Humanity faces a tyrannical Queen Nerea, whose curse transforms steel into stone, neutralizing most weapons. Aran de Lira, one of the few capable of forging steel weapons thanks to his sacred hammer. Alongside scholar Adso de Zelk, Aran journeys to assassinate the Queen and free their land from her destructive power.
Blades of Fire is a third person action adventure game with RPG elements. Though the game is played entirely in third person, there are some first person elements when it comes to the story. At key points in the story, you will take control your character in first person and when this happens at the start of the game and then goes into third person soon after, it kind of makes you wish that you could have the choice of playing in either first or third person. At least, I found myself feeling this way.
As you play the game, you will strategically fight enemies of various types. Each fight will end with you picking up resources that will allow you to forge weapons that you will use in your quest to defeat the queen.
Even forging weapons is a rather strategic effort to get the forge just right. As with fights, forging will take practice to get to the point of being an effective forger and fighter.
Besides forging of weapons being one of the core elements of the game, you do have quests that you can partake in. This will result in unlocking weapons and obtaining materials to forge better weapons, as it is the center of the game, aside from your main end game objective.
Circling back to battles in the game and forging of weapons, your weapons all have a durability and sharpness to them. Engaging in battles, even hitting set pieces, walls, etc will all cause your weapon durability and sharpness to decrease. You can sharpen blades at any time, but to repair or forge new weapons, you must visit an anvil site. Break the weapon and you must forge a new one, repairing of weapons is determined by the number of stars that weapons has. The number of stars a weapon has is determined by how well it is forged, this again comes back to practicing the act of forging to get a better star rating for the weapons you have.
Falling during battle has you lose the weapon you were using at the time, casting it in stone. You will be resurrected to the last anvil you were at and then have to make your way back to your weapon encased in stone to get it back. You could always choose to abandon the weapon in favor of another or forge a new one. It really comes down to how much work and effort into making the weapon that would help determine if you really want to go all the way back to get it, or if you’re better off leaving it and moving on.
Every aspect of this game weighs heavy on the player. Because you’re constantly forging weapons, gathering materials to forge weapons, it really gives a strategic element to the game that makes you stop and think about the enemies up ahead being worth fighting or if they can be ignored and finding another path forward.
Now I realize that I am a bit all over the place with trying to explain how the game plays. But the thing about Blades of Fire is that it’s a very deep, strategic, and complex game to play. It’s one of those games that you really have to experience to get a good grasp of it.
With the way the game plays and having your companion with you on your journey, immediately made me thing of God of War. Though it feels a bit like God of War mixed with some Skyrim, the game is so much more than that. I mean I feel like I am playing a third person RPG take on the Axis and Allies board game, or even Risk. I am sure not many people compare a video game with a board game, at least in this context, but it really feels that way with as strategy heavy as this game is in it’s mechanics.
Graphically, Blades of Fire is stunning. The game world feels alive and life like. Grass sways in the wind, trees have depth and detail to them. You can actually see the individual pine needles on the pine trees. Rocks look life like with their textures, you have wildlife running around, birds flying through the sky. The game world really feels like it’s a slice of real life, if you were living in a fantasy realm that is. The weapons you forge look really good, they shine, glint and shimmer in the light. This works to give you an extra sense in pride, being able to look at the literal shiny blade you just forged.
Enemies, NPCs, your companion, and your player character all look lifelike as well with some awesome expressive animations that help give them a sense of life and realism. The only graphical issue I have with the game is the hair. Given you can see individual pine needles and leaves on trees (to an extent), you would think that the hair would look a bit better than it does. It has a shine to it that is not natural and it just kind of looks smooshed together.
This is evident not only while playing the game, but in the case of some characters, even seen in the cutscenes that play out to advance the story or to introduce a formidable foe that you have to take down.
So, how does all this beauty in the game world translate to performance? Playing the game on current gen hardware, the game plays as one would expect. At least I expected it to play very well, and it does. Draw distance is vast, there is no pop in of any kind, even loading after falling in battle or coming back from a forge is extremely quick to load. I mean the game loads at about thirty seconds, maybe forty five seconds in a few spots. With as much detail as this game has, to load that quickly was a fantastic surprise.
Clangs of weapons in battle, the sound of grass being trampled as you run through it, the sounds of birds chirping, animals frolicking, it’s all here and sounds mesmerizing. I mean there is so much detail to this games sound that it was rather surprising. So much in fact, that I found myself just standing for a couple of minutes, just listening to the sounds around me. It almost felt like I was in a park or something, but I was playing a video game.
Music in the game is what you would expect and not truly surprising. I mean it’s a high fantasy sound track that can really ramp up and get big during large action segments. This is all expected and pleasant to hear. Though as great as the music is in this game, it’s not something that I would sit and listen to outside of the game. It’s not something that really is unique or interesting; or even memorable. But it does fit the game nicely and is nice to listen to while playing.
I came away from this game with a ton of respect for what was done with it. I mean, this review really doesn’t do the game justice. I mean there aren’t enough words to express how good this game really is, it really is one of those games that best experienced rather than read about or watched.
Blades of Fire is hands down the best third person action adventure RPG I have played in years. If you’re a fan of strategy games, want to dive into a hard hitting, unforgiving, and at times relentless and brutal game on current gen, then this is the game for you!
Disclaimer: A review key was provided
In addition to writing articles, Ryan Byers also creates content for his YouTube channel called "Obscure Games and Consoles", collects video games, and dabbles in video game development.