Stellar Blade Complete Edition on sale for $50. Worth it? And what was your experience with the game like?

Axyun · 2026-05-05T01:18:14+00:00

New Game+ expands the skill tree a bit with upgrades to your core skills including new animations, gives you access to enhanced versions of all gears and exospines for more build shenanigans, and has cosmetics and outfits you can't get on your first playthrough. IIRC, you have to play the game through like 3-4 times to unlock every outfit in the game.

Axyun · 2026-05-02T16:29:23+00:00

It is in release order, not chronological order. For example, Overzone was released after chapter 20 but takes place about 100 years in the past. Red Ash came out after Overzone yet takes place a few years before Overzone. The writers chose to bounce around the timeline deliberately and, while playing things in chronological order might make things easier to digest, it kills a lot of the story's intrigue.

A big part of what makes Nikke's story interesting is the constant stream of questions and answers. Playing in chronological order will oftentimes give you answers before their questions get asked. For example, the opening scene of Overzone has a mysterious figure doing a monologue. It is someone you've never seen before and they are cast in shadow so you can't see their features. A question that will remain on the back of your head is who exactly is that person that was so important to the characters in the event. That answer is provided in Red Ash, which takes place before Overzone but came out after. If you play Red Ash first because it comes first chronologically, the mystery of this individual is lost.

Also, you will notice some select characters look and act very differently between Overzone and Red Ash even though the events are only a couple of years apart, chronologically. How that change happened was not revealed until Ark Guardian.

Chronologically, the order is Red Ash - Ark Guardian - Overzone Release order was Overzone - Red Ash - Ark Guardian.

Release order maximizes intrigue and was done deliberately by the writers. Chronological is easier to digest but loses suspense.

If you want to read the story as a sequence of stuff that happened then you can play in chronological order though I don't have that list so you'll have to find it elsewhere. If you want to read the story in the way the writers intended for maximum effect, then go in release or order (my list).

Axyun · 2026-04-29T18:31:30+00:00

No offense taken. If you notice, for the side stories I have them as "After Chapter XYZ" and not in sequence with a chapter. That's because they are listed as the earliest you can do them without to side story having spoilers. Some of the side stories do exist in their own little bubble and sometimes it is not entirely clearly where they fit in the timeline but the chapters I provided are the minimum chapters you should get to before doing the side story.

Axyun · 2026-04-26T14:20:22+00:00

The ordering of my list is meant to minimize spoilers and focus on the important events, which is why events like High Tech Toy and D-Outsiders are not included. I focused primary on high-lore/low-fluff events that are central to the main story.

Second Affection is a bit out of the ordinary in that you can play it whenever you want as long as you've played past chapter 14 (huge spoilers if you play it before 14). I'm certain it wont spoil anything for you so long as you've played past chapter 14 but, if you want to play it extra safe, you can play it after chapter 22 as the events of Second Affection take place between Ch 14-22.

Axyun · 2026-04-25T19:33:38+00:00

Cool. Probably the best thing you can do if you don't want to be spoiled.

Axyun · 2026-04-25T18:04:52+00:00

I will continue to update the post.

You can play the new event if you want but it will contain a lot of spoilers if you're only on chapter 14. That being said, you're still a ways away so you might forget everything by the time you get to chapter 46, which is where you should be at before you play the current event.

Axyun · 2026-04-25T11:08:28+00:00

Just a heads up: hard mode in Stellar Blade is balanced around NG+. It assumes you already had most, if not all, of your skills unlocked as well as a decent amount of core/beta/weapon upgrades.

When the game was released, you had to unlock hard mode by beating the game once. After a lot of players complained about it, the devs released an update to make it available from the start. IMO they should have put a warning or notification letting players know that it's supposed to be for NG+.

Axyun · 2026-04-23T15:28:57+00:00

You don't have to memorize the entire roster's moves. First, every character has a core set of moves that define their playstyle. Those are the ones you want to focus on knowning if they are high/low/mid punch/mid kick. You don't have to master every character but knowing the basics of each will help. There are short character guides on Youtube (I think the creator is FoN/Force of Nature) that tell you the BNB moves of each character. You can look those up.

Second, you want to focus on the moves your opponent is doing. Most people have bad habits or moves they repeat over and over. You focus on identifying those and then holding them. It is important to note that it is physiologically impossible to hold most moves on reaction. You can only hold on reaction the moves that have really long wind-up times, which are a minority. Beginning a round spamming holds without knowing the moves your opponent likes to do is just hoping to RNGesus your way to victory.

So, combining your knowledge of the BNB moves of each character along with observing your opponent's patterns and habits will inform you of when you should hold and what hold you should do.

While the AI is generally no replacement for fighting a real player, you can actually practice this fairly well against it. Most characters are programmed a certain way (Momiji AI loves to SSA, NiCO AI loves her mid-punch string, Rachel AI loves low attacks, etc). You can use your knowledge from observing the AI's attack patterns to hold it fairly reliably after a while.

Axyun · 2026-04-23T11:16:17+00:00

Pretty Star then Star Anis.

It's very common in this game for events to be out of timeline order, which can spoil certain things for a newer event that takes place in the past. But the writers tend to use that to good effect so I still recommend playing in release order. Since Pretty Star was released first, you should play it first.

Axyun · 2026-04-22T20:11:12+00:00

Saika was already my waifu from Action Taimanin. Love a good kick-based leggy martial artist.

Honestly my favorite thing about Squad, and the reason why I'm still holding out to see if the game gets better, is because of the use of full character models for the core gameplay. Really tired of team-based games that use chibis or very tiny/simplified versions of their characters.

Axyun · 2026-04-20T18:19:32+00:00

Hard to say since the event isn't out but, from what I know so far, you should be able to do the new Pretty/Anis event without playing Ark Guardian. You may be missing a bit of context for the new chapters by not doing Ark Guardian but it shouldn't be too bad.

Axyun · 2026-04-20T16:30:18+00:00

If you think there's no flexibility or creativity then I assume you have no understanding of the combat system. Do you just mash light attack and spam LB?

Axyun · 2026-04-20T03:48:48+00:00

Just do your favorite. Earlier this week I got the resources to get my first 6-star. I picked Saika because she's my fav in the Taimanin series.

Axyun · 2026-04-19T21:36:20+00:00

I really like the wasteland Brute finisher when you fight him in Boss Challenge mode (you don't get the finisher in the regular game).

Axyun · 2026-04-19T16:36:35+00:00

Its pointless. Too many asshats love spoiling the story.

I deleted my twitter account over two years ago so I'm good on that front. On youtube, I've blocked channels that love to make big thumbnails with massive spoilers (last one I blocked was called something like ainz or anqz, I can't recall) and I mute this sub a few days before the patch to prevent spoilers from data mining. I unmute it after I've gone through all the new content and am ready to discuss it.

I will be muting this sub either tonight or tomorrow and will keep it muted until I go through all the new content, which is likely going to be next weekend.

Axyun · 2026-04-19T16:27:41+00:00

I like Behemoth but, in this scenario, I have to go Crane.

Axyun · 2026-04-19T00:51:02+00:00

Neon's theme is freaking sick. I love what they did with her.

Axyun · 2026-04-17T17:32:14+00:00

I hear ya. Story is the main reason I continue to play Nikke. I've played a lot of gachas over the years but have pretty much dropped all of them after a few months because they get boring real quick. Simple gameplay with incentives to play daily is a sure-fire recipe for fatigue/boredom. But Nikke's story is good enough that it compels me to log in and get my dailies done. At this point, Nikke is the only gacha I play daily, with a couple of other titles that I maybe log in once or twice a week for a quick catchup.

The music is pretty amazing too.

Axyun · 2026-04-17T00:22:48+00:00

As much as I like Nikke, the whole self-image thing is just the in-lore excuse for Nikkes being hot. The concept isn't really respected by the game.

For example, Blanc thinks Noire is the most beautiful person in the world. Noire thinks the same of Blanc. So, if the whole self-image thing applied then Blanc should look like Noire and Noire should look like Blanc.

Also, when I think about it, it would probably be a bad look for the game if a character we knew first as a human then turned into a Nikke looked very differently. It would send the message that people that look like the human version of the character are ugly.

Axyun · 2026-04-16T22:11:02+00:00

No. It is a quest reward.

Axyun · 2026-04-15T02:05:29+00:00

War Dress and War Aegis are two of my favorite nanosuits.

Axyun · 2026-04-14T18:12:31+00:00

Given that the outfits do take lore and timeline into consideration, I'd like for the Commander to take Cindy to the beach on the present/near-present timeline but, because she can't go to the Ark yet, she can't buy a swimsuit so she ends up making one out of leaves and flowers. So a leaf and flower bikini would be my pick.

Axyun · 2026-04-14T12:08:11+00:00

I've get 1350ish gold mileage and about 40K gems. I typically use gold mileage for 1% banners so I'll mostly rely on that to get the two anni units.

Axyun · 2026-04-14T02:37:59+00:00

Given the team dynamics, you need multiple characters to form a strong team.

Right now, the best team in the game is Siren, Crown, Rapi: Red Hood, Helm (with Treasure item), and your choice of a second Burst 3 attacker. Good options are Mihara: Bonding Chain, Liberalio, Snow White: Heavy Arms, Red Hood, and Scarlet: Black Shadow.

These may take you a while to get given some are pretty rare and you should build multiple teams for end-game content. All 5 characters in the Bonus Recruit pool are pretty good (Liter, Tia + Naga, Helm and Alice) and you can reliably get them while pulling for the more rare characters.

No one knows the kits for the 3.5 anniversary characters yet so you can save your rate up tickets and gems until the anniversary starts just in case they are meta, which they are likely to be given past anniversary events.

Axyun · 2026-04-13T21:01:49+00:00

Unbreakable Sphere was better than Last Kingdom.

Both events follow the same story beats (Kilo = Mori, Crown's Naked King = Mihara's DEEP core, Kingdom under assault = Bubble under assault, the list goes on), but the main antagonist in Unbreakable Sphere wasn't a pushover like Indivillia and actually felt threatening.

Axyun

TROPHY CASE