Blades of Fire Review

Developed by MercurySteam and published by 505 Games, Blades of Fire is an action-adventure game which feels like it has some Souls-like tendencies. There is a strong theme of forging your own weapons and whilst you are it you also must forge your own destiny.

                You play as Aran the son of the Kings Ward, a good-natured smith who fights and stands up for those who can’t defend themselves. But his abilities to forge are about to be taken to the next level and set him on a new path of chaos. His late friend was on route to pass to him a legendary hammer before he passed which, when used in forging, holds a mystical power. When struck on an anvil it teleports him to a magical forge where using materials he gathered, he can forge new weapons that he will need on his perilous journey. He is on the path to oppose the newly crowned Queen Nerea who has cast a spell that has turned all steel to stone except those forged with the legendary blacksmiths hammer. Her abominations are taking over the world as there is no one left with the steel to defend themselves until now.

              MercurySteam are sticking to their winning formula as with Castlevania Lords of Shadow by pitting a strong muscular man against many enemies. But you are not alone in your journey as you travel with Adso, a companion who helps with his mind rather than his battle prowess. His knowledge of the world and history as well as his note taking skills help Aran understand his enemies better and the best ways to defeat them.

                The first thing you notice about the game is how great it looks. It’s graphically quite beautiful and the character animations and voice acting are also of a decent standard. The controls are mostly positive, but some button choices make it hard to grasp due to the unique point of this game; being that you do not find weaponry in this game, it is all crafted by you. Weapons also suffer from degradation, and I know other games have this mechanic, but it becomes a vital point in this game. That is because for every weapon you forge there is a minigame to play where you have to shape the metal into the weapon you are making. It’s not very tutorial friendly but it’s simple enough to even have a go at shaping it how you need it. The better job you do the more stars of quality the weapon has. This doesn’t make it stronger, but it is for the limit of how many times the weapon can be restored.

That is important due to the very fine details of battle where each for the four main buttons represent the parts of the body you are aiming it, with Y being the head and A being the lower torso. Not only this, some weapons can change between piercing attacks or slash attacks. But the details get finer still as there are about 6 different weapon styles you can forge like sword, axes, spears and polearms as well as a few others. Each different weapon styles have different varieties too so there is plenty of choice. But many of the abominations you face are only weak to certain weapons and only to certain points of the body. This is where a controller panic can set in if you are facing different types of enemies at the same time an each are weak to different weapons.

                This is my first sour point on the game and that is the configuration to change weapons quickly. Having to hold the right trigger and scroll up and down the weapons you have equipped can be tricky mid fight. They boxed themselves in a little bit as you might think why not tap right trigger to cycle through them? Well, they use the tap right trigger to switch a weapon like a spear from slashing to piercing damage. This gets worse still when the 4 or so weapons you currently have equipped are not strong against the enemy, which means you have to pause the game to switch out the weapons and hope you have one that is strong against them. When you have a weapon equipped, the outline of the enemy shows their weaknesses. If it’s green in that area they are weak, if it’s yellow then they are neither weak nor invulnerable to it, but if its red then hitting an enemy on a red area deteriorates your weapon much faster as well as causing little to no damage.

        I mentioned in the start of the review about how this game has some Souls-like vibes and wel, put it this way; if you die you, lose your weapon and end up at the last anvil you struck and you have to go reclaim it. Also, if you rest at the anvil all the enemies respawn – does that sound familiar? However, the game is not a pure hack’n’slash as there are minor puzzle elements as well. Some paths you come across are unclear on how you are going to progress. You will need to backtrack a lot to uncover either keys or mechanisms to open the way forward. You also need special runes connected to your weapons to open some areas, and it is very easy to get a bit lost and find where you need to go. Exploration is encouraged, though as there are chests hidden away everywhere which grant boosts to your health and stamina as well as improving your forging skills. But getting lost can get very frustrating.

                I believe the intentions of the game are to make you backtrack a lot, so you face the same enemies at times because to unlock new weapon blueprints you have to defeat a certain number of each unique enemy. Once you have killed the number of enemies specified the new weapons are available to forge. There are also special statues scattered around the map for each weapon style and holding up the right forged weapon at the statue opens up more options when it comes to forging that weapon and this confused me a little bit as its not explained well. When forging a weapon, you choose the materials for the grip, the blade and others depending on the weapon. But you can also make decisions on the length of the blade, the size of the pommel and the shape of the blades. There are pros and cons for each when it comes to the damage it can cause and how easy it is to either sharpen the weapon or to dodge enemies with. There is also a state for where the balance of the weapon is. But that is not explained on how the balance affects things in battle which I found a little odd as the balance of the weapon should be important, but I just don’t know what is good or bad when it comes to balance.

                I appreciate the details and complexity they added to make the forging of a weapon more of an experience and you get to name it at the end should you choose to. But don’t grow too attached as after you have used up the limited repairs for the weapon and you use it too much it will eventually break on you. But you can dismantle it for a few resources if you take it to a special NPC. 

The main plus I like about this game is the combat, it always keeps you on your toes. There are slow skeletons who you can just swat away and suddenly a giant troll could appear and suddenly feel like a boss battle as they are quite tough. The enemy’s range in difficulty and even the slow ones can take you down if you don’t move quick enough to stop you getting surrounded. I also have a love hate feeling about the realism around enclosed areas. If you try and swing a hammer through a doorway to hit an enemy, the more often than not you will be repelled like you are hitting wall and not only that hitting the wall also degrades your weapon. I like that dynamic, so it forces you to hit areas where it is logically possible and not cheese attacks through walls. What I dislike is that it seems the enemy doesn’t suffer the same restriction.

                My last drawback on the game which I mentioned earlier is the lack of direction. I am not a big fan when games do this, and I think it runs the risk of players like myself losing interest. At least 3 times in the game I was stuck not knowing what I needed to do next. Sometimes you can ask Adso and he sometimes hints what needs to be done, but rarely. Bizarrely, the game the pause settings has an option to highlight the destination on the map, but it doesn’t work most of the time which I find ludicrous. Only once out of those 3 times did it show a location on the map where I needed to go. There is only so much back tracking I am willing to invest in game with respawning enemies that I just say I have had enough.

Conclusion

Blades of Fire has all the elements to be a memorable action-adventure game but a few questionable decisions in my eyes have made it slightly fade in the crowd. Great graphics, complex combat, and interesting forging mechanics but the lack of direction sadly steers the game into becoming repetitive.

This game was tested and reviewed on Xbox Series X/S (via a Game Pass Ultimate subscription). All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version.