We have already talked about the blurred border, in the world of video games, between iteration, inspiration, and plagiarism. To that long list of border games we must now add one more: Stellar Bladekorean game SHIFT UPexclusive to PlayStation 5, which from the first minute has recognized the influence of that outstanding 2016 game that is NieR: Automata.
The story is frankly similar: our character, Eve, is part of a squad that tries to liberate the Earth, conquered by creatures called Naytiba, who forced humanity to take refuge in space. Not content with using that narrative framework, our protagonist is a combatant who combines her sword with ranged attacks during combat. If we change the word “Naytiba” to “Machines”, we would be talking about the NieR instead of Stellar Blade. The combat, too, has obvious resonances from other games, from the saga Souls (with the possibility of making parrysblockages), to the colorful spectacularity of a hack and slash (to Devil May Cry or the last final fantasy).
That is, after the experience of Lies of Piwhich shot quite convincingly many of the hallmarks of the saga Souls, another big-budget Korean game comes to shamelessly copy a very successful saga in the West. With the exception that Lies of Pi It managed, in its best aspects, to improve the models on which it was based, while Stellar Blade, without being a bad game, fails to impose itself over the shadow of the models it has decided to imitate. Above all, the comparison that weighs the most is that of NieR, because Yoko Taro’s game belongs to the rare lineage of games called to transcend. Not so much because of the specific flavor—between evocation and discovery—that NieR he manages to create in that desolate world where machines begin to philosophize, but because his will to recontextualize the meaning of the game itself through the successive endings that were sedimenting, became a univocal artistic weapon of the world of the video game; a creative tool that Yoko Taro has honed like no one else and that in the future will have a great influence on the entire medium.
But, in addition to all this, there is one more thing. Eve is a very sexualized character. She is stunning, voluptuous, with shapes and movements designed directly to excite the mind of a player from 25 years ago. In NieR Something similar happened (although to a much lesser degree) with our protagonist, but in that game there was a justification: 2B was the physical exaggeration of what the androids understood as a sexual fantasy. There is no plot justification here, and even less visual justification for why the camera focuses on close-up shots of his chest or butt. Of course, this aspect of the game has ignited several debates on social networks about the sexualization of the female body and the exploitation of its image. That is, in addition to the previous influences, Stellar Blade clings to one more: Bayonettaand it becomes a thorny game when it comes to confronting free creative decision with visual discomfort (which sometimes borders on blushing).
That is to say, Stellar Blade It does a good job of offering a solid game designed as mere entertainment. But it does an even better job of proving right those who insist on propagating the image of the gamers like some hikikomoris onanists Congratulations, Eve.
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