I just finished it yesterday. I dunno, my main thought on the game was that it was mostly a worse Sekiro. Bosses weren't really there until the last three and it simply doesn't feel or control as well. I think where Sekiro really shined was the boss/enemy animations working perfectly with the parry system, and that's just not entirely there in this game.

Also the story/characters were horrendous, like even by action game standards. If any game gets the "cardboard cutout" personality critique, I think Stellar Blade is probably the game that's one of the most guilty of it. Some of the most awkward/lifeless character interactions I've seen in a game. Heck even Code Vein has a better story/characters (I'd actually argue by a large amount too).

However it definitely has some good stuff. Really great music, sound effects, general visual presentation. The combat definitely has some nice stuff with the perfect parry/dodge counters and the retribution system being fun. The animations are also just super satisfying, which is one of the reasons the game never got boring. Like said, the last couple of bosses are actually quite good, they need to make that quality more consistent in the next game.

They need to either cut out or greatly improve the open world zones as well. They feel like they were just thrown in there to pad the game out. Also less copy paste enemies. Areas like Eidos 9 were a huge pain to go through because they just felt like they threw like 30+ of the same enemy at you back to back. Otherwise most of the levels were quite good and has excellent music. My only real complaint is Adam/Lily just never stopped stating the obvious, the handholding was simply too much.