Bound by Flame - ARPG where the PC is possessed by a demon

[felipepepe]

So, how does Bound by Flame stands the test of time? You guys still think it's a good game, or tottaly forgot about it?

 

[abnaxus]

It's good for what it is.

 

[DeepOcean]

I was curious with this game but when I hear Witcha 2 and Dragon Age 2 as comparisons with it and see the "let's wash out the fuck of all colours so it is realistic!" artstyle, I don't feel all that encouraged to try it.

 

[Abu Antar]

I'll try it once it hits the £15 range.

 

[Goat Vomit]

It's good for what it is.

Yup, it's damn good for what it is.

 

[1451]

Played until the final battle, went full demon. Overall it is a rather simplistic game, worse than DA2 in this regard. Combat feels great and it is the only reason I kept playing. The process of upgrading you equipment reminded me of Dead Space which is good. You may wear the same boots for two hours but you get the chance to add spikes to them.

Reaching the end game it becomes clear that BbF suffers from common arpg diseases. Overcrowded small areas, respawning enemies, fetch quests. Everything to add duration to the game, artificial that is.

Since I mentioned the final boss, I will clarify why it sucks and I uninstalled after some failed attempts of beating it. You can't block the attacks, it spams spells without a restriction and the controls are simply not responsive enough to match it's speed in warrior stance. My upgraded fireballs caused a laughable amount of damage and theoretically I could beat it by running around and spamming fire, a strategy I used more than often in witchers.

 

[abnaxus]

Final boss is doable with a dagger build, but most effective way is using a shitload of traps and poisoned crossbow bolts.

I think the studio wanted to make a much bigger game but got hit by budget restraints. That's why you only meet one/two of the seven Ice Lords and there's so much respawning filler mobs in the final area.

 

[1451]

If the game allowed resetting your talents I could have tried again. It may be a casual feature but this game is simply an arpg so it would not harm it imo.
I didn't like traps because the animation of setting them was too slow when enemies could cover the distance between you in a much shorter time. Only way they could work during fights is by the diversion of your companion.

I guess the small content hypothesis you made is true, but if the game sold an adequate number of units they could always release an expansion, no?

 

[set]

Picked this up thanks to the sale today. Finally got cheap enough I was willing to give it a run.

Tutorial zone sucked. Every moment lowered my already low expectations further.

Essentially, you have two weapons to chose from and some support spells. Spells are pretty unimpactful and the two-handed sword is too slow and unwieldy - the daggers are loads better but not that much fun to use. The dodge skill on the daggers should be available to the two-handed sword, it's too hard to position yourself w/ it otherwise and it doesn't do enough damage or stun to compensate for the lack of dodge.

The enemies suck. The passive skills suck. All of the active skills and traps I've tried suck. Stealth sucks, even though it's effective when you can pull it off (the whole appeal to me of stealth is that sense of tension and relief for avoiding enemies and combat; but in this game stealth is just another way to mindlessly kill stupid skeletons; it sucks because it serves no purpose beyond dispatching enemies, there's no element of "reaching guarded areas unnoticed"). The crossbow feels really good but aiming it sucks and ammo is too limited.

The story thus far is okay. It's super rushed and poorly paced, but it's alright. The actual writing is terrible. Dialogue is a smattering of Shakespearean English and what-the-fuck-bitches-it's-all-up-in-'ere-street-talk. Pick one and stick with it - preferably the former. The latter is truly atrocious to hear "acted" out in this game, which doesn't help. So far, none of the characters emerge from the story. How characters react to events just do not make a lot of sense. The protagonist looks and sounds like a jack-ass Shepard, I wish he'd been left unvoiced. I'm embarassed to play as this protagonist, his lack of intelligence is insulting -- and some of the dialogue options you get are cringeworthy.

Level design is witcheresque - which isn't a positive thing from me - the witcher 1 and 2 suffer from too much railroadiness. It's barely better than Dragon Age 2. Look at the minimaps, it's just annoying to see how it's just a couple snakes that all merge at plot point areas.

In the hands of a more experienced or reserved team, this could have been a great game. As it stands, it's trashy. For $10 bux you might get a cheap laugh out of it. I'm only 3.5 hours in and I'm done. I should have just stopped after the painful tutorial.

If you're going to make an action RPG, make the action fun and responsive. Also design your enemies so they're fun to fight. The combat in this game is more like a clumsy Assassin's Creed than anything, yuck. And if you're going to do a story-centric game, hire some actual writing talent. And if you're going to make everyone voice-acted, which you shouldn't because I'm sure it eats into your budget like a bitch, make some scenes worth caring about. The best character was the demon, but that's not saying much.

I feel like they would have been better served dropping voice acting, stealth, and a majority of the pointless spells to better serve the combat. And try to acquire the Berserk license? It kind of feels like they were trying to create that kind of game.

It's funny how Shadow Warrior (2013) has a similar starting point (demon-infested protagonist) and does it loads better. Play that game over this, for sure. It's not afraid to just be an action game.

 

[Xeon]

I tried playing as 2h warrior but combat was much harder and I lost interest after fighting the first boss. kudos to anyone who finished the game using a class other than the rogue, last boss was pretty hard for me and I was using a rogue. I thought the game was kinda good until that point IIRC.

 

[Zeriel]

Truly, Rich Homie Cloaked describes this game flawlessly.

 

[Lhynn]

i beat this game using a 2h warrior, game was challenging but kept me hooked till the end, enemy variety was decent for a title of this scope, and fighting them was fun, the pace at which they appear is good enough that you have mastered an enemy by the time a new one appears.

Setting was interesting and i wouldnt mind playing more in it. Writing isnt that bad me thinks, it just suffers a lot from the amateurish translation, as a whole i wouldnt call this game bad, just good for what it is and a bit forgettable, but while i played i had fun with it.

 

[Commissar Draco]

What the Comrade Lhyn have said; its trashy, cheap but fun and quick game; solid .

 

[Crane]

Worth $5?

 

[Bad Sector]

I think there was another thread for this since i remember mentioning it some time ago, but anyway.

If you are using an AMD GPU (might be only a recent GPU thing, so older AMD GPUs wont have it) you will experience visual glitches with the game like those in these screenshots:

https://i.imgur.com/fEPaMma.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/pO10VeZ.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/b9apwRy.jpg

Sadly there does not seem to be any official fix by AMD or Spiders. However there is a workaround by using DXVK which reimplements Direct3D 9, 10 and 11 using Vulkan. This is mainly used by Wine and Proton to play Windows games under Linux, but the DLLs also work under Windows too. I've tried DXVK 1.7 (later versions should also work) which you can get from this page and it seemed to work fine (not sure if the visuals are 100% the same as with "real" D3D9, but by playing a bit in the starting area and with the UI - which had the gliches - i couldn't spot any obvious issue).

Obviously this means that if you are using an older PC this might slow down the game a bit, but i think the issue only happens with more recent GPUs that should have enough power to run the game at full framerate even with DXVK.

 

[Drowed]

I'm not the "who even cares" kind of guy, but, honestly... Why is anyone still trying to play that game?

I mean, not that it's aggressively bad or anything. There are literally thousands of worse options, no doubt about it. But equally, there are a hundreds of better options too. Hell, if you make too much of a point of playing a Spiders game, supposedly GreedFall didn't come out so bad. I sympathize with the idea that you're proposing a solution for people who are determined to play the game, but again... Seriously, do something else with your time, it'll definitely be better for you.

Also, nice rez:

 

[Smoker]

That 5000 year old skeleton dude asking about your sex life is my favorite memory of this

 

[Bad Sector]

I'm not the "who even cares" kind of guy, but, honestly... Why is anyone still trying to play that game?

I've read some good comments about it here and i've played and liked all of Spiders' other RPGs (except Faery, which doesn't seem to have a DRM-free release). Some even wrote in the GreedFall thread that they think Bound by Flame is Spiders' best RPG (though i'm not sure about that personally, if for no other reason that one thing i like about their games is the unique settings they have and BbF doesn't give me that vibe - but i might be judging too soon).

Also Spiders' games (at least those i've played) roughly follow Bioware's older style introduced in KOTOR and i'm not sure there are many that games like those (and i've probably already played most of them).

In any case, thanks for the "recommendation", but i prefer to judge games that i get interested into myself :-P. Besides i'm not that hard to please.

 

[Drowed]

I mean, you do you, for sure. If you feel that the game is worth your time, then no doubt it's not a random user of a forum that will modify your opinion. And nor should it, I myself have played several games that are hated by the "Codex consensus." And I really do get what you're saying about the structure of Spiders' games resembling the old Bioware games, that's true. Personally, I didn't even think the game was that bad, but as I said, it was just uninteresting/boring to the point that I ended up abandoning it and I don't even remember exactly what part it was. Actually I barely even have a memory of playing it, even if I know I did at some point.

But to be fair, I haven't played Greedfall yet. (Too many games, too little time, accumulated obligations and apocalypse in finances thanks to Corona.) I can't say it's really that good, but I've heard from people around here that it's probably one of the best, if not the best, game they've ever released. So there's that.

 

[Bad Sector]

But to be fair, I haven't played Greedfall yet. (Too many games, too little time, accumulated obligations and apocalypse in finances thanks to Corona.) I can't say it's really that good, but I've heard from people around here that it's probably one of the best, if not the best, game they've ever released. So there's that.

Yeah, i wrote about it here too and found it their best work so far. However it also has several issues and the one i disliked most was the large number of empty space - it gave me the impression that they wanted to make a contemporary seamless open world game but (probably due to both technical and financial restrictions) they did it by simply stretching their existing level design formula to a bunch of empty spaces - which ended up with their world being neither seamless nor really any more open than their previous games.

Having said that it isn't as bad as it sounds, you can skip the empty spaces by using in-game transportation (which is very cheap) and even if you decide to go by foot, they had a nice idea where instead of getting a loading screen you are put in a "camp" from where you can rest and/or buy/sell stuff. It also gives the impression you are not just teleporting around the world, but actually there is actual travel involved.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I'm not the "who even cares" kind of guy, but, honestly... Why is anyone still trying to play that game?

I mean, not that it's aggressively bad or anything. There are literally thousands of worse options, no doubt about it. But equally, there are a hundreds of better options too. Hell, if you make too much of a point of playing a Spiders game, supposedly GreedFall didn't come out so bad. I sympathize with the idea that you're proposing a solution for people who are determined to play the game, but again... Seriously, do something else with your time, it'll definitely be better for you.

Also, nice rez:

I'd rank Bound By Flame as Spiders best game. Most of their other games have some serious flaws, the only flaws this game has is the difficulty bounces around a lot and it's rather short.

It would be Technomancer easily if it didn't have all that backtracking though. If you can look past the backtracking, Technomancer is great.

 

[Bad Sector]

So i actually decided to try the game (yeah i posted about the graphics fix months ago but didn't actually try to play the game outside just starting it to see if it works) a couple of days ago and just finished it.

It is basically the typical Spiders game, at least for me: very slow to start (it took me hours in all of their games to start getting invested in the story) but with an interesting world (though Bound by Flame isn't as unique as their other games), ok characters and janky combat. I think this one has the worst combat in their games (at least those i've played - i haven't played the fairy one nor those they made with Cyanide), it feels very chaotic and often i do not feel i'm in "control". The difficulty is ok for the most part though there are some bad cases, mainly when you are facing multiple enemies since the game simply doesn't give you much tools to handle that and all the enemies seem to have randomized reaction times and decision making.

One exception with difficulty is the last boss which is way more difficult than anything else in the game by far. I played the entire game at the second hardest difficulty ("Buffalo"), which isn't something i usually do as i prefer to play with whatever default difficulty the game has since chances are it'll be mostly tested for that, but i heard the game is short so i though, eh, how bad can it be? Well, it wasn't that bad (though the janky controls were annoying at some point) but for the last boss i just couldn't pass it - after dying like 30 times i got tired and turned the difficulty to the easiest (fortunately you can change that from the options at any time) and even then i died 7 times before beating the game :-P. From what i've read the last boss isn't that hard for some builds but i guess mine wasn't among the lucky ones despite having maxed out fire magic and got most of ranger abilities (though i didn't max out that one). Looking at reviews on GOG and Steam seems to be a common issue.

In terms of writing the setting is nice but TBH i liked the worlds in their other games' more. The premise with having a demon inside you didn't feel like it was taken advantage much since despite going full demon everyone treated me the same (or at least it felt like that, i didn't try the non-demon route...), aside a few remarks here and there but in general those felt a bit shallow. The characters aren't anything special though there are a couple of nice ones (e.g. the mummy guy). One aspect that i liked was the humor, i think this has the most humor of all of Spiders' games (though of course humor being humor, not everyone has the same of it and i can see some people getting annoyed by the main character not taking almost anything seriously).

The locations are varied enough with the game having a prologue and three acts with each one being in its own theme (one location i particularly liked was exploring the frozen elven city at night, it was appropriately maze-like and the dark lighting made it feel as if anything would jump out even though the map wasn't really that big - i'd liked it if the city had an extra map in there), though nothing that hasn't been seen before in other fantasy games.

Overall i liked the game and had fun with it despite its issues (even if this post sounds too negative - it is just easier to point out the negatives :-P).

 

[vazha]

Problem with the boss was that throughout the game, the mass control and damage abilities were much more rewarding and made the game easier than the dedicated single target damager. Tables were turned right at the end, where for single target damage-geared build had an agreeable time against the last boss, while Mage-y types found most of their tricks completely useless against him. I remember a balanced character having hard time as well, so it probably boils down to bad combat design.

 

[Sarathiour]

Finished it yesterday.
It has some weird technical issue, I could not run it fullscreen on tv, i had to find a workaround.
They put some budget in the music, and it certainly help trying to set up the mood for the hopeless struggle of the few armed forced remaining against the Ice Lord. Speaking of the story and the general storytelling of the game, it's inequal. Sometimes it works, sometimes it's indeed quite funny, but it's more often just awkward. It's hard to put word on it, but it feels like some dialogue or exposition is missing time to time. Character will repeat the same point about the fight might be pointless, or other banality and will suddenly acknowledge a new fact like they always knew it. It's not like the plot is hard to follow but the narration still feels off.

Crafting is very bareboned, but I think it's better this way, littering your inventory with useless shit that you're never going to use is at least avoided. Can't say the same about the skill tree, most of the stuff I picked feel rather useless. They are also weird design choice, like the game giving you the option to improve your fire resistance on equipment as early as chapter 1. Except that there is only one enemy in the whole game that deal that kind of damage (the last boss), and that's not even his main source of damage.
Combat was a bit janky, but it's also my fault for playing on a shitty rig . Against pack of regular enemy, warrior stance felt the more useful : 360 parry allow you to reposition yourself and avoid being stunlocked, and the extra interrupt work better against grunt. Ranger stance seems more useful against boss, you're often too slow in warrior stance to avoid the aoe and ranged attack.
Difficulty got those weird dent, it's hard at the beginning because you're lacking potion, are very vulnerable to attack and regen very slowly. I played in buffalo (3/4 difficulty) and you could easily getting two shot, or OS if you consider the stagger. Once you have health, physical resistance and regen upgrade, grunt become harmless, so around chapter 2-3, and the danger is now the magical attack. It's pretty easy to avoid them most of time, especially in ranger, but chapter 3 force to fight against pack of enemy with magic aoe in very closed space, so it's getting hard, but in a annoying way.
Last boss is pure BS, he only got a single opening for closed combat, most of the damage will have to be caused by quarrel and trap. It's not really hard as long as you're stacked on consumable, it's just tedious.