Blades of Fire is a mess of an experience, with many of its elements not working well with other parts of the game. The story feels ripped straight out of game design of two decades ago, with loud, deeply unfunny jokes making up far too much of the dialogue. The weapon crafting and directional combat seems promising, but it doesn’t fit well with the hardcore soulslike action games it tries to emulate.
Blades of Fire
Developer: MercurySteam
Price: $60
Platforms: Xbox Series X|S (reviewed), PlayStation 5, and Epic Games Store
An Xbox code was provided by the publisher for review
Blades of Fire is an unfortunate mishmash of ideas that either don’t work well together or are poorly executed. The combat feels like a lackluster soulslike, trading in intricate designs for annoying moves and large numbers. Its unique mechanic of weapon foraging and directional combat feels like it has moments where I could see the vision, but what makes it interesting is at odds with the tough soulslike fights. Tie that together with a story not worth paying attention to, and a 2008-style of storytelling that feels beyond outdated.
In Blades of Fire you play Aran, a master forager set out to kill the Queen, who turns all foraged metals into stone. You have a sidekick named Adso, a young scholar who studies forager magic. These characters meet at the start of the game as Adso’s previous master dies, leading them to journey together. The relationship between these two quickly shifts into a young student and an old man mentor who bicker and insult each other in a grating way.
The story often operates in a weird tonal zone, where it feels like every moment is either deathly serious or a complete joke, with the jokes never quite landing. There is a ghost who travels with you through a graveyard section in the first part of the game. The joke with him is that he is forgetful, so everytime you come across an important area, he will shout that he needs to remember something and then spend 30 seconds murmuring before actually remembering. This joke didn’t land the first time, and it happens almost a dozen times, with no change to how it plays out.
Blades of Fire is riddled with annoying characters with bad bits that are deeply unfunny, making most cutscenes an active misery to watch. The exploration in Blades of Fire also attempts to punch above its weight. A big deal is made at the start that there won’t be objective markers, and you will need to follow the story beats and character dialogue to advance. While the area-to-area navigation isn’t too bad, most levels are obtuse and winding in a way that makes little sense to navigate. Often, I would find myself backtracking and constantly rewalking through areas, because the path forward would be far too obscure for a game with no objective markers. You can add a marker for the next objective in the menu, but it only works for one objective, so if you want to always have it, you have to constantly go in and hit the button.
One of the most baffling path issues I had was in an area where I dropped into a hole in the roof. There was a locked gate next to a Forge, which served as checkpoints and fast travel points, in an otherwise empty room. Because of the placement of the locked gate, I thought I had missed a key. But I did not, I was supposed to destroy a bookshelf in the room, which would reveal a prompt to break through the wall. Any attempt to signal that was what I needed to do was blocked out by the obvious locked gate.
The combat is fine, taking cues from soulslike third-person stamina-based combat. There are two big differences: the weapons and directional attacking. Enemies are not weak to the same weapon types, so you need to swap. You may also need to change between slashing and piercing, indicated by a red, yellow, or green outline when you target them. Red means it’s worthless, yellow means they will absorb some damage, and green works perfectly. Some enemies have visual indicators, but in the moment of combat, it’s always faster to use the outlines.
You also have to contend with directional attacks, as some enemies take damage only from certain directions. For example, you may have to use a downward attack, or an enemy requires a side attack. This works best in a one-on-one fight where enemies change up their weak points during the fight, but against most enemies, you just swap weapons until you see green and swing away.
The highlight of Blades of Fire is the weapon crafting. You have to make weapons, which degrade over time. You get to swap out pieces and materials, allowing you to maximize damage but have less stamina, or make for a faster swinging weapon. There is also a foraging minigame where you have to line up the metal to increase the number of repairs a weapon gets before it can no longer be repaired. Weapons at the end of their life can be recycled or traded to an NPC for more materials. The minigame is fun, and you can use your best result if you make the same weapon type again, and getting to tailor how weapons feel to my preferred style is a nice touch.
A downside of this system is another aspect taken from soulslikes, which is that since you don’t have souls to drop on death, you drop the weapon you are holding. This is far more annoying, and in the case of boss fights, actively detrimental to the experience. Some bosses only take damage from very specific weapons, so having to start fights by running in to grab your weapon sucks. There were a few weapons I fully abandoned because I just didn’t want to deal with trying to work my way back to them, especially if that was the weapon that the enemies in the area were weak to.
The Final Word
Blades of Fire is a misfire, attempting to mix elements of soulslike games with its own action ideas in an oil and water result. The story is bland, and the characters are deeply unfunny despite constantly trying to be, resulting in a tone that matches the worst of the Xbox 360 era. Obtuse and confusing level designs combined with the choice not to have objective markers create a frustrating experience, which is only furthered by the unique combat system feeling out of sync with the hardcore third-person combat games it wants to emulate.
MonsterVine Rating: 2 out of 5 – Poor
