With numerous heavy hitters released this year and still grabbing the attention of players, there’s bound to be a few games that get missed. To hopefully thwart this, I present you with Blades of Fire, an action-adventure game from Metroid Dread developers MercurySteam. In this new IP, you’ll explore a fantasy world ruled by an evil queen where you’ll go on a quest to assassinate her. You’ll use your newly given crafting powers to create numerous weapons to defeat many creatures standing in your way. Forge the Blades of Fire and take on the forces of evil in a pretty entertaining adventure.
Blades of Fire is available on PC (Epic Game Store), PS5, and Xbox Series X|S for $59.99/€59.99/£49.99.
If you’re interested in our other reviews, here are a few recommendations:
- The Precinct Review: Chaotic Messy Fun (PS5)
- Mostroscopy Review: A Fantastic Monster Mash (PS4)
- Revenge of the Savage Planet Review: A Savagely Good Time (PC)
Story – To Thwart a Queen
The narrative that Blades of Fire presents is a simple tale that grows larger as you progress through the adventure. After rising to power, Queen Nerea casts a curse that turns her enemies’ steel into stone, rendering their weapons useless against her army. You play as Aran de Lira, the son of the King’s Ward Commander, who is entrusted with the weighty task of killing the Queen after receiving a sacred hammer. Now wielding one of the sacred hammers of the Ancient Forgers, Aran can forge weapons of steel to face the Queen’s forces and fulfil his noble duties.
Definitely had goosebumps seeing this for the first time
The writing feels familiar to classic fantasy adventures, but with some quirky comedy that feels familiar to games like Fable. Blades of Fire offers entertaining detours within each biome that provide emotional moments alongside worldbuilding. Such a story can be found in The Crimson Fort, where a tragic tale has occurred with the residents. The ending to this part of the quest is both beautiful and quite sad, with one of the new characters making an important choice. Later parts of the story are a tad poorly placed, with one example being the introduction of Thorel.
I wish we had gotten some more screen time with this villain
He’s introduced as a possible area villain for the second biome, with his cultist followers going up against you. Sadly, he is quickly taken out of the story just after interacting with the player. Granted, the scenario that occurs afterwards is my favourite part of Blades of Fire so far but I do wish we had more time with the character. Alongside the main narrative, there’s a good bit of lore to discover about areas you visit or the history of the kingdom. Some of my favourite moments were during the flashbacks with Aran’s backstory, I didn’t expect it to be as dark as it was. The more I watched, the more I sympathised with his character.
Characters – A Cast of Fantasy Regulars & Oddballs
Even though the story can be a bit predictable at times, the characters of Blades of Fire make up for it. Aran, of course, is our main lead who can come off as a charming character with a sly bit of banterey wit. He’s especially like this when chatting with his companion Adso de Zelk, a student of the Abbey of Egion. Adso is a mixed bag for me, sometimes he can be funny and likeable, then other times he’s the most annoying guy in the room. His saving grace is what he brings to the table in terms of his skills. He will analyse enemies for you and write them down in his book, displayed as “Adso’s Chronicles”. He even draws portraits of characters and of environments that you can view in a digital art book.
Adso and Aran’s friendship is fun to see grow
Alongside Adso, we meet a band of oddballs who provide quirky dialogue and some helpful gameplay features. We have Glinda, an old legendary Master Forger who assists in our adventure, though reluctantly at first. She becomes a great comedy relief/mentor character that provides interesting lore and guidance within the story. Another character that stole my attention was one of the antagonists, Thalmudak. Every time he was on screen, he stole the show, and I did feel sorry for him regarding his backstory. Other characters that I found entertaining were the moustache-twirling blue ogre King Tok and the old forgetful ghost Melcart.
Had some good laughs with this old soul
Gameplay – Test Your Steel Again and Again
Blades of Fire is your traditional third-person action-adventure game where you’ll use numerous weapons to defeat enemies. Control-wise, you’ll use each of the four face buttons to attack, triangle for head, cross for body, and square/circle for the left and right arms. You can hold these buttons to perform a stronger attack, though it may be a bit slower, you’ll pull off cool cinematic executions. Alongside the attack buttons, you can dodge, run, block, use healing and sharpening items, change combat styles (when the weapon allows it), teleport Adso and if you’re stuck, can get hints on what to do currently.
Begin your adventure to kill the queen
Like most games, you’ll have both a health bar and a stamina bar that can be upgraded with exploration. An interesting aspect of Blades of Fire is with blocking. When guarding, you can absorb part of your weapon’s strength and transfer it to your stamina bar. This technique in-game is known as “The Breath of the Defender”. You can also perform perfect blocks that, when triggered, give you unlimited stamina till you either get hit or after a certain amount of time passes.
Use the right weapon for the enemy you face, alongside the right attack
When tackling enemies, you need to think about what the best weapon for the job is. This is definitely the case when dealing with enemies with different armour or thicker skin. Luckily, Blades of Fire has you covered with the target system, allowing you to see coloured outlines on the selected enemy. You’ll want to be aiming for green since this will deal maximum damage, and avoid red since that only hurts your weapons. This system, alongside the different ways to attack an enemy, reminded me of The Surge games that worked similarly. I loved that system (including the executions) and was very happy to see a version of it in Blades of Fire.
Crafting – Forge Thy Weapon
When I first read up about Blades of Fire, the one thing that got my attention was the crafting. Since the concept of the game has you crafting your weapons instead of finding them in the world, my interest was piqued. Using the sacred hammer, forge weapons from different weapon families that range from swords, greatswords, spears, dual axes & daggers, sabers and more. To craft a weapon, you need to have the forge scroll for it, which can be unlocked after killing certain enemies multiple times. Once you pick your blueprint, then the crafting begins!
Craft weapons from each of these families, unlock more when encountered in the world
You begin picking out materials that you acquire through your adventure to determine what steel and type of wood will be used. After finishing your blueprint, you then begin smelting and hammering the steel into shape. This is the part I quite enjoy since you play a short minigame to earn forge stars for the weapon. Each forge star earns you one repair when at a Forger’s Anvil. Finally, you get to name your creation, which I had a lot of fun creating badass and comedic weapons. My only gripe with the crafting is that you only get to make weapons, and sadly, not a single piece of armour. Hopefully, that might be the case in a possible sequel.
Hammer in the dark grey blocks as close to the white line as possible
Exploration – A World Full of Treasures
Within the world of Blades of Fire, there are many treasures to discover within the different biomes Aran explores. You’ll encounter numerous chests, sentinel statues, shortcuts, special areas, stone statues, and more. Blades of Fire works similarly to a metroidvania, where not all the routes you find will be unlockable straight away. One example of this is with the rune paths that can only be opened with weapons enchanted by The Blue Lady. You unlock the different runes (time, light, soul) over the story, allowing you to return to previous maps to unlock these paths.
Present any weapon to The Blue Lady to equip one of three runes
Chests are a common thing to find in games, and Blades of Fire is no exception. Their chests contain dyes for Aran’s outfits and, most importantly, health and stamina gems. These can be easily found by general exploration. These gems help with upgrading your health and stamina, you must collect four of the corresponding gems to upgrade. The sentinel statues unlock more materials and designs for weapons. To unlock, you need to equip the correct weapon that the statue wields. Now, not all of these treasures are glamorous. There are statues of Templars who can be awoken and fought throughout the game. They offer rewards for players able to take them on and succeed. The only downside is that they’re probably the most annoying enemies in the game due to their unpredictability. You’ll feel great when beating them, but there’s a chance you’ll break a controller or two trying.
Equip the correct weapon and claim new materials and parts for it
Enemies & Bosses – From Man to Monsters
In the world of Blades of Fire, you’ll encounter a range of different enemies that want you dead. From the queen’s forces, the undead, elemental creatures, and more. There are numerous different types with their combat styles and weaknesses. Fighting each enemy and seeing their heads explode from a warhammer is very satisfying. This is especially when taking on mini-boss enemies who can be quite troublesome when you’re not fully prepared and out of health potions. The bosses in Blades of Fire are the highlights since they provide a fun challenge and sometimes can’t be killed by just hitting them with your blade. The whole boss sequence with Thalmudak felt like I was reliving the intro of God of War 3.
Take on a range of different bosses and mini-bosses
Some enemies to highlight, starting with the Vexers, who are small swamp goblin-like creatures that hysterically use their swords as pogo sticks to get closer to you. Loved every combat scenario featuring these annoying little guys. The Sworn Novice are dual-wielding cultists that feature later on, who have an interesting special move. When you target their head and deal damage, their heads detach and they become killer beyblades…I’m not making this up. MercurySteam made every enemy feel unique and gave almost all of them their time to shine with some sort of special move or two.
Graphics & Audio – Beautiful Sights & Questionable Sounds
The world of Blades of Fire is separated into different biomes, all containing unique locations that look beautiful. From rich forests, dusty deserts, and snowy mountains, Blades of Fire provides many awe-inspiring locations. The Crimson Fort was an early area that I loved exploring, even when I got lost for a few hours. It gave the spooky ghost vibes it was advertising while looking like an unexplored treasure. The ruins of the swamp area had wonderful flora to enjoy alongside some interesting sights like Glinda’s flying beetlehouse. Outside of the locations, another shout out to the gorgeous art in Adso’s chronicles and the art book that can be viewed in the camp. Generally love that MercurySteam figured out a narrative way to place a digital art book in the game.
As you travel through the world, more pages are added
Regarding the audio for Blades of Fire, this is probably where the game lacks. This is mainly in the soundtrack since it’s quite generic and I barely notice it while playing. I’ll realise some music is playing when a random section in one of the tracks starts to sound like someone trying to imitate something from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Now, luckily, the voice acting is good with some exceptions to certain lines from some characters. This was mainly from Adso, when you find a Forges Criptex in a chest. He’ll say the same line every time, and it just sounds like a bad first take. Some lines sound similar when you teleport him from the camp, and he begins to complain.
-
- Adso’s Chronicles is a helpful and informative guide that has gorgeous art
-
- The Crimson Fort was a beautiful area to explore
-
- The Swampy ruins had some sights to behold
-
- Blades of Fire has some emotional cinematic moments during the story
Blades of Fire was reviewed on the PS5 with a code courtesy of Diva Agency.
