Trending
Making a game with the original mechanics that don't closely replicate the ones from the most popular and widely accepted games is always a sort of leap of faith for the developers—you never know how the audience will accept such experiments, but the fact remains: all the developers that dare to take such a step deserve our deepest respect.
Such a game is Blades of Fire—an action RPG that does its own thing and lives inside its own little world. Playing this game, you'll see the traces of Souls mechanics; the world is designed in a recognisable, fantasy manner too, but all that is wrapped up to look and feel like a unique whole, something you won't experience very often in the world of video games.
First, the story is very good, although a little messy, and, let's say, very original. Your main character is Aran, a muscular man who is sworn to find and kill the queen, who uses magic to turn steel into stone. On his path of vengeance, he meets a god-like creature who transformed him into the parallel realm where the internal forge is burning.
Using the special hammer and anvils scattered all over the game's realm, Aran will often visit those places where he will forge his own weapons using different materials. The weapons will help him battle the evil forces sent on his path by the queen.
As I said, the story is quite intriguing at times but can be pretty messy and complicated too, told in a confusing way using some quite complicated terms, which the game sometimes forgets to explain, leaving that part for us to figure out and connect the dots on our own.
Apart from the classic storytelling throughout the in-game cutscenes, the very important part will be played by Adso, Aran's companion, who will work as some sort of walking encyclopaedia. Whenever Aran wants to learn more about the objectives or the region they find themselves in, Adso will have all the answers they require.
I said earlier that Blades of Fire is a very special game, especially when it comes to gameplay and gameplay mechanics in general. In this game, weapons are everything, and all the mechanics will revolve around weapons. As part of the story, the sacred forge will allow you to make countless weapons, and each one of them will have its own use.
Different recipes found in the world, along with different materials, will allow you to forge weapons. However, forging weapons in this game isn't as simple as you might think it would be. First, you must choose the materials, and then, once you make this decision, a mini-game in which you'll have to finely forge a weapon will commence. Depending on how well you finish this mini game and how good the materials you choose are, the quality of a weapon is determined.
The quality of weapons will be determined by the number of stars they get. The more stars, the more times that particular weapon can be repaired once its durability is reduced to a minimum. Using weapons in combat will wear them down, and the more the weapon is damaged, the less damage it deals.
Seriously, everything revolves around weapons. I already mentioned that the game borrows some mechanics from the Souls games. Anvils will work as bonfires where you can rest, upgrade weapons and characters, and visit the sacred forge. Upon using an anvil, the enemies will reset, like in Souls-like games.
Apart from that, once you meet your demise, you'll be respawned at an anvil, and instead of losing money or souls, like in the Souls games, you'll drop the weapon you wielded at the time of death. If you fail to retrieve it, it will be lost forever.
Different enemies will be vulnerable to different weapons, so once you lock on target, if it glows red, it means you cannot harm them with that kind of weapon. If it glows yellow, it will receive minimum damage, while a green colour means you have chosen the right weapon.
Unlike Souls-like games, Blades of Fire can be played on three different difficulties, but even on the easiest difficulty, you'll die a lot because this game is ruthless. However, the biggest challenge in Blades of Fire isn't tough enemies but rather the unusual control scheme.
The idea of the combat in this game is genius, and whoever got the idea to employ such a combat system deserves a medal. It is so simple, yet so effective, but unfortunately, it will take a lot of time to get used to such a system and such controls.
The combat system works like this: you have four buttons on your controller, and each button defines the direction of your attack. The square button (PlayStation) is dedicated to the attacks that come from the left side. Pressing the circle will attack from the right side, the X from below, and the triangle from above, and all of those attacks can be charged as well.
For me personally, the biggest problem was adapting to L1 being the dodge command and the L2 parry, but once I mastered those controls, the beauty of this combat system, along with its fluidity, really opened up for me. This smart and engaging combat system, paired with the weapon management, made the gameplay experience of Blades of Fire really a unique one.
As much as the game is difficult, I must say I was a bit disappointed with the bosses, not in terms of difficulty, because they are very challenging, but more in terms of variety and the lack of strategising while fighting them. All boss battles revolve around the same strategy: land a hit or two, roll, rinse and repeat, and that's pretty much it.
The levels are designed in some sort of semi-open-world style, where you'll get a map once you discover an area, but movements through those maps are usually limited. The style of level design reminded me a lot of the latest God of War games, and not just in the design itself, but also in exploration.
The levels are jam-packed with stuff to discover, puzzles to solve, and mysteries to uncover, and in this regard, the developers really hit the mark because if you love discovering stuff in video games, Blades of Fire will satisfy all your adventurous needs.
Visually speaking, Blades of Fire isn't the prettiest nor the ugliest game out there. The fairest assessment would be to say that it has its charm, but it is really nothing special. The overall visual design leans towards a mediaeval fantasy setting, and while this setting usually means a colourful world full of beautiful sceneries and vistas, you'll rarely see such sights in this game.
The game has its moments, like the first time you see the big city full of towering structures, but mostly, the visuals are quite generic and, let's say, overly simple. You'll notice the usage of all modern graphical effects, especially the use of particle effects and advanced lighting, but those don't create some unforgettable moments.
Some dungeons and caves look nice, especially with all sorts of enemies you're fighting inside them, creating nice graphical effects, and also, the graphical presentation of the forge and forging weapons must be commended too—those look really impressive.
Performance-wise, there are not any complaints because the game runs very smoothly on the PlayStation 5, where I played it. The PlayStation 5 version doesn't feature usual performance and fidelity settings, with everything running at a stable 60 FPS all the time.
Conclusion
Blades of Fire is an action RPG following its own rules and trying to be something else, even though the similarity with the Souls titles and their influence is something it cannot escape from. However, the unique fighting mechanics, paired with the original weapon management, are enough to make this game very intriguing and to make it stand out in the sea of titles that mindlessly try to be like every other game out there.
If you're ready to forget some minor issues in storytelling and to spend some extra time getting used to the very unusual control scheme, then by all means, give this game a go—it could just surprise you how good and satisfying the entire experience can be.
The Good
Unique weapon-focused gameplay and crafting system- Directional combat that's fluid and rewarding
- Strong exploration and semi-open-world design
- Stable 60 FPS performance on PS5
The Bad
Confusing and poorly explained story- Boss fights lack strategic depth
- Controls are unusual and take time to adjust to
