning, or
it does go in a different direction and they do something else. I'm just
really curious. Yeah, I like one thing that I really want to fix
for this game in a sequel is that, like it needs way more environmental
variety because this game ostensibly takes place over the entire earth. But you see
like two areas and like two of them are just deserts. Like for some
reason, there's a both open world, Like both open areas should just be
different kinds of deserts. Yeah, because near and yeah because near. Yeah,
you can see how they right when you're that inspired by something, you
I mean, and there's like so there is value in that and just like
doing the thing you really like. And then that value is the next time
you get this, you know, stretch your legs and do something like way
I almost spread you, you can stretch your legs and do something much bigger
and different, and like have that confidence now that you've traced over the art
you like. I'm like, I'm I'm a huge fan of that. I
think that's a really good good way of approaching these kinds of things, because
these are big problems to solve making a video game. Yeah, that's tough.
Do as much tracing as you need to ship a game, and then
the next time around you'll have that that foundation to build upon. Yeah,
that's why I brought up when we were talking about Prince of Persia earlier in
the year, I said, ironically, this has been a year with a
lot of homages and dev's you know, being inspired by too various levels other
games. I said, Hey, there's a lot of things in this game
that other metroid vaneas, including Metroid itself did before it, and they're just
taking from that. Because once a developer solves a system, just take that
system and put your own spece to take it. Yeah, it's why I
didn't like something. You know, obviously I'm a Pokemon fan, so maybe
people roll my eyes at like crapping on palle World, But it's why I
didn't like that game is because it felt like they were just taking too much,
to the point of having like art assets there straight up from that game,
Like no, no, don't do that. Do something like Prince of
person did, Do something like Stellar Blade is doing, and just put your
own spin on these things that you are inspired by. And I think that's
a great way to make a game now is It was like a year or
two where like every interview with the dev I had was we played ret of
the Wild and then we had ideas from it, and then at some point
the audience was some reason turned on that in a way of like, no,
we want all we want to assume all games spring up from nowhere,
just from somebody's head. Yeah, like that's not the way the industry works.
No, yeah, I think it was why Corey Barlow talking about God
War like, yeah, of course the Resident Evil four inspired us. Have
you seen that game? We all played that? Yes, God, Yeah,
that conversation over over again, that they just spring from the head.
Yeah, okay, Jan would you do you want to take a break and
then speed run a mount Rushmore character character action games? Oh all right?
I was gonna say we could wrap it up. Well, I already have
it mostly done, so yeah, maybe we don't have to take a break.
I could just yeah, I have let's look, all right, Mount
Rushmore Character action games. I wrote down God of War Devil May Cry three
and that's the original, got a war band added to Metal Gear Rising Revengeance?
All right? Where am I wrong? Oh? Okay? Actually,
real, real quick before we move on to the Mount Rushmore. I was
thinking about this when I was watching games this morning, and thank you drum
Kid ninety two for reminding me. But Grub, I think you nailed it.
Where you know, Capcom is dlisting games like hit series Flock and Dark
Void Dark Void, and it's it's kind of insane that like if you were
to, like, if you were to show this to a friend that isn't
as plugged into games, they would assume that, like, oh, this
looks like a character action game that I grew up with tyle style thing,
But like this looks amazing in ways that like those games could never have looked.
And I think it's great that a studio that isn't one of the huge
studios is eating everyone else's lunch when it comes to like visual stylings and everything
that, like Stellar Blade two or whatever's next. Just get just get like
a story editor, guy, Just get like a vio director. Hey,
just just just just hire me and g and the whole Giant Bomb expanded Spanish
family Nasty Boys to do the voices, write the check. I well,
I can't bring up that IGN interview with you know, Yoko Taro and the
director. Hey, put your peanut butter and your chocolate together. Just bring
that man on to do the right course script or something. He's busy right
now. I think he probably is, yes, very actually yeah, yeah,
just smooth that out real quick. Last thing, I realized we didn't
really talk about schemes pretty when it wants to be. Oh, there are
certain scenes, especially towards the end. I'm a big cybernetic guy Yo Bound
Network boys Chan I hate I love that stuff so much and it goes so
far in that direction at the end that I was popping off. Actually,
yeah, thank you, Sean, because I was playing this and I was
thinking, like I love the Soul's games. I love Bloodborne and everything,
but like I just can't super get into them because I don't give a shit
about knights and wizards. I want and when they lean in there's a scene
I think we can't really talk about it, but there is this scene where
you get a wide shot of a live landscape and it's the way they do
that. I was just like, man, this is a good looking game,
and I just like they make you look at it too. They're like,
hey, we're gonna sit here for like a minute, but you just
go look like there's nothing to do here. Just look around at what we've
made, and you're like, this is pretty You're right, Yeah, I
just wish like more variety because you're going through a lot of like warehouses and
sewers and stuff like that that would have really helped this game. I imagine.
It's one of those things of like game development is really hard. Triple
A game development is extremely hard, so like they probably cut corners where they
could. Yeah, okay, the mount rushmore of character action games, GREB.
Like you mentioned you have God of War. This is the original God
of War. Yeah, maybe not maybe different one there. It could be
Gotta War two or three whatever you okay, okay, Cry three, Bayonetta
two, and then Metal Gear Rising Revengeance. I would change benat A two
to ban in A one. You would, Yes, two is good.
Two is really really good. The problem is the Uminine climax mechanic really kind
of just suffts that game as a character action game, where like where where
you were just constantly just building combos toward the same mechanic over and over,
as opposed to billion combos, you know, for combo's sake, and also
for the mount rushmore like, you know, Bayonet two is the one that
gets as flowers, But I think Bayonetta it's not like a Doble May Cry
three, where, you know, starting sort of in the middle of that
series, you can see where people were inspired by that specifically because that was
the future of that series. One and two were so different. So yeah,
I think I'm with him around that one. Yeah, but I surprise,
Yeah, I think I thank you got it. I assume for DMC
three were saying DM three like special edition, not like whatever. Yeah,
yeah you want god, Oh my god, do I have to play DMC
three again? Yeah? Yeah. Switch Bridge is actually pretty good. Oh
turn switch Oh pretty decent. It kind of sucks that I was surprised by
that. Yeah, that's just where that's what's what's the one you guys are
bumbed. Wouldn't make this cut And then we can maybe wrap up jam maybe
a do you think a Ninja Guiden has to be on there? Ninja Guiden
makes a lot of sense. God, Ninjaiden would be if I made a
stab at a game that I fucking love but nobody else agrees with me,
it would be wonderful. One And oh yeah, right, and I don't
think that finds in any way, shape or form. I respect it.
I respect that minimum. Watch the video of Like the Final Boss and you
will see what I'm talking about. But I know it is a personal love
and not a widely audienced get gained love, right, not amount Rushmore Right.
Yeah, I think maybe Ninja Guy in Black would have a chance.
But you know, I see Melgi Rising as the Roosevelt there. I'm thinking
we got a list there boys. Yeah, God of War, Devil may
Cry, three bayonet at middle gear Rising Revenge sounded to me. What about
Kingdom Hearts? Okay, great show, everybody. So you're also pro Kingdom
Hearts. Don't hide from this. I'm King of Heart's one too, don't.
I wouldn't put it ready these Yeah, I'd ideally like to have like
a small plaque at the bottom of this Mount Rushmore of just saying hey,
God, hand was really fun. I will say, like you alongside with
you, Jan Kein of Mart's two Final mix, that probably is the best
battlest image in an ARPG. Okay, thank you, thank you. We
gotta vet the people come on the AARPG like what would you say, like
goes against it? There rebirth buddy. Wow. I mean like that's you
know, no anywhere, So I'm like, I'm not going to argue with
that. I'm like, I know him, Rot's a big fan of that
battle. Uh. Any yeah, grub, can you think of anything that
isn't on here? No? No, I put these the four games that,
like you know, we'll be bandetted too. I would like maybe fudge
that a little bit, but you guys wont me over that argument. So
yeah, all right, Well I'm glad we could do two things today,
and that those two things being U letting everyone on the internet know it's Doellar
Blade. It's a great game. It's good, It's quite good, and
also crowding the amount rushmore character action games. Jeff Grubb, thank you for
producing the show. Con thank you for joining us Urbo Sean Shawn McDowell,
thank you for being our own character action uh producer here behind the pleasure exactly,
and folks, thank you for joining us for another wonderful week here at
Giant Bond dot com. And I've seen amount of things being produced as always.
Oh I'm being played off, so I was trying to play it quietly.
If you missed the conclusion of Blake Club Super Dan, Dan of Steel,
go and watch that. You will be in for a ride because next
week Jef Grubb begins his blight. Go stup to all the podcasts, Ammon
Khan, quickly working folks. Want you on the internet. Find me at
proscons dot com, p O O S E K h A n s dot
com and Twitter at Emron's z u MG. Emron's probably like the smart one
of the smartest people I know. I was gonna say smartest, but then
I didn't want to offend anyone that I work with. Con is like,
no person, no offense take absolutely not. Folks. We'll see you next
week for another episode. Uh, the Giant BombCast and all of yours.
Oh there's sort programming. We love you? Who kisses on the mouth?
What? Oh we're out out now much bring your dip to work day?
Oh yeah, actually, go up, it's so much fun. Fortnite is
really cool. It turns out, you know what, Fortnite best character action game.