I always look forward to it when the studio comes out of its comfort zone and creates something unexpected. Blades of Fire is a 3D action RPG from MercurySteam, the most famous developer in the stellar Metroid Dred and its action-packed Castlevania, on the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 ERA. Combining past successes to provide control of a blacksmith who will make your own weapon of destruction seemed like a promising concept. Unfortunately, the wonderful craft parts of this long fantasy adventure are overshadowed by uneven stories and combat that lack real depth.
You play as Alan, a commoner who gains access to the legendary forged hammer that sets him on a quest to stop the Queen leading the Kingdom to ruin. The Three Pillars of Fire Blade are its satisfying yet simple battles, a fun weapon craft system, and an emotionally shocking story. Although very uneven, they were enough to make me relatively entertained for at least 55 hours. But there is only inadequate conclusion. And it was a post-match scavenger hunt that was necessary to find a “real” ending that really drained the little enthusiasm I had left behind by the end.
Starting with the good one, the craft system is the tallest of the three pillars that have a fire blade. Through the hammer, Alan is able to receive at the beginning of his journey and create the powerful weapons he needs to defeat everything that stands in his path. The first can only create singular weapons that are heavy polar regions called hyssops, which deal with catastrophic strikes but use a lot of stamina on each swing. However, after Aran has fully beaten a certain enemy type, you unleash the blueprint of the weapons they have swung around against him. Dismantling the 60 skeletons unlock Claymore, clumsy swaying, and five spearmen from Queen’s transformed army have access to long spears that deal damage from afar or reduce damage on circular strikes. Created for a fun loop to find and defeat each new enemy to expand your Arsenal, and each time they appeared, they encouraged you to defeat stronger optional enemies.
Interact with Forger Anvil, which acts as both a rest point and a high-speed travel system, and you can transport you to a mysterious forge that can create those weapons. When you do so, you can adjust some aspects of them: for example, twin mallets are limited to customizing the size and shape of the head and handle. There you will have the option of adding pommel to larger weapons like the glaive. These choices change the weapon in a small but notable way, fine-tune your weight, balance, damage, and change Alan’s maximum stamina and the cost of dodging while using it.
The final part of forging a weapon is the actual forging itself. Creating weapons in most games is finished after you select the materials, but with Fire Blade you can actually hit metal heated to match the shape of the weapon. The system is initially lacking and confused thanks to the lack of detailed tutorials, but quickly became part of my favorite journey. Weapon steels appear as bars similar to those in the audiovisualizer, some shrink and others grow as you attack. The better you do, the longer the weapon will last before you need to tan it. I needed half a dozen weapons before understanding the proper techniques for managing the strength, tilt and width of each strike, but once I did it I realized I was creating weapons with confidence with the greatest rating each time.
Those who don’t enjoy crafting will have the option to skip the process for the first time, but the maximum number of times you can repair is limited to the best results you create manually. This wisely promoted my return trip to Forge. Because I often restrained my weapons from replacing them all until they were all over repairs, turning what would be a long process into a short trip, and I returned to action sooner. The blade of the blade provides the option to name the weapon before you set out. This was reserved primarily for the names of pannies like Captain Falkion or let me do something, but ultimately reached the final form with the best materials and enhancements, giving them a name that suits heritage like Gaeborg and Massamune.
There are 35 different weapons to exercise, each varying between speed, range and other properties, but unfortunately the battle boils down to eight attacks. These are done by pressing a button on the controller that matches the part of the enemy you want to attack. Therefore, triangle/Y will attack the enemy’s head, and circle/B will attack the right. Also, in fatal cases, there will be attacks that will cause higher damage and cut off enemies, resulting in more horrifying death. However, cutting off the head of an enemy with either a dull or piercing weapon is the same animation, and it’s a shame to see it fell the same after the first few dozen times. Also, there is no combination of attacks that offer real benefits, so alternating left and right strikes is almost the same as hitting your mind in one direction. Without the use of Parry and the perfect dodge, which provided a small window of opportunity to safely retaliate, the combat would have already felt even more bland than that.
Careful choice of the direction of your attack is more necessary as enemies begin to have different levels of resistance in each body part, and elements like them can even move these weaknesses. For that credibility, Blades of Fire has a huge variety of enemies to fight for – unfortunately, almost all of them are humanoids. In other words, despite all of their own quirks and attack patterns, I rarely felt impressed by the new stuff that was thrown at me. Outside of the boss, it could be a huge giant that shakes things up more effectively. One of the few interesting enemy types was the trolls. They have a constant health regeneration and two health rods, so they need to drain one bar and amputate the limbs with a charged attack. However, such mechanics were exceptions rather than rules, and the predictability of the clearly telegraphed attacks of all enemies often meant to be at the timing of my parry.
If you fall into combat, the power of the legendary hammer means that Alan has not died for a long time. However, his temporary death comes with a penalty of dropping weapons equipped in that location, similar to the ways in which games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne drop souls, blood echoes, and other currency. Thankfully, the fire blade is much more forgiving as the weapon that fell into place turns into stone and remains forever until Alan retrieves it. This was a welcome change in the formula as you could permanently lose the weapon you were very invested in after a succession of deaths.
Finally, and certainly, the most disappointing pillar of blades is its exploration of its story, characters and worlds. Alan’s quest to stop the Queen maintains a decent pace, but did not surprise me or surprise me, or surprise many moments that seemed like them. Should The shocking thing is hampered by uneven delivery. At one point after killing the boss, he simply fell to his lap and sat there until I hit him again – it felt like it was set for more, but there was no dialogue or talent. Just this previous important character fell to the ground in an anti-climatic way. Blades of Fire also has one of the most disappointing endings I’ve seen in a while, with few solutions and I’ll send you out right away with Scavenger Hunt.
Characters are generally a single note stereotype, often with dialogues that carry out further simple properties. Alan regularly states that ADSO is not smart enough to solve puzzles without the help of ADSO, the young scribe who accompanied him on the journey, but ADSO offers no advice other than stating the obvious. Adso is Aran’s Brawn’s brain, deciphering codes you find, reading ancient languages to reveal paths and secrets, and sometimes magically sealing the co during battle. ADSO also regularly speaks about the size of Aran when climbing the ladder. This feels like an out-of-place attempt of humor as Aran rarely responds to or finds opportunities to bully him. They are written as if they had known each other for a long time, despite their first meeting during business hours.
Finishing the cast is Glinda, the Master Forger, a forest witch witch who lives in a house above a flying beetle, and Arwen, an impatience, hard young girl who is only involved in the last few dozen hours and turns out to be extremely important. Over time, the eerie similarities between these characters and the people of the Gods of War and Gods of War have become increasingly distracting. Alan is not wise, somehow a charismatic cratos, and ADSO deciphers ancient languages and notes other elements of the world that resemble Atreus. Even fighting a giant snake at one point explores a place that is very similar to a temple-like area above the lake of nine. Various games using similar character archetypes and ratios es are not new or wrong in themselves, but start to feel the derivatives of the drawbacks here – especially in such a direct comparison, when the blade of the blade is not too hot.
That’s not the only way it’s put in bad light, as inactive map systems often become very troublesome and confusing. There are plenty of cool optional collectibles like shrines to upgrade weapon customization options, items that increase healing flasks, gems to increase maximum health and stamina, and small hidden paths that lead to your chest to customize Alan’s outfit. However, many locations have multiple levels of elevation and there is actually no way to know what level you are at until you reach the right destination or reach the wrong destination, except that you want to read the 1D map correctly. You can leave markers on the map. This allows you to create colored stripes in the world as a guide point. This is helpful at least by adding distance and elevation cues to the compass at the top of the screen, but that’s only half of it.
