VIDEO GAME REVIEW: Bound in Flame - Koch Media

Release Date: 09/05/14
Publisher:  Koch Media

SYNOPSIS:

In the action/RPG Bound by Flame, you are a mercenary possessed by a flame demon in an ambitious Dark Fantasy universe. As a victim of this demonic influence, players will have to choose between the powers offered by this evil or rejection of the demonic influence in order to develop heroic talents instead. Dangers, and enemies becoming more terrifying and fearsome in battle, will be temptations to acquire more power by giving up part of the hero's soul to the demon. Progression of the demonic influence will be reflected by the transformation of the hero's body.

Through its different chapters, Bound by Flame offers many quests around a primary, epic adventure. Depending on the choices made by the player and the influence of the demon, some chapters will offer different scenarios and a different experience, adding important replayability to the game. If the player begins the game knowing only the basics of combat, fire magic, and assassination, he will be able to specialize by unlocking and improving many skills and powers, through three different skill trees.

Create and customize a powerful warrior, develop your skills combat, assassination and fire magic
Call upon the devastating powers of the demon within
Find, create and improve your weapons and armor
Develop special binds with your companions such as romance, friendship or rivalry



REVIEW:

A new fantasy title that I had a lot of fun with. I loved the way that you had a certain amount of freedom in designing the character and with a few side missions to accompany the main acts, its something that will have the players glued to the console for a little while. I loved the storyline, the inventiveness of the world and of course the fact that they’ve brought explosives in (which in fantasy books is a huge trend right now.)

What also works well is the level progression and of course the chance for games to pick and choose fighting styles that suit their own individual needs. (Personally I felt that the Ranger skill set was far superior to the warrior one.)

Finally add to the mix a whole host of support characters (each with varying skills that will suit your gameplay style) that accompany you on missions (only one at a time sadly) and all round it’s a pretty solid title.

That said there are two things that let the title down. Firstly you have to be very careful in the skillsets you pick as well as on armour improvement to make sure that they all add to your own playing style. Pick-ups are limited and remember to spend cash on health potions as well as magic ones. Secondly I felt that the game was a little too short lasting a little over 15 hours for me.

All round I did have a lot of fun with this and learning to play with some of the other skills is going to be a lot of fun a second time round.