Stellar Blade has received another round of paid DLC. After getting the dream Nier Automata collab, developer Shift Up has collaborated with the obvious, their other, arguably more popular game, Goddess Of Victory: Nikke.
This could’ve been another glorified costume pack, but thankfully there is some good, extra content this time around.
The Stellar Blade X Goddess Of Victory Nikke DLC is by no means an expansion, not in any way. But the Nikke-esque cover-shooting mini-games and one new boss fight is a shift up in quality from the previous DLC. And it serves a nice way of showing fans who only play Stellar Blade but not the gacha game shift up in quality.
What’s in the Stellar Blade X Goddess Of Victory Nikke DLC
This is what’s added when you purchase and activate the Stellar Blade X Goddess Of Victory: Nikke DLC
- Outfit and hairstyles based on Nikke characters (outfits and costumes can be mixed and match, no extra hair colours for each hairstyle)
- Dorothy outfit
- Elegant Dress (outfit)
- Noble Elegance (hairstyle)
- Rapi outfit
- Elysion Combat Uniform (outfit)
- Standard Long (hairstyle)
- Anis outfit
- Never Look Back (outfit)
- Energetic Bangs (hairstyle)
- Modernia outfit
- Missing Link (outfit)
- First Affection (hairstyle)
- Alice outfit
- Cooling Suit (outfit)
- Poppin’ Twintails (hairstyle)
- Scarlet outfit
- Wandering Swordfighter Outfit (outfit)
- Moonlight Beauty (hairstyle)
- Dorothy outfit
- Five cover-shooting mini-game based on Nikke gameplay
- Completion rewards currency used to unlock Dorothy, Rapi, Anis, Modernia and Alice outfits
- One new boss fight added to Boss Challenge
- Completion rewards Scarlet outfit plus one new song for jukebox
- Multiple songs for jukebox, hidden collectible spread around Wasteland and Great Dessert (from Nikke soundtrack)
Where To Start Stellar Blade X Goddess Of Victory Nikke DLC
Similar to the Nier Automata DLC, it’s not that clear upfront how you would access the new DLC content, especially if you have an existing save deep into the game. There’s no notification or added objective to point you where to go.
But if you’re starting out fresh, it’s likely that it’ll be hard to miss, as you trigger it by simply stumbling into Volt, the robot dog that’s standing round near the start of the Wasteland map if you enter it out of Xion. Once you greet the dog, Scarlet appears and explained her and her dog’s predicament of somehow ending up in this world.
Eve, just like in the other DLC, has become a silent protagonist which one could see as a nod to Nikke’s one-sided dialogues, or they just didn’t get Eve’s voice actress of various languages to be in the booth to record a few more lines. Or both.
Scarlet then acts as a quest provider with Volt acting as the merchant that sells all the new Nikke gear. There are five new quests to take on, spread between Wasteland and Great Desert maps, and you earn two of the new currency, enough to unlock a set to let Eve cosplay as one of the five Nikkes: Dorothy, Rapi, Anis, Alice and Modernia.
Pop-Up Shooter
The quests themselves are a mini-game where you engage in the game loop of Nikke: a frantic cover shooter. Eve gets to wield a proper gun just for this mode. If you played Nikke, then you know what to expect: it’s a faithful recreation of that, including cover switching, the aiming reticle moving like a cursor, and the auto-reload. Oh, and a good view of assets, not as pronounced unlike in Nikke where the game runs on a vertical screen. So when the girls pop out of cover to fire, you see a lot more of them from behind the cover. Ahem.
If it’s any consolation, Eve’s cosplays of the Nikke characters do highlight the right stuff should you bring one to these cover shooter minigames.
The minigame itself is good fun, but it has commited one grave sin. The controls could not be inverted.
Even if you have inverted the camera controls., any invert-y-axis freaks like me (and to some extent the invert x-axis sickos too) will have a hard time adjusting to the controls. It’s an understandable oversight. The aiming reticle doesn’t behave like you are moving a camera, it is indeed a cursor. A really slow one with no acceleration. Think of it as moving a Destiny cursor instead of aiming a gun and it should click. Though I would still prefer an option to invert the controls.
The mini-game, and to a certain extent the core gameplay loop of Nikke, is a frantic modern take on Time Crisis. You need to peek out the cover to shoot, it auto-reloads when you’re in behind cover, and there’s a time crunch of sorts. It’s a little overwhelming, and one level has an absurd difficulty spike that will really push you to play more aggressively, peeking out of out covering and emptying out your clip to take out the many damage sponges that is enemy Naytibas.
These sequences aren’t that long, less than 5 minutes each. But when the bar was so low when it comes to gameplay content added with these Stellar Blade DLC (it was just a scavenger hunt last time!), this is already a big leap, relatively speaking. A shift up, if you will. It’s a single player game, if you charge for DLC it better add something more than just cosmetics.
And boy do this pack have something special in store. After collecting all five sets. Scarlet and Volt say their goodbye and you unlock a new boss fight available in the Boss Challenge Mode.
Finally, A Worthy Opponent. Our Battle Will Be Legendary
The fight with Scarlet is a proper superboss. If the bosses in Stellar Blade hasn’t been challenging enough so far, this is properly the real battle you seek.
Scarlet will test your parrying skills, with no room for error, and barely any room to heal. Scarlet from is Stellar Blade’s Malenia, complete with a second phase that opens with what seems to be a nigh-impossible wave of attacks that come out of nowhere which can instantly end you there and there. All the while you’re fighting under the moonlight on a field full of silver grass. A picturesque setting for a battle of the ages between two renown sword fighters from two of Shift Up’s latest.
My big takeaway from this Nikke DLC, as someone who hasn’t played the free-to-play title, is that it share the same vibes as Stellar Blade. The sexy outfits and ludicrous body proportions (I know, I know, Eve’s default body is based on a real model, but still!) are just par for the course.
And the soundtrack is impeccable. Sure, Stellar Blade leans more on the melancholic vibes, but the more upbeat and cheerful compositions of Nikke, which you can find as hidden collectables, just fit nicely with the rest of the campsite music. Even the upbeat tune played in the DLC-specific quest board, skinned in blue and white to match Nikke’s aesthetic, fits snuggly here.
If anything, the Stellar Blade X Goddess Of Victory: Nikke represents what in means by “Shift Up In Quality.” The South Korean developers have establish their brand, their sense of style, and what should we expect next from the team.
Is Stellar Blade X Goddess Of Victory: Nikke DLC Worth It?
Is the Stellar Blade X Goddess Of Victory: Nikke worth a purchase at the price of RM39.73 on PS5 and RM39 on PC?
For that one insurmountable boss fight alone (which I admitted to have yet beaten), I say hell yeah. The six sets of outfits are worth it if you like the unorthodox fashion sense and bold beauty standards these two Shift Up games have.
But the neat diversion of the Nikke shoot-’em-up segments and the one extra boss fight are good enough meat to go with the potatoes that are those outfits. Don’t expect too much out of it, there are many better valued DLCs offered in other games, but what’s important is that this is miles better in proposition when compared to that Nier Automata DLC.
A Shift Up in quality, indeed this DLC pack.
Check our our original review of Stellar Blade here. Stellar Blade is now available on PS5 and PC (Steam).
Played on base PS5. Review code provided by the publisher.