It wouldn’t be very fun if you had to take on the Ice Lords’ forces all on your own, though. Along the way, you’ll meet five teammates who will join you on your quest. Sybil, an incredibly quizzical young woman, is your resident healer, and can support you with lightning magic, as well. Rhelmar is the obligatory cheeky elf who can’t seem to get through a single sentence without some sarcastic remark. Randval is a knight from a foreign land who prefers to call everyone (himself included) by a title rather than their name. Next, because every fantasy game needs one, Edwen is the sultry witch who is equal parts flirty, violent and possibly evil. Finally, there’s Mathras, the narrator of the opening cutscene, who is an immortal spirit fond of jumping from body to body to suit his needs. It may not seem like a very sizeable group, but it becomes a bit more reasonable when you discover that, under most circumstances, you can only take one person with you as you go out questing. As I believe the backbone of any successful adventure is a good healer, I spent the majority of the game travelling with Sybil, so I wouldn’t have to constantly craft and use my own potions. When I needed a little extra killing power, I’d take Randval along, but, for the most part, I found Sybil to be the most helpful. You can also choose to “seduce” your teammates for a brief kissing scene, but this feature wasn’t particularly deep or meaningful. Just agree with everything the person you fancy says, and you’ll be slobbering all over each other in no time.
The male version of Vulcan is voiced by Robin Atkin Downes (Kaz Miller – Metal Gear series, The Medic – Team Fortress 2, Travis Touchdown – No More Heroes). While I’m usually a fan of his work, in Bound By Flame, Downes’s performance was a bit… off. Given the general preference towards European accents in the game, it was more than a little jarring to hear Vulcan have a full-on American accent with full-on (sometimes vulgar) American mannerisms. Actually, I wasn’t that impressed with the game’s voice acting in general. Aside from the game seeming to try to be more edgy with lots of unnecessarily strong language, I found their attempts to create their own mythos through language strangely jarring. The most prevalent of this was the constant use of the word “godsdammit,” as if saying, “See? It’s like what people normal say, but with multiple deities!” Because of all this, it was harder for me to stay interested in the plot on the smaller scale. Even so, this was still better than the mystery woman who gave a pretty reserved and unemotional performance for the female version of Vulcan. I think the world would be a much better place if Jennifer Hale just did the voice for all lead female characters.
Fortunately, one thing that Bound By Flame definitely has going for it is its presentation. The locations you visit, while few in number, look amazing. Right when starting the game, you’re presented with a spectacular view of a vast mountain range. Almost every environment in the game looks just fantastic, from temple ruins, to the jungles and village later on, all the way to the frozen ruins late in the game. And it’s a good thing that these areas look so great because you’re going to be seeing a lot of them. Many of the game’s sidequests are little more than fetch quests, tasking you with traveling into the wilderness to find special items. If you care about the rewards that come with these quests, you’ll be going back and forth multiple times to complete these quests. And, with no fast travel system, that means a lot of walking. Fortunately, most areas aren’t overly large, and you can at least sprint by holding down the X button to expedite the process a bit.
Given the epic, yet seemingly hopeless tones of the game’s narrative, the soundtrack does an excellent job of capturing those feeling. The music is pretty heavy on the drums in combat, making for a some nice punchy tracks while you’re fighting, while also transitioning nicely to the overworld music between fights. My favorite, though, has to be the main title theme. Unfortunately, while the game looks and sounds wonderful, it suffers the most in its story.
Sadly, there were elements in the plot that made the entire experience just feel… limited. While the story at large – the war against the Ice Lords, and Vulcan’s struggle with his (literal) inner demon – was quite engaging at first, much of it felt rushed in the final hours of the game. Characters constantly mention that there are seven Ice Lords who control the Deadwalker forces, but, almost tragically, you never see them. The only one you actually encounter and fight is one Lord Blackfrost, who may as well be considered the main villain. After he is dealt with, the game pulls a rather lazy deus ex machina, allowing you to wipe out the rest of the Ice Lords without so much as an introduction, thus dashing my hopes for a vast, epic tale of hunting down each of them one by one. As I said previously, the small-scale story was also a disappointment. Key characters could die without so much as a mention from others, even if they were close friends. Other characters could be introduced, but, as the story continued, they would simply be shuffled off and never mentioned again. While I enjoyed the challenging, almost visceral combat, this can only get you so far when the story is so disappointing.
I feel I must make special mention of the final boss. While I found most of Bound By Flame’s combat to be demanding, though not overly difficult, the final battle in the game suffers from a massive difficulty spike. Your opponent is fast, vicious and has attacks that drain your health, even if you block them. As it turns out, if you chose to build Vulcan as a melee character, you’re going to have a bad time in this final battle. Investing in powerful fire magic, on the other hand, can make this boss something of a pushover. While that’s well and good, going in without this knowledge is exceedingly unfair for the average player. Much like Deus Ex: Human Revolution, players are given the illusion that any type of character will be successful. However, as it turns out, without some kind of a priori knowledge on what’s coming, you’re screwed if you didn’t learn the necessary skills. To my great shame, I was forced to lame it out and set the difficulty down to Easy just so I could come out victorious, and, even then, it was still just by the skin of my teeth.
In the end, I found Bound By Flame to be simply OK. Even so, the environments and music were obviously painstakingly crafted, and that is much-appreciated. Additionally, the entertaining and frantic battle system, coupled with the interesting crafting mechanic held me enough to see it through from start to finish. This, however, was in spite of the lackluster story and cast. Rather than setting up for a long, sweeping adventure, things puttered out quickly at the end, and the characters were simply not great vehicles for that story. Aside from just a couple characters, I really didn’t feel connected to them, so I couldn’t really get behind their problems or their motivations. The game was also shorter than I expected, having completed it in under 20 hours. While that would normally be a respectable run, the stilted narrative really makes it feel incomplete. I suppose there is some replay value in seeing what outcomes your different choices can bring about, but, with the story the way it is, asking players to go through it again might be a tall order.
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Game provided by the publisher for reviewer purposes, and is based off the PlayStation 4 version.
Bound By Flame is available on Amazon:
