Polygon gave the game 4/10, Videogamer.com, who's poorly-written review consists of barely half a page of text, gave it 2/10. I suspect Eurogamer.net will give at most 4/10. I think the mixed scores come from reviewers perception of what a £45 current gen game should deliver so I cannot really blame them for marking games down if they lack polish or have things that annoy them. I find some of these low-budget games charming though and respect that they're made by smaller studios that lack the finances to match the likes of EA and so on. I think that these small developers should not focus on releasing their games across so many platforms though (Bound by Flame is out on four formats with an Xbox One game coming later) and perhaps should sell them at a lower "budget title" price point that would make more people overlook the flaws and pick the games up.
There's a lot of people throwing around similarities to games such as The Witcher (combat) and Dark Souls (difficult but ultimately rewarding) and apparently it's greatest aspect is a very well realised crafting system. Hard to say it doesn't sound appealing then but there's literally only been a singular review so far singing its praises while every other is damning it to hell and back. Make that two reviews singing its praises then, an 8 and an 8.5. http://www.softpedia.com/reviews/games/pc/Bound-by-Flame-Review-441215.shtml
Gameplay and graphics are way better than in of Orcs and men. Happy that Spiders are getting better and better. I'll talk about plot when I'm done.
The boss levels are sort of small? The very first one was sorta fine, but the ones with the tormentor and the first ice demon were wayy small. The ice demon was sort of frustrating. The level design was kind of a half X, so you could get stuck in 1 corner. Died 4 times or so because of that. There should have been a roll or some sort of move to get past enemies. Dodging with the dagger stance ripostes, so it actually is counter effective.
http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/boundbyflame/2339/review.html CPC_RedDawn's Review... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_8thAaPFxk&list=UU7Q5dttFF36_HHP84W7zHug&feature=share
wow, what a sack of sh!t, worst voice acting i've ever seen the worst lines and cheese words in the history of gaming and a retarded gameplay along with controls. Also graphics looks horrible.. gameplay similar to Witcher 2 my a$$, it's nowhere near that
I find the voice-acting perfectly serviceable, it's the poorly-written dialogue that is the main problem in my opinion. Mind you, I played the original Resident Evil on the PS1 so any voice-acting, no matter how bad, sounds OK!
As with the original Mars War Logs release I find the localization to be one of the bigger issues, there's numerous typos and spelling variations plus the subtitles often don't quite match the voiced dialogue. (Vulcan being called Volcan in a few placaes to name one obvious typo.)
I like that they promote stealth out of combat. If you want to be a hero, in front of 3 enemies, you'll most likely get stunlocked, and bam you're dead. I've died because of stun locking like 1003947230 times. The ice effect when you are downed makes it SO annoying lol Spoiler Also I found the ending very underwhelming.
Well, yes I can because I've seen the gradual improvement in the quality of voice-acting over the years such that even games like this are fine for me. The problem with many low-budget games such as these is, that no matter how good the voice-acting is, it is never matched by convincing facial animations and/or lip-syncing. Together they all make the voice-acting come as across as worse than it is. How many RPGs have stiff looking NPCs that just wobble about a bit and wave their arms whilst barely moving their faces during dialogue scenes? Few big budget games do dialogue scenes well IMO so I never expected Bound by Flame to either.
Playing this game right now. Combat is fun, story is adequate but could use more exposition. Music is good! So far, I'm enjoying the gameplay. Graphics are not bad - they clearly went the shader effects way instead of working on assets, models and textures. I'd give this game a 7.5. If it had some better voice acting it'd get an 8
I am honestly surprised by the kind of reviews this game is getting. It is nowhere near a disaster. Every single element in it works, if not optimally. The plot is actually good, especially the demonic influence angle. The transformation, conversations with the demon, the witty diatribes the demon sometimes brings - I find the writing to be actually quite good in this angle. Graphics are not bad at all though of course not cutting edge. The combat engine is actually good - I liked the one in Mars War Logs and this one is improved over it. They ought to make a full Skyrim level RPG on these mechanics. Crafting and potions is well handled. Game performance has some issues though. Being an indie dev, they even took into account the facts that different characters will tell you different things based on just how much demonic influence you have acquired. The graphics, audio often approaches AAA level values. For sure this game does not deserve the 2s, 4s and 5s reviewers have been giving it. There is no way anyone can give it less than a 6.5. I think those who have given it bad reviews simply did not get the gameplay system. The combat system is very good if you can master it. I think it's time reviewers stopped comparing mid-tier productions to things like Dark Souls. Even then, I have played Skyrim and Fallout and still think this game holds up well. I am confident that this studio, given an AAA budget, will make a grand RPG that could be a classic
^^^ Just read the review over at RPS. Sounds great. Dont really have much time for rpgs these days though, time seems to be going faster and faster.
There is a french interview out there that says the budget for this game was 1.8 million Euros only. This is a great effort for that kind of money to be honest. It also said the sales were not too bad and that the developers now have enough money to concentrate on things other than just getting food on the table. I'm happy that this has worked out, but I hope this game continues to sell well as I want to see this studio take up bigger and better efforts.
