Blue Fire

By blowing on the dormant flames of Souls iconography, Blue Fire brings an experience with an authentic and challenging character to the panorama of independent development, evoking an almost melancholy scent. The inspiration from names such as The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario does not betray any lack of personality, on the contrary it reveals the attention of a team - that of ROBI Studios - which has been able to combine all the influences sought elsewhere with great coherence and playful effectiveness. The result is a 3D metroidvania that makes good platforming its stylistic code, net of the frustration inherent in some phases, on which, however, the goodness of the proposed challenge and the charisma of its atmospheres allow you to easily fly over.

Blue Fire is a real mixed bag. For all of the enjoyable platforming, there is the annoying combat. For all of the exploration, as you dash and jump around Penumbra, you can easily lose a chunk of time through game crashes. Despite all of the issues that frustrated me, I still really enjoyed the game when it would let me. If you're willing to risk the game crashing now and then, Blue Fire happens to be quite the platformer.

Blue Fire is an enjoyable experience when solely focusing on its platforming sections, but can otherwise be a slog. Combat is serviceable if not stale, and its upgrading system is more often than not a hassle. I can’t help but wonder that if Blue Fire leaned more heavily into its platforming gameplay, would it be a more enjoyable experience? Right now, Blue Fire attempts to be a game that it’s not and it shows. The Void challenge rooms are fun and are easily the best part of the game, but everything else is just decent at best.

Blue Fire is full of little gems and totally deserves your attention.

It's disappointing that Blue Fire is unquestionably fun to move around in but is hampered by design decisions that hold back its free-form platforming. It's difficult to experiment with the reaches of your agility when it's so easy to lose large swathes of progress due to a misstep, a punishment that permeates not only exploration but the otherwise expertly designed platforming side challenges. Its economy relies too heavily on one in-game currency and unnecessarily blocks progression, making it feel like Blue Fire isn't respectful of your time. You'd have to really fall in love with Blue Fire's one well-tuned mechanic to make its entire adventure feel worthwhile.

Platforming controls are thankfully solid, but the combat simply doesn’t have enough depth to it to keep things interesting across the many skirmishes you’ll engage in. The presentation of the game is quite good, though the lengthy loading times make deaths sting that extra bit more. I think if you’re patient with Blue Fire you’ll find a lot to like here, but it really could have been a lot more.

Blue Fire is an intriguing combination of several games that came before. Its focus on challenging platforming sections makes it stand out from other adventure games that rely on tried and tested methods. Wall-running and dashing across complex courses is a thrill and will appeal to those who enjoy challenging platformers. However, its lack of focus and mixture of mechanics may deter fans of those franchises that influenced the game.