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Bound by Flame Review
Next-gen consoles have been out for 6 months, now and apart from a slow-paced release of retail titles, the Playstation 4 is mainly made up of Indie games. Don’t get me wrong ,Indie games are usually my favourite releases, but sometimes I need something bigger, and bigger usually comes by the way of an RPG.
What Spiders Studio have done is perfect; not the ‘Bound by Flame’ game itself, in fact, it’s far from it, but the timing of the release is perfect.
‘Bound by Flame’ is a linear, fantasy RPG that has you playing as a mercenary possessed by a demon. You have the choice to allow the demon to take further control or, you can fight it and choose to remain human….. But, this is an RPG so your decisions affect the outcome of most situations and most definitely the ending of the game. Choose wisely and be comfortable with your decisions before making them!
You start off with very basic customisation available; Male/Female, Hair and face, but at least you get a chance to make some changes.
The story of ‘Bound by Flame’ runs at a great pace, but isn’t anything special that’ll have you on the edge of your seat. At times you’ll be interested in what’s going on and at other times you won’t care. This is a shame because a decent RPG should be made up of brilliant writing that makes you want to continue forward, just so that you can see what happens next and be a part of that.
Like almost every other RPG, ‘Bound by Flame’ has you running side-quests and usually in the form of, yes… Fetch quests and “Go there, do that and return to me to tell me about it” type missions. These quests are pretty boring, but on your travels you’ll meet people that can join your party.Everyone that you meet that is able to join your party has an “air” about them, but the problem is, there are too many of them for you to want to take the time to get to know them or even care about their past and what they can bring to your travels. You may think they’re opportunists waiting for a chance to jump on you when you’re not looking or maybe they’re too nice for you to be able to trust them. Either way, you’ll have to take risks unless you want to explore and fight alone.
Changing of equipment is paramount if you want to survive your travels; you can buy items, or find them and sell them or take them apart for the scraps which can be used to create potions, equipment and upgrades. This adds a nice touch to the game because it allows you to focus on your play-style. I was experimenting and my favourite type of upgrade was definitely the adding of critical damage and fire/poison damage to weapons.
Whilst fighting and creating you will eventually rank up and with rank comes further choices. You can play as a warrior, ranger or necromancer, but the good news is that you can mix them together and therefore not have to make the tough choice or where you think you’ll want to be in a few hours time. I rarely used warrior, but the Ranger and Necromancer are vital in my play-style. With your upgrade points you’re free to add attributes to your favourite skill tree and progress comfortably. On top of this , you’re able to spend points in helpful areas such as increasing health and magic or maybe you would like treasure chests to make a noise when you’re nearby so that you don’t miss them; again, your choice.
When it comes to Combat, I can’t really fault it. It’s smooth and enjoyable because of both the simple controls and fluid movements.Parrying is your biggest fiend, allowing you to counter continuously should you learn how to use it effectively, which in turn, makes the games more enjoyable. The fighting looks pretty good, too.
Visually ‘Bound by Flame’ isn’t too spectacular on the PS4, but it will do for now. I wouldn’t say that the title looks any better than ‘Skyrim’ on the Xbox 360 console and at a measly 5.6GB install, I’m not surprised that it doesn’t. However, this isn’t a bad thing (at the moment). The level design (being linear) is OK, but again, there’s no “WOW” factor here; more of a “That looks nice” feeling.
As with every game nowadays, we gamers want some form of online multiplayer; whether it is competitive or co-op, it doesn’t matter. Sadly, ‘Bound by Flame’ has neither and throughout your travels you’ll think to yourself “Why do I have to take this person out with me when I could have taken a friend?”
Overall, ‘Bound by Flame’ is playable, but mediocre in every way. I feel that Spiders has missed an opportunity to totally wipe the floor with sales due the lack of RPG's at the moment and they've wasted their chances.
I haven’t played the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 versions of the game, but I feel as though they wouldn’t be any different.
You should play ‘Bound by Flame’ on next-gen consoles if you can find it cheap enough just so that you have something to tied you over until the next decent release. However, if you were planning on buying 'Bound by Flame for the older consoles, don't bother, there are much better alternatives out there.
5/10
Review By wicket2961
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