Creating a 3D platformer is really hard nowadays, especially since recent massive releases like Super Mario Odyssey and Psychonauts 2 have set the gold standard for the genre. Creative level design, intriguing worlds, funny characters, and of course characters with abilities designed to help them navigate through each wacky world. Another reason as to why it’s so hard to make a 3D platformer now is that the genre has been inactive for a long time. I’d say the 1990s and early 2000s was the golden age of this genre. Ever since Super Mario 64 became a huge success, dozens of other developers have been trying to beat. We saw Jax and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, Gex, Banjo-Kazooie, and even Mario’s hip big rival Sonic the Hedgehog made a risky step to the 3D realm to see if he could compete and take over as king. Many of these 3D platformers succeeded, but for incredibly different reasons. They may not have outmatched the red mustached plumber, but formed their own identity.
Each year there was a new icon stepping onto the stage, and this never ending stream of 3D platformers is what would lead to the genre's downfall. We went from having consistently good titles to mediocre. Not much thought was put into figuring out what made a good 3D platformer. Developers started moving onto different ideas as the gaming industry expanded. 3D platformers became outdated, or to their mind at least. Remember, what they didn’t realize was what key elements made a good 3D platformer and what had to be done to revitalize the genre. Mario was of course keeping the genre fresh by introducing interesting gimmicks for each of his 3D entries. Ratchet and Clank would make a comeback in 2016, and so we saw a revitalization of the once acclaimed genre. Psychonauts 2 came out after spending a long time in development, the director behind A Way Out went and made the award winning co-op focused platformer It Takes Two, and Crash Bandicoot came back with not only remasters of the first three games but also a new title that remained faithful to the original formula called It’s About Time. A lot of these games have gotten nominated for awards and ended up on a lot of end of the year lists, which goes to show people want more of these type of games. To be reminded of that golden era of gaming and when the industry was energetic.
Of course not all good 3D platformers of recent years have come mainly from major developers. Independent and solo devs have given a crack at the genre as well. They weren’t able to make games as big as the major companies, because they were working off a tight budget and compared to a 2D platformer a 3D platformer was much harder to make as you had to design character models and sandbox levels. However, they pulled through and made some of the most interesting entries in the genre to date. A Hat In Time was this colorful shiny adventure full of positivity and quirky humor. Demon Turf is this animated platformer that oozes with personality and spunk. Then there was Yooka-Laylee, one of the most funded indie 3D platformers but one of the most disappointing as it failed to live up to being a successor to Banjo-Kazooie. It got decent reviews at least and we soon received a successor to Donkey Kong Country that was good, so hey at least something positive came from it. Then of course we have today’s indie 3D platformer. Debut release from ROBI Studios and aims to mix ideas from several famous titles together. The dungeon exploration of The Legend of Zelda, the interconnected world and grim setting of Dark Souls and Hollow Knight, and of course those bouncy 3D platformers. The game was known as Blue Fire.
I don’t really know much about the development behind this game, because this was ROBI’s debut release and it just came out of nowhere. What I can tell you is how the game’s release went and what seemed like a forgettable project ended up becoming a little bit more noticeable. This game slowly started to surface up from the bottom of the Steam marketplace. I think the main reason was because it advertised itself as a soulslike platformer which was pretty experimental for most soulslike titles .Looking at the quality and front cover of Blue Fire it should have been something that sucked, because it was just aiming to be a lot of things at once. A couple of long running soulslike players who were obviously still waiting for Elden Ring decided to dip their toes in, and suddenly their underestimation turned into positivity. Blue Fire was actually good and wasn’t the over promised disappointment people were expecting. More players decided to check it out and now it’s one of the more well known soulslike out there. Not as popular as Nioh or Hollow Knight, but somewhat up there. Blue Fire was a surprise for many, and now having played it after one year upon release I can safely say it’s good. It’s not amazingly good and there’s a ton of shortcomings with the game, but it’s good. I think ROBI should be proud that their first release did well. Today we’ll be talking about what I liked and disliked with Blue Fire and why you should check it out.
Story
The story of Blue Fire can literally just be summed up as trying to imitate Dark Souls. You could also say it’s trying to imitate Breath of The Wild or Hollow Knight, but being the stupid \ reviewer I am I’ll just make the comparison to Dark Souls so that hopefully a majority of you can understand. If you don’t understand then buckle up kiddos because we’re about to do what is possibly my twentieth or so retelling of one of these settings. In a world that was once inhabited by dozens of successful societies each with their own ideologies and achievements, one day the world is struck by a darkening disease that begins to ravage the land. The disease felt ungodly and like some sort of punishment the beings above were inflicting onto them. From the darkness came monsters and soon madness which corrupted the minds of the people. Townships did whatever they could to protect themselves from the darkness or try to make the most of their lives before time finally came and it was ready for them to move on.
In this world though, the only source of light and hope that exists lives in a giant castle floating above the earth. Turns out what was left of prosperous kingdoms made a last ditch effort to forge a giant castle for remaining life to live on, and each region of the castle had different properties. Not to just serve as places to live, but act as the fuel and generators to keep the castle in the sky. Of course a floating castle wasn’t enough to keep the darkness away, and soon it crept its way into the hallways of the castle. This is where the player character comes along. You are this little shadow creature who seems to be made of darkness, and the results of some grand experiment. You break out of the laboratory you are trapped in, find a weapon to defend yourself, and begin working your way out of the castle depths. You soon encounter sane individuals and they guide you towards where you need to go. Temples that belonged to great gods.
By freeing two of the gods you soon discover the history of the land. Turns out six almighty gods once ruled the world, but one of them was never written down into the books. The first five gods help create the world and life we know, but the sixth god dreamt of more. They wanted power, and soon corruption started to flow through their veins. The five gods tried to confront their sibling and offer help, but the sixth god unleashed their wrath upon them. Whipping them out and creating the darkness we now see corrupting the land. The queen of the floating castle tried to seal the darkness, but it was too much and she morphed into a dark vessel. Transforming into the dark god everyone feared. It’s your duty to take down three gods who sided with the corrupt god, unlock the chambers of the dark queen, and bring an end to this madness. I don’t think every point was explained accurately, but it’s the best I can do for now.
Gameplay
In Blue Fire you navigate around an interconnected world, fight foes, and occasionally pick up a new item that allows you to traverse terrain you weren’t able to navigate through before. It has this metroidvania feeling where you can’t do everything at once and you start off very weak, but overtime you unlock the tools needed to open up more options and make the game less difficult. The Soulsborne series and soulslike titles have always borrowed from metroidvania, and you can definitely see it with Blue Fire. Every area in the game is connected in some way or has this maze-like design, and you’ll be doing a lot of backtracking in the game. You can interact with levers that open up shortcuts to cut down the amount of backtracking that has to be done. However, this is a 3D platformer and the long route isn’t always necessary to take.
You have a lot of moves at your disposal and thanks to the fast speeds of the tiny protagonist you can navigate each area with ease. You start off with a simple dash to dodge attacks and lunge across gaps, but then you unlock a double jump, Then a wall run which can be a wall jump if you react quickly, and a spin attack that can serve as a third jump. Use these abilities to run around like crazy and if you get creative enough you can skip the path the developers intended you to originally take. During your platforming sessions you will encounter enemies and you have a few tools to fend off against them. Your dual swords to slash at them, that dodge of course, a bubble shield to block their attacks, and a magic projectile to launch at them.
The shield and magic attacks consume magic points though, and the only way to refill is to strike enemies or use a healing item. It sort of works like how Soul worked in Hollow Knight where by keeping up the pressure you are able to perform powerful abilities. You can heal using Fire Essence, but the amount of times you can use is limited. Fire Essence can be refilled by resting at a statue which are basically the checkpoints/bonfires of Blue Fire. Die during battle and you drop all your ore, which is the currency used to purchase items and upgrades. You are given the ability to retrieve them, but die again before retrieval and the ore you collected is gone forever.
Occasionally you’ll end up in one of the many dungeons of this game, and they work like how the dungeons in The Legend of Zelda work. Puzzle, combat rooms, locked doors that need keys to be opened, a chest containing the keys or upgrade needed to progress, and much more. At the end of each dungeon there is a boss who will test your skills and comprehension of their attack patterns. Hit them enough times and they’ll shrivel into ash. Unlike The Legend of Zelda though they don’t drop a heart container, and unlike Dark Souls you don’t level up stats to improve your character’s strength and health. Strength is mainly affected by the blades you have equipped and you pick up stronger ones as you progress with the game. Health on the other hand is increased by completing these optional platforming challenges littered throughout the game. They will dump you into these areas full of hazards, and you’ll have to collect thirty of these orbs by the end. Do so and your maximum health will increase.
Besides that there isn’t much else to bring up about Blue Fire. There are these side quests which can be completed to earn more money or new equipment, but you can just ignore those. You may pick up these crystals which can be sold for more ore, well that’s what I’m assuming because I never used them during my playthrough and I don’t remember if you were offered the option to smash them for more ore. There’s a charm system sort of like Hollow Knight where by equipping certain charms you gain perks to change your playstyle, but they don’t really matter either and I didn’t pick up that many across my entire playthrough. Blue Fire is a colossal genre mashup, but it’s as simple as it gets. Hopefully you can defeat the queen of darkness and restore the land
Thoughts
Blue Fire is fine enough as it is. It’s not amazing, innovative, and definitely didn’t rock my socks off and twirled them around at such high speeds to a point they caught ablaze and turned the color in the name of the title. What I can tell you though is that it’s a competent game, and for the most part delivered a n enjoyable experience. It’s short and you aren’t going to revisit it after reaching the end, but the game makes the most out of its run period and condensed world size. What it does well is done right, but where it falls apart is what makes it flawed and difficult to recommend easily.
What Blue Fire does the best out of everything it does is set the tone and atmosphere. The world is grim and you navigate through tight claustrophobic spaces. Rooms and chambers are often covered in dark matter, and enemies have been malformed and twisted. The sound design is pretty good as well as your footsteps and grunts echo around you. The game does whatever it can to make you feel like a small insect in a huge world, and that your entire journey will be spent alone and never truly safe. You aren't here to fix the world, but rather try to serve a purpose before you finally fade away. It’ll take a thousand of sacrifices before the world reaches a peaceful solution. The art direction isn’t particularly great, but it is unique. How every character has this shade-like character look and their eyes are these beady squares. The architecture demonstrates what was once a great society, and some of the dungeons you stumble into are magical. I'm saying the world of Blue Fire is good, but not particularly great as it's quite literally a reinterpretation of Dark Souls. Grim world slowly coming to an end and NPCs or are slowly going insane. Nothing done wrong, nut nothing new either.
Gameplay wise Blue Fire is good as well. The little knight you control moves ever so fluidly and each action you perform is done in quick succession. It may take awhile to get used to the controls though, because while the knight is quick he can feel a little slippery both on the ground and when moving in midair. There were a lot of times I overshot a jump or fell into a pit because my protagonist dashed further than I was expecting. I love the abilities you have and how if you use them creatively you can just glide around the environment. Creating paths and routes the developers originally didn't intend for the player to take. I can jump off a ledge, wall run for a little, jump off the wall, double jump, then use a charged spin slash as a triple jump, and then dash to reach a ledge I’d normally wouldn’t be able to reach or would have taken a long route.
The level design for the most part is good. It gives you a lot of space to work with and it’s just fun to platform around. Finding secrets and treasure chests is enjoyable and you are rewarded for exploration. There are even these little stones on the ground where if you perform the right emote on top of them you make a secret treasure chest appear. The exploration and the platforming is all joyful, but then you have the sloppy areas where Blue Fire falters. Combat isn’t bad and never across the entire game did I encounter a fight that was too hard or unfair. However, it doesn’t feel good or play well. Your knight attacks really quickly and dodges with ease, but he dodges too far away and it’s to the point where you are zipping around until you get in closing distance to strike. All your attacks lack impact and their speed is just too quick. I think this is made worse with how hard it is for enemies to kill you. Like early games it may be a problem due to a low health bar and limited heals, but if you know exactly what you are doing and how to overwhelm an enemy with a flurry of blows then you can down foes with ease.
A lot of the bosses in this game didn’t kill me once, because they either didn’t pose a challenge or their attacks didn't do much damage. Most of the challenges come from the platforming which is core meat of the game, but I think more could have been done with the boss fights and combat. You may be saying, “3D platformers aren’t well acclaimed for combat,” and I get what you mean. Maybe it’s because Psychonauts 2 had 3D platforming combat that actually worked. You were pushed to use every ability and power you had, and they compensated by having enemy types who required use of certain skills to beat. They got you to react, but matched the slower speed of Raz and his capabilities. It was a methodical combat system, and I feel if Blue Fire were to tone down the speed and ferocity of the knight then combat would have worked better.
I have always enjoyed interconnected level design especially in metroidvanias and soulslikes. Familiarizing yourself with the world and remembering what path leads to where. I should have enjoyed the world design of Blue Fire because it’s exactly this, but for some reason I didn’t. Maybe because when it comes to 3D platformers it’s better to have sandbox level design that allows you see what is ahead and lies in the distance. It’s not like that here in Blue Fire. You transition between each room, and each of these rooms are walled off boxes. Backtracking can be especially annoying due to how you’ll be transitioning between these boxed areas so much even when you unlock fast travel. It’s made even worse during the last one to two hours of the game where you have to find soul fragments and buttons scattered around the world to unlock two major story bosses. Like I get that you wanted the player to explore, but stuff like this feels like it should have belonged in an RPG or maybe as a side quest. I think it’s because they just didn’t want to design more dungeons, but backtracking is just a lazy supplement.
Occasionally I would explore to find chests containing stronger blades, but part of the main story they give you the strongest blades in the game so there really is no need to explore for weapons after that. I wish different hoods would grant you special perks or effects, but they don’t and I didn’t feel encouraged to equip any of them besides one for a side quest. The charm system feels useless and I never went out of my way to find more, because the current skills and abilities I had were good enough. Optional platforming challenges have weird difficulty curves, because they don’t set them up in such a way where you come across the easiest first then hardest last. In the middle of the game I went into this buzzsaw challenge which was the hardest f*cking thing. After that I found another challenge which had an easier level and felt like a cakewalk. That is bad. That’s like if you played through the chapters of Celeste backwards and they slowly undo the learning you had at the beginning, because they placed you at such a high difficulty that your current skill level is too much for what is happening. Graphically the game looks bad. However, graphics don’t really matter as what I’m looking into is the core game itself. Final complaint is that while the world and lore is interesting it doesn’t build itself enough. It doesn’t get me to care and the really important stuff like the gods aren’t explored enough. The ending was just really disappointing and I sat there wondering what had occurred. Why did I feel so empty but not in a good way?
Blue Fire is just somewhat of an ambitious mess. The last ⅓ of the adventure is just a hassle and its story fails to be intriguing right up until the end, but if you can ignore these major crippling problems then I think a decent game lies underneath. I'm being forgiving because this is ROBI Studios’ first game. They may make more projects in the future or a sequel, and all we have to do is pray that they can improve . Blue Fire feels like a prototype to a much better game and if it were to be worked on more then it wouldn’t feel like a demo build. Overall I will say Blue Fire was fun to play and that it left an impression on me. I know the complaints with this one were really hefty, but ultimately I do enjoy this game and find a lot of people will have fun with it. The price for it is pretty cheap and it took me roughly around five to six-ish hours to beat, which isn't long. I respect it for what it is and if it were to form it's own identity rather than rely on the identity of several other games then I would have loved it a hell of a lot better. Anyways, in the end I am going to give Blue Fire a 7.5/10 for being okay.
Hey guys. I just want to bring up that this is one of many reviews I have planned for this month’s theme. It’s October and I thought for once maybe I should celebrate something. Have a couple game reviews themed after the season or at least try to fit the season. It’s the month of spooks and terror, so let’s review a couple spooky themed games. This can either be horror games, games that involve monsters, or just games with really sinister settings. Blue Fire was the first one, because while it may not have a spooky aesthetic it does have a grim setting. What I have planned next is a review on Demon Turf, and after that it’ll be some of these. Guacamelee! 2 because it relates to the Day of The Dead, and when you think of that you think of skeletons. Skeletons provoke ideas of terror. If my Limited Run copy of it comes in the mail on time then I’ll cover Dusk, and maybe I’ll try to get into Soma and Darkwood again. Not all of these reviews will come out in October and some will have to be pushed to a later time, but let’s just try to get as many spooky themed video game reviews out as possible. This month we are going to make it terrifyingly grand. We're going to make it special.
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