2024's Best Action Game Is (Mostly) Just as Good in Stunning Switch 2 Port

Shift Up’s Stellar Blade is one of the decade’s great action games, blending together quick-paced sword combat and powerful parries. A sequel is on the way, but before it arrives, Shift Up isn’t done with the first game. It arrives on Nintendo Switch 2 later this week, the latest in a long line of satisfying Switch 2 ports, even if it shares the same issues as most of them.

Stellar Blade was originally a PlayStation 5 console exclusive when it was released in April 2024. It later came to Windows PC in June 2025, and future entries in the series might be multiplatform as well. Stellar Blade follows a soldier named Eve as she stylishly slaughters monsters called Naytibas as she tries to save humanity. She only has a singular melee weapon, her trusty sword, but, like Miyamoto Musashi in Onimusha: Way of the Sword, she can wreak havoc with it. Combos and different weapon skills are continually unlocked throughout the game, ensuring that skirmishes next feel stale. I’ve already played through the whole of Stellar Blade, but didn’t mind revisiting it on Switch 2 as Eve’s swordfighting is just that entertaining.

Eve also has several defensive options at her disposal that open up combat. Each perfect parry rattles my Switch 2 with intensity. Her blink-dodge allows her to zoom behind a foe for a devastating follow-up combo. You’ll need to master the timings on those as Stellar Blade’s enemies and bosses can pack a punch. While not quite on the level of a Soulslike in terms of its difficulty, regular enemies can still give you a hard time on Stellar Blade’s middle difficulty option.

New costumes are continuously acquired throughout, and Bayonetta-inspired outfits arrive alongside the Switch 2 edition this week. Just like the base game’s outfits, most of them are skin-tight, and don’t leave a whole lot to the imagination. The same can’t be said about some of Eve’s other outfits, which are basically lingerie. The great appeal of a Switch 2 is being able to play on the go in handheld mode on a long train ride or maybe in a park. But with how damn pervy the game is, I’m not sure if I’d want to bring it anywhere public. I’ll bide my time on flights by playing Pokémon Pokopia or Mario Kart World for the moment.

You can’t get much out of the game in handheld mode anyway. Like some other AAA releases on Switch 2, you’re looking at maybe three hours of battery life playing Stellar Blade on default settings with near-max brightness. There are a lot of things to love about the Nintendo Switch 2, but its battery life is not one of them.

Stellar Blade does look good in handheld mode, at least. Sure, the graphics won’t be quite as good as on PlayStation 5 and Windows PC, but that’s to be expected at this point. The biggest issue is in characters’ hair, something the Switch 2 struggles with repeatedly. Eve has an outlandishly long ponytail, which barely renders during gameplay. In cutscenes, all characters’ hair is crunchy, like their hairstyles exist in 240p. Everything else — enemy models, environments, cutscenes — look great in handheld.

Put your Switch 2 in docked mode, and that goes away, for the most part. Hair looks better, and overall the graphics are much more comparable to the PS5 and PC versions. Environmental aspects like bushes and rubble will still pop in off in the distance and faraway enemies will jankily stutter around, but those are minor complaints. Stellar Blade looks great during effects-heavy combat, and it runs smooth as well. I haven’t encountered any notable framerate drops, even during an intense boss fight.

All told, Stellar Blade Complete Edition on Nintendo Switch 2 is a great way to experience Shift Up’s action game ahead of the series’ next entry. It might have some graphical blemishes on Nintendo’s comparatively underpowered hardware, but those blemishes don’t quite matter during the moment-to-moment, adrenaline-pumping gameplay that Stellar Blade delivers in spades.

Stellar Blade Complete Edition will be released on Nintendo Switch 2 on Nov. 5.