Bound by Flame

 PC
User Score
6.8

Mixed or average reviews- based on 437 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 219 out of 437
  2. Mixed: 136 out of 437
  3. Negative: 82 out of 437

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  1. PenetratorGod
    Aug 20, 2023
    6
    Bound by Flame is a fantasy RPG about a mercenary captured by a flame demon. It's up to the player to decide whether the main character, writhing in the demon's clutches, chooses the demonic power within him or the human side. Other than that, there's not much else to say. I finished the game, but I had an extremely ordinary and average experience. If you have no other games to play andBound by Flame is a fantasy RPG about a mercenary captured by a flame demon. It's up to the player to decide whether the main character, writhing in the demon's clutches, chooses the demonic power within him or the human side. Other than that, there's not much else to say. I finished the game, but I had an extremely ordinary and average experience. If you have no other games to play and you have a lot of free time, it is playable, otherwise there are many games much better than this.… Expand
  2. aecsuter
    Aug 17, 2022
    6
    This game divided my opinion a lot, if there was the option I would give it as neutral.
    The game started very interesting, with a nice combat to play and a very promising story.
    But the story is getting more and more shallow, it seems that they wanted to do something big and then the money ran out. The combat ends up getting a little repetitive at the end, mostly because they are the    This game divided my opinion a lot, if there was the option I would give it as neutral.
    The game started very interesting, with a nice combat to play and a very promising story.
    But the story is getting more and more shallow, it seems that they wanted to do something big and then the money ran out. The combat ends up getting a little repetitive at the end, mostly because they are the same enemies.
    I liked the Weapon system, but there is not a powerful weapon in late game, so i ended up with one from the middle game.
    The secondary quests add little or nothing to the narrative.
    I finished the game very disappointed. The gameplay isn't bad, but it could be better. The story that could be incredible ended very disappointing. As I said at the beginning, if I could I would give a neutral.    … Expand
  3. TheTownDrunk
    Jan 16, 2021
    6
    BOUND BY FLAME is not a bad game, but don't expect triple A game quality: graphics upon its release were OKish at best, with pretty poor animations and voices reach from cringe-worthy to downright atrocious. Also don't expect an open world: levels are mazes that make you maneuver several detours which are mostly empty spaces until you you reach your destination.
    Enemy designs and world    BOUND BY FLAME is not a bad game, but don't expect triple A game quality: graphics upon its release were OKish at best, with pretty poor animations and voices reach from cringe-worthy to downright atrocious. Also don't expect an open world: levels are mazes that make you maneuver several detours which are mostly empty spaces until you you reach your destination.
    Enemy designs and world designs are hit & miss: the skeletons at the beginning were genuinely creepy looking and among the best in any game, while the swamp creatures (and level) were rather poorly designed. Don't expect much of a reward for exploring - only dead-ends with nothing to see.
    Your character is a rather unlikable person and I did not like some of the dialogue choices you pick don't match up what he/she actually says.
    What BOUND BY FLAME does right is it's story: you play as a female or male mercenary who can be slightly customized at the beginning (don't expect many options though). Early on you are possessed by a fire demon and how much control you allow the demon to take of you depends on you and your decisions. The more control you allow the demon the more powerful your pyromancy gets and you'll even change visually.
    Combat is fun for the most part and offers customization by leveling and picking perks among skill trees that range from two-handed melee, sneaky dual-daggers, ranged weapons and pyromancy magic. A bit more combat depth however really would have made a difference and some enemy constellations are not very well balanced. It did remind me a bit of the very first WITCHER game's combat, not as bad, but reliant on timed paries and attacks.
    Overall BOUND BY FLAME is not a bad game. If you can live with its weaknesses the dark story can be a breath of fresh air, also that you can tackle the quests head-on without the distraction of an open world.    … Expand
  4. kabskannar12
    Apr 19, 2020
    7
    === [Audience to Address] ===

    To Standard RPG Players. === [Sounds and Music] === Average === [0 Graphics Quality] === Normal === [$ To Buy? ] === Wait for a discount and buy only if you have free time. === [ System Requirement and Optimization] === Plays a Midrange computer. === [ Gameplay Mechanics] === Average === [ Difficulty Level] === It depends    === [Audience to Address] ===

    To Standard RPG Players.

    === [Sounds and Music] ===

    Average

    === [0 Graphics Quality] ===

    Normal

    === [$ To Buy? ] ===

    Wait for a discount and buy only if you have free time.

    === [ System Requirement and Optimization] ===

    Plays a Midrange computer.

    === [ Gameplay Mechanics] ===

    Average

    === [ Difficulty Level] ===

    It depends on the difficulty chosen.

    === [Playability Time] ===

    +20 hours over side quests

    === [Story] ===

    One of the fantastic stereotypes

    === [Bug] ===

    There are a few.

    Score: 10/7

    Note:

    Average graphic quality. Optimization is good. The story is ordinary, but the processing in the game has been very bad. At least we have more say in the course of the main story and side missions compared to skyrim. We can be really good and bad. But the game has a soulless mood that repeats itself.    … Expand
  5. PEnchan707
    Mar 23, 2020
    6
    I've mostly enjoyed my time with this game. Though it's ambitious, overstretches its reach in places and also rough around the edges, it's still one of the better rpgs out there.

    The graphics are decent enough to provide a good atmosphere, with a more adult, gritty feel than say, Kingdoms of Amalur. Animations are good as well as the combat effects, magic etc. The voice acting is    I've mostly enjoyed my time with this game. Though it's ambitious, overstretches its reach in places and also rough around the edges, it's still one of the better rpgs out there.

    The graphics are decent enough to provide a good atmosphere, with a more adult, gritty feel than say, Kingdoms of Amalur. Animations are good as well as the combat effects, magic etc.

    The voice acting is inconsistent with a handful of decent ones and the rest ranging from bad to mediocre. The script itself is also of varying quality, but is good enough to be genuinely funny at times and also of a decent enough level of quality to keep yo engaged when it matters most. The style is more Game of Thrones than Lord of the Rings though, so be aware there's bad language to be heard everywhere.

    The soundtrack is, overall, very good, with some atmospheric ambiance tunes as well as some decent pieces of more dramatic music.

    The combat system itself is above average, with two main fighting styles supplemented with traps and magic (again, somewhat like The Witcher) and requires you to switch between them based on the type of enemy you are facing and their numbers. You'll probably need to play a higher difficulty setting to enjoy this facet fully though since an easier setting will allow you to simply click your way through. As with the rest of the game though, it can be rough around the edges.

    There's an upgrading system for weapons and armour which is nice and adds some customisation both in effects and visualisation but it's not particularly deep. Still, it adds rather than takes away from the game so it's definitely good to have.

    The U.I and menu's are straightforward and easy to use.

    The story is a blatant melange of a currently popular fantasy tv show and other recent movies but is delivered sincerely enough, with enough heart and backstory to hold your interest, even if it doesn't last long in the mind. The choices you make also feel as though they matter, even if the actual impact within the game world isn't particularly strong.

    The more I write, the more I realise how much it reminds me of the original Witcher in terms of game mechanics, style and ambition. It's a game which is very good despite needing a bit of forgiveness for some of the design elements and uneven quality, though it must be said I still enjoyed the original Witcher substantially more.

    Surprised at some of the really low, 4/10 or worse, reviews out there. I'll be cheeky and make an assumption and say that if it was a game from a big publisher you could add 2-3 points to those low scores.

    As for myself, I couldn't find a way to do decimals and 7 seems just a bit too low. A 7.5 rounded up then :)    … Expand
  6. masterchief247
    Oct 31, 2018
    10
    This is one of the most under rated games I have ever played. It has a romance system, choice, consequences, a good combat engine, and good story. Its actually one of my favorite rpg games ever. If you ever have a chance to pick this up cheap, don't pass it up.
  7. Mobile
    Sep 30, 2018
    3
    ENG RU
    Disgusting level design that cuts at the root of the whole idea of the plot and the game as a whole.
    Отвратительный левел дизайн, который рубит на корню всю идею сюжета и игры в целом.
  8. Nerp47
    Aug 17, 2018
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Much Like Spiders' previous game, Mars: War logs. Bound by Flame is a good game held back by a small budget.

    Pros:
    +Combat is slow,tactical and enjoyable.
    +Combat animations are well made.
    +Music quality is top tier but isn't used to it's full effect
    +The game succeeds in presenting a dark and gritty world in which most of everyone is dead or dying.
    +The Crafting system is well made and incentivises exploring and looking for Materials.
    +Materials are almost never hard to come by, and if you're like me, you like to explore every nook and cranny looking for something.
    +The game offers a wide range of weapons and armour and all of them are made differently. As far as i remember, not once did i come across a weapon that looked exactly like another weapon.
    +Character personalities are a huge step up from Spiders' previous games with a handful of characters really standing out.
    +Boss battles were surprisingly well done most of the time.

    Cons:
    -Once again,while the story is not bad, it's still not good. The story feels (again) like a book poorly implemented into a videogame. The only difference is that this time the pacing is better
    -Voice acting is mostly bad around the board with a handful of characters sounding right sometimes,while other times it's really bad.
    -Combat can feel quite unfair depending on how you use your skill points. Making some parts of the game downright impossible at harder difficulties unless you make your character perfect.
    -The game stresses your role in the Freeborn Blades quite a few times but falls flat, because the only weapon relating to your role is a mine that,unless made in bulk and spammed, becomes pretty useless later on.
    -Throwing in a new companion character so close to the end of the game, only to have that character be the most interesting one in the game.
    -Vulcan always sounds like an **** even when doing good things which feels really out of place, and sometimes feels like the developers wanted you to play the game as an evil character. Still a massive improvement over Roy from Mars War Logs.

    In the end. Bound by Flame is a mediocre game made by ambitious people but held back by a small budget and maybe even inexperience. Here's hoping we get a game set in the same universe with a bigger budget in the vein of The Technomancer.    … Expand
  9. Luka1998010
    Jul 30, 2018
    9
    The game is good,it has potential but it lacks in story,narrative and character choices.
    The graphics are top,i love the effects.
    One part of every fantasy RPG game i am excited about is the character creation. In this game,it disappointed me a lot. There are almost no options.You can only choose from a certain number of faces,and hair styles. One of the things that is good and bad in    The game is good,it has potential but it lacks in story,narrative and character choices.
    The graphics are top,i love the effects.
    One part of every fantasy RPG game i am excited about is the character creation.
    In this game,it disappointed me a lot.
    There are almost no options.You can only choose from a certain number of faces,and hair styles.
    One of the things that is good and bad in the same time is the difficulty.
    The game is hard like dark souls at some point,even on recruit difficulty,its crazy.
    The creatures in the swamp,at the very beginning of the game kill me a lot,in order to kill them i have to be very patient and give orders to my companion in order to succeed.
    The game is very challenging.
    There is no in depth customization.
    Also,after changing the characters name,he/her keeps getting called the name that the game has set as default.    … Expand
  10. Panica3643D
    Jun 16, 2018
    7
    Очередная коридорная RPG от Spiders, только в другом setting. Немного лучше, чем Mars: war logs и Of Orcs and Men. В некоторых моментах даже затронуло (музыкальное сопровождение классное).
  11. Misfit209
    Dec 5, 2017
    8
    This isn't the best game. It isn't the predecessor to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. It is a good game though in the same vein as the Witcher games. It has a lot of style and pretty nice graphics for it's age. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this game. I beat it in around 20hrs, not sure the exact time. I would recommend this game for a price tag of $15 US.
  12. zimmer600
    Aug 19, 2017
    4
    Spiders are tagged very high. But a modest budget, a small team, short terms of development and a lack of skill do not allow the game to become something more than a passing and rather dubious entertainment.
  13. AbeMC
    Jul 10, 2017
    5
    Bound By Flame is a checklist attempt by a small studio at a BioWare-style RPG. High level of polish, decent story, and some interesting characters, but claustrophobic level design, low-res textures, unexciting voice acting, and a nonsensical final boss make this a “meh” recommendation.
    Total size on my hard drive: 4.7 GB
    - - I’m putting a negative at the top because it needs to be    Bound By Flame is a checklist attempt by a small studio at a BioWare-style RPG. High level of polish, decent story, and some interesting characters, but claustrophobic level design, low-res textures, unexciting voice acting, and a nonsensical final boss make this a “meh” recommendation.
    Total size on my hard drive: 4.7 GB

    - - I’m putting a negative at the top because it needs to be seen, even if you don’t bother with the rest of the review. The final boss is insanely hard, even on easy mode. Search the forums, you’ll find pages of threads asking for help. It is possible to play the entire game a certain way, and be completely unprepared for the final boss. Craft tons of traps and crossbow bolts, they will help. But be prepared for at least a dozen attempts. Given how easy the rest of combat is in the game, the final boss is nonsensical ****

    + The choice and consequence is real. Several choices are mutually exclusive, and actions taken throughout the game can affect certain story aspects prior to the ending fight. Depending on your actions taken in the game, all ending choices may not be available to you.
    + Incredibly high level of polish. The game may have been made by a relatively unknown developer with small resources, but everything from the menus to the sound effects to opening doors all has a high-quality look and feel. Never had a single crash, either.
    + Clean and clear in-game user interface.
    + The story seems fairly standard at first, but once you delve deeper into who or what is “bound by flame,” the narrative drives itself forward at a good pace.
    + While not deep, there is a nice crafting system for customizing weapons and armors.
    + Outside of combat and cut-scenes, manually save or quick-save anywhere, any time. Also has a good checkpoint system.

    +/- Voice acting is hit-or-miss, sometimes within a single role. The protagonist might have a boring delivery of some lines, then be spot on with the next line (for male or female). Most of the supporting voice-acting is well done.
    +/- The graphics have some excellent god-rays. Otherwise, they’re serviceable but nothing outstanding. They look more like 2010 than 2014 (which is when Bound By Flame released). Not saying that’s a bad thing – some games from 2010 have fantastic graphics – but they definitely don’t look like more recent releases.
    +/- Combat is timing-based. If you try to bull through every situation, you might survive, but you’ll go through consumables fast (and you WON’T survive the final boss, no matter how hard you try). Timing block or dodge correctly allows the use of ripostes / counters.
    +/- Characters are generally well-drawn, even if they fit into adventure story cliches. Attempts at humor mostly fall flat.
    +/- Decent soundtrack by Olivier Deriviere, but the looping ambient tracks are either not long enough (they loop too quickly) or there aren’t enough of them.

    - Short, about 8-10 hours. I have so many hours in the game at the time of writing (47) because I rage-quit and completely started over several times before I figured out the "correct" way to play. (The rage-quits were inspired by the final boss.)
    - Some choices have real consequences, several do not. Temper your expectations.
    - Inconsistent language. “Yeah, whaddaya think?” can be heard seconds after a common soldier says, “By your leave, my lord / lady.” Also plenty of f-bombs thrown around to demonstrate that Bound By Flame is a “serious” game.
    - Enemies are endlessly re-used.
    - Warrior can’t tank damage that well, making Ranger the only viable class.
    - The characters might have potential, but there is never enough time to know them. While the curious will click through the dialogue, there’s little reason to do so.
    - Close, claustrophobic levels. Most of the levels are a series of corridors. Sometimes this works in the game’s favor – one of the them feels like a maze – but that close, confined feeling persists throughout.
    - No facial animations. The mouths move correctly when a character is speaking, but it looks wooden and awkward.
    - The romances are short and add very little to the game. Almost as though somebody was following a checklist of things in a BioWare game. “Dragon Age has romance-able characters? Then we need some, too!”

    And, as previously mentioned, that final boss. That final boss and ending is narratively the best part of the game. Resolve things, make an important choice while some fantastic music plays – but the frustration of dying over and over still lingered and completely ruined any chance the ending had to leave a good final impression. When combined with the numerous game design elements that are close to the mark but fail to hit, Bound By Flame can never reach the height of its aspirations.    … Expand
  14. OutWithTheOld
    Jun 30, 2017
    7
    It's obviously not a high budget masterpiece, but i enjoyed it a lot.
    -Graphics are fine, apart from the speech animations, which seem to throw me back to ps2 era.
    -Story is decent. The whole demon possession is a great concept. The execution is a little lacking however. Some of the voice acting is a little stiff and the humor is hit or miss. -Combat really saves the game, but its not    It's obviously not a high budget masterpiece, but i enjoyed it a lot.
    -Graphics are fine, apart from the speech animations, which seem to throw me back to ps2 era.
    -Story is decent. The whole demon possession is a great concept. The execution is a little lacking however. Some of the voice acting is a little stiff and the humor is hit or miss.
    -Combat really saves the game, but its not for people who want to bull rush through. You're going to get your ass kicked, especially if you're impatient.

    All in all I'd say it's flawed, but enjoyable. Get it in a sale.    … Expand
  15. jseph1234
    Jun 13, 2017
    9
    I am playing this game and having a blast finding out what happens next.
    1. Dialog Choices for your character that MATTER and effect NPC interaction, Game development and outcome
    2. Great action RPG with crafting of weapons, mixing of ingredients for potions 3. NPC have depth as you get further in the game and interact with them 4. 50+ hours gameplay (I am playing "Captain"    I am playing this game and having a blast finding out what happens next.
    1. Dialog Choices for your character that MATTER and effect NPC interaction, Game development and outcome
    2. Great action RPG with crafting of weapons, mixing of ingredients for potions
    3. NPC have depth as you get further in the game and interact with them
    4. 50+ hours gameplay (I am playing "Captain" difficulty, the hardest and it is DIFFICULT!!)    … Expand
  16. Archulysses
    Dec 12, 2016
    4
    Story - The general synopsis of the game was interesting at first but such execution of the story was bad, rushed and became ridiculous at times. The summary of the story follows: The event starts during the time the land of Vertiel is in war against a number of immortal necromancers known as the Ice lords. The protagonist (nicknamed as Vulcan) is a bomb specialist working for a knownStory - The general synopsis of the game was interesting at first but such execution of the story was bad, rushed and became ridiculous at times. The summary of the story follows: The event starts during the time the land of Vertiel is in war against a number of immortal necromancers known as the Ice lords. The protagonist (nicknamed as Vulcan) is a bomb specialist working for a known mercenary group named Freeborn Blades. The Freeborn Blades mission is to protect the Red Scribes in their ritual to what could be their only hope to fight and defeat the Ice lords. Upon the occurrence of unforeseen events and accidents, Vulcan was possessed by a demon and together they should work to defeat the powerful enemies of the game. The question now is how, should you use your own power and reject the demons temptations or use the power of fire to obliterate your foes. Really, the story is good at first set up, but fails to perform well since first, the dialogue's are bad and overuse of swearing and profanity ingame. Next the characters are all uninteresting and looks like bad carbon copies of notable Bioware or CD Projekt Red characters and the storyline is bad overall cause its short and the decisions you make even in sidequests doesnt even affect that much in the ending or in the game. Therefore, a poor score of 4/10 deserves this bad performance.

    Gameplay - The Gameplay likewise has its ton of problems. If you will describe it...it is like a poor result of the mixture of arkham's freeflow system and witcher's fighting mechanics. The cons are many: first, the enemy difficulty are unbalanced in that regard that they can easily kill you in one or three hits even on the lower difficulties. The controls are slow to react. The stances of the dagger and sword are unbalanced in that the dagger is obviously the superior ones and the fact that your enemies heal in full health if they go out of their aggro zone...even if you intended it or just an accident. due to this factors this game gives you uneccesary difficulty not in the dark soul kind of way but due to the bad gameplay mechanic itself.However not all is bad like the crafting being simple and easy to do and the system where you can upgrade and personally craft your armors and weapons parts to make them look good aesthetically and better. Considering all those factors, this part deserves a score of 3/10 again.

    Graphics - considering that this game also has a platform in the last gen consoles. I should expect that bigger improvements could be seen in the current gen consoles but alas, it is not so. The environments are all small and the graphics despite being good if you consider the style they use to be comical but regardless as an overall, it is still poor if not below average. The character design and movement are likewise bad and the stages are all short, narrow that exploration is not really a significant part of the game. Overall, a score of 3/10 will do.

    Music and sound - Ill give a good news and bad news on this part. first is the bad news, voice acting and the sound overall is bad but i can see some effort in this regard. for the good news however (Which is the only silver lining of the game) is the music, its soundtrack is amazing and pretty to listen too, however ingame it is dissapointing though to only hear like 2 or 3 music used despite its quality being good. A fair score of 6/10 i will give.

    Overall average = 4.00

    Budget game or no this kinds of game shouldn't even be released in full price. I can see the effort the developers did in making this game and imo i think they have somewhat creative minds in making good story and settings, however maybe due to some other factors like money, time and number of people working are also in place in making the game that it results in poor execution. Regardless, as a gamer, i have right to criticize their bad performance. I hope Spiders can learn from these and do better in their next work. Thanks.    … Expand
  17. Jojo12
    Feb 11, 2016
    4
    Review from someone playing on Captain difficulty
    Pros:
    Beautiful music Nice graphic style, except for the horrible plant that is shaped like a ... The demon perks and appearance are nice, but it's too bad that if you use them, you're considered "evil" Cons: Bad story where choices doesn't really matter Horrible camera that get stuck in foreground items so you can't see attackers    Review from someone playing on Captain difficulty
    Pros:
    Beautiful music
    Nice graphic style, except for the horrible plant that is shaped like a ...
    The demon perks and appearance are nice, but it's too bad that if you use them, you're considered "evil"

    Cons:
    Bad story where choices doesn't really matter
    Horrible camera that get stuck in foreground items so you can't see attackers hit you anymore
    "Deja vue" dialogues ( good part is that npcs swear and it's hilarious. you almost hear 2-3 in every dialogue.)
    The hitbox is not working well, sometimes the monsters hit you even if you dodge
    When you are attacked by multiple monsters, you have to dodge all of their attacks, which means most of the time you can't riposte at all, and when you try to cast a spell or fall to the ground, the monsters have priority, which means they can hit you again, and then you die.
    Cinematic are "clichés", and sometimes you can see your companion not moving at all, eyes reversed, like if he/she was not supposed to be there. Even if you build your character as a Ranger, the cinematic shows Warrior moves and weapons only.

    Now I'm just playing to laugh at the dialogues.    … Expand
  18. natural_45
    Jan 7, 2016
    9
    I'm having a blast playing this game! The combat system on this game is awesome! To me, the combat system reminds me a little of Soul Calibur, which is an awesome thing. I gave it a 9 only because the graphics aren't PS4 quality, but that doesn't bother me. I have a bunch of RPG games that are new and I play this game way more than them. If you have a good sense of humor, you'll laugh yourI'm having a blast playing this game! The combat system on this game is awesome! To me, the combat system reminds me a little of Soul Calibur, which is an awesome thing. I gave it a 9 only because the graphics aren't PS4 quality, but that doesn't bother me. I have a bunch of RPG games that are new and I play this game way more than them. If you have a good sense of humor, you'll laugh your a$$ off at the dialouge and voice acting. Some of the stuff they say are funny. I highly recommend this game as long as you're not expecting the game to be like the bigger bugget companies. If Bound by Flame 2 ever comes out, I'll be the first in line to buy it. Great game.… Expand
  19. nightmarenicoli
    Dec 29, 2015
    0
    other than an interesting story, this game is awful. horrible voice acting, horrible graphics, horrible combat. it may as well have no character creation.
  20. MR67
    Dec 26, 2015
    4
    If you're like me and you like to go for realism in CRPGs and play through the entire game "Ironman" style, i.e. without your character snuffing it and then repeatedly spamming saved games, then this game is going to disappoint you. There is a half-decent storyline there, but the game is let down by poor balance and unpolished production.

    Pros: - Somewhat more interesting storyline    If you're like me and you like to go for realism in CRPGs and play through the entire game "Ironman" style, i.e. without your character snuffing it and then repeatedly spamming saved games, then this game is going to disappoint you. There is a half-decent storyline there, but the game is let down by poor balance and unpolished production.

    Pros:
    - Somewhat more interesting storyline than some other CRPGs out there.
    - Combat is more gritty and realistic than some other CRPGs out there (but see below).

    Cons:
    Where to start?
    - Gameplay is poorly optimised and can be frustratingly difficult. Most enemies can typically kill your character in maybe 5 or 6 hits, so you never really feel powerful, even later in the game. Lack of mana means you have to use your magical abilities really frugally. Some boss battles can have you using up virtually all your healing potions, mana potions and traps, and still only just scraping through. You can only travel with 1 companion at a time, and they contribute almost nothing to most fights, inflicting very little damage to enemies and getting knocked unconscious within a minute or less of beginning most battles.
    - Voice acting is not the greatest and the facial animations are even worse. Dull conversations and poor exposition result in you learning little about the game world so you feel somewhat disconnected from the setting and storyline.
    - Loot in the game is really dull. Most enemies drop components which can be used for crafting, and the occasional ho-hum weapon or piece of armour. You seem to spend a good deal of the game trawling through your inventory to see what upgrades you can make to your gear once you've accumulated a number of different crafting ingredients, which gets tedious.
    - Game is too short (can be finished in about 20 hours or so), but given the frustrating gameplay, maybe this is not a bad thing! The final boss battle is ridiculously difficult - I gave up in disgust after dying about a dozen times, and then uninstalled the game from my PC.

    Worth picking up on Steam if heavily discounted (75% or so), otherwise steer clear. In any event, you would have to be something of a masochist to be able to put up with more than one playthough.    … Expand
  21. GennadyS
    Dec 12, 2015
    10
    This is the case when negative evaluations caused by a lack of budget. The game is wonderful in everything, and flaws SHOULD be forgiven. On the background of standard stamps many another RPG-games.
  22. WillG027
    Nov 14, 2015
    8
    I like what 'Spiders' bring to the RPG genre, and they seem to be building upon what was successful in past games.
    Like most of their other titles, the dialogue writing is horrendous, and the voice acting could be better, but it has solid graphics (good atmosphere), and a solid RPG system. Story is OK.
    Giving it an eight.
  23. Matseb2611
    Mar 23, 2015
    8
    This is the 3rd game I've played by Spiders Studios. Just as the other two, I greatly enjoyed this one. It might've only lasted for about 13 hours, and there were a few issues and grievances along the way, but all in all this was great fun.

    The story is nothing too original. It's your typical dark fantasy setting with humans facing off the armies of undead, but I was quite impressed    This is the 3rd game I've played by Spiders Studios. Just as the other two, I greatly enjoyed this one. It might've only lasted for about 13 hours, and there were a few issues and grievances along the way, but all in all this was great fun.

    The story is nothing too original. It's your typical dark fantasy setting with humans facing off the armies of undead, but I was quite impressed with the overall presentation and delivery of it. Most of the companions were quite interesting, though some of them could've been developed a bit better, and the main character and the demon inside of him were very solid in the lead.

    The combat aspect is a bit of a mixed bag. It was incredibly fun in some ways. The moves and abilities made each battle feel epic, especially with the use of superhuman dodge skill, which created some 'wow' moments as you see your character narrowly avoid an enemy swing. However, despite finding it fun, I have to agree with many of the criticisms by other players. The lack of roll command was something I could not understand at all. And the whole interruption mechanic was extremely annoying, because it was easy for enemies to interrupt you mid-swing, not to mention knocking you down on the floor and getting some cheap free hits whilst you're waiting for your character to get back up.

    The difficulty in general was way too high, even for the Easy difficulty setting. For a game that has such a strong focus on story, the Easy mode shouldn't have been this hard. This was made worse by some parts of the game having unpleasant difficulty spikes. In general I thought chapters 1 and 2 were brilliantly done and the flow was perfect. There were many sidequests, and the action bits were balanced out with storytelling.

    And then chapter 3 came along, and the game was ruined by constant non-stop battles with identical enemies and some horrible level design that forces you to walk through monotonous twisting corridors and too much backtracking. And the final boss was way way way too hard compared to the rest of the game. To make it worse, if you wish to go back and buy more stuff and grind, you can no longer do it, so you have to load an earlier bit of the game. I ended up doing that so that I could buy 40 health potions (and no, that isn't too much).

    Combat frustrations aside, the game was still fun and worth playing. The crafting system was done well, and the levelling of skills was reasonably good too. There are 3 mastery trees in total: Warrior, Ranger, and Pyromancer. You can mix and match and invest in any of those as much as you wish. I personally went heavy on the warrior tree. Too bad in the second half of the game I realised that going Ranger stance with daggers was proving to be much better (and seems many other players agree), making Warrior tree quite underpowered compared to the Ranger tree. As for Pyromancy, I found most fire abilities useless, aside from weapon enchantment with fire, which was a single most useful skill in the game.

    I'd definitely recommend this game, though BE WARNED that it is HARD and unfair, and you will be getting killed a lot even on Easy mode. If that's something you do not mind, then most likely you'll enjoy the game.    … Expand
  24. rlilewis
    Feb 5, 2015
    6
    How any self respecting reviewer can give this game a 2 out of 10 (see "VideoGamer") is mind boggling. After just completing my full playthrough (clocked at 16 hours on steam) I think this game is actually worthy of 6/10 and I can easily see myself doing another run to find how the other alignment or combat styles play out.

    I'd like to confirm that I didn't get a single crash through    How any self respecting reviewer can give this game a 2 out of 10 (see "VideoGamer") is mind boggling. After just completing my full playthrough (clocked at 16 hours on steam) I think this game is actually worthy of 6/10 and I can easily see myself doing another run to find how the other alignment or combat styles play out.

    I'd like to confirm that I didn't get a single crash through this game and very few glitches that are even worth mentioning; I once dodged through a wall but didn't get stuck and it didn't impede my play, that's honestly all I can remember and it happened one time. This in stark contrast to games like Battlefield 4 and Rome 2 Total War, no doubt given 9 out of 10s from these idiot critics.

    This game was clearly designed for a controller but you can play with mouse and keyboard and has rebindable keys. I personally used an xbox style controller for my first playthrough and there are definitely some annoyances in the button mappings, the A key especially on the controller gets used far too often for opening doors, sheathing your weapon, picking up loot and even breaking stealth. On the flip side the B and Y buttons are barely used aside from hotkeys in combat. The keyboard/mouse combo has less shared function keys so I will probably use this for my next playthrough.

    I really don't understand why many are saying the voice acting and script writing are terrible; from these 2/10 professional imbecile reviewers I was expecting something on par with a terrible porn movie yet what I actually got was solid and often times humorous dialogue from unique sounding characters; it's such a breath of fresh air not to hear Steve Blum in a video game!

    The story is cliche and nothing amazing but it's serviceable and got me emotionally engaged on a few occasions, certainly more than I could say for the utter snore fest that was Skyrim.

    This game does seem to have a fascination with cut scenes, which can be very annoying especially if you're playing a stealth character that up till that point had remained undetected before suddenly being thrown into a cut scene and having your weapon switched out and stealth blown for no reason.

    Combat can be frustrating at times, but after learning the quirks of the combat system and speccing my character properly I could go for long periods without dying but if you drop the ball you can be very quickly killed. The boss fights are the real annoyances but at the same time they force you to think up strategies on how you're going to handle them using all the tools and skills available to you. There is definitely room for improvement however as the combat can feel clunky. The ranger for example has a dodge ability but they will only dodge backwards meaning you can often get backed into a corner. It would have been nice to dodge around an enemy or when dodging backwards have the ability to go further back in a single dodge. Also the ultimate ability for the range was terrible and I very rarely used it; it takes far too long to cast, doesn't last long enough and is just underwhelming for an ultimate ability.

    Another sticky point in the combat is the companions of which you can normally only have one. I think the game could have been significantly improved had they allowed 2 companions to cover your weaknesses. It doesn't help that the AI for your companions is about as intelligent as the moron that critic from "VideoGamer" that gave this game a 2/10; mage or archer characters for example will often just stand in a single spot getting repeatedly hit by melee attackers and none of the companions use their skills in an efficient manner, most of the time they will just spam the same skill over and over again despite the type of target they are fighting.

    All in all I thought this was a solid yet ultimately deeply flawed 6/10 action RPG game that I would recommend to fans of the genre although if you are a call of duty addled imbecile you may want to give it a pass.    … Expand
  25. kospan
    Dec 30, 2014
    8
    Very good combat system. An interesting protagonist with double dealer personality. The interaction between the soldier and the demon is a prototype idea for RPG game.Other NPC do their job in the story giving quests and helping protagonist in combat. A good story not something of high quality.Graphics are great.
    Very good music and also very atmospheric environments and monsters.It is a    Very good combat system. An interesting protagonist with double dealer personality. The interaction between the soldier and the demon is a prototype idea for RPG game.Other NPC do their job in the story giving quests and helping protagonist in combat. A good story not something of high quality.Graphics are great.
    Very good music and also very atmospheric environments and monsters.It is a game with difficult boss
    battles sometimes.If you don't give up easily then you are defeated repeatedly early in the game then you
    will enjoy this game in later levels.A good and not boring game.    … Expand
  26. daskind
    Sep 12, 2014
    10
    i´ll give this a 10 because of all the strange votings around here - somehow you have to keep the score balanced ..

    however, i like this game. i even like it a lot. no - it is no AAA title. but the story is a lot better than most of the critics say. the gameplay is not polished, but hard and fun. frustrating sometimes, but always rewarding, when you finally master a difficult scene ..    i´ll give this a 10 because of all the strange votings around here - somehow you have to keep the score balanced ..

    however, i like this game. i even like it a lot. no - it is no AAA title. but the story is a lot better than most of the critics say. the gameplay is not polished, but hard and fun. frustrating sometimes, but always rewarding, when you finally master a difficult scene .. voice acting is ok - at least in english - the german one is horrible. however, i truly recommend this game. as i said - i give it a 10 to raise the score. in my opinion it is a clear 8/10    … Expand
  27. NaMJaG
    Sep 9, 2014
    10
    I really don't understand why so many people didn't enjoy there play, because this game has everything a good game has to have. Maybe it is short, but for me as a hard core gamer it was a lot of fun to play this game. In my opinion it is good that not every game is like a AAA title or in this case like Skyrim, It would be boring if all games would be the same.
    In short this game is worth    I really don't understand why so many people didn't enjoy there play, because this game has everything a good game has to have. Maybe it is short, but for me as a hard core gamer it was a lot of fun to play this game. In my opinion it is good that not every game is like a AAA title or in this case like Skyrim, It would be boring if all games would be the same.
    In short this game is worth the money and worth the time!    … Expand
  28. Namor1111
    Jul 12, 2014
    10
    I really don't understand people who rate this game under 5, it's a solid 8 for me.
    I'm having more fun than I thought I would.
    The highlights being the dynamic combat feel and atmospheric music.
    Well done Spiders for a solid effort with a small development team.
    I look forward to bigger and better games to come.
  29. jmhoffer
    Jul 6, 2014
    0
    You can only play this game if you spend most of your life holed up in a black room with no light. While it had the potential to be interesting if more play-testing had been done, there is no way to have any fun with the game. If you make a mistake in your character progression early on, your only option to fix it is to restart the game. When you restart, you are forced to go through everyYou can only play this game if you spend most of your life holed up in a black room with no light. While it had the potential to be interesting if more play-testing had been done, there is no way to have any fun with the game. If you make a mistake in your character progression early on, your only option to fix it is to restart the game. When you restart, you are forced to go through every single cutscene over again.

    A massive waste of time and money.    … Expand
  30. PresCthulhu
    Jul 6, 2014
    6
    I would say the game is medicore in every possible way. Okay graphics, passable story, hard combat system with okay mechanics. The demon possession thing was done before (and I think better) in Dark Messiah. The music is good, but the voice actors are mostly terrible. Since it was done by a small studio and I had some fun with it and since thankfully I waited for a sale I would rate itI would say the game is medicore in every possible way. Okay graphics, passable story, hard combat system with okay mechanics. The demon possession thing was done before (and I think better) in Dark Messiah. The music is good, but the voice actors are mostly terrible. Since it was done by a small studio and I had some fun with it and since thankfully I waited for a sale I would rate it slightly about 5...… Expand
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Awards & Rankings

48
#48 Most Discussed PC Game of 2014
66
#66 Most Shared PC Game of 2014

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
56

Mixed or average reviews - based on 42 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 42
  2. Mixed: 27 out of 42
  3. Negative: 13 out of 42
  1. CD-Action
    Jul 25, 2014
    65
    There is potential in Bound by Flame but I can’t review this game without using some harsh words. It’s linear and clichéd, combat should be better and many elements could be more complex. Still I believe that with more money, people and time Spiders would be able to play in the major league. [07/2014, p.54]
  2. Pelit (Finland)
    Jun 12, 2014
    70
    French indie developer tries to engage adult audience with this RPG. Too bad the world is generic and script is dull as a wooden blade. If you show a few tits and curse like a sailor, that don't translate to a game for adults. On top of that the game mechanics are dull and repetitive. You don't challenge Witcher with this kind of setup. [June 2014]
  3. Hyper Magazine
    Jun 7, 2014
    30
    Ugly, stupid and riddled with cliche, Bound by Flame has car crash fascination but little else to recommend it. [Issue#249, p.62]
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