In Korea, “traditional” beauty is above all an aspiration, an ideal, and a goal. Do you want a good career? It also looks better. Apply for a job? You may be required to submit a photo first, but this practice has recently been abolished for public jobs. A vibrant cosmetics industry sells beauty products to children who are not yet old enough to read. Plastic surgery ads are everywhere, and there's no subtlety about what's “ugly”. I'm Eve, the playable character of the latest PlayStation 5 exclusive game “Stella Blade” which will be released on April 26th. She is a woman born from Korean culture and thought. Her slender, glossy presentation sparked debate over objectification and the “male gaze” in the US gaming press.
Of course, on the one hand, Korean beauty standards are strict and often ridiculous, so this statement was unpleasant for me to hear. Hundreds of thousands of South Korean women took to the streets in Escape from the Corset, a 2018 protest against social structures that require women to play “traditional” roles. My friend Elise Hu, who worked for NPR in South Korea for four years, navigated (as Washington Post critic Becca Rosfeld put it) “the most aesthetically advanced country on Earth.” I wrote a book about what I do. On the one hand, these are our own unique struggles to deal with, and I don't want a project by people who look and sound like my family to be used as a cudgel in a culture war that has nothing to do with this game. I hated watching it. It's awful to see Eve being used as an argument against diversity, and the IGN France article (which they later apologized for) makes it seem like “Stella Blade” was created by people who've never even met a woman. I was worried when he said that. The studio has many female staff members.
Game director Kim Hyung-tae has been following this debate and told me he's not surprised, especially since video games these days are focused on realistic depictions of people. However, Eve is supposed to be a character that represents beauty with “few constraints and no limitations.”
“Games are virtual reality, and I think we need the opportunity to see things that are not real in virtual space,” Kim said through an interpreter. “We already know reality very well and live in it. So when we play a game, we want to be able to see something different than what we experienced. More realistic There are a lot of things that should be respected, and I think games like Stellar Blade should exist.”
I feel that the argument that video games with Korean female protagonists are extremely rare is missing in the global game market. Kim confirmed to me that Eve is defined as a Korean woman. It was designed by a Korean, modeled after a Korean woman, voiced by a Korean woman, and has a gorgeous soundtrack (of “NieR” fame) with Korean lyrics. She is Korean-coded in every sense of the word, and Kim is well aware that she only represents one narrow definition of beauty.
“By introducing this game to players, we have the opportunity to present to the world how Korean beauty is different from Asian beauty, and how Asians are different from each other,” said Kim. referred to the global gaming industry, which is primarily dominated by Japan. And the United States.
This argument was especially frustrating because Stellar Blade, despite its flaws, is a great work, the studio's first attempt at developing a big-budget single-player action game. Kim is unusually candid about his inspiration for NieR: Automata. “NieR: Automata” is often described by critics, including myself, as one of his masterpieces in the medium. Kim isn't necessarily trying to create a masterpiece. He just wears his influences and enjoys them.
“Of course there's pressure, but it's also been a really fun journey for me to make a game similar to 'NieR.' It was a fun experience as a fan,” Kim said.
The game's opening will likely confirm the assumptions of skeptics like myself. For hours on end, it feels like a hollow copy of Nier: Automata, incorporating only the most superficial interpretations of characters and story. The Earth is overflowing with monsters, and Mother Sphere sends an army of female warriors, including Eve, to defeat the first monster. The catastrophic landing ends with Eve as the only survivor, and she is rescued by a stranger named Adam to complete the mission. Seasoned science fiction readers will be able to predict how this game will play out hours in advance.
Moment-to-moment writing is useless. “Classic Eve,” quipped Lily, who Eve had just met. This conversation hints at more history and personality than is actually shown. The conversation feels unnatural and formal. Eve is the star of the show, but shows a worrying lack of personality.
However, with more playtime, it becomes clear that this void is part of her character arc. Eve is bland by design, an obvious metaphor for creation myths in which she gains personality through the forbidden fruit of knowledge. In fact, this concept is woven directly into the story's design, with one of the game's multiple endings featuring Eve's version of herself, which Eve gains from reading her books and interacting with other humans. Depends on the amount of knowledge. Like the story, it's simple, yet effective and clear.
Trying to do too many other types of games at once will cause the game to stumble and leave you with insufficient peripheral elements. The game is littered with the kind of mind-numbing and boring puzzles that have appeared in many other video games over the past few decades. It includes segments with laser beams bouncing off mirrors, sliding blocks, and even a “pipe dream” minigame that has nothing to do with the formula. This game could have delivered as a leaner experience without getting in the way of ideas that were heavily borrowed from all the other games.
Thankfully, Stellar Blade continues to keep things interesting by bouncing between a linear level-based structure and open-ended regions with side quests, hidden stories, and even a city hub. Masu. The boring creature designs of the opening hours (the typical goop and tentacles) give way to a far more interesting blend of technology and organic life. Scatter these across a desert landscape, and suddenly the “Stella Blades” move in a fantastical, majestic way, like something out of a Final Fantasy game.
The third and final act manages to end the game with a memorable, challenging and engaging series of battles, with interesting movement and convincing visual design that takes all the winners, and finally brings the true story to a close. Introduce some stakes. (Story mode makes things a lot easier for people who don't like sweating through combat.) The story is predictable, but it ends with a familiar feeling of power-ups. This is a strong enough conclusion that I felt I needed to start the 20 hour experience. Also.
The combat design is the game's best feature, and despite being visually similar to games like Bayonetta, another game that features well-styled fighting women, it's addictive and chewy. It is unique. Eve's battles may feel slower than those in that game, but if anything, they can be said to be heavier. Eve is then counterattacked and forced to the back of the battle or removed from the battle, creating new opportunities for attack. These and weighted enemy reactions set the game's combat apart from Bayonetta and Dark Souls, another of her inspirations for this game.
“Stella Blade” does not make a very strong first impression, but it leaves a lasting impression. More importantly, just like Eve, you'll eventually be able to actually carve out a great identity of your own. There has been a long-standing critical debate about the roots of cyberpunk novels in xenophobic fears and the genre's appropriation of Asian culture. Well, here we have the “Stella Blade”. This is an authentic slice of Korean cyberpunk that, like Eve, is beautiful in its own absurdist way.