Unable to post a review of Bound By Flame, so here it is:

[Winstontaneous]

Where to begin with this one? I know this game has mixed reviews, I know a lot of people are comparing it to other games (specifically Dark Souls, but I'll draw my own comparisons later) and I know that the game has a lot of issues, however I've chosen to give my approval of this game simply because it can provide a lot of fun at times dispite its shortcomings.

Genre: This is an ARPG, focusing on melee combat (2 styles, with a third pyromancy option) in which you will face the ravenous undead, poisonous insects, Icy Liches, behemoths, and a myriad bevy of foes, and frequently get your ♥♥♥ handed to you.

Plot: You are the Vulcan, a mercenary that enlisted under the pseudonym "Vulcan" (Chosen Undead, Dragonborne, Shepard, The Boss, etc.) - and this is actually a good way to work around voice acting while allowing customized characters (at least in name only. The game offers about 30 configurations of customizable characters) as all the NPC's will call you 'Vulcan' but your dialogue window will show the name you have selected. (It's a canon work-around, like Summoners in League of Legends, there are very few examples of something like this done so well.)

The game does have a hand-holdy tutorial level that can still kick your ♥♥♥.

Rather than having a Dark Souls-like system of requiring you to restart from certain points, this is one of those frequent autosave games, however saving will be disabled in most combat situations, which makes this game feel more like Skyrim or Dishonored. Built-in-autosaves means that the game developers make the gameplay very freaking hard in the manner of DkS2 - you will very frequently be outnumbered, and this game's combat system uses an interrupt system (% interrupt = poise) so you can find yourself stunlocked and it won't depend on the difficulty setting. I have tried Hawk and Captain settings, or Normal and Hardcore. The game offers four levels, Recruit-Hawk-Buffalo-Captain, and this mainly controls enemy AI, which is not entirely where the game's difficulty lies.

The game's difficulty lies in resource restrictions, and you will frequently grind for potions, which are readily available, but even the basic upgrade materials are scarce, and you will quickly find missions asking you to sacrifice the upgrade materials to the NPC's, making it even harder to upgrade and not die 5 times to clear each fight that follows an autosave. The game stresses that 'Vulcan' is a strategic trapper/scout, yet all the cutscenes will only show him/her using their 'main weapon' - broadsword, axe, or hammer, and the story also emphasizes the relationship with the 'demon' that enables pyromancy abilities. I have chosen my playthrough as a trapper/assassin, and it can be a very devastating playstyle as soon as level 11, against most bosses just spamming the x-x-b combo is enough to get you through.

As soon as you get to the point that you encounter bone golems, you may want to ragequit this game, based on the fact that it is literally neatly impossible to take them down. They revert to their spirit form and regenerate 20% of their health every time you are barely able to whittle them down. Without your NPC companion, for whom you are responsible for keeping alive, these mundane enemies are nearly impossible, no matter what difficulty setting. I will also note here that your NPC companions will not regenerate their HP until you complete a combat scenario. While it's great that you don't have to manage perma-death, it's still annoying to have 1-2 enemies standing and a "mostly-dead NPC companion that will not rise until you manage somehow to figure out that the X combo is better than the Y combo.

I don't like the combat's interruption-based system, because it halts gameplay and makes the controls seem irresponsive, and you will never have the resources to just grind up and buy your way through every fight by placing a myriad of traps because their construction is too expensive. Luckily your NPC friends have a good range of classes (Healer, melee tank, ranged archer, disabler) to suit your playstyle, and they are all available at the hub town, aptly named 'Valve-nor.' Until later when you go through a myriad of hub towns.

I have a love/hate thing for the Vulcan, as compared to the Dragonborne or the Chosen Undead, you don't get a silent protagonist in this game, far from it. Even Commander Shepherd is not as big a sarcastic ball of snark as the Vulcan is. Occasionally entertaining/usually irritating, the Vulcan has a lot to say about damn near everything. Both genders have (nearly) the same lines, and the same tonality. Coupling that with the very limited character creation (Even Saints Row and Mass Effect have done better) don't expect to slip into the role of the Vulcan, rather you will be playing this game wanting your character to do well, but ultimately being frustrated by the difficulty of the combat system's unwillingness to comply with your goals.

The story is a bit shallow, and most of the characters are seemingly more hollow than the undead they are fighting, yet the game has a certain tongue-in-cheek sense of humor that is not too on-the-nose. One of the early missions is called 'None Shall Pass' and while Elves exist in this universe, Dwarves, Dragons, and Goblins, are deemed absurd. However, walking the line between fulfilling a video game trope, and being bland homogenized crap is a difficult task, and the game devs could have done much worse. They still weave a story with unexpected twists; the combat, though flawed, is beatable, and/or exploitable.

Love it or hate it, you cannot kill NPC's. The game is rather linear and requires the NPC's to live and be interactable, thankfully not plaguing you with NPC companion perma-death, so every NPC companion will revive after fights, and you don't have to take care of their health/items. Party management is non-existant, as you can typically only have one NPC accompany you, though there are exceptions. The game has more in common with Dishonored, Skyrim, and the Tomb Raider nee Uncharted reboot games than it does with Dark Souls series, yet gladly doesn't take itself seriously enough to warrant the comparison either.


Pros:
Excellent visuals worthy of its home system the PS4
Always offers a challenge, though with an auto-save system
If not fully realized, it offers a high-fantasy experience, emulating Skyrim, Dark Souls, or Dishonored.
Voice acting is frequently humorous.

Cons:
Voice acting could be better
Characters and plot are rather shallow
Game can become a grind for resources
Soundtrack can be invasive, annoying, and break immersion
Numerous graphical glitches plague the PC port, (at least on my computer) with seemingly no support from the game devs, that can be fixed easily by Ctrl-Esc the game and re-entering, though it happens a lot
If playing with controller, no escaping cutscenes that will frequently be repeated due to autosave/difficulty (otherwise hit esc)
Another annoying glitch is that I can seemingly never post a review of this game on steam. Seriously, I have 30+ reviews. This is the only game that doesn't allow it.

Final Verdict: 6.7/10 - Against all odds, if you are willing to endure a flawed combat and itemization system, you will find a humorous and interesting ARPG worth hours of your time.

[kaay]

Your review confirms my little theory that the unusual combat and difficulty system have something to do with low-ish review scores.
Unusual combat and difficulty because to my knowledge there is no other game out there that pits you against a group of assorted enemies that are not "cannon fodder" and that require some strategy to defeat.
The bone golems are not hard if you use flaming weapon buff, and the enemies interrupting you is a clue to move your bu*t out of there. The game basically forces you to move a lot especially since there is no invincibility frame when being hit so if you are in the middle of a group of enemies and they all hit you at once, you will insta-die because each and every hit will count.

As for the not being able to post a review, that happened to me a lot. Sometimes its because Steam doesnt like a certain phrase or word or special sign. It could also be because your review is too long, you will get no warning message but the review will not post. I find that extremely annoying so i usually dont even bother posting reviews anymore.

[Softspokenman]

not really sure if his animations are to long or his movement to slow but the fighting is not hard
it is just frustrating having to constantly slow your moves down to match his speed

its like playing a good fighting game but your hero is stuck at half speed

[Winstontaneous]

Originally posted by kaay:

Your review confirms my little theory that the unusual combat and difficulty system have something to do with low-ish review scores.
Unusual combat and difficulty because to my knowledge there is no other game out there that pits you against a group of assorted enemies that are not "cannon fodder" and that require some strategy to defeat.
The bone golems are not hard if you use flaming weapon buff, and the enemies interrupting you is a clue to move your bu*t out of there. The game basically forces you to move a lot especially since there is no invincibility frame when being hit so if you are in the middle of a group of enemies and they all hit you at once, you will insta-die because each and every hit will count.

As for the not being able to post a review, that happened to me a lot. Sometimes its because Steam doesnt like a certain phrase or word or special sign. It could also be because your review is too long, you will get no warning message but the review will not post. I find that extremely annoying so i usually dont even bother posting reviews anymore.

I don't know if it's the mark of a good strategy game if the only thing I need to change in order to finally be able to kill bone golems is to buff my weapon before laying into them with the same x-x-y combo as before. I don't have much trouble with dodging, usually my timing is good enough to receive the riposte damage buff, must be from all that practice playing Dark Souls.

The other problem with the game is the graphics glitches that happen every time I load up the game. You can even see them in my screenshots and the saved states of the game display the glitches, too. There hasn't been any support from the game devs to help me resolve the issue, either, so it's up to me to slog through constantly pausing and breifly Ctrl-Esc out of the game for about 30 seconds before popping back in to resume where I was. It is brutally tedious.

[kaay]

Originally posted by Heartless Jack:

I don't know if it's the mark of a good strategy game if the only thing I need to change in order to finally be able to kill bone golems is to buff my weapon before laying into them with the same x-x-y combo as before. I don't have much trouble with dodging, usually my timing is good enough to receive the riposte damage buff, must be from all that practice playing Dark Souls.

Its about finding a solution for a problem. There are other solutions too, like using fireball attacks or using the interrupt on your hammer.
Bound by Flame is much simpler in this respect than Dark Souls which requires a lot more "problem solving" and is a lot more complex, but still BbF requires paying a bit of attention to the skilltrees and the weapon stats improvements.

You mentioned in your review that you grinded for potions or bolts or traps. Im not trying to brag (im not even remotely a skilled player and i usually dont like difficult games) but i almost never had to use potions in BbF until the final boss which was....rage quit material to say the least.
If you have any intention of finishing this game, save all your bolts and potions for the final boss.

To me BbF feels more like an arcade game than anything else. The combat is fast, frantic and exciting, the RPG elements of the combat are kept to a minimum so they dont distract from the action. BbF is arcade combat mixed with a good story and some RPG elements.

I think part of the problem is that players were expecting something along the lines of Kingdom of Amalur and Dark Souls and its not like these two games at all.

Originally posted by Heartless Jack:

The other problem with the game is the graphics glitches that happen every time I load up the game. You can even see them in my screenshots and the saved states of the game display the glitches, too. There hasn't been any support from the game devs to help me resolve the issue, either, so it's up to me to slog through constantly pausing and breifly Ctrl-Esc out of the game for about 30 seconds before popping back in to resume where I was. It is brutally tedious.

Yeah it sounds like a very annoying problem.
Never had this issue with BbF, the only games that gave me similar glitches were Stalker Clear Sky (but was doing that very rarely), and Witcher 3 (which i "fixed" by turning nvidia hair physics off).

I dont know if you searched the forums for similar issues or if you googled it, but if there are not many other similar complaints out there, chances are the issue is somewhere in your system.