Blades of Fire - Review

In 2010, developer MercurySteam gained the attention of the gaming world when they created a brand new Castlevania game and then a few years later they did it again, creating a Metroid game. This gives them the credit of being the only developer to work on both halves of the MetroidVania genre. When Metroid: Samus Returns released in 2017 the developer was also working on their own IP, Spacelords and both of those games were fun. So, the developer became one of my favourites and with Blades of Fire, I went in hoping that they could strike success yet again. The question was, were they able to forge something fun, or was the result dulled by too much ambition.

The story that is told here is quite simple, you are Aran di Lira and while you begin the game living out the life of a hermit in the woods, you have a past. The past has you growing up alongside the princess Nerea, but at some point, you leave and when Nerea becomes the Queen she becomes evil and curses all steel to become stone. Hearing a scuffle in the woods near his home, Aran discover a young boy and an old man fighting against some of the Queen’s soldiers and while the man was slain, the boy was saved. It turns out they were on their way to visit you and the old man, Abbot Dorin, was going to give Aran a hammer. The hammer though is a special one, there are only seven of them in the world and it is said that the power of these hammers helped create the world. Aran is taken to a mystical forge and given the power to create steel once more and then just decides to go and kill the Queen.

That is the set up to the game, more of the story is explained as you go, but there is not a lot of it. As you explore the world and interact with some more characters, you do learn more about the world, but Aran himself is not especially forthcoming. While Aran is the muscle in the game, the brains come from Adso, the young boy that was saved and joins you on your journey. Adso, apart from a few snarky comments about Aran’s ability to use ladders, takes notes on every solider and beast you encounter. All combined, Aran, Adso and the folks you encounter help to build out the world and it feels natural. However, there is a concern here, well two. The first is that even without any sort of mystical revelation that we are privy to, Aran gets the hammer and the next morning decides to kill the Queen. There is no conversation from anyone, no looking at an old photo or anything, he just decides to do it and it’s a decision that feels completely random. The other issue is the story is dependent on your exploring everything, in order to get the complete picture and as that can be a challenge, some folks will likely miss out on a lot of it. It also is not helped by the fact that until you actually discover something, Aran and Adso will have no knowledge of it.

As you explore the world, you will encounter a variety of enemies, some are simple and some are very dangerous. This would not be an issue if the game didn’t respawn them upon your death or resting at one of the many anvils around the world. Yes, it turns out that the game is more souls-like than I had expected, which means that if you defeat a group of enemies and then rest up, they come back. There are some exceptions to this, but for the most part they all come back, which gave me confidence when I first entered the Crimson Fort. The leader of the fort is a giant hulking beast and when I first encountered them, I was successful in my fight and I pushed on. But I soon discovered that he likes to respawn without my dying or resting and he also teleports, which made the entire region a real joy to fight through.

Fighting in the game is made more challenging because of the games combat systems, there is nothing wrong with them, but they are just so unique that it takes a while to adapt. Each face button on the controller is attached to an action, A or X is attack the body whereas Y or triangle attacks the head. Each enemy has parts of their body that are more susceptible to taking damage than others, and depending on how they are defending, your attack can land or be bounced off. This is made even more challenging based on where you are in the encounter, a large open space will give you, well space to swing your weapon about, but a narrow tunnel could see your weapon bounce off the wall. So, you need to account for your enemy, their protection, their own weapons, your weapon and the environment you are in, but wait there is more. Each weapon type has different effects, like stabbing or slashing and depending on your attack direction, you can do one or the other. But wait, there is still more as some weapons can do a lot of one type of attack, but hardly any of the other and it comes down to how you make them.

Yes, you have to make your own weapons in Blades of Fire, which does line up with you getting a mystical forging hammer. If the game had you find weapons and still had that combat system, it would feel weird, because you would be reliant on what you found and as some enemies can shrug off a sword but not a polearm, looting the right weapon would be a pain. Forging requires materials, which thankfully you find fairly easily in the world, but that is just the start. Each weapon has a basic design and the more you use them, and the more enemies you kill with them, the more designs you unlock. In the spear group, you can have multiple tip types, like pointy or not and then you can have edges that are jagged or smooth. The staff that you hold onto can be longer or shorter, reenforced or not and even the types of metal and timber can affect everything. All this comes together to create a weapon that has a set weight, piercing damage, slashing damage, stamina costs and more. You could make two exact spears but change the length and the results could be vastly different. But don’t forget you have to actually make the weapons, that means hammering them into shape. This mini-game is one of the strongest and weakest parts for me, yes, it’s fun to hammer metal into the shape of a sword, but it can be so finicky to get it right. There is no time limit, so you can do things slowly, but you only get a certain number of hits you can make. The more successful you are at hitting the goal, pun intended, the better the quality weapon you get.

Thankfully, once you have made a four or even five star weapon, when you go to make a new one of that same type, the game will offer to auto-forge it for you, matching your best result. This means you do not have to forge a new spear each time, you choose the options and then the game will finish it off for you. The stars reflect the quality, but also the number of times you can repair it at an anvil in the world. As you use a weapon, either to attack or defend with, the durability drops and while you can sharpen the attacking part, the durability is still impacted. Once you repair it, you lose a star and once they are all gone, the weapon can’t be repaired and you will need to recycle it and get another one. Because of all of this the weapon management feels like a massive part of the game and if you dive into all the details it can be, the auto-forge option takes some of that burden though. Combine the two sides, weapon making and then weapon using and you have a fairly rich game, the problem is that is all you get.

The world itself is stunning and finding upgrades for Aran’s health or stamina hidden around the world is fun, but that is about the extent of it. There are not a lot of folks to spend time with, at least not entirely living ones, leaving you to the company of Adso for most of the game. When you do find folks, they don’t often ask you to go somewhere to get things, you just have conversations and move on. Now I am not saying that the game needed 100 hours of sidequests to pad the game out, but some puzzles to unlock things would have made a nice change from the constant combat encounters.

I said before that the world is stunning and I mean it, from the opening moments to the very end, the game is teaming with detail that is hard to overlook. I mentioned the Crimson Fort before, it is one of the earlier locations you visit and the name comes from its vibrant red colour scheme. Well faded now, but there is still enough red to see, but as this is a place that was a bastion of hope for many, there are books, chairs, soldier training areas and even a small dungeon, all coming together to show that people lived here. No matter the region you visit, they all look wonderful and while they have a cohesive them to join them together, they all stand out on their own. Aran and Adso are unique characters, Aran looks like he would be a one-man army, but he is soft spoken for the most part. Adso on the other hand is more knowledgeable and helpful than you might first think, based on his look. Even the enemy designs play a factor in how you attack them, which is made even more helpful by Adso’s drawings. While the game does have a fairly long load at the start of each session, once you are in the game, it runs and loads great, so don’t worry about all those deaths.

On the sound side of things, the music is there, it was however not my favourite. When you are in combat, the music kicks in, but my issue with it was that it stayed far too long once combat ended. The tracks are ok, a little medieval fantasy and it suits the world, but there was nothing about the soundtrack that makes me want to pick up the album. On the voice acting side, both Aran and Adso are ok, they get the job done but they won’t be winning any awards. Aran as I said at the start is not a forthcoming character, but when he has a proper conversation with someone, you can connect to him. The moments when he speaks to Adso during combat, when Adso completes an entry are fun, but there was one instance I noted where I had finished combat and was standing still, yet the voice line said was if I was still in combat. The secondary characters that you meet are a little more spirited, Mercat being one of them, but they put more life into the story and I enjoyed that about them.

Blades of Fire is a special game, at a glance you might be forgiven for thinking that it was your basic fantasy adventure game but look deeper and you will find something more. Combat is perhaps the most engaging aspect of the game, even without the souls-like enemy respawns, because you have to think about how you want to fight. Combine that with the creation of your own weapons and it results in gameplay that is extremely unique. The games story is perhaps the weakest part, it does the job, but it is not the reason to pick up your hammer. For those that do forge ahead with Blades of Fire, know that it is a challenging game, but one that will prove the metal of anyone game enough to try.

The Score

9.0

Review code provided by 505 Games

The Pros

Combat is intense, understanding enemy types, weapon types, positions and everything else takes a lot of understanding

As you encounter the various foes of the world, you begin to learn more and it feels like a natural growth

The Cons

Making the weapons can be finicky at times and getting the best weapon possible feels more like a chore

The story is perhaps the weakest part of the game, it serves its purpose though