Quick Look: Bound By Flame

I've heard good things about the story in the Game of Thrones game and Of Orcs and Men.

Looks pretty cool, not sure if game is hard, Bradley is terrible at playing it, or a mix of both.

Hand the controller to Vinny once in a while.

Yea seems like a poor mans Witcher. I don't think I would buy it at 40 or 50 bucks, but probably for 5 bucks on a sale.

Totally, I got it for the pre-order price of $30 on Steam, which seemed about right since I was craving this type of game, I'm sure the price'll be nice and low for those vaguely interested in a month or so.

As a fan of this game, I would like to defend the combat a bit. It's difficult, responsive and mostly fair. Basically it asks you to pay attention to enemy animations and the situation, and respond within certain windows of time, while giving you enough HP for a handful of mistakes in any given encounter.

And some side notes...

• You can and should manipulate enemies into AoE attacks and traps using blocking, movement and your ally
• In Ranger stance, you do more DMG from behind, again making movement & enemy manipulation important
• You absolutely can start most fights off with an instant kill in stealth
• Traps are powerful/extremely useful
• The different 2-handed weapon types have different attributes that can make a difference in how you approach combat
• Allies aren't great, but can be set up & used to good effect (playing through on hard my ally has only died a couple of times)
• Parrying is very responsive...difficult-but-fair...blocking is effective
• You have tools that interrupt (stop attack animations/stagger/knock down) enemies, like the Crossbow
• You do start to be able to kill enemies faster once you get later into the game

The biggest drawback (IMO) is that you're way better off maxing out either the Warrior or Rogue tree rather than spreading points out between them. Makes it less fun than it would be if switching between stances was encouraged.

Spiders gets more of a bum rap than they deserve. Yeah Mars: War Logs was a mess of a mess of a game, but Of Orcs and Men was perfectly serviceable. They also do give effort into making their own mark on the genre (for better or worse) even if the games are a bit derivative. Europe seems to be the last place we get these AA type games from anymore. There is clearly some talent at work in their games they could be a riser as they move forward..... or they could just always make weird games with some interesting stuff marred by jank and some fumbled execution.

Also a French studio making these games with lots of crude dialogue and swearing everywhere is endlessly weird to me.

Looks like Vulcan got played like a damn fiddle.

Please tell us more all mighty know-it-all of video games.

Is it just me, or does anyone else think Edwen is voiced by Claudia Black? Or a very similar sounding voice actress.

The Many Voices of "Claudia Black" in Animation & Video Games

@brad You do gimp yourself by spreading points out, unfortunately. But if you decide to keep playing, it'll even out for you again before too long! The swamp is probably where your char feels the weakest even with a perfect build.

i like this game a lot. I'll readily admit that it has it's faults, but it's fun and ambitious and has character. not everything needs to be the best game ever made, you know?

Mars War Logs was pretty rough around the edges but it wasn't without charm. I remember dropping the difficulty down to easy because the combat wasn't fun at all but i like the setting.

I didn't play it much beyond tutorial area however.

brad doesn't like games where he needs to block a lot..... how the hell does he play Dark Souls 2?

also why doesn't he heal when he is near death?

This game seems like something I'll pick up in a few years in a bargain bin at Wal-Mart. Honestly looks OK, but not worth 50 bucks to me.

They actually nerfed shields/blocking quite a bit in DS2, in 99% of cases it's much better to just roll away.

Only if you have a shitty shield.

Great dialogue choices.....and..... Giant Vagina monsters....check.

Holy shit this quick look was boring. Sorry guys.

I'm kinda digging the music in the town. It reminds me of Dark Cloud. Game definitely looks like the first Witcher game, especially the stilted animations and strange dialogue. Didn't they rerecord the dialogue for The Witcher for the Enhanced Edition update?

@theht: Yea the two main characters in Orcs and Men were surprisingly alright, but the overall story was kinda 50/50. Combat/environments/loot/mechanics, basically everything else was barely enough so that it could be called a game however.

Ya... because I beat it by sword + shield. Get in enemy face, block, attack. Also it was a shield I found within the first hour of play probably. Leveled it all the way up.

Playing PC now as a magic user for the first time. Thought it seemed easier at first but I'm finding bosses to be more difficult without a shield.

Oh and this game... the QL was pretty boring imo.

Tell that to my greatshield wielding warrior.

I like this game quite a bit, but I also definitely agree with Vinny. If The Witcher 3 had come out in May like it originally intended to, I wouldn't have bought this.

Every fight is a boss battle when Brad is playing.

I think this game seems alright. I like that they went for a more real time skill based combat system rather then having it be all dice rolls like a lot of rpgs. The graphics and animations are pretty impressive for a small european developer. I mean making a full on rpg has to be a difficult undertaking and I think the ambition is admirable. I think I might pick this up if it goes on sale in the future. It might make for some light entertainment.

If spiders can already make a serviceable game like this its certainly possible they might actually make a surprisingly good game next time. It seems like they are more than capable of that if everything comes together well.

I like the armor and weapon crafting. The main character's voice acting and dialogue are a huge turn off for me. From the comments it doesn't seem like the female Vulcan's VO is much of an improvement. I'll keep it eye on it and wait for a Steam sale.

Granted, I haven't played this game but some stuff kind of irked me about the way Brad played and what he was complaining about:

*uses pyromancy spell*

Brad: That does no damage!

Vinny: Have you put any points into pyromancy?

Brad: No.

Game of Thrones and Of Orcs and Men were both developed by Cyanide. And I actually fairly enjoyed both of them.

Hmmm. Alright, it seems Spiders co-developed Of Orcs and Men. Whatever that entails.

you should see me playing a game, honestly.

You mean a tiny WRPG by a tiny team couldn't compete with a AAA multi-million title that the entire industry is waiting for?

Well, shit!

Vinny was Captain Obvious with that statement, so you can be his sidekick, Lieutenant Obvious. :p

Goddamnit, I don't have any issues with spiders, but wasp nests and beehives really give me the creeps. This game having LIVING FLYING WASP NESTS really makes me uneasy watching this.

This made me remember that I never did finish the Witcher 2....

@xbob42: I didn't mean to imply they were on the same level, obviously this game is smaller than The Witcher 3. I'm just saying that I was hoping to be playing the Witcher 3 by now, and this is a nice substitute, even if it is a much less substantial game.

@xbob42: Oh the rest of the QL doesn't change it any. He consistently doesn't pay attention to anything and then complain that he doesn't understand what's going on. It's unfortunate, I'd have appreciate a better QL of this game, it seems like it's got some interesting things going on.

Cranky cranky ppl. Talking about the video game.

Tainted love......

Yep, this game looks perfectly competent but Brad kept looking for reasons not to like it.

eh at a certain point, even having a 100% block shield, and using it well didn't matter much. Like against Vendrick Lamar, Smelter Demon, The Rotten, Duke's Dear Freja, etc. a lot of times it was better to dodge. Even against Velstadt and the Throw Watchers, I'd block some attacks, but really dodging became more efficient at times. The only boss I recall parrying much was the Pursuer. and then there's stuff like Old Iron King which was just...hah.

This looks like something I'd enjoy. Wouldn't pay full price for it, but I'll be keeping an eye out for it to pop up in the summer sale on Steam.

This seems like a pretty alright B game, if you take into account Brad being Brad and reviewers acting like it's a $60 AAA game. Ya, I'll probably play this some day.

just bought it on steam. looks like something I'd enjoy, there's an hilariously dumb main character, roleplay, conversation options, skimpy clad arrogant witches. yup.

looks alright. not great but not terrible.

most entertaining dialog in a fantasy RPG I've heard in quite a while. much less sterile than most writing in the genre.

I don't know, maybe I'm crazy but this game looks like my kinda game.

I feel like this quick look would've been 45 minutes long if it had been anybody besides Brad doing it. There's just so much time sitting in menus and refusing to make decisions on things.

Spiders are in fact one of the most common terrestrial animals in the Arctic.

I mean, i dont think this looks great. It does sorta look like a "poor mans witcher" but, you know, a poor mans witcher sounds kinda cool....

I like "B movies" why not "B games" i might give this a go!

This looks like a pretty neat game, once you correct for Brad (not a complaint, this was a fun video). Nothing Dark Souls doesn't do better, but I'll be sick of that series by the time this hits a good price point.

Dropping so soon after PC Dark Souls 2 seems a little odd. This is not a big market they're going after.

Does anyone know if you can not free the witch? Does this game have branching storylines or would everything have gone the same way whatever Brad chose?

There are very serious choices you make, the Witch thing was a minor one, not sure what happens if you don't free her, but there is some SERIOUSLY fucked up shit you can do if you give in to the Demon, that branches how the story plays out.

Err, I know this sort of looks like Dark Souls, especially the screenshots, but it's nothing like Dark Souls, and Dark Souls doesn't do it "better" because it's essentially a different genre, not that I don't think Dark Souls 2 is the better game overall, mind, but this is more akin to a B-Movie version of The Witcher. If you go in expecting something on par with The Witcher 3 (Vinny) or Dark Souls (Everyone else) -- especially from a super small team at a pre-order price of $30 on Steam, then you're in for a very unpleasant but very obvious from a mile away surprise.

They probably released around now because this is when most folks are finishing up Dark Souls 2 on PC (I finished it a few days ago and I took FOREVER.) and console owners are getting hungry for something, the perfect time to release in my opinion.