When I sat down to play Blades of Fire, the latest project on developer Mercurysteam, I was hoping for something like going back to Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Games in the studio. An hour later I thought I was playing something like soul, not an RPG character sheet, although all the statistics were in my weapon. By the end of the three-hour hands-on session I realized that both of these observations were true and false at the same time. This is a game that is undoubtedly built on decorated ground, but the unique arrangement of both the borrowed components and new ideas gives a fresh and interesting approach to the action-adventure genre.
It’s not exactly a clone of Sony Santa Monica’s work, but at first glance it would be permissible to assume the same. A dark fantasy world, a third-person camera that is heavily hit and stays close to action, and the blade blade has many in common with the Scandinavian period of Kratos’ journey. Certainly there are many more similarities that I can talk about. Beyond the demos held during game opening hours, I explored a perverse, treasured, heart-bottom map with the help of a young companion who helped me solve the puzzle. Together we searched for a wild woman who lived in a house mounted on top of a giant creature. It can sometimes feel a little Too much Rest allows you to replenish both limited health potions and respawn enemies, especially if you consider many factors that have been stolen from the fromsoftware library.
All this familiarity is filtered through a world with an atmosphere of 1980s fantasy. While we can imagine Conan the Wild Man easily merges into the incredibly buff soldiers, a bunch of enemies, like orangutans bouncing around on bamboo pogosticks, doesn’t look out of place in Jim Henson’s maze. Even the story has a retro vibe. The evil Queen has turned steel into stone, and it’s up to you – Alain de Lila, essentially the blacksmith’s demigod – to kill her and restore the metals of the world. But despite these old-fashioned charms, at this stage it is doubtful that the story, character, or writing is compelling – it’s all incredible Video Games-Yresembles many forgotten stories of the Xbox 360 era.
Like many of these old games, the best achievement of Fire Blade appears to be mechanical. It boasts a combat system rooted in directional attacks, using all the face buttons on the controller. On the PlayStation Pad, the triangle tapping the triangle aims for the head, and the cross goes towards the torso, swipe left and right of a square and circle. Careful reading of enemy posture allows you to use these attacks to break through your defenses. For example, soldiers who have blades to protect their faces can overcome by having low aims and distorting their intestines. The impact is wonderfully hair removal and there is a thick trail of blood gushing out of the wounds you gave.
There are times when this system really shines. The first major boss of the demo, Slobbering Troll, had a second health bar that can only be removed after detaching the beast. The dropped limbs are determined by the angle of your attack, so I was able to use a strike on my right hand to separate the left arm of the club swing, literally disarming my enemy. Better yet, you can wiggle blindly until you can cut off the entire troll’s face and regenerate your eyes and continue the fight.
Such interesting wrinkles can be found in many combat staples. Rather than playing automatically, the stamina gauge for attack and evasion fuel must be manually restored by holding the block button. But despite these new ideas offer fire combat blades with obviously different edges, the general tone of the battle is undoubtedly soul cyan. The recognition of attack patterns and thin Dodge/Block/Parry windows are here the name of the game, with the same sense of risk and reward even if the punishment is not so severe. It’s enough to trick your brain into reaching muscle memory from soft, but it sadly doesn’t save you here: the directional attack system requires a very different control map.
After rewiring my brain and remembering that I couldn’t avoid using the buttons on my face, things started clicking. The unique approach gradually set the stage around all of its souls, and soon I realized that the battle was refreshingly different. Core damage trades are promoted by a smart weapon system that allows you to slash with sharp edges and stab at the tip, and wield blade weapons with various stances. Like directional systems, you need to assess the enemy (and some useful HUD prompts) to determine which method is most effective.
If the title doesn’t give it, your weapon is the heart of the fire blade. And compared to most games, they’re attracting huge attention. A dull weapon that is used repeatedly is dull. This means that each successive strike deals less damage than the last strike. It all increases over time, so you need to refill the blades of the weapon using sharp stones. Switch to that, or another stance. The edges and tips wear independently of each other. This contributes to the feeling that these are concrete items that are influenced by your fighting style.
Like Monster Hunter, you learn to create space to polish your swords in the middle of a fight. But every weapon has a durability meter that will continue to deplete, no matter how well you care about it. Once your weapon is inevitably crushed, you can repair it at an Anvil checkpoint. Or you can melt it into raw materials and start making a new creation into the blade of the most important and outstanding innovation of the fire.
To say that MercurySteam created a massive weapon crafting system is an understatement. Rather than finding new weapons in the world, life of all weapons begins with forging. It starts with a selection of basic weapon templates that Alan sketches on the blackboard. I’ll make some minor adjustments and change them here. For example, when designing the spear, I adjusted both the pole length and the shape of the spearhead. Each decision is reflected in weapon statistics. The longer poles increase the range of the spear, but the shape of the head determines whether they are skilled in slashing or piercings. Various materials affect weight, which changes the weapon’s demands for the stamina pool. All this gives you the feeling that you are truly Craft Your weapon. You can even name your creations.
Most craft systems end here. With a fire blade, this is just the halfway point. Once the design is complete, you will need to physically pound the metal with the anvil. This is achieved through a highly involved mini-game that controls the length, force and angle of all hammer strikes. The curved lines on the screen represent the ultimate ideal, and with a hammer blow, you try to arrange a series of vertical bars that resemble a graphic equalizer, matching the shape of the curved lines. Creating too much steel will weaken your weapon, so the goal is to replicate that line with as few strikes as possible. Your efforts will be rewarded with a star rating. The more stars you achieve, the more frequently you can repair your work before you create it.
I really love the idea of Forge and how it introduces skill elements into a menu-driven system in general. But even after a few sessions in the Anvil, I found the mini-games to be frustratingly insensitive. There doesn’t seem to be a clear connection between the area I hit and the resulting metal shape. Hopefully some improvements, or just better tutorials will be implemented before launch. It’s a shame that the most interesting function of a fire blade is compromised by stimulation.
The ideas at the heart of Forge go far beyond the boundaries of a three-hour demonstration session. MercurySteam hopes you will be deeply attached to the weapons you create and carry with you throughout your journey – the journey the developer claims will be “over 60-70 hours”. Once you explore the world and find new metals, you can re-equip your trusty swords, shafts, hammers and spears to enhance their traits and make sure they are always suitable for new and challenging challenges. This relationship between you and your weapon is emphasized by the system of death. If defeated, it will drop the weapon you were using and respawn without it.
It’s another mechanic inspired by Dark Souls, but it’s built on a different, undoubtedly more meaningful bond. LostSouls can always be replenished with more kills, but the amazing swords you stitch together are invaluable. Luckily, your dropped weapon remains in the world forever, so your only challenge is to find a way to recover what you have lost. We look forward to seeing how this unfolds throughout the campaign. We also look forward to reunion of you if a weapon from dozens of hours ago can rekindle your relationship with your relationship.
It’s no surprise to see Mercury Steam adopt multiple ideas from Dark Souls and their siblings. That’s part of Afsoftware’s seemingly irreversible influence on action games, but because Fire Blade is like the spiritual successor to Dark Blade. In many ways, these developers are simply picking up where they left off, implementing the advances other studios have made at a time when they were away from the genre.
When I played, I was able to feel the gravity of all the obvious influences of Mercurytime – the decades-old predecessor of this project, the innovation of Float Soft, and the brutal battles of world design in the world war. But as much as those ideas are revealed, they don’t end up defining the studio’s latest work. Rather than making gods like souls or war, their well-established systems are reinterpreted as part of the canvas of larger ideas. Blades of Fire has its own recipes that distance you from any of the obvious gaming touchstones.
I have some uncertainty – I don’t know if this rather common dark fantasy world will lead to the challenge of supporting a 60-hour adventure. Within 3 hours, I fought the same gatekeeping mini boss three times, which makes me wonder about the variety on offer. But the depth of the relationship between your forged blade and the enemies you face is completely intrigued by me. In an era when complex and frankly dull games like Eldenling and Monster Hunter became mainstream hits, I think Blade of Fire could contribute to something appealing to the scene.
Matt Purslow is Passthecontroller’s senior feature editor.
