Review the fires

Founded in 2002, the Spanish studio Mercurysteam has a resume. While the studio is most famous for its Castlevania: Lords of Shadow series, Metroid: Samus returnedand Metroid BreadFor many years, Mercurysteam has also released many original names; However, Blades This is the first new IP studio for almost ten years.

Blades This is a fantastic third-person ad-series with an incredibly unique back on a genre similar to the shower. But while its struggle and originality are the main strong parties, there is too much that holds Blades back from greatness.

Interview with the firing artistic director

Interview: Artistic Corans of Fire Talk to the Inspiration of the 80s and Creating the Hard World Fantasies

Game Rant talks to the blades of the firing art director Artour Serran about his biggest inspiration and his role in fake the dark fantastic world of the game.

Fire story – a mixed bag

Blades They see that the players are controlled by Aran de Lira, a warrior who had just been gifted by one of the seven ancient hammers. With this pious instrument in his hands, Aran goes with the young scientist Oh to remove the tyrannical queen who terrorizes the earth.

BladesHistory is solid. Despite the fact that at the beginning of their adventures there is little context of the story, some intriguing turns, turns and opening stories begin to raise their heads for several hours. And while the story that joins these moments is not very strong, some of the surprising emotional moments, sprinkled throughout the game, go long in holding players.

That said BladesWriting and voice work make no preferences to the game. Although the performances themselves are in order, the implementation of the vocal lines can often lead to a strong tonal dissonance, and characters who make inconvenient jokes during the other serious stories or heroes seem to ignore the vital moments of opening history after it happened.

In addition, many lines are back and back between Arans and the Osen repeated several times, which makes the story and its characters feel artificial. But just like other souls BladesThe story takes the back seat to its gameplay.

The blade of fire has a strong and new gameplay

blades of fire with multiple limbs of the enemy

Fighting for date BladesThe greatest force. The game uses a traffic light system, which results in enemies given color outlines when players are fixed on them. The green outline shows that the enemy will collect full damage, orange means that they will cause reduced damage, and red means that they will not hurt at all.

As the players move through BladesThey will encounter new enemy types that have some resistance. Some enemies will wear armor on their body, which requires players to focus on their powerless weak points using directed game attacks. Other enemies will be resistant to a specific type of damage, such as cutting or dull attacks, and so require a player to use another weapon or weapon.

This permanent change of the moment at the moment, as well as responsive control elements, unique and fluid animation for each weapon, as well as presentation affects similar BladesFighting is consistently involved within a 30-hour game performance. Mechanics like the “Breath Defenders” system, where players should be guarded to regain stamina, also do a great job of training BladesThe struggle feels like a true evolution of a genre similar to the soul.

But fighting – it's only half Blades'Bay Reduction. One out BladesDetermining features is its Forge system, which sees the players create weapons from scratch. Players choose a forge scroll plan, customize various weapons components and materials, as well as mini-heating games, which see them trying to lower and lift metal strips to fit the screen form.

This forgery system takes some time to get used to it, but after a few hours the impressive depth of the system turns from the predominant to admiration. BladesForge allows players to manually tune in a pair of weapons, blocking, achieving and damage. This level of the player agency is rarely found in the soulful soul, and it opens the way for a satisfactory gaming cycle, which resulted in the players face a new threat, create a new powerful weapon and use this weapon to participate in an exciting fight.

This gameplay cycle also urges players to look for the best materials they can find, and unlock new forge scrolls that naturally feed BladesDesign level.

Blades of fire suffers from serious problems

BladesThe world is broken into a handful of different regions, each of their own set of unique, interconnected places. These places contain many additional paths, most of which reward, offering some truly useful modernization. Players can find precious stones that increase their health and endurance, Criptexes, which increase their healing flasks, and statues that give them new update materials for specific weapons.

Together with the rewards for what he left the broken way, Blades It encourages players to participate in every combat meeting in which they are, because the new weapon is unlocking, winning a certain number of specific enemy type.

The very first area is the perfect example BladesThe level design works as intended. The environment looks visually impressive, there are many enemies, and players are rewarded for studying. The critical path to the next goal is also clarified.

That's in BladesThe third area, which goes on the issues, begin to raise their heads. The level quickly becomes a wide network of interconnected paths that incorrectly spiral between different hills. Although this difficulty can make the level of feel alive and memorable, it can also make them several nightmares. This is especially true when the critical path is hidden behind something, which otherwise seems optional or a mechanic that has not been introduced to this point.

That is worse, Blades Often the tasks of players with the shutdown of these levels to find key elements and open new paths, meaning that the novelty of studying these fantastic places quickly disappears. The iconity of these levels is not the only thing that stretches BladesHowever, the pace.

The blade of fire does not nail balance similar to the soul

High difficulty is often part and parcel of the soul genre. The enemies have suffered greatly and players are forced to use their skills for progress. But there is a careful balance that you need to hit to make sure the player calls the challenge without interfere. When it comes to most of your ordinary enemies, Blades He understands this balance well.

The diversity of the enemy is the main force BladesWith players who are provided with many different visual images and movements throughout their adventure, most of which challenge the player fair and unique. BladesThe design of the boss, however, is not so strong.

They only have a few bosses BladesMany of which repeat several times during the game. Although this repetition is disappointing, it is far from the biggest problem of these bosses. Many of these meetings feature standard attacks that kill the player with only one hit.

In other souls, the boss, who can instantly kill the player, is a sign that they need to go to another place and up. But in BladesThere is actually no such option. While players can find different resources to increase their health, endurance and number of health flasks, and can produce tougher weapons, they cannot increase in a traditional sense. And no matter how much resources the player has found, these superiors will always be able to reduce them with only one hit.

This means that there is no boss in these battles for mistakes, which can obviously lead to extremely unpleasant death. This is especially true of physically smaller bosses, which hit as much as their great colleagues, but have a much faster movement, which makes it impossible if it is impossible to read their attacks.

These fights boss end up becoming mandatory and can take a few hours to win the player, thus dragging Blades“The step towards a screaming and annoying stop. Although regular enemies that come to and after these bosses are rigid, their attacks are well related, and their damage leaves a place for natural mistakes. This comparison is only to make the meeting with the boss felt artificially difficult.

I played all Blades On the “steel” complexity that is recommended for setting.

In many ways, Blades This is a traileber. Its main loop of exciting combat meetings, useful research and satisfaction of weapons and settings remains interesting throughout the performance, and there are many mechanics that push a genre similar to the soul forward.

But BladesThe impulse is regularly brought to a sharp stop. Artificial difficulties press and unnecessary level designs, can lead to a lot of unnecessary disappointments, and this disappointment can quickly obscure the biggest sides of the game. Blades He had all the materials needed in front of him, but he created an uneven blade that continues to accidentally injure his Val.