Blades of Fire is one of those solid games fated to get overlooked. It doesn’t have much marketing behind it and it’s releasing in between some major heavy hitters as a AA title. Also, the action RPG crowd isn’t exactly starved for new games nowadays. Still, with Blades of Fire, we something special worth your attention here. So, what exactly makes Blades of Fire stick out in 2025?
The one thing about this game that truly differentiates itself for me is the forging. Blades of Fire has the deepest smithing system I’ve ever experienced in a game … well, unless there’s a smith simulator or something that I haven’t played. I’d say half of this game’s identity lies in the forging systems. For one, you actually manually forge the weapons yourself deciding everything from blade shape, shaft type, and grade of metals used. It’s brilliantly customizable and immersive as heck.
The forging process starts at the blackboard where you choose all of the various pieces and metals you want to use. Some metals are more durable but less damaging than others, just as blade heads vary on their reach, speed, and damage, among other stat variables. You can really min/max your weapons and fine tune them. For those who don’t want to get bogged down by pages of customization, each weapon type starts out with an initial design, skipping blackboard planning entirely if you desire.
“You manually forge the weapons yourself deciding everything from blade shape, shaft type, and grade of metals used.”
With the weapon design specified, it’s time to hit the anvil for some forge work. I absolutely love how forging impacts your weapon in gameplay. Depending on your forging performance, you can earn up to five stars. These ‘Forge Stars’ directly determine how many repairs the weapon gets before breaking. Being good at forging therefore benefits you with a longer-lasting weapon, yet doesn’t completely destroy or hamper the weapon’s efficacy, which is fair. The forging minigame itself is, again, one of the deepest smithing minigames I’ve experienced. Each weapon has a general shape that must be closely adhered to when forging; this is represented by a white line.
The steel you’re carving from are the vertical dark bars. The goal is to strike the dark bars to fit the shape of the white line, and this is done by increasing and decreasing the power of strikes and tilting the angle of the hammer. The cherry on top is the the option to name your self-wrought weapon after forging it. Shaping the weapon through this minigame is surprisingly engaging, but there are times when I just want a another weapon without all the steps involved – and fortunately, this is possible. Previously made weapon types can be automatically forged using your previous star rating. There’s still a lot of button presses and little animations to skip to bypass the forging process, though. And considering how often players are forced to forge new weapons thanks to durability, that’s quite a lot of time just mashing skip. I lament that there’s not a single quick template button.
“Instead of forging right there at the anvil, you’re required to teleport to a separate ‘Forger’s’ realm. In general, there’s quite a bit of loading involved in forging.”
That said, I wasn’t bothered by the frequency of weapons breaking. Unlike, say, Zelda Breath of the Wild, any weapon can last dozens upon dozens of fights. The frequency feels just right, and it can be further tuned through your selection of metals during forging. I’m usually a ‘no weapon durability’ guy when it comes to action games, but didn’t mind it at all in this game. Something that could’ve very easily compounded weapon scarcity is the active equipped weapon being left at the place you died at. This could’ve easily turned into something very frustrating, but instead, no matter how many times you die, weapons aren’t lost permanently; they stay in the spot you died with them. Nothing else is lost upon death, by the way, just the equipped weapon.
If retrieval run-backs sounds familiar, that’s because it is. This game has its own take on the Dark Souls Bonfire mechanic; just replace bonfire with anvil and it’s mostly the same thing. Forger’s Anvils are carefully placed throughout the map, functioning as the game’s checkpoints. Enemies respawn once the player rests at them. And resting is crucial in this game, considering the finite amount of health bottles that only get refilled when resting. It’s here at these anvils where fast travel is possible too, and where some of the game’s load times make themselves apparent.
I don’t mind a small bit of loading in between anvil teleports, but it’s also at anvils where the player must go to forge their weapons. Instead of forging right there at the anvil, you’re required to teleport to a separate ‘Forger’s’ realm which, you guessed it, requires a separate load screen in and out of. Like the fast travel load times, these are noticeable in length and add up cumulatively considering how often you’re going to be forging new weapons.
I wish forging didn’t require two load screens, another small walk to the forging anvil, and a handful of scenes but was initiated right there in the actual game world, but it’s not a deal breaker. Speaking of performance, a majority of the game runs at a smooth 60 frame a second with quality visuals still intact. Though, when large amounts of enemies are on screen at once, things tend to get a bit choppy with frame dips.
“I felt reassured in my combat abilities thanks to responsive and relatively tight controls.”
Yet even in the midst of a swarm of enemies and some frame stutters, I felt reassured in my combat abilities thanks to responsive and relatively tight controls. Unlike other third-person action games, you can zoom the camera out a decent amount. No over-the-shoulder claustrophobia here. Aran has a spritely dash in any direction and a quick sprint.
Though the turning radius is somewhat wide, I never felt too spatially restricted during battles thanks to the dash and dodge roll. I did, however, feel the absence of a jump. Maybe that’s just my conditioning from the absolute free movement that Elden Ring has, but I couldn’t help wanting to jump throughout the entire game. The icing on the snappy control cake is the ability to cancel out of dodges and attacks instantly (with the exception of heavy attacks).
As the name of the game implies, melee weapons are the primary, and only, method of dishing out pain to enemies. Aran is given four directional attacks which are mapped to the four face buttons on a controller. These correspond to the four directions, which comes into play against enemies and their weak parts, some which can get dismembered.
While there’s no combos per-se, stringing together directional attacks is smooth and seamless, unless you’re out of stamina. Stamina can be recovered pretty quickly by holding the block button. That’s an important button because it’s also how you time parries, which regenerates stamina and allows follow-up attacks when pulled off. The parry window is quite narrow in Blades of Fire, but it varies from enemy to enemy how easy it is to pull off.
Since melee weapons are the only offensive option for Aran, it’s only natural each weapon fulfills different roles. Close to a dozen different weapon types exist in the game, from greatswords to daggers to polearms. Obviously, a large hammer doesn’t pierce an enemy the same way a dagger does. This leads to the three types of damage in the game: pierce, slash, and blunt.
You can switch between these damage types during combat, though some weapons only feature one type (like a club only having blunt). The really cool thing is each of the damage types has its own damage values that get progressively diminished with weapon wear. The solution to this is mid-battle sharpening, which spruces up the weapon’s damage values as good as if it were new. Only problem with sharpening is it further diminishes that weapon’s overall durability.
“You can switch between these damage types during combat, though some weapons only feature one type (like a club only having blunt).”
Again, I generally don’t like weapon durability in games, but the way this heightens weapon strategy, whether to use pierce or slash or hotkey in another weapon entirely, is engaging. Oh yeah, and each enemy is weak to different attack types, as you might imagine. Heavily armored foes typically don’t flinch at small daggers, while the speed and slash damage from daggers completely decimate the more bestial foes. Despite the exclusive focus on melee weapons, Blades of Fire does a good job varying up its combat toybox, at least for a good while.
By the mid-point of the game, I yearned for a long-range option of some kind. Either that or some way to inflict status ailments or do something, anything, other than just swing armaments. Still, for a game solely focused on swinging armaments, there’s some impressive variety and depth here, though it may not be for everyone.
Of course, every weapon costs a certain amount of materials, some which are more rare than others. While I never felt the need to go out and farm materials to get by, I did have to farm for broken weapons occasionally. My favorite weapon just happened to break in the middle of a difficult boss fight. Instead of doing the reasonable thing and just switching weapons, or forging a completely new one, I went to the location of the weapon’s materials were and farmed them. If you grow attached to a weapon, you can always farm materials to get it back. At least the game’s menus and map make the material gathering process a bit more convenient.
“My main issues with the map are its lack of altitude and terrain distinction.”
Each location on the map shows the ingredients that can be found there. It also indicates points of interest like anvils and mission markers (if you choose to turn them on). Custom markers also exist in case you find something cool that’s just out of reach. My main issues with the map are its lack of altitude and terrain distinction. Furthermore, there’s no distinction of different floors within buildings, rendering the map useless for navigation in these situations.
The main source of my map dismay comes from the level design itself. Areas can be difficult to navigate, with branching routes twisting and contorting in wild directions. I consider myself savvy when it comes to in-game navigation, thanks to all the open-world games of late, and this game confused the heck out of me multiple times with its level design.
There’s poor visual distinction between routes in a given region and very little guidance in general. I’m not clamoring for the equivalent of yellow paint, but can there at least be some visual language leading me to a point of interest? The lack of interesting landmarks in the world also contribute to the messy and tangled level design a bit, though some areas do boast impressive draw distances of past zones, rare though they are.
“While the routes within a region get repetitive and samey pretty quick, the regions themselves feel distinct and unique from each other.”
While the routes within a region get repetitive and samey pretty quick, the regions themselves feel distinct and unique from each other. The swamplands of the south feel appropriately humid and wild while the indoor labyrinth of the Crimson Fort gives the feeling of faded nobility. Still, the individual regions themselves felt just a tad longwinded without enough variation, suffering from confusing layouts. The layout of one region is so bad, it requires a tour guide of sorts who signals the way forward, which leads to another gripe I have: escort companions.
The tour guide example is especially egregious because the player must actually wait in an area for him to initiate the way forward. You can imagine how frustrating it is to wait for some old geyser to remember the way forward in this game, shorter though the wait period may be. And this tour guide is with you the entire way through a region too; it’s not just a one-time gimmick. But that’s not all, there’s other escort levels on top of the tour guide one. In one indoor region, you must keep a NPC safe as he clings to your back through the entire zone. Enemies will knock him off and abduct him, requiring you to rescue him before ultimately progressing. What’s more, the NPC cries in a way that gave me Yoshi’s Island flashbacks of baby Mario.
“In one indoor region, you must keep a NPC safe as he clings to your back through the entire zone.”
In isolation, escort sections don’t always end up bad, but this game has a bit of a trash mob problem. Maps are littered with common enemies, and they’re typically always grouped up. This isn’t a problem in Dynasty Warriors style games where batches of enemies can be felled in a single scoop, but this game goes for more decidedly methodical combat. Sure, if you pick the perfect weapon and have it sharpened, you can kill plenty of enemies in one hit, especially on the easier difficulties, but it requires proper set-up and excellent timing. By definition, a trash mob shouldn’t require perfect gameplay execution to obliterate.
The high encounter rate is further compounded by the level navigation issues and escort demands, making for a frustrating experience when all of these issues are present. And before you say “git gud”, I don’t mind going through these mobs once or twice, but farming for materials or retrieving lost weapons makes them irritatingly redundant.
By contrast, there’s nothing but positive things to say about the boss fights. Bosses are where enemy weak parts and limb detachment gets its proper due. The first area has a roaming troll boss that can actually re-grow its detached head, requiring swift DPS to finish it before that happens. Some bosses also have a couple phases to them. Nothing fancy or super cinematic in that regard, but the change-up in mechanics lends the fights more interesting than they would’ve been. Some bosses shoot out bullet hell style projectiles, which are fun to maneuver around despite the lack of a jump.
And each boss and enemy in the game has their own extensive bestiary entry. Heck, each grade of steel has its own entry, just to illustrate how detailed Adso’s journal is.
“Adso’s Chronicles are filled to the brim with world lore and character portraits, all from the perspective of your companion”
Speaking of Adso, he can be sent away to the camp should you tire of his banter. And his does admittedly get tiring. He’s constantly complaining, and should you wait around for too long, oh boy will you here about how bored he is (despite the game making you wait during certain sections). He fulfills his gameplay purpose well though, completing entries on monsters, which grants new Forger Scrolls and ultimately new weapons.
And Adso always has new insights into every area you visit, but his banter can get old quick. The other supporting cast is hit or miss as well. Aran meets some pretty outlandish folk, including a ghost gravedigger, and you have to babysit half of them through escort sections, which is a shame.
But at least a majority of the characters have good voice acting. Not excellent, almost great, but certainly good. The amount of voice lines in the game is pretty impressive, though it’s the music that particularly impresses me. The way the music dynamically shifts throughout the experience means it never feels stale or repetitive. And despite the frequency of mob battles, I never tired of the warlike drums accompanying these skirmishes. The instruments also sound wonderfully rich and diverse, accompanying the environments well.
“Blades of Fire really does look and sound like a AAA title despite its more AA status.”
Not that the environments even need the extra boost in atmosphere, as graphically impressive as they are. Yes, levels can feel repetitive after a bit, but darn do they look brilliant. There’s just so much detail behind each texture and object, not to mention the amount of little pots and pieces of furniture you can smash and get materials from. Blades of Fire really does look and sound like a AAA title despite its more AA status.
The in-game cinematics demonstrate this quality amply, with unique character animations and smart camera usage for every movement. Yet despite the attractive cinematics and in-depth lore of the game, I couldn’t get into the plot as much as I wanted to. The setting just felt a bit too devoid of people to properly care about. Did I want to see Aran and Adso succeed and save the world? I guess? I do like Aran as a character, stoic, if not somewhat generic as he is.
But I never felt particularly invested in any character enough to truly care what happens to them. The whole setting is meant to feel like a fairy tale and it does. Yet, it lacks either the dark mystery or the fanciful whimsy to get me excited about it. For plenty of folks, the story of the Aran and Adso’s journey to defeat the evil queen will be enough of a hook to get them through, and it barely was for me, and maybe that’s enough.
Blades of Fire is a unique take on this particular brand of action RPG. The forging mechanics are wonderful and I hope to see more games get players as connected to their weapons as this game, and that’s saying a lot for a game with durability. It’s not without its faults, but Blades of Fire comes recommended if you’re a fan of melee sword combat, which I assume a lot of us are.
This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.
