Blades of Fire Review — Warsmith

Blades of Fire is an interesting fantasy action RPG with a focus on forging your own weapons. Smithing is not just an important mechanic, but the crux of the game’s identity as you unlock patterns and forge new weapons on a quest to overthrow a corrupt queen and her armies of cronies. Though decidedly special, I found that Blades of Fire’s approach to the genre took quite some time to get used to, and some aspects that are core to the game’s experience can become a bit tedious over time.

Blades of Fire follows protagonist Aran de Lira and his companion Adso as they attempt to overthrow the tyrant Queen Nerea, a witch who has cast a spell turning all metal to stone except for the weapons wielded by her warriors. Aran, however, has received a special gift, the power of a god of the forge, allowing him to create weapons, and thankfully, he also knows how to use them.

It is hard for me to think of how to describe Blades of Fire at first. It does not play quite like a lot of other RPGs, and after a while, I came to realize that the game is essentially a Soulslike with heavy modifications made to the formula.

In Blades of Fire, you will be moving through locations filled with enemies, unlocking checkpoints or “bonfires” by way of anvils littered across the map. Instead of souls, enemies drop crafting components like iron, wood, and coal, and instead of leveling up your individual stats, you use these materials to forge weapons. When you die, the weapon loses a bit of durability and drops in the location of your death. All of the enemies reset, and you must essentially play the Soulslike minigame of recollecting your dropped souls. In this case, however, the souls would be that really awesome sword you just crafted.

You can tell when the game was being made that the forge mechanic was the developer’s main focus. Which is obviously the selling point of the game, but you will probably spend just as much time in the forge as you do on the battlefield. This remains the case until you find a combination that really works for you, and even then, you will keep unlocking better steel and parts to add to your weapon of choice to further modify its stats.

Forging is an intricate process where you create a weapon from your own set of parameters. The game has a total of seven weapon types and around thirty subtypes, allowing for a pretty diverse range of movesets and statistics for you to choose from for your own playstyle. When forging one of these weapons, you select the weapon type, then customize options using parts and steel types gathered by defeating enemies. Each decision made modifies your stats. You then get to shape the metal, which determines the weapon’s durability. This is a minigame that is pretty fun at first, but over time gets kind of tedious, so I often skipped it.

As cool as the smithing can be, there is not enough real variation between what different parts or steel types do for a weapon you’re building. It essentially always boils down to “this choice gives better stats in everything but increases stamina cost and costs more.” This kind of makes having so many choices pointless, as it’s always best to just go with whatever gives the most stats, as the downsides simply don’t matter or provide any meaningful changes.

The game’s combat can feel punishing at times, especially when your weapons break in the middle of a fight. This always feels bad, as broken weapons do zero damage. This is, of course, done to incentivize you to build multiple weapons or keep your weapons repaired. In the early game, when you are first figuring things out, this can feel unfair. You can get into death loops easily where you do not have the materials to make new weapons, and you are limited to one weapon type until you retrieve what you dropped.

This only matters because different enemies have different resistances to weapon types. Armoured enemies often fall victim to bludgeoning tools, and thick hides often need to be cut rather than stabbed. This is really cool, and in the late game, it is not much of a problem. That early game sludge fest can feel really oppressive when you respawn with nothing but a sword to kill a bunch of enemies who are resistant to it.

The combat system on its own is really good, with the resistance and weapon counters being a fun little addition to an already solid system. Hitting enemies feels great, and you do just as much damage as you take, often one-shotting some mini bosses with some of your better weapons equipped. It can be punishing, but when you pull everything off properly and make good use of the system, which is something of a new take on the directional combat melee system, the combat feels heavy and satisfying.

It took a while for Blades of Fire to grow on me. The early game felt grindy, and I found myself dying a lot and spending a lot of time in a forging system that really does not reward you until you have taken the time to unlock a lot of stuff. Even then, it can feel a little underwhelming. However, after giving the game some time, I really started to appreciate it more and more. I would say it is a solid and highly original take on the Soulslike genre.

Try Hard Guides was provided an Epic Games PC Review code for Blades of Fire. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! Blades of Fire is available on Epic Games, PlayStation, and Xbox.