BOUND BY FLAME FREE DOWNLOAD + REVIEW

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It’s a good thing that Bound By Flame’s combat is its strongest point, because almost every major in-game conflict is resolved through violence. Structurally, it’s largely linear; though smaller maps and quests can be explored and completed in different orders, it’s always constrained by narrow corridors and a fairly rigid plot. Thankfully though, it strikes a harmony between its entertaining combat system and thoughtful role-playing progression, giving it a consistent forward momentum that held my attention despite its inconsistent story and writing.

The role-playing systems that support the combat in Bound By Flame are simple, but quite effective. Your character has three skill trees, labeled Warrior, Ranger, and Pyromancer, but effectively serving as a slow sword, fast daggers, and spells. Combat stances can be toggled on-the-fly mid-battle, with your selection of fire spells being available in both. I found I spent most of the early game in the defensive Warrior stance, but finished the bulk of the campaign using the speedy Ranger daggers. Every progression choice felt like a viable play-style though, allowing me to find what I liked, and exploit it to the fullest.

With each level gained you can choose what appear to be minor buffs, like a higher critical rating on fireballs, or health regeneration in Warrior stance. Very few of these

In the action/RPG Bound by Flame, you are a mercenary possessed by a flame demon. Choose between the powers offered by this evil or rejection of the demonic influence in order to develop heroic talents instead.

Beyond: Two SoulsBeyond DivinityDragon Age II skill improvements read like they’re major enhancements on their own - this is not a game where you go from having 15 hit points to 1500 - but they cumulatively give your character a great feeling of progression. Make enough smart choices, and even something like slightly increasing the chance of dagger attacks interrupting enemy actions can make your character feel like a combat god.

Much of Bound By Flame’s combat is built around timing and precision, like when you face opponents who carry shields on their front and their back. You’ll need to either hit them from their flanks with daggers, or best them with perfectly-timed blocks and counter-attacks. The notably responsive controls are up to the task, conveying the rhythms of one-against-many combat surprisingly well. The same can’t be said for some of the single-opponent fights though, which can be either predictable and easy, or downright cheap, though those are happily quite rare.

Bound By Flame creates a bleak fantasy world, which it attempts to fill with a grimy, cynical perspective and dark humor. Sadly, neither the writing or voice acting are strong enough to quite pull off these ambitious storytelling goals. Its mercenaries are unsurprisingly profane and written to be amusingly juvenile, but their bawdy insults and nasty jokes are only clever half the time.The other half they fall flat thanks to wildly inconsistent voice acting and writing, which often wind up being unintentionally amusing.

Bound By Flame also misses the mark with its much-touted ability to choose how to deal with the demon that has possessed your body. The big choices you’re supposed to make often end up being immediately irrelevant. Will you decide to join the battle for a major city, or ignore it and follow the demon’s quest? Either way, you’re sent to fight for the city. Many other times you aren’t even given choices at all; the demon simply takes over and does what it wants anyway. This lack of consistency makes caring about Bound By Flame’s plot far too difficult to sustain.

On the plus side, much of the rest of Bound By Flame’s presentation worked well. I quite liked most of the music, particularly some of the arrhythmic, drum-based tracks used during more demonic battles. The character models and animations are strong as well, particularly on the smooth-running PC version. However, I was disappointed by how jerky the frame rate got on PS4 when special lighting and water effects appeared on-screen.

ADDITIONAL REVIEW

THE VERDICT

Bound By Flame has one huge strength: the harmony between its entertaining combat and role-playing systems. Granted, its weak storytelling does weigh it down, and its performance on PS4 is a bit of a bummer, but the strong core of its gameplay powers it through to transcend these flaws. Bound By Flame’s combination of progression and action ultimately make it greater than the sum of its parts.