Bound By Flame, developed by Spiders and published by Focus Home Interactive, was released on the 9th of May 2014 after a long period of teasing its prospective players with gorgeous screenshots and intriguing trailers.
It can’t be easy trying to be the new RPG on the block, especially when titles such as The Witcher, Dragon Age and The Elder Scrolls loom menacingly over your head, and players who are quick to compare each games’ intricacies with reckless, and often ruthless, abandon. Other games have tried to establish a name for themselves and failed, so it’s admirable to see a developer operating on a clearly limited budget tackle what is often the most mechanically complex - and often expensive - genres. However, there’s a slight difference between admiration and adoration.
Bound By Flames isn’t very complex - and it isn’t very long either - but that doesn’t mean it isn’t entertaining while it lasts. You play as a member of a band of mercenaries named the Freeborn Blades, who have been paid to protect a group of called the Red Scribes whilst they complete a ritual which they believe could turn the tide of war against the Ice Lords and their dead army.
Of course, as these things are in games like this, the ritual goes wrong and in the commotion a demon decides to choose you as its host. With your new-found power, you and your fellow mercenaries set out to reclaim the world of Vertiel. What happens from there is up to you, and you will be faced with a number of decisions along the way that affect the overall story of your character, providing a decent amount of replay value.
As well as affecting the story, the decisions you make also have an effect on the extent of your demonic possession. Giving in to the flame demon inside, by making questionable decisions, not only grants you different powers and changes the way your story unravels, but also changes your overall appearance - eventually reaching the point where wearing helmets is impossible due to the horns that have sprouted out of your forehead. In combat, you will have to choose between embracing your evil powers and letting the demon’s influence grow, or rejecting them in favor of developing heroic talents. As the story progresses the enemies you encounter get progressively more difficult, which makes the choice of giving in to the demon and using its power all the more tempting. The whole thing reminds us fondly of Fable’s morality system, though Bound by Flame tells an altogether darker tale, far removed from the light-hearted whimsy of Lionhead’s franchise.
As in most RPGs, character customization plays a large role. You start by choosing the gender, face, hair and name of your hero, though it’s hard to see the point of being able to name your character when they will just be referred to as “Vulcan” throughout the whole game. Other customization options include a skill tree that is split into 3 sections: Warrior, Ranger and Pyromancer, each harboring their own unique play style depending on what you wish to specialize in, as well as a “feats” list that is also divided into 3 sections (Exploration, Combat and Crafting) which serve as small unlockable bonuses. These feats can make potions slightly more effective, or lower the costs of items from vendors. There are plenty of possibilities to explore.
Another form of customization is perhaps one of Bound By Flames’ strongest points: Crafting. Each piece of armor or weapon has different slots that can be changed and upgraded, granting different effects and powers such as the ability to set an enemy on fire or raising your defense against poison attacks. Not only do the abilities and traits of each item change when crafting, but so to does the look and feel; a seemingly dull blade can end up looking pretty awesome, provided you have the materials to spare.
Combat is a strong, albeit brutal and bloody part of Bound By Flame - which is a relief, as there’s a lot of it. While it feels almost unreasonably difficult to begin with, you’re provided with a number of ways to go about an encounter, and you’re able to lay traps and sneak behind enemies for critical strikes. Successfully parrying or dodging an enemies attack causes a brief moment of slow motion followed by an awesome-looking counter attack, a small feature which not only makes you feel like a total bad ass, but also makes combat feel almost cinematic at times, and a pleasure to watch. Analyzing your situation and making use of all of these tactics provides you with a major advantage, and yields more effective results than simply running in and waving your weapon around like a maniac - something many of us are far too used to doing. It’s closer to the slower, more considered approach taken by Dark Souls, though it never quite manages to approach the staggering depth of that title .
Side quests aren’t as abundant as we would have liked, but by far the game’s biggest problem is its length. The story can be finished in roughly 11 hours - far less than what is expected from a modern RPG, and the game ends at an unexpected moment which feels as though the developer ran out of money. The short completion time also means that there’s hardly enough time to bond with the admittedly interesting companions who accompany you on your travels (namely Mathras, the only undead that doesn’t seem to want to kill you) and by the end of the game, you still don’t really care about the opinions of the characters you have met along the way - which spoils what should have been a difficult decision at the climax.
The visuals present the player with some stunning vistas of the bleak fantasy world, and many of the enemies you fight are wonderfully detailed and varied - ranging from skeletal abominations to morbid zombies, they’re often downright creepy, while the bosses are absolutely massive. The developers also made sure that the fire and lighting effects are top notch. It’s little things like this that go a long way towards hiding the game’s modest development budget. The game’s cinematics, meanwhile, occur in-engine and although they get the job done, it often feels a awkward at times; it breaks the immersion when something dramatic happens to your character, only for your chosen party members to simply stand in the background staring into space as though everything is perfectly fine.
Meanwhile, the game’s sound work is something of a mixed bag. While the music is excellent and worthy of any big-budget game out at the moment, the voice acting is mediocre and the script is unnecessarily crass, throwing swear words at you wherever possible. Also, it often feels as though the voice actors weren’t really sure what they were saying. At one point in the story, an important character dies - but no one sounds in the least bit worried or mournful. The result is an inconsistent tone which detracts from the overall experience.
While Bound By Flame is a pleasant enough experience, with satisfying combat and plenty of customization options, a number of flaws hold it back from greatness. It’s far too short, much of its dialogue feels phoned in, and a few sloppy typos and oversights mar the experience. Overall though, Bound by Flame is a decent action-filled fantasy romp - just don’t expect it to last for very long.
