Tucked away in the corner of this year's Day Of The Devs at GDC I discovered a lavish, strangely unattended action-RPG, in which austerely beautiful young women in elaborate skirts kick the bejazus out of each other on fields of whirling flowers.
That game was Aikode, the work of Spanish solo developer Ace. I've been thinking about Aikode in the run-up to the release of Stellar Blade, out today on PS5.
Stellar Blade is, by most accounts, rather good, despite its Stay Puft Marshmallow fixation on wibbly butts and boobs. Eurogamer's Jessica Orr praises the game's "killer tunes" "vibey, flow-state combat" and "transformative hard mode".
Whether it'll ever come to PC is another question: I learned today that there are puzzles in the game that feature PS5 controller icons, which suggests a firmer attachment to Sony's platform than we guessed when we wrote up Stellar Blade's announcement last year.
If it doesn't, I suspect Aikode will make a great alternative. I just hope its developer doesn't burn out making it. There's a lot going on here - check out this video: Both Stellar Blade and Aikode take inspiration from Nier: Automata, but Aikode seems more obviously reminiscent of the Yoko Taro opus in its love of meta moments and philosophical grandiloquence, the specific cut of its skirts and its ethereal, high tech world.