Platform(s): PC (version reviewed), Xbox Series, PlayStation 5
Genre: Action, RPG, Soulslike, Smithing

These days, you really need a standout feature to elevate your future action game with double-A production values. Developer MercurySteam, after their major success with Metroid Dread a few years back, are returning to the days when they made third-person action games with its new entry Blades of Fire. Their killer hook this time around? Make your own dream weapon and use them on all sorts of monsters & deities in a fantasy world that’s a cross between Albion and Lands Between.

Is the forging and ass-kicking all fired up, or a lukewarm smelting? I’d say half-and-half, but it’s not without merit.

Coming In Hot

Blades of Fire stars a gruff middle-age blacksmith-slash-warrior named Aran who is on a quest to kill the region’s monarchy for their tyranny of the land. Accompanying him is scholar Adso, who scribes his journey and the enemies he fights, so that if you get stuck you can refer to his notes for pointers. Throughout the journey, you will hear a lot of their banter and idle chatter, and while it can get grating at times, you can’t fault their genuine cameraderie.

I just wish the game wasn’t 30 to 40 hours long when it could have trimmed 10 hours of it. Blades of Fire’s major fault is that it has long pacing and doesn’t really offer any unique twists to the story, with tired locales and expected dungeon-exploration tropes rearing their heads out of obligation. And when you reach to a point where it hammers you with its revelations, you can clearly see the game’s padding in gameplay and levels. That’s not even bringing up two of the game’s more long-winded segment where you need to play escort to certain NPCs who are required to progress through the maze of rooms & hallways you’re in.

I’m just glad the game’s combat is enough to keep me from feeling demotivated. Blade of Fire’s combat is third-person fighting ala your Soulslike, but there are a few neat mechanics and control changes that need to be borrowed in future titles. For starters, while you can run out out stamina quick, you can regenerate it super-fast by holding the block button at a small cost of your weapon steel. This lets you carry on with the fight to your advantage, making you dish out extra hits when you thought you’re running on empty. God bless the person who came up with this Active Stamina Recovery system, an idea that should be worked into future Soulslike hack-and-slash titles.

Your attacks are mapped onto the face buttons and can specifically target limbs and body parts. With the Xbox controller as reference and the target facing you, Y attacks target the head/top part of enemies, while X swings your weapon left and targets the bad guy’s right side. B hits the left side of your victim, while A makes you do a down-to-up swing/fast stab at the enemy’s lower half. Targeting enemies and hitting their vulnerable vitals are important, because the wrong weapon can bounce off your foes and make you prone to counterattacks. When you manually target them, the highlight will show you different colours indicating your current tool’s effectiveness against them: green means big damage, while red means they’re immune.

This is where the game’s forging mechanic comes into play. You don’t buy weapons or find them in treasure chests: you make them. You have a special forging hammer that, when used on the game’s special anvils that act as save points and resting spots, teleports you to a special forging mountaintop where you can craft tools of mass destruction. Once you pick a schematic, you can tweak the parts so that they either hit hard, or reach targets better, or just swing faster at the cost of damage; whatever you fancy. Then you go to a forging minigame where you align bars and manage heat levels to make the highest-quality weapon available. The better the weapon, the more stars it gets. And the more stars it has, the more times you can repair it and use it longer in more battles.

Killing certain types of enemies enough times unlocks a new weapon, be it a giant flamberge or a big-ass mauling hammer, to even the nimble dual blades and twin axes for fast fighting.

In theory, it can sound tiring to go back to the Forge when your weapon degrades, you will eventually get enough resources to make spare weapons and even the best ones you can save for bigger fights. But in practice, Blades of Fire teaches you to get prepared for the road ahead equipment-wise, and the correct hits on enemy weaknesses mean you kill enemies faster and efficiently. Your equipment degrades, yes, but you can repair them and continue on, being meticulous with your strikes and choices. Plus, once you forge a weapon type once, you can use the auto-forge option to speed up the process, unless you feel you can add more stars to a new smithing process.

Me? I go for long-reaching spears and hard-smashing warhammers. I carry a Flamberge and short sword as backup if the enemies at the place I’m in are invulnerable to my favoured choices. There’s nothing quite like making a weapon fit to your needs and playstyle, where you have to go out of your way to fight foes to get resources and unlock more forging options for the journey ahead.

Still Has Steam

MercurySteam has a lot going for with Blades of Fire despite its drawn-out story and path that does wear out its welcome over time. While not exactly the most engrossing of all action RPGs with Dark Souls DNA, Blades of Fire is still worthy of your time due to its approach to weapons-crafting and nuances to its combat system. It definitely needs more time in the, well, forge and could do with more downsizing of its massive overcompensating sheath.

Final Score: 60/100

Review code provided by publisher.