Stellar Blade
SHIFTUP
Stellar Blade has stormed onto Steam with a record number of concurrent players for a previously PlayStation-exclusive release. It’s more than doubled the previous high, and many players are getting to experience the game for the first time.
Back at launch, I beat Stellar Blade twice and did a full NG+ run, and I came away with a lot of lessons I think I can impart to new players. I already wrote this once, but I will do an abridged version of it here. You can go read the old one, but here are the highlights and ten things I wish I knew when I started Stellar Blade.
1) Beta Attacks – I would heavily invest in these, and when I could, I made my build around boosting them specifically. Combos and burst attacks are one thing, but beta builds will be the thing that wipes bosses in particular.
2) Parry and Dodging Help – Obviously, these are two keys to any combat-based game, but if that’s not your thing but you still want to play, you can instead turn on a quicktime event setting that replaces those moments with a telegraphed button press. I did not use this at all, but it’s an accessibility option if you need it.
3) Boss Shields – Boss battles are going to be extra tough until you know just how much you need to focus on their shield bar. If you break that, it’s big damage time, and I would recommend spec-ing into moves and upgrades that will help with that damage. A beta R1+X backflip is a shield-killer I never took off, for instance.
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Stellar Blade
SHIFTUP
4) Side Quests – Stellar Blade can be tough if you try to just do a straight story run, ignoring the litany of side quests you get along the way. In addition to bonuses like gear and outfits, they award large chunks of NPC that will help boost your level more than almost anything else and dump skill points on you.
5) Spam Scan – I suppose this is not an uncommon practice in games that have wall scans, but I would do it almost everywhere you go to the point where it might be annoying. If you don’t, you will miss out on tons of upgrades, health and materials, and they are hidden everywhere.
6) Corpse Hunting – These will not give you normal loot like other games, but if you see a corpse, scan and attempt to farm it, as this is how you get things like extra XP and door/chest codes constantly.
Stellar Blade
PS5
7) Eve Outfit Hunting – This one is a little outdated, given that there have been dozens and dozens of outfits added to the game since I played it, but one key to this is maxing out your reputation with vendors in town to unlock a whole bunch of them for purchase. Maybe you now unlock more than you used to. To craft them, you can flat-out buy materials from Sisters’ Junk if you need to. Otherwise, sidequests, hidden chests and boss challenges can get you a lot of outfits.
8) Vendor Rep – Again, vendor rep. It’s not just the outfits; it’s also materials and gear you cannot find easily otherwise. Increase them enough, and you will get some of the most interesting side quests in the game. All you have to do is spend money there, so it’s not that hard once you build up a stash.
9) Point of No Return – It does exist. The game will tell you when you are launching the “final mission,” and there is no finale that lets you keep playing. If it tells you to finish everything up on the map, do it. But of course, you can start NG+ after and keep all your stuff as you play the story again.
Stellar Blade
SHIFT UP
10) New Game Plus – It’s great! SHIFTUP really did this well, which gives you new skill nodes, new moves, better gear upgrades, drone additions and a zillion new outfits, naturally. Some games don’t do this well, but Stellar Blade does.
Enjoy, it’s a great time.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
