Blades of Fire (Review)

I admire when a developer does something different. Acclaimed studio MercurySteam has gone through quite a journey over the last 20 years, developing games such as the Castlevania reboot and Metroid Dread in recent years. Now it seems like the studio is bravely developing a Souls-like with their own unique twist. Instead of finding weapons in some dank, damp old dungeon, or from the corpse of a space marine. How about forging your weapons in a divine, gamey way? How does researching, gathering resources, putting everything together, and deciding on the finest details of your weapon itself, right down to a silly name? (I named my favourite daggers slashy slashy.) 

If this sounds interesting, you’ll love Blades of Fire as much as I did.


Time to taste my hot steel!

We take on the role of Aran de Lira, a legendary blacksmith and weapons forger who has become a recluse since the rise of Queen Mira. He lives a quiet life away from the war-torn lands, the spreading decay, and other hardships brought about when Queen Mira turned all steel into stone, only granting the power of the blade to her army. Aran is set to live out the rest of his days in a small home he built, away from the ensuing madness. However, he is not so fortunate as this peace, as the call to adventure arises when a dear old friend is murdered before his eyes.

With his friend’s dying breath, Aran is gifted a powerful and magical Forger's Hammer, allowing him to once again craft weapons of steel and other stronger, powerful materials. There is hope, there is a chance of peace, and Aran must now venture forth to kill Queen Mira with his new young sidekick, Adso. Together, they venture forth, traveling through lust forest land, sand bathed Rocky Mountains, and frozen wasteland, fending off Mira’s army, savage beasts, and things far, far worse … like a ghostly guide who never shuts the hell up about losing his eyes centuries ago (more on that in a bit).

And that's pretty much it for the story. So, there isn’t any intriguing complexity for the narrative, with dramatic diplomacy or challenging morals. While there are some neat twists, it is a rather straightforward yet still relatively engaging narrative, featuring all the classic fantasy bells and whistles. It reminded me a lot of David Gemmell’s novel White Wolf, as they both have some notable similarities in certain story beats. A once-renowned warrior/forger comes out of hiding due to the death of a friend to fulfil a personal vendetta against an evil queen. (minor spoiler) Who also turns out to be an old friend from childhood.

While the narrative itself is structurally very humdrum, being a typical gaming narrative of go here, go there “Chess-like” story, there is a lot of charm, and as the hours passed, I grew to love Aran, Adso, their bond, the darkest moments of the world, and the weirdly wonderful stuff that MercurySteam are great at doing. There is so much weird, so much bizarre, and far more fantasy macabre than I expected, as this game is dripping in such beautiful, dark fantasy surrealism. And to explore further, I immensely enjoyed the bond between Aaron and Adso, despite it taking quite a bit of time for their father-son dynamic to blossom into a remarkably wholesome one to observe.

The only things to truly ground my gears with the writing were the repetition from side characters, with constant and repeated observations, remarking on what I did in the world or what I wasn’t doing. I like the fact that characters would point out if I was just idle, or making a snappy comment which was chuckle-worthy. But also hearing the same handful of lines being thrown about over and over, occasionally, scratched my nerves.

How climbing a rope would bring Adso to remark, “Fall, break an ankle, and that’s it for saving the world” or “Should you be climbing a rope at your age?”. These lines are burned into my brain. 

But the worst was in a particular area on the first map where I had to traverse a gigantic Nordic-style graveyard with a long-deceased spirit as a guide. When I first met this guide, he was quite charming as he played a big scaredy cat who just happens to run away when he sees monsters, even though he's long dead. He did manage to bring a heavy-hearted chuckle out of me with all these different lines centred on him being quite dead. That is for the first hour or so, before he began repeating the same 4 lines repeatedly. I grew to dislike this old ghost soon enough, sadly.

While the repetition is quite tedious, and the narrative fairly simple, I was quite blown away by the intriguing themes being played with throughout the game. As the story doesn't hold a lot of substantial depth for the most part, there is a lot of gravitas regarding the themes of loss, redemption, and facing your past head-on for absolution. There were a few genuine moments where I choked up a bit, especially towards the end as Aran comes closer and closer to what he has been hiding from, and the father-son bond he has with Adso. It is easy to see Aran as a typical gruff, stoic male character who nowadays gets a bit of a bad rap. In the preview I went to, a few of the other people were commenting on his quite loudly, and all I thought was “Let’s see how this pans out?”. And I genuinely, he maintained perseverance, presence and grew as an interesting character facing some tough decision-making. He had his moments of charming, witty comedy, and when there was a moment that called for a dramatic bit of tension, he and his voice actor were able to smash the delivery with some emotional weight to an otherwise humdrum story.

Aside from that, Blades of Fire’s world is so fascinating visually and substantially. I loved all the little tidbits of lore, the twisted history, and side stories that accumulated to one of the most enriching fantasy landscapes I’ve seen in gaming for a long, long time. Everything had the breath of life coursing through it, allowing me to experience wonder, amazement, suspense and disgust at the sight of mangled corpses and people made of slugs. Simply staggering at times, just seeing the blending of different medieval thematics and aesthetics in a heartfelt and loving manner.

Plus, the game looks f***ing stunning! And ran as smoothly, without hiccups, crashes, or even a stutter in sight while playing on both Xbox Series X/S, and PS5. That’s how to handle the performance of a massive video game, take note (Looks judgmentally at the AAA gaming industry).


By Grabthar's Hammer

Right, let's get to the bones of the game, The Forging! This is the heart and soul of Blades of Fire, and what sets it apart from being a rather great Souls-like, to a bloody brilliant one.

The forge is a powerful dynamic that enhanced the gravity and impact I had in the world, granting me full control of how I would approach each battle. This is a mechanic that puts into perspective how other adventure games could handle progression and developing attachments to your arsenal, pushing forward and meaningful and varied playstyles.

How the forge works is rather simple: you gather your resources, acquire blueprints by killing enemies in the field, and bring them all back to draw out, select the materials, and with your hands and hammer, forge a weapon of great power. Which I often named stupid names, here are some below:

Stabby Mc Stabface
The Big Old Poker
Hammer Time
Axe meets Face
Big Old Daggers
Mommy (please do judge me, it’s fine)

Your potential arsenal ranges from Twin Daggers, Heavy Axes, Bulky Hammers, Great Swords, Spears and so forth, with a huge variety in adjustments, add-ons, and other factors tweaking them into your image in fine detail. So you are spoilt for choice when it comes to crafting, but remember that every decision matters, and the level of technical and strategic detail here for all the weapons and components is mesmerising. 

Once you have a blueprint, you'll need materials. You find these out in the world by smashing stuff, killing enemies. You will need coal and iron to heat the fires in the furnace, and once it’s hot enough, it's time to get crafting. From here, you can fine-tune the weapon by selecting the length of the blade, the size of the tilt, and the materials of the various components of the weapon. Doing so will increase the various stats, be it damage output for piercing or slashing or blunt attacks. But alter other areas such as weight, defence, how you parry and the stamina cost. There is a lot to understand the method in the madness, and even the smallest stats can make a big deal of difference.

Once you've done picking and choosing in finite detail the weapon you desire, you put everything together and then are allowed to shape the weapon in a literal sense with a mini game that simulates the hammering of red-hot steel from the furnace. This is a nice little touch gameplay-wise, even if it does get quite repetitive, even as the weapons become more complex. But carrying out this mini-game successfully grants you more repair tokens when out in the field.

The forge is such a compelling concept, one that utterly gripped me from the get-go, and pushed me further into the world out of my comfort zone, just to find more materials and resources to craft better weapons. And having the means to make something of your own, like breathing life into the world, has a lot of satisfaction and endearment to it. Especially when you drop the weapon after a brutal death …

Everything becomes a delicate balancing act of deciding whether strength and power should matter over durability and the cost of stamina. And this system is flexible for all gamers, branching out the various stats to make everyone happy, but also incredibly cautious. But I deeply admired the approachability of the forge and the many stats going on when crafting. Everything is laid out in ease and clarity, ensuring even an idiot like me, who hates stats (why I never got into Borderlands), I generally felt very comfortable playing, making and understanding the impact of my weapons.

And as for grinding, I never felt the costs of making weapons were too high, but the later game will challenge you, to the point where dropping your weapons might happen a little more often than you like. There are no backups, and losing a powerful weapon without many resources to make another can kill the pacing a bit. You can pick up dropped weapons, but getting there on a crummy iron dagger you forged since you ran out of resources can indeed be quite irritating. But during my playthrough, I always felt like I had enough to make what I needed, as some resources are so plentiful even on the harder difficulty.


I'm off on an adventure!

Now that we've gone through making weapons, let’s talk about using them… and some nice exploration. 

As a Souls-like, Blades of Fire is confident in its complexity, still presenting a highly engaging environment with a high level of density for discovery and interaction. The sense of wonder and discovery was on another level, giving me the ultimate highs when I would find some new, intriguing little crevice or cave with treasure or that one last enemy I needed to kill for a new blueprint. Even my knowledge of an area I had explored previously was questioned often, as I found new, exciting discoveries. Such as the preview/demo area of the game, which I played in the preview last month for 3 solid hours. I knew all the shortcuts and main points of interest, yet I still found new stuff which I had missed before. I love games that do this, offering you constant new ventures with each playthrough, with outstanding gestures of level design when this happens.

In comparison, I've been playing Doom: The Dark Ages, and I feel that while a great game, the aspect of exploration and secret hunting is so dumbed down. Blades of Fire ignited something in me, that itch for discovery and searching for loot, danger and reward, even if it meant facing certain death.  The treasure seeker vibes are strong here, and I want other games to be as daring as Blades of Fire is.

As for the main question and side stuff, I would argue that Blades of Fire has more in common with a classic Metroidvania than a traditional Souls-like. As new paths, rewards, and key items are unlocked with skills, other keys, and backtracking, it felt more akin to Castlevania in some brilliant ways (interesting connection there).

The only complaints I had were that backtracking at times felt a little nauseating, just due to how complex and interwoven the interior areas were at times. I felt that at times in certain sections or Blades of Fire, the woven nature would just feel so convoluted for its good. This would be a problem when I was just backtracking for an item I had missed, and I would just end up spinning around in circles, just trying to find a way up to this one platform. Implementing interior maps would have been a lifesaver here, instead of the pain of being so lost. Yet, in fairness, this was only in a couple of key areas, and this convolutedness also worked in the game’s favour as this is when I would find the lost secrets I didn’t know I needed in my life.

Slashy, stabby, exploring, treasure hunting, more stabbing

As for combat, it’s immensely satisfying, and dare I say, meaty! That intense surge from slicing off an arm, or slamming a head with a giant hammer, has been some of the most gratifying and vastly brutal enjoyment I've had for quite a while. What I did love about Blades of Fire is its tactical yet arcade nature, letting me feel like a bad-ass, and seeing the results in gruesome fashion.

But it’s also the fact that the game pushed me out of my comfort zone to try new weapons and approach enemies with strategic understanding. As all enemies are different and present a new challenge for each encounter.

I was never a big fan of heavy weapons such as hammers due to the windup time, or even a big, pointy spear, but with Blade of Fire, I relished the fact that hammers and spears can be utilised so beautifully and be enjoyable to use. Everything weighs stab, slash, or smash, so I got a euphoric overload at seeing my foes be dismembered.

The core combat loop itself is quite clear-cut, as you have your 4 main buttons which will attack a designated part of an enemy. Square will be the right arm, Circle the left arm, Triangle will be the head, and X will be from underneath. This does matter when it comes to the enemy, as they could be protected with a helmet, making head attacks weaker from you, or seeing them swing from the right means you can dodge and attack them on the left, which is wide open. There was quite a methodical sense to dealing with enemies, and on the higher difficulty, it’s super critical to embrace this. But there are also other factors, from maintaining your weapon, picking a different stance, whether it would be to slash, pierce or smash, there were always changing factors in encounters that kept things lively and engaging.

You have all the other bells and whistles, such as parrying and dodging, with a parry system that’s easy to grasp (again, I’m not a parry fan, but I pulled it off more than I thought I would). It does take time knowing the intricacies of whether you should dodge, block, parry, or whether you can use a heavy attack because there's a lot of enemy variety here, and interestingly, they all have their unique perks and stances in combat there are. This can be a little overwhelming, especially when enemies mix up, causing a bit of controlled chaos that does get quite intense on the hardest difficulty. 

One of the more intriguing aspects is how certain enemies can alter their state during battle, by morphing new armour and protection, disrupting your plan of attack. For example, you have these elemental enemies made of water, and they are highlighted as green with the weapon you're holding. Green is good, yellow is okay, and red is, nah, that weapon won’t work. He may suddenly morph, pull in these bits of armour and change his state from Green, to Yellow or even Red! Meaning you have to change the stance with your weapon or use another one entirely.

This was a nice idea in concept, and it does work for certain enemies, but during my playthrough, I found in certain instances the game arbitrarily also uses this system at the worst possible times. I would be confidently using a weapon that would soon be useless, despite its condition. And I wouldn't understand why, as visually, not all enemies change or adapt in a fight. But there were times when my weapons would all just become redundant, and I would either have to pull out an incredibly underpowered weapon or just run! When a weapon degraded, I understood why, but in some instances, there was no clear logic.

This didn't happen a lot, but when it did, it was incredibly jarring. And the worst happened, particularly with one boss battle at the end of the first area. This drove me insane, as I had a full arsenal of great weapons, and I could not use any of them apart from a pair of mid-level daggers, which did half damage to him. I created a sword with the same material, thinking maybe it's the material he has a weakness against, but no, it just seemed like such a massive oversight by the game's brain, just to arbitrarily make this fight harder.

The only reasoning is that I might have missed something, that important detail on an enemy’s weakness or resistance. And there are notes, but nothing that dives deeper into the aforementioned topics. You get the bestiary, and it says what they’re skin is made from, and whether they’re prone to being stabbed or slashed. And generally, 90% of the enemies work out to be the same according to the wiki of monsters. Either I’m missing something, or the game is not correctly telling me something. It feels like Blades of Fire took inspiration from The Witcher 3 … but decided not to flesh it out or be the right kind of informative. I speak of this because other areas, such as the forge, are so information and clear as day.

Again, in my 60 hours of play, this happened a handful of times, but it did come about at the worst possible times. Regardless, the combat is satisfying, with the crunchiness of bones, the impact and weight of weapons truly being felt, and the high tension of maintaining and building bigger and better weapons giving you such a sense of purpose, unlike most adventure games.

And there are various other sub-systems I haven’t even touched upon, such as the weapon notoriety, where using a weapon grants it a status, and the higher the status, the more resources you get when trading it in with the Big Boob Witch lady (The inner Homer Simpson in me said that). There’s so much depth and purpose to combat making it feel more than a hack and slash game… But.


Steamy Souls-Like?

Right, this is a long review, and I will wrap it up. But let’s discuss how much of a Souls-Like Blades of Fire is. I do admire MercurySteam for going into a new direction with their latest game is a massively bold and impressive addition to the sub-genre. What helps Blades of Fire stand out is the flexibility, an enriching mechanic with the forge, and being punishing, yet never holding you back.

I personally hate the notion of working your guts out, then losing your XP, resulting in hardships and grind. Blades of Fire never did that, and I respect the hell out of it. It challenged me, but made me actively better as a player interacting with its world.

The intensity of reclaiming dropped weapons, forging the right ones, learning all of the different enemy patterns and managing the wellbeing of your weapons has been some of the most enthralling experiences I’ve had this year.  Blades of Fire became the most approachable Souls-like I’ve played.

But I couldn't help but feel that there was still a large amount of hack and slash DNA incorporated into the heart of the game, and this does show and chip at the Souls-Like formula the developers were aiming for. In an interview with lead director Enric Alvarez, he said that this (Blades of Fire) is a very different game, and in the marketing material, states very upfront that this is not a hack and slash like God of War or Castlevania. I do argue that there are hack and slash fibres here, with moments of overwhelming enemies, big set pieces and other moments which don’t fit a traditional Souls-Like. And it’s interesting, but does presents a conflict.

I had quite a few moments where I was barraged with enemies, and the game just unwillingly said, “Right, pretend this is Devil May Cry now”, then do a 180 and present the slower, more Souls-Like vibes it intended.

It doesn't necessarily get in the way of you enjoying this game as a Souls-like because it has all the right elements. But now and then, I noticed the hack and slash vibes wanting to break free, and it can hang up and disrupt you due to the limitations in place on your movements and all that. Look, making a Souls-like is hard, considering many factors, right down to the placement of an enemy. But MercurySteam has been incredibly confident in their design, creating a gigantic and utterly compelling game despite some setbacks.


Overall?

Okay, this is the longest review I’ve done since DOOM: Eternal. I’ll wrap this up by simply saying:

Blades of Fire is spectacular

MercurySteam's approach to gaming feels like a great home-cooked meal, that might not be perfect, or fancy like a top-end restaurant. But there is so much passion, love and soul in their games that they become endearing throughout gaming history. And Blades of Fire is quite frankly their best work. The sheer scale, density, and amazingly innovative gameplay features here will surely inspire others, and they should be so proud at accomplishing a mighty feat.

Blades of Fire carries itself with grace, depth, passion, and expert craftsmanship, amounting to an ultimate adventure game. MercurySteam has created a game that not only challenges your skills but also rewards your effort with each forge, fight, and adventure.

+++ The Forge and making your weapons is an amazing gaming experience  
++ Fantastic world to explore with interesting discoveries and rewards 
++ Challenging, yet flexible with satisfying, and impactful combat 
++ Lots of great sub-systems and mechanics which beautifully work together 
+ Interesting themes and character developments 

-- The main story is flat at times and not the most original 
- Combat challenges and difficulty spikes feel unwanted and out of nowhere 
- Plenty of repetition in dialogue and character exchanges 


505 Games kindly provided Blades of Fire review codes for Xbox Series X/S and PS5.