In a modern age of gaming we're still lacking traditional RPGs besides the overused ones. So if you're actually looking for something freshIn a modern age of gaming we're still lacking traditional RPGs besides the overused ones. So if you're actually looking for something fresh but at the same time traditional then take a gander at Bound by Flame. The story sets up an ancient ritual being held in an ancient ruin area, the ritual goes wrong and the main protagonist gets a demon stuck in his head. Throughout the game the demon will bribe you to make different decisions, and every decision you make slowly turns your character into a demon, similar to Fable. You get different boosts and abilities from these decisions. These choices affect the story and multiple endings. The story is told through NPC dialogue through side characters and main characters. Sadly the main cast isn't that good and there isn't enough variety in the voice acting, with the same voices being reused. But the writing as I've heard others complain about is surprisingly great, it's very natural talking. The main characters are interesting as well. Sadly I can't say the same for the side characters - they feel all the same. There are many memorable moments to do with story and progression and choices and some may argue the motion capture is bad but it brings out old style voice acting and writing in a good way. That's how I felt. Since the story is told so traditionally and lovingly it overall is a very compelling narrative that lasts the entire game and on of the few games you can talk about the story for more than 5 minutes. The art style is stylish, so is the music and locations, and enemy design. The armour sets, loot, weapons, and affects look good. The game plays like traditional games should be like in our modern genre. There's no specific special moves to remember or combining. You are given a few starting attacks and need to know when to use them at different times depending on the situation, light attacks, heavy attacks, block, slow motion parry, backstep, sprint, lock on, and jumping attacks. The different skill trees range from Swordplay, Daggerplay, to Pyromancy. The Pyromancy powers come from the demon consuming you for instance you'll gain additional fire damage from fire spells but lose some armour defense. The whole game is about timing and adjustment. This is a fairly linear RPG, sadly the environments are claustrophobic and small, the gameplay suffers from this because when enemies do so much damage per hit and your in a tight area it can feel unfair because you can't avoid some attacks, especially when you constantly go back and forth on enemies health. Even for a linear RPG, the skill trees feel the same since there's not much to go on, making it not matter which skill tree you ultimately pick as your build always feels the same. It has some padded moments such as backtracking to collect random objects that are mandatory to progress and sadly most of the experience you want to avoid battles because they're not very exciting. Also another frustrating thing is how fast the enemies respawn. You can run through most of it however if you have already done it. The upgrading system is good and has some variety. One thing you always want to experience though throughout the whole game is the more juicy parts of the story that don't disappoint. There's a lot of story here to keep you occupied. And the multiple endings are quite awesome including the feeling you get with the escalated tension near the end, especially how the final boss fight is a how a final boss fight should be. There are a lot of sidequests but sadly a lot of them revolve around backtracking. But some you do for the closure of the journey. I recommend anyone like me who is desperate but not in a cheap way to get your hands on an RPG that takes itself seriously in atmosphere and gameplay. 8/10.… Expand
