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Bound by Flame

Plattform: PC Veröffentlicht: 09.05.2014

-85%6.99€1,04€

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Preis Update 08.03.25

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Bound by Flame

Plattform: PC

-76%7€1.69€

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Preis Update 29.03.23

Bound by Flame ist ein heroisches Fantasy-Rollenspiel, das von Spiders Studio für PC, PS3, PS4 und Xbox 360 entwickelt wird. Als Spieler übernehmt ihr die Rolle eines Söldners, der von einem Flammendämon besessen ist. Im Banne des Dämonen müsst ihr euch entscheiden, ob ihr euch seine übernatürlichen Kräfte zunutze machen oder doch lieber ein Mensch bleiben wollt. Entscheidet ihr euch für Letzteres, müsst ihr eure dämonische Seite unterdrücken und Fähigkeiten entwickeln, die einem Helden alle Ehre machen. Im Angesicht unzähliger Gefahren und Feinde, die immer furchterregender und grauenhafter werden, lockt euch stets die Versuchung, ein wenig mehr dem Dämonen in euch nachzugeben, um noch stärker und mächtiger zu werden … und je größer der Einfluss des Dämonen auf eure Seele, desto offensichtlicher wird eure Verwandlung.

Welchen Weg werdet ihr einschlagen?
Je nachdem, welche Entscheidungen ihr trefft und wie stark der Dämon bereits von euch Besitz ergriffen hat, erwarten euch in den einzelnen Kapiteln der Geschichte verschiedene Erfahrungen, Quests und Szenarios. Die Echtzeit-Kämpfe sind ebenso dynamisch wie beeindruckend; wenn ihr zu Beginn eures Abenteuers zuerst die Grundlagen des Kampfes, des Meuchelmordes und schließlich der Feuermagie erlernt, könnt ihr euch später weiter spezialisieren, indem ihr viele Fertigkeiten freischaltet und verbessert, um sie dann in jedem der drei Talentbäume einzusetzen.

Mithilfe des Handwerkssystems in Bound by Flame könnt ihr Ausrüstung herstellen und verbessern. Im Verlauf eurer Quests schließen sich verschiedene Gefährten euch an. Es steht euch frei, mit jedem ein freundschaftliches, romantisches oder von Rivalität geprägtes Verhältnis aufzubauen. Und schließlich erwartet euch bei Bound by Flame eine große Vielfalt an beeindruckenden Kreaturen und Monstern. Überall wimmelt es geradezu von unglaublichen Geschöpfen: Lichen, Untoten, Eiskreaturen und gigantische Belagerungsbestien erwarten euch in vielen epischen Schlachten. Wie werdet ihr euch entscheiden? Werdet ihr der Versuchung dämonischer Kräfte und Magie erliegen oder euch auf eure Kampffertigkeiten und Tapferkeit verlassen?

Gameplay
Bound by Flame ist ambitioniertes und komplexes RPG, das euch all das bietet, was ihr von einem heroischen Fantasy-Spiel nur erwarten könnt, vor allem aber eine so gut wie unbegrenzte Handlungsfreiheit bei euren Abenteuern.

Die Entscheidungen, vor denen ihr steht, sind stets alles andere als trivial und haben eher früher als später schwerwiegende Konsequenzen dafür, wie sich die Geschichte und euer Charakter entwickeln, aber auch auf dafür, welches Ende das Spiel nehmen wird. Diese Entscheidungen hängen zuallererst von der Entwicklung eures Charakters ab. Im Verlauf der Geschichte und mit jeder erfolgreich absolvierten Quest sammelt ihr Erfahrung, mit der ihr euren Avatar verbessern und weiter entwickeln könnt. Drei Talentbäume stehen euch zur Verfügung, um zu bestimmen, wie ihr spielen und kämpfen wollt, vom schlagkräftigen Krieger mit schweren Schwertern bis hin zum lautlosen Killer, der sich auf den Umgang mit Dolchen versteht. Doch vielleicht kommt ihr ja auch in Versuchung, eure Feinde aus der Distanz mit der mächtigen Feuermagie zu vernichten, die ihr dank des Dämonen in euch einsetzen könnt.

Minimum
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CPU: AMD/INTEL DUAL-CORE 2.2 GHZ
GFX: 512 MB 100% DIRECTX 9 UND SHADERS 4.0 KOMPATIBLE ATI RADEON HD 4850/NVIDIA GEFORCE 8800 GT ODER HOHER
RAM: 2048 MB RAM
Software: WINDOWS XP SP3/WINDOWS VISTA SP1/WINDOWS 7/WINDOWS 8
HD: 6 GB verfügbarer Speicherplatz
SFX: DIRECTX 9 KOMPATIBLE
INET: INTERNETVERBINDUNG FUR SPIEL ONLINE-AKTIVIERUNG ERFORDERLICH
LANG: Deutsch, Englisch

Deutsch (3)
Englisch (63)

182 Produkte im Account

44 Reviews

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1360 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 14.07.20 17:51

Sehr cool

47 Produkte im Account

6 Reviews

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521 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 10.11.19 00:40

Ein Game mit guten Ideen, das echt etwas großes hätte werden können. Leider mangelte es aber scheinbar an ein paar Perfektionisten im Entwicklerteam, sodass schon einige sehr grobe Fehler dabei sind.
Die Grafik ist für ein 5 Jahre altes Spiel gar nicht schlecht, die Synchronisation der Charaktere dafür ist leider absolut unpassend. Im Englischen sowie im Deutschen passen die Stimmen so überhaupt nicht zu den Charakteren.
Die Ideen mit Fallen usw. finde ich dafür wieder echt nice, aber auch hier ist leider nicht perfekt gearbeitet worden...

237 Produkte im Account

48 Reviews

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1050 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 06.10.19 17:24

Nettes kleines RPG aus der dritten Reihe zu einem fairen Preis. Kann man als Fan von Fantasy getrost spielen.

126 Produkte im Account

32 Reviews

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2885 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 27.02.22 19:39

great story and music, simple gameplay unless you have the IQ of a brick wall.

220 Produkte im Account

136 Reviews

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211 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 18.02.22 06:21

I really tried to get into this game, but after a few hours, it gets really stale. This is one of those standard action rpgs that isnt terrible, but isnt good per say. Its ok. Dont recommend tbh.

532 Produkte im Account

43 Reviews

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258 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 04.02.22 11:50

If you never played an actually good RPG, then this game might be alright. It's seviceable to say the least, but it's just not very inspiring or fun if you expect more than just the basics. You can probably get Dragon Age or The Witcher for the same price since they are on sale quite regularly, so I can't push myself to recommend this game...

168 Produkte im Account

14 Reviews

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46 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 31.01.22 13:47

Im not a fan of this developer, but i decided to give this game a try. The combat was so boring and weird that i had to refund this. It seems to have something to offer but i couldnt force my self to go through it.

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7 Reviews

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1634 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 25.01.22 22:55

I recently discovered this game, Bound by Flame, and the developer, Spiders, after playing (and being blown away by) Greedfall.

Greedfall was such an amazing game that I was suddenly interested in playing all RPGs developed by Spiders. I found 3 additional RPGs made by Spiders (Bound By Flame, Mars: War Logs, and The Technomancer) and I sat down and played all of them.

I played on the hardest difficulty (Captain) and the combat is PUNISHING on that difficulty, especially the final boss.

The voice acting for this game can be atrocious at times, but then at times some characters are voiced really well. It seems like the main character has a bad voice actor, but most of the supporting characters have good voice actors.

I enjoyed the combat and story. The combat is basically hack and slash, but there is a interesting crafting system, you can set traps and cast fire spells, and you also have a crossbow.

Overall, I enjoyed this game, but it is the later Spiders RPGs (The Technomancer and Greedfall) where Spiders really hit their stride and managed to create masterpieces.

1006 Produkte im Account

30 Reviews

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468 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 21.01.22 23:12

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☐ Good
☑ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☑ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second live for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☑ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☑ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10

38 Produkte im Account

2 Reviews

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3377 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 30.12.21 10:22

Bound by Flame walked so that Greedfall could run. Its a serviceable RPG by Spiders. Its strengths lie in it world building, mature, fantasy design, and amazing sound track. The voice actors do a great job with what they are given. The main character dialogue however was sometimes hard to get through. The game takes itself serious but the things he says just felt disjointed and out of place to the point of annoyance (I played as male Vulcan) pretty much until I merged with the demon. The combat system is not good per say, but its not totally trash. It has its moments where you can see it shine through but play on harder difficulty levels and it will leave you frustrated and angry most of the time due to the enemy AI being relentless and unforgiving (I played on the hardest difficulty, Captain). The game feels like when you watch a movie that it more invested in setting up a sequel but never gets one. Its a damn shame because there are great ideas here, its just the execution and budget didn't allow for the dev's to fully realize all they had planned out. However given all that I said I would still give this game a try especially if its on sale or cheap.

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80 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 28.12.21 09:03

Its just ok, combat was annoying maybe if i could get it to recognize my controller i wouldve liked it better

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82 Reviews

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1189 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 25.12.21 10:59

This is a very overlooked game. It's nothing mind blowing but certainly deserves better than the metacritic score. It's very Bioware inspired, so if you like games such as Dragon Age you will enjoy this. 7/10.

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3 Reviews

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1208 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 06.12.21 17:11

You´re looking at a good game! Its Solid, functional, compact and fun. A lot of bad jokes, raw atmosphere. A world that literally goes to hell and you can save it, what would you want more. It´s got a sweet progression system. Mix Witcher 2 with Gothic 1 with an old assasins Creed. Certainly not worth 40€ but if you get it for below 10€ it sure is worth it!

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30 Reviews

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2367 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 22.11.21 10:03

This is one of the best RPG games I've ever played. Despite the fact that it is a medium budget game and it did not deliver what it presented in the feature trailers - the creators clearly hit the wall during the production - budget versus ambitions.

Benefits:
- Unprecedented world of fantasy
- The production lasts for a good 15h and a little longer (by charging the main plot, you can finish the game much faster, although I do not recommend it)
- Phenomenal music
- Pretty challenging level of difficulty
- A bit of romance (The romance scene with Edwen is the only one that is very suggestive, the other scenes are innocent)
- We play most of the game with one ally
- The plot is quite linear with minor selections leading to 3x different game finals.

Defects:
- Breaking down parts of the armor that are not needed - it mainly happens during directed scenes
- In some conversations, when we have a demonic form, the appearance of the eyes changes, but it should not - a slight oversight but unfortunately distracting from the immersion
- During the demonic form in the scenes directed where we do not have part of the armor because the flames are coming out of the main character, the character model can tear apart
- It's a pity you can't upgrade your allies
- I miss even delicate jumps when fighting with a sword, ax or blunt weapon
- As for the crafting system - the non-upgraded swords that we find look unfinished without the reins and the pommel, the same goes for knives
- Only at one point in the plot can you stop turning into an increasingly demonic form
- All level constructions are very corridor
- Audio quite quiet compared to other games on the market
- It would be nice to improve the rendering of objects and effects because it looks bad compared to older games.

Final Score 7.5/10. A solid simple production that asks for the expansion of everything that already exists (Bound By Flame 2.0).

To jeden z lepszych gier gatunku RPG jaką grałem. Mimo że to gra z średnim budżetem i nie dostarczyła tego co prezentowała na zwiastunach fabularnych - twórcy podczas produkcji zderzyli się ewidentnie ze ścianą - budżet kontra ambicje.

Zalety:
- Niespotykany świat fantazy
- Produkcja starcza na dobre 15h i trochę dłużej (Szarżując wątek główny można grę ukończyć dużo szybciej choć tego nie poleca)
- Fenomenalna muzyka
- Dość wymagający poziom trudności
- Namiastka romansów (Scena romansowa z Edweną jako jedyna jest bardzo sugestywna pozostałe sceny są niewinne)
- Większość gry przemierzamy z jednym sojusznikiem
- Fabuła dosyć liniowa z pomniejszymi wyborami prowadzącymi do 3x różnych finałów gry.

Wady:
- Psujące się elementy pancerza które znajdują się tam gdzie nie trzeba - głównie zdarza się to prze reżyserowanych scenach
- Przy niektórych rozmowach gdy posiadamy demoniczną formę zmienia się wygląd oczy a nie powinien - drobne nie dopatrzenie ale niestety wybijające z imersji
- Podczas demonicznej formy przy scenach reżyserowanych gdzie nie posiadamy części pancerza ponieważ wydobywają się płomienie z głównego bohatera potrafi dojść do rozerwania modelu postaci
- Szkoda że nie można ulepszać sojuszników
- Brakuje mi chociażby delikatnych odskoków gdy walczy się mieczem, toporem czy bronią obuchową
- Co do systemu wytwarzania przedmiotów - nie ulepszony miecze które znajdujemy wyglądają na niedokończone pozbawione lejca i głowicy podobnie jest z nożami
- Tylko w jednym momencie fabuły można przerwać przemienianie się w coraz bardziej demoniczną formę
- Wszystkie konstrukcje poziomów są bardzo korytarzowe
- Dosyć ciche audio w stosunku do innych gier na rynku
- Przydało by się usprawnić pole renderowania obiektów i efektów ponieważ nie najlepiej to wygląda na tle starszych gier.

Ocena końcowa 7,5/10. Solidna prosta produkcja która prosi się o rozbudowę wszystkiego co już istnieje (Bound By Flame 2.0).

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1771 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 21.11.21 19:06

The RPG game that you never heard of.

Pros

+ Story
+ Companions
+ 2 paths

Cons

- Combat
- Lost potencial
- Playtime
- Difficulty

Summary

Let’s start with the good things, the story overall is good and interesting from start to finish.
Companions are somewhat in between, some of them are cool, some of them are a bit boring, the lack of interaction is the problem.

The idea of following either a demon path or staying human is interesting, seeing your character change into a demon with each major decision.

Combat is very repetitive, like extremely repetitive and generic, it feels like any other RPG game released at that time.
There are 3 roads that you can follow in the skill tree, Warrior, Ranger and Pyro, Warrior is completely useless and makes the game especially difficult even on the lowest difficulty. Ranger is the easiest followed by the Pyro, the best combo being Ranger/Pyro.

Playtime is underwhelming, I expected more. In the first act, they make you think that you will fight a lot of bosses later on, but you end up fighting just one in the end.
The difficulty is set unnecessarily high even on the lowest difficulty. It feels like playing a budget version of Dark Souls.

Playtime: 8-16 hours

Achievements: Challenging, require up to 3 playthroughts

Overall: 6/10

Additional notes

Difficulty:
What’s the reason for having 4 difficulty levels if all it does is lower the damage taken and still leaves bosses with enormous health pools that take ages to take down without ranger skills.

I honestly had no issue completing the game on the “Captain” difficulty with ranger skills, but on the other hand, I did struggle greatly with a warrior build even when I had everything maxed out on Recruit.
There are people that do not want to play 1v1 boss fight for 30 minutes, they just want to enjoy the story and be done with it, for those people there is the lowest difficulty setting, unfortunately not in this game.

The more I played the game the less I liked it. The first playthrough was fine.

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1690 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 06.11.21 10:14

A Brief Song of Ice and Fire

Bound by Flame is a decent DLC expansion for a Witcher game that does not exist.

Look, this game is not great, the lore is forgettable, the aesthetics are generic copper and silver, and many parts of this game are just okay.
The combat system is very basic (parry counter and not much else), and can be tedious at times, making these intense battle moments seems a bit stiff. Multiple enemy encounters are not exactly graceful either.
The game is fairly easy until the last boss battle, even on default difficulty.

But

There are details that I like here hidden in this game, and I'm just gonna list them down:

- I kinda like Vulcan (the MC, especially the female version) she's just a random everyman who just wanna stay out of trouble. Whatever personality she has somehow works well enough to be engaging throughout the game.
- I adore the gear customization, holy hell. You can customize individual parts of the gears you find. You'll be changing the blade or the pommel of your sword and adding extra piece of armor on your arms quite frequently. It's like modding your guns in an FPS. Customization that actually matters visually instead of just seeing big numbers go up. And the gears' design are not half bad either.
I need more games that do this. Such a neat little system.
- The idea for the melee combat and the stealth element are pretty interesting on paper. If they just tinker with the damage distribution just a little bit, that would make the combat and stealth encounters much more enjoyable.
- There is a Dishonored-esque semi morality system in this game. I chose the evil path. Gradually, my version of Vulcan grew a pair of horns and the horns got bigger as the story progressed. So the best part of this is I couldn't equip any helmet on her because her horns were in the way. EXCELLENT! GOOD SHIT! HELL YEA
- There's like one funny character interaction due to one of the characters' immortality

Tips for future players: upgrade your trap crafting skills. The explosive trap helps quite a lot during boss fights, especially the final one.

So yeah, it's Witcher 1.5: A Pyromancer Menace

It's a fine little western fantasy RPG that acts as a prologue for bigger conflicts and expansive world that we'll probably never see because only twelve people played this game.

I'll recommend this to anyone who wants to see the gear customization system. That's it.

Edwen's fine, I guess.

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2559 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 04.11.21 06:25

Great game

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909 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 29.10.21 01:20

Decent little Dragon Age wanna be.

295 Produkte im Account

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3717 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 28.10.21 01:35

I re-play this game every few years or so. A very fun ARPG, story is solid, mechanics are solid, it's a nice romp.

Seeing the current price tag (7 USD) I would absolutely recommend.

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887 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 24.10.21 02:54

Pretty cool RPG gameplay. Ive seen better but this isnt bad.

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592 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 02.10.21 10:48

It's an alright game, but the fact that I enjoyed it doesn't mean much, since Bound By Flame is often tedious to play. I love Spiders, but this turned out to be tough to recommend.
Even though its most common criticism is its short length, I don't mind that; an RPG only taking around 10 hours or so to complete is not a bad thing, per se, especially if, like this one, it has multiple paths and endings, but as short as it is, I don't want to play through it again, as the combat is dreadful. Enemies have way too much health, not in a fun challenging way, but rather in a total bullsh-t way, to the point where anything but the easiest difficulty is completely unfair--and even then it's still a slog! I presume this was done to encourage using gadgets and trickery, but it seemingly didn't work. Combat feels like it was copied from the Witcher 2, since it's based around dodging and parrying rather than blocking, and it also prominently features traps. And even though the third Witcher had not yet come out, Bound By Flame also has a crossbow stun-attack. But whereas I never used these in their respective games, I found the necessary in Bound By Flame, since, as I have mentioned before, the combat is a slog.
The combat is such a hurdle that I can't even conscientiously talk about the thing I DID like, such as the music, enemy design, or crafting system, because I don't think these pros outweigh the cons.
The story and characters are also somewhat lacking. The main plot is a total rip-off of the Jon Snow story from Game of Thrones: An army of zombies led by undead ice wizards threaten the world, and all that stands in their way is a band of gruff mercenaries. Sound familiar? The dialogue is also rather dry and lacking in either wit or charm. It's also foul as heck! I don't mind too much swearing, even in a fantasy setting, but this goes too far. If a dialogue option pops up, choosing the polite response still involves insulting your conversation partner. This is not aided by the mediocre acting. The male main character is voiced by Brynjolf from Skyrim, which would have made me giddy and excited, but the main female VA is dreadful, and only detracts from what little charm this game had.
Overall, while I enjoyed my time with Bound By Flame, this was BECAUSE rather than IN SPITE of its short length. Even though parts of it were enjoyable, the combat is too tedious and the setting too bland to properly recommend.

FINAL SCORE: 5/10

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426 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 01.10.21 07:26

An underrated gem, that's what this is!

It reminds me a lot of Greedfall ( which was created by the same company ) and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning in terms of gameplay controls and overall feeling of the game. The gameplay is smooth, fluid, and typical of an older RPG, which is in many ways a lot better than the one you get in the newer ones.
The soundtrack is absolutely amazing, one of the best and most fitting soundtracks I have ever found in a game. The graphics combined with the soundtrack manage to create an interesting and immersive environment that add to the experience.

Now, of all the official rating publications, Gamekult's review in particular caught my attention, they have a few complaints that need to be addressed.
It is true that Bound by Flame suffers from some of the elements mentioned by this publication, namely:
- mostly useless companions who sometimes lack depth storywise.
- from a combat perspective, a strong tendency to impose a defensive style of fighting rather than an offensive one.
- finally, low variety in terms of environment places where the action takes place, as well as enemies attached to rooms.

However, that's about it in terms of what I agree with from their review. They complain a lot about the 'vulgar' character of the game, and about the fact that some of the characters swear, use slurs or have 'misogynistic' comments, which makes me wonder what kind of snowflake reviewed the game. If you get pissed off because a fictional character in a game swears or makes a comment you don't like, then you must not leave your house very often, or you must have very little contact with the real world.

The second thing I want to address is the ' short, buggy and empty ' statement about the game. Well, the thing is that this game is short, yes, and it's a bit frustrating because I was really curious to see how the rest of the story unfolds, but it's fine, the game offered a final choice to the player ( exactly like Greedfall ) that can be seen as an ending, the player either chooses to purify the world by fire and destroy everything because human nature itself is corrupt, or see the good in humanity and continue the fight against the lords. But anyway, despite the fact the game was short, the price was lower than other similar games from the beginning, so you can't expect a 30-hour campaign for such a cheap game to be honest. Regarding the ' buggy and empy ' part, well, I must say that in my 7 hours campaign I haven't encountered a single bug, now, whether that's because of patching or this was the case from the beginning, I cannot say. As for empty, well, there are quite a few things to do if you care to do them, you have sidequests, companion quests, romance missions and so on, as I said, you can't expect too much from a game this cheap.

It's a good game, if you like older RPGs or just want to try an interesting game of this genre, try it!

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1023 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 17.09.21 14:20

A Note For Linux Players: Please don’t bother with the native Linux port. I appreciate the effort developers put into making it, but it has flaws. While none of them are game-breaking problems, they certainly affect the quality of your overall comfort while playing the game. - I would suggest using Proton. I must also note that Linux saves and Proton saves WILL NOT be compatible and moving the save files crashes the game. So, if you’ve just played for a couple of hours, you might want to start over.

Recently, I’ve set myself up to play some Spiders games that I’ve been delaying for years. I’ve started with Mars: War Logs and I liked it. It’s an almost a decade old Science Fiction RPG that had very interesting gameplay mechanics. Bound By Flame, however, is a mechanically superior game that was made on an improved Silk Engine with more budget from the developer’s side. But, as you may know, it’s not a particularly well-received title by itself. I, obviously, beg to differ. Yet, I do understand the reasoning behind it. Science Fiction players and Fantasy players, while there are a lot of people who like both, expect different things. Bound By Flame might not have covered those grounds well.

When I said mechanically superior, I meant it. Bound By Flame is exactly an improvement upon Mars: War Logs on the engine-side and Equipment Management, while still annoying to some degree, is a better version of what was. I’m not a fan of the combat system, however I do like finding myself preparing before every set of battle sequences. Stances are a great way of making the player change combat style and pyromancy is just a blessing. There’s not much to it, really, it’s just what you expect from a combat system. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s fine. Target soft-lock works okay. It feels great to deal critical damage to your foes, it’s satisfying to lay traps and watch enemies blow-up. And coming from Mars: War Logs, it's excellent to have companions that aren’t just practice dummies stalling enemies while you’re spamming on others. They actually do stuff. Though, they aren’t “that” intelligent. Overall, an alright experience.

While lacking in quantity, music is quite alright; Sound is exactly what you would’ve expected; Voice-acting is great at times and not so great at others. Though, I believe this is a problem with dialogue writing. They obviously wanted to have some awkward moments with the main character being a savage mercenary. I mean, you’re a brute. You’re careless and forced to be responsible about your surroundings and yourself. Your selflessness could cause the demise of others at a certain moment of your life, because of what happened to you during the prologue.

This leads me to the Story. I don’t believe the story itself is anything extraordinary, I do agree that it’s a decent setting with enough world-building for the purposes of this game. However, writing is difficult at times. I understand that it’s a relatively small game, but the writing is all over the place. Not trying to say that it’s bad. It’s quite enjoyable at times, however there are sequences that are very unnecessary. For instance, Mathras is a great character. The voice-acting did do justice to it. But why do I fight Mathras? Why is my character acting like a child at times and not so vulgar later? There are some inconsistencies here and there like this and some story related sequences feel just awkward at best. Yet, it’s not bad story-telling; it’s just weird. Rushed. There isn’t much development to justify things. - I did enjoy the game so far, I’m not going to be nitpicky about it. It’s a fine story with decent development.

Still, I have a few problems with the game. But they all are quite situational. For starters, your companions can get stuck if there’s an obstacle just next to the door you’ve passed through. You can get this during Act II. It’s a mild inconvenience and can easily be fixed by either pulling a couple of enemies or just leaving and re-enter to the zone you’re in. One other inconvenience is Enter. Under unexplained situations, whenever I hit Enter while in dialogue, the game switched between Fullscreen and Windowed Mode. Now, this could be a problem with how the game window is handled under X11. I say X11, because Wayland will get you stuck on Intro movies whenever you launch the game, basically FPS drop on Intro movies will make you wait for minutes until it finishes the launch sequence. If there’s a way to disable Intro movies, I would do that if I were to play it on Wayland. However I’m on KDE, right now. But there shouldn’t be a performance impact.

Overall, I like Bound By Flame. I bought it on a discount and I’m still enjoying it. Though, there are times when I really hate the mechanics because of how unfair things could easily become. However, once I figure out how to fight back in certain situations, I feel good about how I won. And I believe that’s a good thing.

Should you buy this game? If you’re a fan of old-school RPG titles, why not? I think it’s a great title to buy at a discounted price and I believe it’s a quality time spent. Sure, you might get frustrated with certain mechanics or options. However, the fact that I deeply felt to keep playing this thing is an indicator, for me, that there’s value in it.

.edit: typo.

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421 Reviews

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947 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 13.09.21 04:22

What is Bound By Flame ?

When I firstly started playing this game I didnt know much about it, I had no idea what kind of rpg it was and didnt check videos or anything, after finishing it which took me around 12 hours the game's main campaign and tons of side stuff done I feel like its no a game worthy of a recommendation.

The studio behind this game spiders is a small studio that produces games with limited budget and Bound By Flame despites having limitations it tries to have some ambition and they try hard to give cool setpieces to the game and build a story but in this aspect the game falls apart the story is inconsistent and boring, the game lacks a cool villain and the whole concept of fighting an army of undead in a snowy setting is just played out by this point plus the character were very flat with a bad, forced voice acting, everything acted completely emotionless even thought Im sure the game tried to convey something emotional but didnt manage to either due to lack of resources or just skill, the soundtrack is good at least but if you go here expecting to care about its story just forget it, the game tries to have some moral/choice system tooo but everything is surface level.

Gameplay wise its also inconsistent, first the game is not really an open world game, the maps may be a bit open ended but its travel by chapters and after each chapter you cant go back to a previous area which means if you didnt complete something you will miss them and the level design got worse between the game's 3 chapters, first we had a fine labyrinth forest with a cool village then we moved into a boring and forgettable snowy field that had a small camp and in the last chapter it was just an outpost with some corridors, each new chapter the less interesting the game become, the level design is kinda shit, as for the combat it reminds me a bit of the witcher 2 the way it controls, here you can use two weapons a two handed sword and a pair of daggers but trust me you will just focus on the daggers because they are exploitable while the sword is broken and useless, theres some fire spell but they are just complimentary to the other weapons, you have a fixed character style so creating your build is not really something the game gives you as an opportunity.

Visuals-wise the game is also inconsistent sometimes it looks like Im looking into a cell-shaded surface because the game has a shading effect on certain surfaces or objects but other times its completely gone it just feels all over the place, the game doesnt knows if it wants to be cell shaded or realistic in its artistical design, talking about design the enemy design like I said previously is a bunch of undead so even the stuff you fight during combat is forgettable, everything about its gameplay from its unbalance and being pretty much a worse version of witcher 2's combat, from boring enemies and locations, to bad level design and repetitive quests made the whole game mediocre and forgettable, I can see that spiders studios tried to make a game that could stand out despite limited resources but by the end of the day they couldnt and thats a huge shame.

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48 Reviews

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2804 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 25.08.21 22:56

This game is a solid attempt at mimicking most Bioware RPG story games, but through a brawler/action platform. It does the story part... okay. It seems to be written by the same people that did Mars: War Logs, which is to suggest that the interactions and romances are stiff, almost as if written by a person with autism (saying as a person with autism). That being said, the action is solid, very reactive and rewarding to player intent. A lot of other action game developers could learn from this game about how to make combat systems that flow well, even if the enemy timing isn't pristine, because this game prioritizes your personal agency over animation completion.

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661 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 23.08.21 17:22

I bought this game in an electronics store at the same price as a water bottle. So my standards for this game were eh. So when I played it, it was actually pretty decent. Obviously, if I bought this at full price, I'm pretty sure I would've had a bad time, but since I got it at the price of literal drinking water, 7/10 needs more hot women to step one me.

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210 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 26.07.21 18:57

I like this game, it's definitely worth buying, if you have a wired controller or have no problem unplugging your mouse and keyboard every time you want to play. This game has had the issue with wireless controllers not working eventually, and the only fix that really works is unplugging m&k, but that's not really viable all the time. Devs know about this issue and have for the last 6 years and just don't really give a shit so hey if you want this game knowing that then I absolutely recommend it.

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597 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 04.07.21 19:03

Its simple. Loved the game. Better than witcher 3........

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268 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 27.06.21 08:08

My first buy at steam and its worth it. Takes time to adjust with the combat, but when you do, its fun

272 Produkte im Account

11 Reviews

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1183 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 26.06.21 09:20

As a budget ARPG it's ok. On the other hand the final boss is very much not ok.
It's corny but fun, overstays its welcome a bit in the last chapter but overall worth it.

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1365 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 19.06.21 03:48

Don't waste your time, this game is bad, very bad.

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656 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 26.05.21 13:08

Steam, please get an in-between button as I neither like nor dislike this game.

The reason I'm not giving this a thumbs up is simply for the fact that interaction with your companions is pretty much non existent. The game itself isn't too bad, the combat needs to be tweaked a fair bit if I'm honest but story and atmosphere are OK.

The graphical style works well as does the score, the voice acting for the most part is alright too. However I'm starting to get a little bored and I don't know why.

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259 Reviews

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1372 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 01.04.21 13:04

A step down from Mars War Logs in both story and style. The game becomes more tedious with its poor level design, non-stop backtracking and endlessly respawning mobs as you go on. A 45/100 effort.

The good

Combat and spell animations are good
So's the music
Some of the voice acting is OK

The bad

Bland level design
Respawning mobs
Janky movement
Story that's ho-hum
Lots of backtracking through these endlessly respawning mobs
Becomes more tedious as you move deeper into it
NPCs and companions you couldn't care less about
Essentially a fantasy re-skin of Mars War Logs - combat and crafting mechanics are almost identical

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831 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 23.03.21 01:48

underrated gem, fantastic smaller RPG.

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268 Reviews

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2690 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 17.03.21 14:57

Bound by Flame is a nice action RPG. It's not bad but not praiseworthy either.

The graphics and the music are very atmospheric. I like the story well enough but the NPCs and companions are really boring. The world feels small and empty and there is not a lot to explore.

My biggest issue is the combat. The fights are fluid and nice to look at and I especially like the different kind of combat styles you can use.... but the enemies are damage sponges. The fights are easy to win, just artificially drawn out due to the amount of health the enemies have. The gametime would be a lot shorter without these long fights. After reaching a certain level I avoided all fights.

And the last boss fight... I don't know anyone who enjoyed it. I know that I absolutely hated it.

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1281 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 06.03.21 09:22

Bought for 90% off. Very much worth it for that price. This game had got bad reviews at launch but it is actually a very decent game. I like the combat system, and the boss fights. The final boss fight is very bad but rest of the game was decent. The story was mildly interesting but it could have been told in a much better way.Also the game does not lock you in a specific class. You can freely switch between classes on press of a button. The graphics are dated but not bad. The game is around 15 hours which is considered short by most but I found it perfect length as I do not prefer very long games. Overall a decent to good game.

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914 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 24.01.21 13:13

tl;dr

Worthwhile action RPG offering continuing developer's efforts to do Bioware with mere fraction of their budget. Bound by Flame is definitely not perfect making this a middling recommendation because I still liked the overall package. As Ice Lords rampage across the world and last hope to resist goes bust our unlikely protagonist gets the power of an ancient demon to stem the tide. Real question is who controls whom and what does “saving the world” mean. Combat built upon the foundation of methodically wearing enemies down versus button mashing and extensive gear customization for that personal flair are diminished by game's rushed story that needed more time to breathe. Companions getting more than token mentions at the finale would have helped as well.

Full Review

We have a doomed world of Vertiel where Ice Lords lead armies of dead walkers set on destroying civilization and become supreme overlords of the frozen hell that would remain. Last-ditch resistance comes in the form of a scholarly order known as Red Scribes. Their objective is to attend an ancient Temple and enact a ritual supposed to infuse them with power to match Ice Lord's own so they can end the struggle, achieving what everyone else has seemingly failed at. It is for this purpose that they hire the Freeborn Blades mercenaries who are in turn supposed to guard their back while the long ritual is underway As befitting every quality RPGs things don't go exactly according to plan leaving our protagonist aka company's powder master Vulcan to inherit the mysterious power and after fending off a surprise attack by the Deadwalker army it is quickly revealed he now has a fiery demon residing within as sort of split personality. One that's desperate to take over and realize his own agenda. By all accounts this jacked as hell demon appears to have some ownership over the world and old grudges to settle with Ice Lords themselves.

While I'm on the subject of Vulcan I was surprised to see our lead is actually customizable. Not only visually, but also in the male or female department. Considering there are four romancable companions in the game it would appear the split goes 2/2 plus one weird immortal corpse-looking dude that doesn't count. Part of me almost wishes I played as a female because male Vulcan has this weird, I don't know how to describe it honestly, edgy doofus quality to him. Someone playing up the “hardass mercenary in a grim dying world” act without necessarily having the emotional range or direction to guide the voice acting performance. There are moments of brilliance with Vulcan vs Demon interplay and how during some scenes you can't exactly tell who's in charge, though.

I'll get around to my problems with companions and how they tie into game's lack of certain systems as such later on, but they weren't created equal narratively either. Your “normal” side has a cute mage, outcast ranger and stoic warrior to fill the niches you can imagine on your lonesome and they're not BAD in any real sense. They simply don't have much to work with beyond the archetype along with their blink-and-miss-them side quests. On the “weird” side you have a wild mage and aforementioned immortal spirit/thing/being currently inhabiting a decrepit body. Edwen and Mathras respectively are way more interesting simply due to their knowledge of relevant matters going beyond the immediate “oh no, Lords of Ice are going to kills us!” panic mode. Also, if you wanted even bitchier Morrigan you'll be pleased to hear our silver-haired witch fits the role. Regardless of whether you like the cast or not you'll realize they run out of things to talk about real fast and devolve into enemy distractions.

As far as the story and plot structure are concerned I have to echo the same thoughts you'll hear throughout the rest of the review – it simply suffers due to there not being enough of it. You have to keep in mind this was, more or less, an action take on Dragon Age and having ~15 hours to work with just isn't enough. Prologue and Chapter 1 are alright as after a bombastic opening you're left in the swamp to gather your bearings, learn about the world, pick up most of the characters, etc. As you move forward you can tell on a gut level things were cut or fast forwarded through. If not for some side missions and enemy roadblocks Bound by Flame could almost be finished in under ten hours. This is ESPECIALLY obvious as you reach the final Chapter when game starts throwing earlier bosses as regular enemies at you and there's barely any story threads to follow up on before you're in front of the penultimate bad guy to whoop his ass with ease. Then you reach the final boss and... well, that should be reserved for a talk about mechanics.

With previous experience with Spiders' game design in mind I can say it's still in the same ballpark. You have your light and heavy charge attack, but this is the kind of combat system where button mashing is discouraged simply due to over-committing usually ending up badly, especially early on when you lack statistical benefits of investing in skill trees. Doubly so when you factor in clear enemy types to dispose off. Archers are almost always a priority if only because they go down easily, but the likes of sword & board shield users ended up being the bane of my existence because they just won't die. Speaking of which you have three skill trees to work with; Warrior, Ranger and Pyromancer. Whichever you choose just keep in mind no matter what you're still in the thick of it wading among enemies. This isn't really the type of game where you stay back nuking while leaving your companions to occupy enemies. Unless you really enjoy burning through mana potions and leaving them on guard duty hoping specialized enemies don't wreck them. Problem being you can give your companions instructions on how to act, but that's it. There's a lack of fine, direct control over their abilities/equipment so they are what you see in terms of combat capabilities. Usually I was content with just setting them in defensive mode if they kept dying too often. Spellcasters were generally more useful for their gimmicks. This is one of those things that could be game altering on high difficulty with levels usually leaning on somewhat tight quarters only rarely open enough for positioning to factor in and dagger-based “stealth” merely functioning as a free opening attack, though.

Somewhat controversial decision game went with was to only include cumbersome two-handed weapons and lightning-fast daggers as options beyond pyromancy and crossbow, for those once-in-a-blue-moon situations. On my own end I made a conscious choice that hopefully hasn't embittered the game to me when I choose poorly. Basically, daggers are superior and it took me until the finale to realize that fact after I'd already mastered the Warrior tree. Whether you go with great swords, warhammers or axes it's never fast enough compared to stabby-stabby combined with poisons and crazy critical rates. I dread to think what a fully upgraded Ranger tree is like so maybe there's replay potential there? This feeds into what I mentioned earlier about the final boss and how I almost threw my controller across the room. He's like nothing you've faced in the game up to that point and seemed like a counter build for my great sword wielding half-demon Vulcan. I ultimately remembered I was, in fact, the powder master and smoked his ass with some previously built traps.

So yeah, there's crafting and much to my own surprise it's actually meaningful. Outside of health and mana potions on top of bolts and traps, you will primarily be using crafting to modify weapons and armor pieces. Seeing as there are visible as well as property changes this is indeed neat and makes it truly YOUR gear. I got the impression it was sufficient to increase damage/armor on normal difficulty to get by.

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9 Reviews

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635 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 10.01.21 11:12

Games good,kinda glitchy and the combat takes time to get used to but still a fun time

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1104 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 08.01.21 01:34

fun combat, nice story. Nothing amazing but worth playing

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589 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 05.01.21 11:25

Its a good action rpg. A bit too much cutscenes but thankfully you can speed things up by hitting escape! A bit hard combat at times but with a bit of grinding and levelling up its quite satisfying to cut through enemies.

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949 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 28.12.20 05:53

I love this game so far and I really wish there were an opportunity to revise and polish it up. The characters are great, the script is hilarious and the environment is fun and pretty. It's straightforward and just the right thing for anyone looking for a fantasy jaunt similar to Dragon Age or Mass Effect. While the gameplay itself is alright, I've been playing with mods because I don't have time for the grind, but it certainly improves and smooths out some of the gameplay. 10/10 would play again for alternate endings.

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1227 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 10.12.20 19:59

Bound by boring combat but redemeed by an interesting story.

Positive:
+ Graphically looks good, animations are fine and environments look ok
+ Story is interesting, and it's probably the only thing that kept me playing
+ Interesting companions, though with a limited story line and quests

Negative
- Boring combat, it's dull and feels like a choir
- Monsters auto regenerate their health to 100% once they leave you
- Archers can shoot their arrows from behind with a perfect accuracy... skills !
- Skills feel underwhelming and uninteresting.
- Monsters respawn, making it even more boring than it is. Same monsters at the same place, incredibly predictable and annoying.
- Incredible difficulty spike with the last boss. I barely used potions, but here I had to use 20+ potions, all traps and had to craft few more, just to get past him. Makes me wonder what devs were thinking ?

Overall, if you want to play a bit of fighting game with a good story, this may work. It does get a bit boring in the end, so beware.

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156 Reviews

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1191 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 26.11.20 13:05

Let's be honest here, Bound By Flame is not a good action-RPG for many reasons. And yet, for 2 bucks, it offers a nice story, good characters, big boobs and a god-like Soundtrack.

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297 Reviews

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435 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 27.10.20 13:49

A Gothic like with less in-town blabber and a more interesting combat system
However
the looting system isn't as intricate nor interesting as other games of this type; mostly reliant on enemy drops and a few, easy to find, chest along linear paths.

Like 'Eternity The Last Unicorn' Bosses are time wasters
intentionally impossible until your character has completed an expected amount of side quests leading to them; as opposed to just keeping the bosses' areas out of reach until prereqs are satisfied or, at least, making those prereqs known.

-Stiff
-On-a-rail
-Shallow
-Unfair expectation of the player

+Combat system

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565 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 22.10.20 09:22

Good action rpg game.

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520 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 15.09.20 16:01

Underrated game,but this game was good
I like the combat system, dual dagger is absolutely fun

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21 Reviews

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1718 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 27.08.20 02:33

Highly underrated game, can't understand the mixed reviews for it really. Decent graphics and effects, outstanding music and atmosphere, combat that requires focus, timing and skill to master, interesting characters and story, enough to keep you engaged from start to finish. Play with a controller.
The game borrows concepts from RPGs such as Gothic, The Witcher and Dragon Age and it does it fairly well.
I guess people compared this game to those or other big titles, but considering the game was made by a small studio with a small budget, they delivered. There must be a middle ground between AAA and indie titles, and this game is exactly that.
Buy it cheap if you're unsure, but I'd really suggest playing this, you'll be pleased as I was.

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1256 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 23.08.20 23:51

fun over all simple combat bad voice acting

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1176 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 23.08.20 11:26

If your expectations aren't to high you can have fun with this title. It's no Dragon Age Origins, but it's a decent RPG to sink 15-20 hours into.

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63 Reviews

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2319 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 18.08.20 03:49

I remember back when I played this It was fun. 8 out of 10. I really can't believe it only got a 56. Play with controller type game. Those playing with keyboard probably rated it low.

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747 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 16.08.20 15:18

buy it on sale trust me the story isn't anything special but it will provide u with a couple of hours of fun
ps double daggers are fun as all hell

139 Produkte im Account

21 Reviews

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3403 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 10.08.20 12:59

Before the Witcher 3, I played this in 2015. Yes this game has problems but it was fun. Passed it again for the fifth time as a nostalgia.

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1218 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 27.07.20 08:59

Bound by Flame wants to be a mix of Dragon Age 2, The Witcher 2 with some Dark Souls combat elements, and it's actually not bad, huge kudos to Spiders company, i am sure that with bigger budget Bound by Flame could have been the next Witcher.
The story is interesting enough, nothing more, nothing less, protagonist is very cool, you get to play as a mercenary possessed by a flame demon, which grants you all sorts of fire abilities, and the choices you make throughout the campaign (good/evil) affect the way your character looks, if you go for the evil route you get too look like a badass horned demon Metal Gear Solid 5 style, and this is awesome.
Some of the characters are very interesting, Mathras and Edwen (Who badly wants to be Morrigan from Dragon Age).
Combat is a lot of fun, and a lot more challenging than I am used to from other RPGs, having souls like dodge and roll / block elements.

If you can not wait for the next Dragon Age/Witcher, definitely try Bound By Flame.

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625 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 04.07.20 10:58

The game is not perfect and it has its flaws. Though, you can see that Spider developer are trying their best, and you can understand that it is a solid authentic try by mid-tier developers. If you ask me, we need more guys like these developing experiences for us. Gaming is not only about the 3A games. The game is recommended, thank you Spiders

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44 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 17.06.20 01:41

Should have read this review on GamingOnLinux before buying this game: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/bound-by-flame-an-impressive-looking-action-rpg-now-on-steamos-linux.6319/. 5 years later and they still haven't fixed the dual monitor bug. Will be sure to exclude Spiders and Focus Home Interactive in the future from my list of purchases. The reviewer managed to eventually get it working, but in the 20 minutes or so I fiddled with the game and config file it just kept going back to half a screen.

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26 Reviews

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820 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 01.06.20 21:15

This game is an anomaly for me, this is a game with some really REALLY bad issues, like the combat being fucking awful, but regardless of these issues I still find myself liking this game. I haven't been the biggest fan of Spiders, after trying to play not only this game but their other titles like The Technomancer and Greedfall, I've pretty much conceded that they have no idea how to make a good combat system that's fun and not a pain in the ass to manage. Bound By Flame's combat is really REALLY bad, and it's flaws are prevalent throughout the entire game. I usually never deviate from my playstyle when playing RPGs, I have a blast playing a tanky warrior that dishes out justice with a giant two handed sword, but this game makes that warrior class probably the weakest of all the classes. The developers behind this game, Spiders, have a tendency of making the magic classes the most broken classes in their games, and it's no different here. Hell, Bound By Flame practically punishes you for playing as a warrior at different times within the game. How could the game punish someone for playing and investing heavily into one of the 3 classes? Well if you've browsed discussions and looked at other people's reviews, it's here where I'm going to talk about the game's final boss and how he's the most broken, unfair, and downright rage inducing boss I've ever faced in my history of playing video games.

I don’t have a problem with a difficult boss, but this boss is something far different. The main issue is that this specific boss completely exploits the horrendous combat system and it makes him almost unbeatable if you’re heavy in the warrior class, which I was. There was literally no possible way for me to complete this game when I first fought him, especially since the parry system, which is important for the warrior class, was utterly useless as the final boss had basically no cooldown with his attacks. If it wasn’t for that explosive trap trick, I probably would’ve never beaten the game, and I’m glad I did because I beat the scummy boss in a pretty funny fashion actually, and that was that.

But luckily I’m reasonable, and I’m not going to review a game solely based on the frustration of a broken and unfair boss fight. Everything else is average, if not pretty good. I actually liked the story and lore that the game had, basically season 8 of Game of Thrones if it was fleshed out more with the addition of a demonic conflict that the player must live with. I thought the characters and the dialogue were alright, nothing spectacular, but it is amusing playing as a hotheaded brat that overtime becomes the key to beating these Ice Lord cucks that are supposedly all powerful. Overall, I think Spiders has the potential of making a great RPG someday, they always manage to make games with interesting concepts that lack any real substance and like I said earlier, a good fucking combat system. Bound By Flame is probably my favorite one of their games, it speaks to me more than the others I’ve tried out. The game deserves its mixed reviews though I won’t lie there. Buy it at your own risk.

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2443 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 10.04.20 16:19

Certianly a Dark Souls 'esk game. great combat and leveling system. And the story is preety good too.

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641 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 29.03.20 22:39

So... where to start?

When I first played Bound By Flame, I really didn't like it, I would even go as far as to say I ever so slightly hated it. But after finally finishing it and just digesting the experience a bit, I would say i really quite like it, but it definitely has it's problems. Enemies have a lot of health and do quite a bit of damage at all difficulty levels, which in turn leads to one of the three main combat styles, the ranger, which focuses on stealth and quick dual wielded daggers, feeling rather useless as it lacks the durability of the warrior style given its extra health regen and generally higher damage output and knockdown power.

And the first hour or so of the game does drag quite a bit but once you get to the elven village and can switch companions at will, everything starts falling into place real quick. Character motivations are perhaps a bit shallow and two-dimensional, but they all work and they play off of each other quite well. No character or story beat is revolutionary but it all leads to a fun and rather interesting story.

Bound By Flame isn't revolutionary in any way, but it works, even if it is rather janky and weird at times. If you enjoy kinda weird and janky games I'd say give this game a go, just be aware that the game is far from perfect.

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68 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 05.03.20 13:23

Bound by Flame is a triumph of the human spirit, a true tour de force of RPG's. Spider games honest yet luminous prose shows what a powerhouse they truly are. Demon is raw and relatable, flawed yet earnest. Full of poignant and heartbreaking moments, this book is not to be missed.

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471 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 22.02.20 18:45

Gothic meets Fable? Some fights can be long and the combat isn't the most exciting, but I really enjoy the game so far. Fun RPG with all of the classic elements.

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811 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 09.02.20 16:33

I get the reviews being so mixed. Graphics aren't the best, story is so-so, characters are just fair, voice acting is hit and miss, combat is peculiar...but the game has a charm to it. A dash of Origins and a splash of Hell Boy makes the experience pretty unique. On the positive side it doesn't overstay its welcome, the music is really good, choices really matter, the mechanics are easy to learn and the game play is fun and keeps you invested. I really like it but I can see where some may not, 7/10. Awesome for 7 bucks...

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1049 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 03.02.20 05:12

Bound by Flame is a lot like a writer's first draft of a novel. It has the bones of being something good, but it needs soooooooo much editing and revision. I'll hit the points here.

Pros:

Decent world with some interesting lore.
Some of the companions are actually quite well done.
Combat has the foundation of a good system.
Graphics are fine (remember, this isn't a recent game).
Enemies, though not particularly varied, are unique looking and make you want to know more about them
Sound is fine. Music too, though some of the score choices are... odd, especially when you get late in the game.
The Cons:

Whoa boy, here we go. Story just... stops. Like, stops. Imagine if you were watching Star Wars and you jumped from the beginning of Empire to the end of Return of the Jedi. That's what it feels like. So much is just glossed over with no real reasoning. You never 'see' a lot of the stuff that goes on, and the stuff you do interact with happens way too quickly. For instance, defeating the second to last boss, who is built up over half-ish of the game's length, just... happens. Like, you walk in, beat a guy up, and that's it. The game feels extremely rushed.

Remember how I said combat has a good foundation? Well that's all it is, a foundation. Piled on top of that foundation is manure. Lots and lots of manure. Enemies have waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much health, you do waaaaaaaaay too little damage, and the basic combat systems, like parrying, blocking, riposte, etc, all fail because nearly every fight is 4-5 enemies at a time. Even bosses have constant additional monsters. You never get to enjoy the combat. Ever. It goes from being an interesting idea to an immediate frustration, and by the time the third hour or so comes around you'll be knocking the difficulty down to easy. Not because it's hard, mind you, but because you're tired of every single enemy taking about a minute to kill (yes, with upgraded weapons).

Companions are interesting. Pretty much every other character is not. In fact, it's not clear if you're even supposed to care about any of the other character's. They die off-screen constantly, barely interact with you, and often react to things you've done in a manner that is... confusing, to say the least. Which leads to the next big problem - your choices don't really matter all that much. They play up some of the choices as big things, even warning you before them, but the consequences of the choice almost never feel meaningful. There was maybe one choice I found to be meaningful, but even that had no payoff in the end as it was an implied romance with a character (who then I never see again after a point late in the story).

Rpg mechanics start off promising, but quickly are exposed as shallow. Your level-ups come fast and hard early on, but you realize almost right away that they are meaningless. You're character barely gets stronger, and, after a certain point, you simply stop getting stronger altogether. I finished the game with multiple points sitting in my feat category because there was nothing worth putting them into.

----
All in all, Bound by Flame is the kind of game I'd say you should try if you can get it for less than 5$. It had so much potential and you can see the bones of what could have been a good game, but like every first draft, it really needed a good two or three revisions.

5/10

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2848 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 06.01.20 04:03

if you go into this game not trying to compare it to other games in the genre you will like this and anything wrong with it most other games will have will have similar problems 7.50/ 10.0

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2165 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 22.11.19 07:11

I am thinking this is the first of the RPG genre that spider started with. Then Mars War Logs, and Technomancer. The story is ok, though I would have like to see more companion conversations (the fixed this with War Logs and Technomancer). The fighting is challenging, you have to really work on your counters and dodges, and I would recommend quick saving ofter.

Overall for their first game in the genre is is pretty good, though it shows the earlier generation of graphics, with some bugs here and there. The story is very linear. But for 6.99, it was well worth it. Playing through took about 13 hours. Check out my review on technomancer, I think that was the best of their 3 games. But if you are looking for a care bear story game, where you can hack and slash and not worry about death, this game is not for you.

*tips for last battle*
This was one of the hardest last boss battles I have done. So here is some tips.

1) Don't waste gold on buying gear, just buy health and mana potions
2) Before going to castle battle, go back to hidden camp and buy out health potions
3) Sell Tainted gems through out game, they are worth 1k each. You still can get enough for
upgrading gear.
4) I would recommend at least 4800g to enter the world heart to make the healing potions.
Make 20 at at a time.
5) Last battle is throwing fireballs, and doing a counter when his hands glow and he leaps at
you, counter and get out, then dodge his magic balls and throw fireballs at him.

Don't get frustrated it took me like 25 times to learn the pattern, so hang in there.

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2094 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 20.10.19 16:41

It's a bit of a flawed game in some aspects but as a whole I think it's solid. Great world building, good lore and fitting atmosphere. The combat was at first weird I thought but eventually it turn to being quite fun. The other weird part is some of the story points and conversations. Sometimes the just suddenly completely turn one way and say weird unlogical things. Anyhooo i recommend it.

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1342 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 25.09.19 01:56

I went through all Spiders games except Greedfall so far, and this one had the better pacing. I enjoyed the others too, but they always got boring somewhere along the way and overstayed their welcome. This one is a shorter game, which I appreciate because it has you moving forward most of the time instead of all the backtracking that the others force on you to inflate playtime. Technically it starts off feeling rough around the edges, especially due to janky animations, but once you settle in that feeling goes away.

Unfortunately this is also the only one I didn't beat. The final boss in this one represents biggest difficulty spike that I felt in these games. Not only that but it's also painfully long, with multiple stages, against a damage sponge. This is will be especially difficult depending on your choices in building up your character. After a few attempts I just decided I didn't care enough about beating it to suffer through as many tries as I would probably need. Writing this review is sort of my farewell to this game, at this point.

Combat is similar, but more difficult than in the other games. I didn't find cookie cutter skills as easily as I did in the others, plus, the main character is very squishy throughout the whole game. Things can get very challenging especially in the beginning, after the tutorial mission, before you start advancing in your skill trees of choice, but it became far easier the further along I got. Your companions aren't very useful here either, other than serving as a distraction. You can (and probably should) combine melee, spells and traps to progress through the game.

Character progression feels interesting with multiple meaningful skills to look forward to. There's also a crafting system to create potions, traps and bolts, that is mildly interesting as well. You can also use crafting materials to improve your equipment, but that starts off looking much more interesting than it actually is.

The story is alright. There are some interesting bits here and there, but nothing truly mindblowing. It does enough to keep things moving forward. The most interesting part of it is a mystery that involves the main character, about which the player will work towards taking sides on. The lack of information about it can make these choices feel like a real dilemma.

The protagonist is a bashful, confident mercenary, whose lines are mostly generic, but sometimes can be downright hilarious. It's a shame the quality of his writing is so inconsistent because I truly love some parts of it. As for other characters, they're mostly completely forgettable except maybe one or two. There are optional romanceable characters too, but that's hardly worth mentioning. The one I experienced had no lead-up whatsoever and was completely underdeveloped. The context in which it happened was so jarring that it was unironically funny. Voice acting is hit and miss but it did the job just fine.

Objectively speaking this is an average, if not mediocre game, but subjectively speaking I actually quite enjoyed my time with it. I thought it was a solid, tight package, for a low budget title, that did enough right to keep me interested until the end. I doubt it'll leave a lasting impression though.

75% ePrison

61.75% Online-Magazine (4)

Rating auf Steam Ausgeglichen

65.42% 1241 656

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Release:09.05.2014 Genre: Rollenspiel Entwickler: Spiders Games Vertrieb: Focus Home Interactive Engine: Silk engine Kopierschutz:keine Infos Franchise:keine Infos

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