Stela

Platform(s): Nintendo Switch, PC, Xbox One
Genre: Action/Adventure
Developer: SkyBox Labs
Release Date: Oct. 17, 2019

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Xbox One Review - 'Stela'

by Cody Medellin on March 3, 2020 @ 12:30 a.m. PST

Stela is a cinematic platformer about a young woman witnessing the final days of a mysterious ancient world.

To this day, Inside and Limbo are top-tier 2D platforming games that can tell abstract stories with light puzzles and a short runtime. Other titles have tried to emulate the formula with varying success, but Inside and Limbo remain the gold standard. Stela is another game of this ilk, and it follows the same trajectory as the rest of those titles.

Stela starts off in the role of a nameless woman who wakes up in a cave on a stone slab. Once you find a ladder and emerge from the cave, you find yourself in a desolate farmland. Without any idea of what you should do next, your only recourse is to keep moving through forests and snowy lands and abandoned towns until you find something that can provides answers about what's going on.


Of all of the elements in the game, the story is perhaps the weakest aspect because it feels nonexistent. Like many games of this style before it, there are no cut scenes or narrator to explain what's going on, and your nameless protagonist is also mute. There are no notes left behind to fill in the lore, nor are there other characters to interact with to explain what's going on. This isn't much of a problem if the scenery and the actions provide a payoff, but that's lacking as well. With nothing to tie together the different locales, you're looking at a bunch of set pieces and no satisfying conclusion by the game's end.

For the most part, you know what to expect from the core game mechanics. You can run well, and you can leap good distances, but don't expect to survive great falls. Taking larger than normal leaps or drops will make you stumble, so you're more human than most video game characters. You can't fight, but you can automatically sneak when you're supposed to, so that's one less thing to worry about triggering. Puzzles are going to be your main obstacle when you're not trying to avoid lizards that burrow underground, swarms of beetles, or monstrosities known as Shadows. While most of them are easy to figure out, a few will require some trial and error or brute force to solve.

With that said, Stela does bring one new mechanic to the table: the ability to jump between into the background from time to time. It might not seem like such a big deal, but it gives you the chance to climb up to another platform without necessarily finding the edge first. This also works for things like boxes, so it's a good time saver and a quick way to escape danger.


The only issue with this and some other interactive elements is that there's no indicator to let you know if you can perform the special jump in the first place. At times, you may see a white highlight on some objects, like switches and boxes, but it's so faint that you'd be forgiven for thinking that it doesn't exist at all. Platforms have nothing to indicate that they're the special types you can climb on, so a few enemy encounters are frustrating since you don't know about the platform's presence. As such, you'll get into the habit of button-mashing the grab button to ensure that you aren't missing something that you can get onto.

Once you finish the game, there are only a few things to tempt completionists to return to the game. Although it has no effect on the ending at all, you can go back to each area and try to find the hidden secret flames. If you're into Achievements, there's one for beating the game in 90 minutes and one for beating it without any deaths. To be fair, these types of games don't necessitate repeat plays except from die-hard fans, but it is good to know there's something extra here, even if it doesn't changes anything about the nonexistent narrative.


The presentation is quite good most of the time. The soundtrack is the highlight of the audio, as the early tracks do a terrific job of giving off a horror vibe that amps up the dread as creatures start to close in. The later tracks are also good, since they go for a sense of discovery instead. The entire audio package sounds wonderful without sounding too disconnected from one another. Graphically, the game makes great use of colors and lighting to create some excellent environments, while the camera zoom does an excellent job of giving the game a more cinematic feel. The only issue comes in the game's early levels, where dark colors are so prevalent that you lose sight of your character and the platforms. The situation gets much better in the second half of the game, but that issue with the first few areas doesn't give a good first impression.

If you're into games for the experience more than the narrative, Stela might work for you. A few of the puzzles took more brute force than smarts to solve, but nothing was impossibly difficult. The idea of plane-jumping is good, except for when you can't tell if the feature is active. The graphics look beautiful, but the early levels suffer from too many dark colors muddying the waters. It's too bad that the set pieces lack anything special to connect them together. Overall, while Stela may not be top-tier material, it is solid enough to warrant a look.

Score: 7.0/10



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