Quick Look: Bound By Flame

Yeah, I'm kind of in the same boat. My first RPG was Ultima 8, and that was the "worst" in the series. Yet I was so drawn in by it (granted I was 11-12), maybe I'm just prone to enjoying any RPG now.

Two Worlds, and Two Worlds II, were fantastic games! I'm not ashamed to admit, I'm looking forward to Risen 3.

What I see from Dark Souls with it is very difficult combat where you need to constantly be looking out for tactical locations in order to properly face enemies, and enemies where you have to learn their pattern to deal with them effectively. I'm using it as a compliment.

You're assuming a lot about me and how I'd approach this game. I know it's a mid-level budget game, and I wouldn't play it expecting to move around like Dark Souls. My comment about that was mostly related to encounter design, which just looks random in comparison to Dark Souls' constantly mixing things up. That wouldn't increase the budget much, it would just mean integrating level design into enemy placement; it's a different way of building a level, not a harder one. Every action RPG should do this now; my criticism is not specific to this game at all.

I did accidentally imply that the crafting was better in DS2, and that's obviously complete nonsense; this one looks pretty keen.About DS2, well, neither you nor I nor anyone here are normal gamers. There's still tons of people spending a few hours a week playing DS2, and LOTS of abnormal gamers are still playing to have fun with the multiplayer while it's still so active.

Err, how does it look random, exactly? The same enemies spawn in the same places, and different enemies are placed in different parts of the zone. It's... exactly the same as Dark Souls, actually. You even get jumped by enemies as Brad was. At a broader level of design I'm sure Dark Souls has much better pacing and whatnot, but the enemy placement thing doesn't seem to apply here.

The game does have choices that will change things, but in this case Sybil will free her anyway and the scene plays out about the same. I think it prevents you from being able to "romance" her, though.

Robin Atkin Downes doing an American voice just sounds like Fred Tatasciore.

@yummylee said:

Jesus. This dude is motherfucking prolific. I think he's lent his voice to every game since chess.

Edit: I respect how hard he must work:

Man, Dark Souls has ruined the combat in so many other games, by comparison.

The weapon and armour stuff look really cool.

I appreciate the fact everything changes cosmetically when you modify it.

Kind of hard to gauge how good or bad this game really is in the QL. Brad isn't known for picking up on subtle mechanical intricacies so it's difficult to tell if some issues are manageable or not, particularly given there are level up mechanics at work that always have the potential to skew a games difficulty or playability at given points.

Not making excuses for the game or anything, obviously not clearly explaining and demonstrating the games mechanics is the responsibility of the game itself - kind of demonstrates how spoilt we have become in recent times as these small hangups and inconsistencies used to be a regular part of every game.

Funnily enough I feel like the shorter this game is the more I want to play it.

There is nothing like an American accent to pull me right out of a fantasy game.

Where's Sybil?

¿Que?

Where's Sybil?

Where's... the bill?

No, not a bill! I own the place!

The problem is not that the combat isn't Soulsy, it's that the combat isn't good. Try Onigiri via the Japanese PSN for action-as-heck combat against monsters, including instanced areas for only you and/or your party of players and/or AI, it looks like an early PS2 title but plays like what you'd expect of this current generation and that is like a treat.

Onigiri also has better AI than this game, along with having an actual rewarding enjoyable feeling of combat right off the bat. It looks good, feels good, you feel effective even if you spread out your abilities and don't craft or upgrade weapons in that. I should give it the guide treatment.

This looks like the dev really tried, but... maybe just didn't have the budget? Those voice actors, and the story? Unfortunately not for me. Hope it does decent for them, a sequel may just be ok.

"You're criticising my ethics?! You sack of shit."

Goddamn are some of the lines and dialogue in Mars Wars Logs hilarious, looks like this continues that tradition XD

I admire that Spiders keeps swinging for the fences with their games, but it would probably be better if they reduced their scope and tried to make a tighter more enjoyable experience.

I didn't hate Mars War Logs. Hmm...

This game seems painfully boring.

This game looks thoroughly average.

Like the average of average.

looks like a poor mans witcher 2

I am saddened at how bad this game looks :(

Are you seriously comparing this to some silly half-baked crappy Asian quasi-MMO? Onigiri's combat is awful, and the game itself is hilariously bad. They're not even vaguely the same genre, what a weird ass comparison.

This game's combat may not rival Souls, but it's just fine, and deeper than combat in, say, The Witcher 2, so while it may be a poor man's Witcher in every other regard, it actually has superior gameplay. It's a fun little budget Eurojank title, it's not meant to make anyone in the world go "Oh man I guess I ain't buying The Witcher 3 or Dark Souls 3 now!"

The demonic peanut gallery is pretty amazing. Not quite Dark Messiah levels, but still good.

Why is half the game cell shaded and the other half not? Kinda odd

Hehe, £29.99 on Steam, hehe.

It looks like an artifact of extreme ambient occlusion rather than actual cel shading. It's a method to try to simulate the behavior of light reflecting off surfaces and how it affects corners and distance from a light source, but currently very few games do it in a way that looks in any way natural.

I kind of laughed at "Mr. Dark Souls" himself, Brad Shoemaker, complaining about having to stand and block hits, because it was boring.

@scotto: I think he was talking about it being boring in a game like this with bad combat, more than blocking as a strategy in general.

It's a shame the game turned out to be shit, it actually looked a bit interesting.

This game looks pretty awful.

You just made me think of a New Yorker or someone from Jersey doing fantasy dialogue and though funny, you're right, it'd be really disjointing from a fantasy theme.

Better yet, imagine Dave Lang, straight outa Chicago, doing a fantasy character's dialogue.

I think Brad was getting Parry and Riposte mixed up. He was doing plenty of parrying.

I appreciate the heart behind devising a sort of metal clip majiggery that the weapons on people's backs clip in to, but no, no sale on that. Still lazy.

Meh.

@theht: I did get GoT for 10 bucks, but damn was it a surprise. Story is great, combat is very similar to Dragon Age Origins, it had an Arena! (i missed these). Having 2 main characters paid off in my opinion. Can't see fans of rpgs or GOT not liking it.

This didn't look that bad. It looked pretty decent actually. I dunno why everyone is shitting on it in the comments.

PS4 audio is indeed fucked. I have to switch from HDMI to optical and back everytime for it to actually output 5.1.

This game looks like it is to The Witcher what Kingdoms of Amalur was to Elder Scrolls.

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for these janky European rpgs so I might end up getting this. Love me some "eurojank", things like Gothic, Risen, Drakensang, the Divinity series, Two Worlds and I even enjoyed Mars: War Logs.

Huh. The last thing I expected was to come away from this interested. Well done, Spiders.

@xbob42: You know what based on what you just wrote there I might actually pick this game up. Thanks for those details. I appreciate having the info :)

The writing in this game seems sort of obnoxious.
I think it's the heavy SSAO that causes the slightly cel-shaded look.

The writing is actually the most interesting thing in this QL. Lord Jesus I am so bored by knights & elves-style fantasyspeak in games.

The voice acting in this is...questionable, at best.

I would have figured "ranger" stance to be more of a ranged stance but whatever.

Brad "I only use the worst weapons I have and run into crowds of enemies after talking about how crowd management is the hardest part of combat" Shoemaker. Don't ever change.

It does not sound like much fun is being had with this game. I can hold off on buying a PS4 a little longer :)

It's likely you'd really enjoy this game.

@seikenfreak: Yeah, male Demon Hunter.