Bound By Flame - Review Roundup

[SpoonFULL]

TW1 combat was terrible. The whole game was terrible, IMO. I thought the dialog was its best part in that it was so horribly awful it was kind of funny and entertaining to watch and listen to.

"A lovely day for trade!" "And why should I not go back there, pray?" "Forsooth! T'was generous!" I'm laughing all over again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twA_myMeejU

I agree, but still it is a solid, rare open-world (with very plausible world simulation and npc responses, factions .. etc) rpg.

As for combat, I think it is better than Oblivion (obviously), Skyrim and just slightly better than Gothic 3 (as I like Gothic 3 simplistic combat).

 

[Ovenall]

Destructiod likes it. 7/10

http://www.destructoid.com/review-bound-by-flame-274488.phtml

http://www.vg247.com/2014/05/09/bou...s-foul-mouthed-and-brutal-but-is-it-any-good/

This guy is pretty level headed in his take 6 hours in. Looks like a sale game for me… too bad, I have a PS4 collecting dust.

 

[Couchpotato]

Well as much as I like playing the game a few bugs are getting annoying, and a few of them are game stoppers. They always start in the middle of Act I.

Here they are if anyone is curious.

1. Enemy's don't attack just stay idle.
2. Can't talk to Party Members.
3. Unable to finish certain quests & unresponsive quest givers.

The solution from Spider reload an older save, and wait for a new patch. The problem with that is the new loaded game has more of the same problems.

Guess I'll wait for a few more patches before I play it again.

 

[borcanu]

thanks for the heads up, i was quite enjoying myself. I'll just stop

 

[joxer]

I'm only 3 hours in the game, any didn't see any bug so far. Had too many things to do so couldn't play more…

Playing on normal, have a feeling it's on hard. I'm relying on melee perhaps too much. Traps can instakill a group of mobs but are hard to get (or craft), bolts seem possibly OP but are limited early game so I'm not using them a lot. Fire bolts drain your mana maybe too fast.

There is some weird behavior on mobs with shomach. Can't say it's bugged AI, they lose the balance so you can strike them easily from behind and it's probably intended. I actually like it so if it's bug, I wouldn't want it to be fixed.

So far I don't see a point of going ranger stance at all. Maybe it'll be useful later to stealth/crit a tough mob.

The first boss fight felt easier than the rest of the game (I've used burning sword). Or I just got lucky? Died once on him, dunno how exactly, and then nailed him with no problem.

There are three possible NPC sidekicks in the first village, the female mage sucks unbelievably, the elven archer is not bad at all, just got the third one who is melee fighter so can't say anything about him yet. You can have only one sidekick in your party.

While some can say there is too much of walk, it's far from annoying, sprint is not staminabased so you can run very fast as long as you want.

Didn't craft many things so far to say if it's made awsome or not.

And most important, I'm unsure if the game is endless respawns grinder or not. When you clear an area some new mobs do spawn on your way back but just once and are different from previous ones. And this is not like in jRPG where revisiting an area means repopulate, this happens without area transition when you receive a new quest.
I need to play some more to be certain.

 

[Zloth]

PC Gamer's review gave it a 54. He thought the combat was just too weak at the start and at the end it was too tedious but he liked the battles in the middle. Story-wise it started out OK but just as he was starting to connect to the characters, it all went flat. He didn't like Vulcan's female voice actor AT ALL and didn't seem too impressed by the humor. There were plenty of technical issues (particularly when using his Radeon HD) but it didn't sound like anything was game breaking, just annoying.

It's interesting to see the wide variety of scores on this game. I wonder how much of that has to do with whether the reviewer picked a male or female character at the start? You'll always get a range of scores just because of different people's tastes but having the main character's voice acting skill change a lot according to which you pick would have to push that range even more.

 

[TomRon]

I've only been playing for a couple of hours but I think the game is solid, I really liked Mars:WL and this is more of the same but in a fantasy setting. Kind of funny you mention not using ranger stance Joxer, I've put all my points into Ranger stance only and I'm loving it. I didn't use it at all in Mars so I figured I would go a different route with this one. And I really like the combat, funny that some reviewers who love Skyrim can say this game has crappy combat, when in fact it's a hell of a lot better. I usually prefer slower turn based or RTwP combat, but if you have to go the action way this is the right way to do it.

 

[joxer]

Well perhaps ranger stance is superior early game, but I went another route.
Let's see where I get with this...

Reviewers who say that the combat is crappy probably expect to kill mobs with one hit like they used to do in mainstream games. This is not such game. And I like that.

 

[Gokyabgu]

After watching some videos on youtube about the game, I finally changed my mind and bought the game. Very much like Orcs&Men about everything except combat. Combat is really solid, button mashing doesn't help here, careful planning of moves required which I like. This game certainly do not deserve these low scores.

 

[greywolf00]

So just my brief impressions now that I finished it.

It is a rather short game, 11 hours on Hawk (Normal doing most side quests). Only ran into a few bugs (Archers can fire arrows at you while facing another direction, 2 crashes which seem to be linked to graphic card compatibility). Some occasional issues with the camera (can't see through objects which is horrible for an ARPG). Constantly found myself wishing for a roll button as the default dodge and strafe didn't always feel fluid. I normally don't care about respawns, but by the second half of Act 3 I was sick of the combat (I'm not a huge ARPG fan so take that with a grain of salt). I kind of wish they had fleshed out the companions more. Not a fan of the design for the final boss fight either.

I didn't enjoy the writing as much as Mars or Orcs, but it's not bad. They seem to be expanding slightly on previous mechanics/formulas which is nice (areas seem bigger, less loading screens, expanded crafting, more items, more sidequests). The "good" ending hints at more stories in the world as a possibility down the line which might be interesting.

Overall I enjoyed it, though I wish I enjoyed the story more. Probably my 2nd favorite Spiders game behind Orcs. If you've enjoyed their other games, BBF probably won't disappoint.

 

[TomRon]

Well perhaps ranger stance is superior early game, but I went another route.
Let's see where I get with this…

Reviewers who say that the combat is crappy probably expect to kill mobs with one hit like they used to do in mainstream games. This is not such game. And I like that.

I don't know if it's superior, I just though it was fun. And I like using atealth, is't kind of an annoyance you get ambushed quite often though so you can't use it. I totally agree with you on the combat, and I honestly don't feel it takes that long to bring down an enemy. Part of the fun is using crafting in the best way possible to maximize DPS.

Greywolf: 11 hours sounds a bit short yes, I believe Mars took me about 15 and I thought this was supposed to be bigger? That's a bit of a dissapointment.

 

[Alistair]

I'm 15 hours in, playing a woman. Basically I'm enjoying it but the limited environments are a bit tedious, and the presentation of quests/dialogs becomes a little more haphazard as the game goes on. I think they should have cut back on the party members and worked on the world and quests. I'll still pick up their next one

 

[greywolf00]

11 hours sounds a bit short yes, I believe Mars took me about 15 and I thought this was supposed to be bigger? That's a bit of a dissapointment.

I think it is longer, Mars took me less than 11. Feels like there's a lot more sidequests this time. I expect I just tend to finish games a bit on the fast side.

 

[TomRon]

I think it is longer, Mars took me less than 11. Feels like there's a lot more sidequests this time. I expect I just tend to finish games a bit on the fast side.

It certainly sounds that way. Maybe you're just alot better than I am, I tend to die. Quite alot.

 

[Sumerisle]

Just finished the game in normal, all sidequests. 20 hours.
The combat is hard to learn, but you can master it and it's quite satisfactory.
The story is pretty decent, the companions and NPCs are well written.
Assuming that the game isn't pretentious or ambitious, is a good, solid game.
I had a lot of fun, and the last boss was a bit difficult, but hey, I love that.
Technical notes: no bugs found, no crashes, no AI nonsense.
(WIN7 64Bits, Radeon HD6850, Sandybridge 2500K, Catalyst 14.4 WHQL, XBox360 wired controller)
For me it's 7 towards 7,5 out of 10.