Bound by Flame

 Xbox 360
User Score
6.1

Mixed or average reviews- based on 60 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 33 out of 60
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 60
  3. Negative: 20 out of 60
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  1. Namutree
    Sep 12, 2014
    9
    Pretty fun mechanics. Graphics could be better, but it's not a big deal. I think this game is worth a buy.

    The game has some cool crafting and a fair amount of depth. The music is pretty good too.
  2. Langor
    May 9, 2014
    8
    Story: If you are into lore and a good story with twists in the plot this game is for you. I would say the story is on par with Dragon Age 1/Witcher 2. You will not be able to see any of these twists or make choices that effect your world until chapter 2 of the game. With that said, it takes a bit to really start the story. The characters scripts are adult themed with cursing. TheStory: If you are into lore and a good story with twists in the plot this game is for you. I would say the story is on par with Dragon Age 1/Witcher 2. You will not be able to see any of these twists or make choices that effect your world until chapter 2 of the game. With that said, it takes a bit to really start the story. The characters scripts are adult themed with cursing. The interactions between hirelings interrupt and talk to your character occasionally during dialog moments with NPC's. Choices you make effect your hirelings and can also change the story. 9/10 for the lore junkies.

    Hack and slash: Well, if your main focus is a Diablo like game you wont like it. There are plenty of monsters to fight but it is story driven. The monsters do respawn over time in zones and reset when you zone. But it will get very repetitive if you are a person who skips the dialogue and just want to run through quests and kill monsters. 3/10 I just want to kill ♥♥♥♥.

    Strategist: If you like playing the game on the hardest difficulty this game is for you. It is very bland if you play on normal or below. When you up the difficulty when you get hit, you get hit hard. Soon you will have to learn how to counter each attack and have to learn what each monsters attacks are. The bosses are unique and have unique attacks also and will take a few retries to figure out how to kill them. If you are a person who spam attacks you wont make it in this difficulty. How you spend your skill points will matter here. 8/10 I will analyze your every attack and figure out how to counter you or your group.

    Combat: There are plenty of attacks and class swaps to keep you busy on the hardest difficulty. But if you play on easy none of this is needed. The controls feel very fluent and smooth. Most of it makes sense. You can lock view on targets but it is not required to hit them in melee. Animations are decent and feels polished but nothing ground breaking. 7/10

    Explorer: The game is extremely linear at the first chapter minorly opening up in chapter two. You are following a story line. In chapter two starts to be many side quests which lets you go back into zones to finish them following the main story lines quest. In chapter two I think its about 3 or 4 zones big. If you want to explore far off distances and run around in an open world this is not for you. 2/10 for my explorer's.

    Character: There is only one of me is not the case in this game. Character creation is very vague and doesn't give you many options. But you can be a male or female. Along the tree line there is only three skill trees with not soo many skills inside them. Most of the points you get will be you upgrading these skills instead of unlocking them. It only really matters what you do towards the beginning of your journey. After that, it is more forgiving to putting points into something you are not specialized in. 6/10 I want to be a unique play style ranger or warrior.

    Loot ♥♥♥♥♥: If your main focus is running around and finding new armor sets and weapons you will find your self getting bored quickly. There are a variety of items but you come by them slow. Most of these are from merchants, quests and crate finds. The uniqueness of these items come from how you imbue them, which they call crafting. Most of the loot you find off mobs are ingredients to imbue your items to make them more powerful. These imbues are not unique like Elder Scrolls, they have preset stats and names for each imbue type. But each piece you imbue does in fact give the item a new unique appearance on that spot of the item. 5/10 for items.

    Crafting: Crafting is very linear. Every mob you kill has a chance to drop components. These components you use to make imbues for your items. You will have to combine these components to make different components for your imbues. If you do not have the components you can automatically buy the base ones from your inventory with gold. It is much easier and cheaper finding them. You can not craft weapons or armor, you can only imbue them to change there stats. You can also craft things like bolts for your crossbows or traps you may lay out and have your enemies run over. Or you can buy them from a merchant, along with potions you can craft. The only real unique thing about the crafting is that each piece you imbue on an item changes its looks. You will not be able to create a unique imbue. Each item as a preset of imbues you can choose from. You only need to find the ingredients or buy them from your inventory and make them for the imbue. If your looking for something like elder scrolls crafting system look away. 3/10 I just upgrade my items when I need to whether it be instantly purchasing the ingredients or finding them.

    Graphics: I will say this is not ground breaking. It is much better than Dragon Age 2 but quite a bit less than Witcher 2 (for pc). It doesn't feel like you are playing an old game but it definitely is not going to awe inspire you. 8/10    … Expand
  3. EMG
    May 9, 2014
    10
    I stopped caring when the same reviewers who are bashing this game give the likes of every Call of Duty every year a 10/10 and the likes of Diablo 3 a 10/10 praising it for being....fun. I have played 3 hours so far, and honestly it is a bit rough around the edges and is in no way GOTY but it is FUN for me at least, the game is simply enjoyable if you go into it with the right frame ofI stopped caring when the same reviewers who are bashing this game give the likes of every Call of Duty every year a 10/10 and the likes of Diablo 3 a 10/10 praising it for being....fun. I have played 3 hours so far, and honestly it is a bit rough around the edges and is in no way GOTY but it is FUN for me at least, the game is simply enjoyable if you go into it with the right frame of mind..."professional" reviewers are just people except they either have biased towards a game or were not paid enough :) 10/10 for keeping me engaged… Expand
  4. paddystudmuffin
    May 13, 2014
    10
    I've been playing this now for about 7 hrs. At the start I fiddled with the graphics with my telly and I've got it looking really good. I playing it on a normal telly and it looks so much better than a hd telly which I also tried. It looked pretty ugly on hd. To the game it's really good. It's got a good atmosphere and decent story. The gameplay is great too as it not as easy asI've been playing this now for about 7 hrs. At the start I fiddled with the graphics with my telly and I've got it looking really good. I playing it on a normal telly and it looks so much better than a hd telly which I also tried. It looked pretty ugly on hd. To the game it's really good. It's got a good atmosphere and decent story. The gameplay is great too as it not as easy as hack n slash. It takes a bit of thought and skill to progress especially when against groups of enemies. This is a solid RPG at a very reasonable price.… Expand
  5. L00nie
    May 18, 2014
    8
    I hoped that this game was going to be good, but didn't dare... I was positively surprised by Spider this time. The game is not a AAA game, so if you were expecting that you need to look elsewhere. If you are a person that can look past a few tech faults like lip-sync then this is the game for you.

    The characters are fun, the voice acting is moderate but good for a game of this caliber.    I hoped that this game was going to be good, but didn't dare... I was positively surprised by Spider this time. The game is not a AAA game, so if you were expecting that you need to look elsewhere. If you are a person that can look past a few tech faults like lip-sync then this is the game for you.

    The characters are fun, the voice acting is moderate but good for a game of this caliber. The story is interesting, the impact of having a Demon inside you and how much of your humanity you want to sacrifice for power is well done, and you will die a lot more that you first thought you would. It's not evil to its players like Dark Souls, but it doesn't make it easy for you, tactical combat becomes important.

    I like RPG games and this has annoyed me in later years since there are som many being pumped into the marked and most of them are mediocre to appalling. This is NOT one of those games.
    I had great fun playing it and i think most of you will enjoy playing Bound by Flame.    … Expand
  6. partyintheback
    May 9, 2014
    10
    Bound by Flame is a nice and challenging RPG. Detailed graphics in 1080p, fun and strategic combat, and a good amount of loot and exploration to be had.
  7. wolfrickk
    Jun 12, 2014
    0
    the game was great until the final battle it sucked. the ending need's to shorter, If there is a second part to the game I will not by it unless it is better than this one. I was very disappointed in the game my rating for this game is a 1.
  8. osprey
    Jan 9, 2015
    9
    This is a much better game than Lords of The Fallen and just as good as Witcher 2. I had a lot of fun playing this very challenging and entertaining rpg. The combat is excellent and the story and acting are great. There is a tongue in cheek attitude to the dialogue which makes the language used funny and unexpected. The final boss is difficult but does not ruin the game in the leastThis is a much better game than Lords of The Fallen and just as good as Witcher 2. I had a lot of fun playing this very challenging and entertaining rpg. The combat is excellent and the story and acting are great. There is a tongue in cheek attitude to the dialogue which makes the language used funny and unexpected. The final boss is difficult but does not ruin the game in the least and the many endings and choices to be made add replay value. I played through 3 times and did not get all the achievements as this game is quite hard and I did not want to torture myself playing through on the highest difficulty, that would not be fun for me but if you like a challenge,go for it.This game was well made and they gave us everything you need in a big budget game for half the price, for me it was money well spent. I had Fun!… Expand
  9. budanete
    Sep 4, 2014
    5
    I understand behind all games are a really hard work, and please apologize me for my english and for this write. But i think this game its a copy paste of many games like "Kingdom of Amalur" or "Dark Souls" or try to do with his history like Final Fantasy. But the result is poor. Perhaps dont have enough time to finish, i dont know. But the story dont catch you, the option of killing isn´tI understand behind all games are a really hard work, and please apologize me for my english and for this write. But i think this game its a copy paste of many games like "Kingdom of Amalur" or "Dark Souls" or try to do with his history like Final Fantasy. But the result is poor. Perhaps dont have enough time to finish, i dont know. But the story dont catch you, the option of killing isn´t necessary, in the middle of a conversation a mision start... A very bad game, im sorry.… Expand
  10. ammilner
    Feb 5, 2019
    5
    Let's just start by saying that while ambition is very important that it can kill your project if left unchecked and Bound By Flame is pretty dang ambitious. You can tell that the makers of this game wanted it to be huge and sprawling and at the beginning of its tale, does indeed seem to have those things. But do they pay off? In short, no. In long, also no (but a no with potential?)Let's just start by saying that while ambition is very important that it can kill your project if left unchecked and Bound By Flame is pretty dang ambitious. You can tell that the makers of this game wanted it to be huge and sprawling and at the beginning of its tale, does indeed seem to have those things. But do they pay off? In short, no. In long, also no (but a no with potential?)

    Bound By Flame has a lot of goals to accomplish and, while admirable, very obviously has taken on too many things at once. Does it have a huge, world ending story that the hero is magically swept into? Check! Does it feature a robust cast with multiple companions, romances, and even a fully voiced protagonist? Check! Does it have choices? Check! Do they actually change the plot? Sometimes...so Check? What about a wide variety of environments? Sure! Everything else you'd expect to see in a AAA developed RPG title? Probably! But does it actually come together in a meaningful way? Nope.

    Look, I love that a studio on the smaller side has taken so much care into making their next title something that has all the ingredients of a big blockbuster hit but their plan just doesn't really work and ends up feeling like a jumbled up mess that's trying to be a ground-breaking RPG but doesn't have the time or the funding to do all the crazy and beautiful things that they had originally intended to include.

    Ultimately, I can't care about having companions if they only have 4 shallow questions for you to ask in each of the three small acts that make up the campaign. I can't care about a romance if the dialogue responses from a character doesn't even reveal any general romantic interest until the last hour or two of the game. I can't care about my choices if the narrative finds a way to shoehorn me into a path that has already been written out. I can't care about combat if the levelling for enemies is total trash. BUT, I definitely do care about how much it feels like these developers put into this weirdly misshapen piece of gaming history.

    On the bright side, the demon/human host dynamic is one of the best things about Bound by Flame and your protagonists changing appearance (as you become more or less possessed) does more to add weight to your decisions than anything else. Also, the companion Mathras is a shining star amongst the otherwise bland character set but even then, they are a late game add-on with not a ton of screen-time. There's no denying that this game has potential and, if you stick with it, can actually yield some enjoyment and genuine interest but can I recommend it? No, Not really.

    That being said, did I play it over the past 5 days nonstop and actually, weirdly come away feeling like I didn't waste my time and maybe enjoyed the, albeit flawed, experience? Surprisingly...Yes.    … Expand
  11. PALInMETACRITIC
    Mar 7, 2018
    8
    Just bought myself a copy to play on my Xbox One X, this game actually not that bad as i thought ,
    i am enjoying it so far, it worth a try especially you can pick up this game at a very low price nowadays.
  12. Broyax
    Apr 13, 2020
    0
    J'ai cru pendant un... certain temps que "Spiders" le petit studio français de chez nous avait éventuellement -et presque par inadvertance ma foi- fait enfin... un vrai jeu vidéo, aussi humble ou limité fût-il (ou plus ou moins futile) ! il faut dire qu'ils prétendent toujours faire des jeux de rôle... or, c'est un genre ô combien difficile à maîtriser !

    Donc, j'ai cru que... ça allait    J'ai cru pendant un... certain temps que "Spiders" le petit studio français de chez nous avait éventuellement -et presque par inadvertance ma foi- fait enfin... un vrai jeu vidéo, aussi humble ou limité fût-il (ou plus ou moins futile) ! il faut dire qu'ils prétendent toujours faire des jeux de rôle... or, c'est un genre ô combien difficile à maîtriser !

    Donc, j'ai cru que... ça allait le faire, je suppose mais c'était sans compter l'incompétence décidément inexpugnable du petit studio français bien de chez nous spécialisé, enraciné dans le "merde in France"... C'est par exemple graphiquement très moyen avec notamment des ombres atrocement pixélisées et les voix ne sont qu'en anglais...

    Pourtant les débuts de "Bound by Flame" ne sont pas aussi mauvais que d'habitude malgré encore de nombreuses maladresses, certes... et on se laisse apprivoiser par ce monde écrit à la va-vite mais dont le système de combat un peu bizarre s'avère plutôt prometteur... et c'est là que le "level design" vient tout foutre en l'air avec de gros soucis d'équilibrage ainsi que de mauvais choix...

    Ce gros machin balèze, gigantesque, qu'est-ce que ça vient faire là au tout début de l'aventure ? puis plus tard dans les marais, c'est quoi tout-à-coup, ce pic de difficulté inexplicable avec tout un lot de monstres qu'on ne peut pas passer ? alors que parallèlement, on manque de tout : de potions mais aussi d'ingrédients pour en fabriquer !

    Franchement, on pige pas... surtout les saloperies sont complètement rentre-dedans et hargneuses et puis c'est tout ; dans ce putain de couloir étroit et étriqué, pas moyen de toute manière d'esquiver correctement ! Bon, j'ai donc fait moi aussi un choix : celui de désinstaller cette daube et d'attacher la galette à mon balcon. Comme un trophée. La boîte ira au recyclage !    … Expand
  13. ZXSth
    Feb 4, 2020
    3
    Normally, I am able to speak eloquently and at length about a game's quality (or lack thereof). But let me put it simply: This game, in my eyes, was not good.

    Very little about this game proved interesting or meritable. I had absolutely zero investment in the story, the main character or improving my skills. The combat may be the one redeeming feature of this game, but only because it    Normally, I am able to speak eloquently and at length about a game's quality (or lack thereof). But let me put it simply: This game, in my eyes, was not good.

    Very little about this game proved interesting or meritable. I had absolutely zero investment in the story, the main character or improving my skills. The combat may be the one redeeming feature of this game, but only because it proved marginally better than the other mediocre features of this rather shoddy video game. Especially when I have numerous other action RPGs (of much higher quality) vying for my attention, this game was depressingly unengaging.

    Don't buy it unless you enjoy cheap, bland imitations of Dragon Age.    … Expand
  14. anfeherle89
    Sep 6, 2021
    5
    Sometimes the dialogues get very dense and you feel that you are not advancing, the secondary missions are fine, but some practically to be able to do them well you must guess without any clue, if you fail to guess you already lose the secondary mission, I can understand that the final boss is the greatest Challenge, but the meeting is too long, and when you finish it you feel that youSometimes the dialogues get very dense and you feel that you are not advancing, the secondary missions are fine, but some practically to be able to do them well you must guess without any clue, if you fail to guess you already lose the secondary mission, I can understand that the final boss is the greatest Challenge, but the meeting is too long, and when you finish it you feel that you have advanced but you do not feel happiness or satisfaction.… Expand
  15. neomoonsevin
    Nov 19, 2022
    3
    rubbish a early version of Hellblade Senua Sacrifice in terms of fighting style but hell i dont like this game at all i am very angry i purchased this on digital

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
56

Mixed or average reviews - based on 5 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 5
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 5
  3. Negative: 1 out of 5
  1. X-ONE Magazine UK
    Jun 21, 2014
    60
    Hack, slash, hit and miss. [Issue#112, p.82]
  2. MondoXbox
    May 20, 2014
    65
    A very good story and great music are the main upsides in an otherwise weak game both from the technical and gameplay standpoints. If you're great fantasy stories lovers, you could be willing to give it a shot: for every one else there are better games out there.
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  3. GameOver.gr
    May 16, 2014
    40
    This new RPG from Spiders is broken in so many ways they could not possibly be mentioned in a sentence. I guess we must keep on waiting for the return of Geralt.
    Read full review
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