BLADES OF FIRE REVIEW

The Mercurysteam studio founded in 2002 has a Mercurysteam studio in Spain. While the studio is best known for its Castlevania: Lords of Shadow series, Metroid: Samus returnsand Metroid DreadMercurysteam has also released many of his original titles over the years; however, Blades It is the first new IP studio in almost ten years.

Blades is the fantasy of the Action Adventure third party with an incredibly unique rotation on the soul genre. But while his fight and originality are the main strengths, there is too much Blades Back from size.

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Blades of Fire's Story is a mixed bag

Blades of Fire Official Image

Blades He sees players who have taken control of Aran de Lirou, who has just been gifted by one of the seven hammers of ancient objects. With this pious instrument in his hand, Aran set out with the young scholar ADSO to take off the Tyran Queen terrorizing the country.

BladesThe story is solid. Although players at the beginning of their adventure are given a small narrative context, some interesting twists, turns and revelation of the stories begin to handle their heads for several hours. And while the narrative that joins these moments is not too strong, some surprisingly emotional moments will get far away to invest players.

It means BladesWriting and voice do not do any kindness serving the story of the game. Although the shows themselves are fine, the implementation of voice lines can often lead to severe tonal dissonance, and the characters cause embarrassing jokes during an otherwise serious narrative sequence or character that seem to ignore the crucial moments of revelation of the story.

In addition, many of the Aranta lines between Aran and Adso are repeated several times, causing the story and its characters to feel artistically. But like other souls BladesThe story has a back seat to play.

Blades of Fire has a strong and new game loop

Blades of fire with more limited enemy

The fight is by far Bladesis the greatest strength. The game uses a traffic light system that enemies get a colored outline when players lock on them. The green outline suggests that the enemy causes full damage, orange means that it will cause reduced damage and red means that it does not cause damage at all.

As players progress Bladesthey encounter new types of enemies that have specific resistors. Some enemies will wear armor on their body, which requires players to target their unarmed weak points using the directional attacks of the game. Other enemies will be resistant to a certain type of damage such as chopping or dull attacks and therefore requires the player to use a different type of weapon or attitude of weapons.

This constant moment change to the moment, along with responsive controls, unique and liquid animations for each weapon and presentation touches such as gory slow movement of the finisher BladesThe fight is permanently involved during the 30 -hour game. Mechanics as the “Breath of the Defender” system, where players must protect themselves to regain their stamina, also make a great job BladesThe fight feels like the real development of the soul genre.

Blades Fire shaping the blade

But the fight is only one half BladesPlaying loop. One of BladesDefining features is its Forge System, which sees players to create their weapons from scratch. Players choose Forge Scroll Blueprint, adapt different components and materials of weapons and engage in the heating mini games that see them trying to reduce and lift the metal bars to match the shape on the screen.

This Forge system takes some time to get used to, but after a few hours the impressive depth of the system changes from stunning to engraving. BladesForge allows players to manually adjust their weapon window, block abilities, range and damage. This level of the player's agency is rarely visible in the soul and prepares a way for a satisfactory game loop, when players meet a new threat, create a powerful new weapon adapted to MU and use this weapon to engage in an exciting fight.

This loop of the game also encourages players to look for the best materials that can find and unlock new forge scrolls that naturally feed on BladesA level design.

The blades of fire suffer from serious stimulation problems

BladesThe world is divided into a handful of different regions, each with its own set of unique interconnected places. These places contain a number of optional ways, most of which reward the survey by offering some truly useful upgrades. Players can find gems that increase their health and stamina, Criptexes that increase their healing flasks, and sculptures that give them new modernization of materials for specific weapons.

Along with a reward for leaving the beaten path, Blades It encourages players to engage in every combat meeting in which they find themselves, because new weapons are unlocked by the defeat of a certain number of specific types of enemies.

The first area serves as a perfect example BladesThe level design works according to the intended. The environment looks visually impressive, there are plenty of hostile diversity and players are rewarded for exploration. The critical way to the next goal is also clear.

It is in BladesThe third area that begins to move through the head. The levels quickly become a large network of interconnected paths that erratically spirals between different heights. Although this complexity can cause the level to feel alive and unforgettable, it can also cause them to go through a somewhat nightmare. This is especially true when the critical way is hidden behind something that otherwise seems to be an optional, or a mechanic who was not presented before that point.

Make it even worse, Blades Often the tasks players with backward tracking of these levels to find key items and open new ways, which means that the novelty is quickly exploring these fantastic places. The municipality of these levels is not the only thing of pulling BladesPace.

Fire settings

Blades of fire does not yield a balance against the soul similar problems

The high level of difficulty is often part of the soul genre. Enemies hit hard and players are forced to use their skills to advance. However, there is a careful balance that needs to be hit to ensure that the player is questioned without discouraging. As far as most of their regular enemies are concerned, Blades He understands this balance well.

The enemy variety is a basic force BladesWith players who have received a number of different visual patterns and movements during their adventure, most of which challenge players in a fair and unique way. BladesHowever, the boss's design is not nearly as strong.

There is only a handful of boss fighting Bladesof which many repeat several times during the game. Although these repetitions are disappointing, it is far from the biggest problem of these bosses. Many of these meetings contain standard attacks that kill players with only one intervention.

In other Soulslik, there is a boss who can immediately kill the player, a sign that he has to go elsewhere and to cope up. But in BladesThis option does not really exist. While players can find different sources to increase their health, perseverance and the number of health flasks and can produce harder weapons, they cannot match the traditional sense. And no matter how many sources the player found, these bosses will always be able to be down in only one intervention.

This means that there is no span in these combat fighting, which may obviously lead to some extremely frustrating deaths. This is especially true for physically smaller bosses who hit the same hard as their larger counterparts, but have a much faster movement, so it is almost impossible to read their offensive patterns.

These boss fights will eventually become mandatory and can eventually take hours for the player to conquer, and so the campaign BladesStimulation on stain and enraged stop. Although ordinary enemies who come before and after these bosses are claiming, their attacks are well television and their damage leaves some space for a natural mistake. This juxtaposition is only used to make the bosses feel artificially.

I played the whole Blades About “steels” of difficulty, which is recommended settings.

fire

In many ways Blades is a pioneer. Her main loop of exciting combat meetings, rewarding the survey and satisfying work and adaptation of weapons remains throughout his running, and there are a lot of mechanics that push forward.

But BladesMomentum is regularly brought to a sudden stop. Artificial tips and unnecessarily blunt design levels can lead to many unnecessary frustrations, and this frustration can quickly overshadow the largest strengths of the game. Blades He had all the right materials ahead, but created an uneven blade that accidentally injured her Wielder.


Blades Fire pages pages an envelope of art

Blades

Checked on PS5

6/10

Released

May 22, 2025

Esrb

M17+ for mature 17+ // blood and gore, intense violence, strong tongue



Advantages and disadvantages

  • Combat feels great and is full of new mechanics
  • Forge System rewards experimentation
  • Visual and presentations are strong
  • The level design is too complex
  • The boss's difficulty feels artificial
  • The story is disappointed with some problems with writing and voice work

Blades It is set to release 22. May for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. The Rant game was provided for this review by the PS5 code.

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