To address the elephant in the room, no, Blades of Fire’s main protagonist Aran De Lira has not been named after me, though I commend MercurySteam for choosing such an iconic name. While I am a guy who sits in front of screens most of the day, Aran De Lira is a blacksmith who starts Blades of Fire living in the woods. As he’s ripped out of this humble life and into a quest to save the lands, his blacksmithing remains a core skill that’s forged in alongside Metroidvania exploration and tough Souls-like combat.
Blades of Fire presents Aran and his studious companion Adso with the singular mission of going to kill the evil Queen Nerea. There are no mission or quest logs to look at, no objective markers to follow (unless you activate it in the settings), and minimal exposition to really get you into the world, outside of Aran rescuing Adso from the Queen’s henchmen at the start of the game. MercurySteam makes it clear that you will have the same knowledge of the world as Aran and Adso do, and most of this will come from consulting the journal as well as making your own observations.
Aran is a skilled warrior who comes into possession of one of the seven mythical Forge Hammers when rescuing Adso, letting him forge different weapons on steel. That’s pretty handy in a world where all steel is cursed to turn to stone. Adso, on the other hand, is not a warrior but a chronicler who makes notes on everything he sees. It is his notes that you will be constantly referring back to for information about the locations you are in, the enemies you face, the stories of the world, and the weapons that Aran is able to forge. The pair have a really good relationship that promotes camaraderie and encouragement, even when things are tough. For example, while in battles Adso will comment when he has new information and Aran will reply with positive feedback. The friendship grows and works because they lift each other up, and support each other.
You can’t really talk about Blades of Fire without discussing the weapon forging. Every weapon that Aran possesses is one that he has forged himself in a neat little minigame that requires you to shift metal bars into the form of the weapon you’ve chosen. Setting the angle of the hammer and the strength of the strike redistributes the material blow-by-blow, but the aim is to do this with as few hits as possible. The fewer strikes you use to get the metal lined up with outline, the better quality. The forging does take a bit of working out but after a few goes you do get the hang of it, though will need to keep changing how you forge depending on the weapon you are making. Later, if you are forging a weapon where you have previously forged on in the same class you get an option to instantly forge one to the same quality as your previous best effort.
No matter how well you craft a weapon, though, it has a durability and will eventually break. A weapon’s quality is measured in stars, which also gives you the number of times it can be repaired before becoming useless – a three star weapon can be repaired three times. You also have a limited inventory so recycling or trading older weapons will is a must to make sure you have the best equipment possible available to you.
When crafting a weapon you will be using different materials that you gather in the world, including many different types of steel and wood. Some steels are better for defence and durability, while others are better for dealing more damage. The same goes for the wood too. When you craft your weapon you need to check how much damage and what kind of damage it can do, be it slashing, piercing, or blunt damage. On top of that you need to see the impact wielding the weapon has on Aran’s stamina gauge. The heavier the weapon, the more stamina it will consume and the longer it will take to between consecutive hits.
You really need a mixture of weapons with different attributes because different enemies are vulnerable to different weapon and attack types. When wielding a weapon against an enemy, you can get a temporary outline that will be red, amber, or green. Red means the weapon you are wielding will not do much damage, while amber shows it will do some damage, and green shows that the enemy is vulnerable to that weapon type. Some enemies have a mix of vulnerable and invulnerable spots depending on their armour, so your weapon could do loads of damage to their head but nothing to their arms. There are different weapon categories including swords, spears, polearms, twin blades, sabers, and greatswords. Within the categories there are different styles of weapons, such as warhammers being in the polearm section. You can’t just forge any weapon from the start, but instead need to defeat a certain number of a particular enemy to unlock the forge scroll for the weapon they wield. Some of the better weapons are locked to beating mini bosses dotted around the world.
Blades of Fire’s combat is reliant on the face buttons, giving you directional attack for targeting an enemy’s head, sides and lower body. The combat is also incredibly tough and Aran will quickly be defeated if you are not attacking, dodging, blocking, and parrying shots. Smaller groups of enemies will swarm quickly, and if you get backed into a corner it’s more than likely you will die.
This is partly down to your weapons too. For example, if you try to strike an enemy on the side, but there’s a wall there then your weapon will bounce off the wall leaving you vulnerable. As you explore you will find health and stamina upgrades, which are very much needed especially in boss fights. It is natural that you will have favourite weapons. For me that was my dual axes for speed and polearms for heavy attacks, though you need to have a selection on hand to deal with all the various enemy types. There are a lot of different enemies in the game, but eventually you will notice the some enemies in the same class have the same attack patterns as one another.
The world of Blades of Fire has interconnected areas rather than being fully open world. There are winding paths off the main track that will lead you to side activities like combat challenges, along with points of interest that add to the lore. The world itself looks great with each area having a unique look to it, filled with secrets and excellent scenery. I do wish the paths through the world were a bit clearer, as I found myself running in circles to find the way forward at times. The main mission is fine, but it is overly reliant on having to find objects to continue, be it certain items to activate a machine or killing soldiers for keys to unlock doors. In one area, Aran has to get around by using rope slides but to use them he needs Rogg skulls. Each skull has one use, so then you need to fight Roggs until another skull is dropped so you can use the rope slide again.
Luckily, there are so many forge points in the world that fast travelling is convenient when you need to revisit an area. There are locked areas that are not integral to the main story, but hide their own secrets. To unlock these places you need to imbue your weapons with one of three types of runes; Time, Light, or Soul. The time rune is unlocked early on in the game while the other two require a decent amount of story progression to unlock. The soul rune is unique among the three as it requires you to kill enemies before it can be used.
