Blue Fire (2021)

"What if Dark Souls, but a cel-shaded 3D platformer?"

A surprising win. Charming aesthetic, solid controls, and an elaborately well-designed world to explore and comb over. Somehow I managed to find my way to the end of the game without even using a walkthrough, though it took a lot of exploration, which I tend to enjoy regardless.

The hardest parts to reckon with will probably be the lack of a map of any kind, and the platforming-only challenges that'll push you to your limits. However, the former wasn't as bad as I thought, given how well-designed and interconnected the world is. And the latter is fun in a very Celeste kinda way, losing yourself in the platforming flow state.

Combat's nice, if a bit superfluous, and the actual lore of the world wasn't anything spectacular, but still engaging enough for me to lose myself in it. If only for the exploration and platforming challenges.

A bit of a tough sell, but if you're intrigued by the intricate world design of Dark Souls, but you were put off by the ARPG gameplay, try this one out for a 3D platformer/collectathon spin on the same idea. You'll find plenty to sink your teeth into.

Um... it was alright. This is the developer's first game, and it's a really nice effort for that, but it's ultimately sort of just... average. Not particularly remarkable in any way.

The map was nice to explore - The areas all have multiple gated paths that you can go back and explore once you get your abilities. Some of these are fun because they involve movement abilities like double jump - Others you just get a key item late game that lets you go back and activate a few things that you couldn't before, and those are basically just tedious fetch quests. But for the most part, figuring out how all the areas interconnect was fun, and it's good how many shortcuts you open up.

Level design was okay. I liked the ice temple the most, but it was all mostly fine. Combat is really boring, just mash button and enemies die - and they die very quickly too. Odd when the game throws a gauntlet room at you and its just, like, 4 enemies that die in 3 hits each. Bosses were also kind of easy but had fun patterns.

Void levels (separate platforming dimensions with a clear start/end) were also okay if you like platforming, but not really hard. Even the 5 star difficulty ones were like, what I'd consider an intro difficulty if you like hardcore platforming. The ones in the DLC were very good though.

Graphics... they were on a budget so they used pretty cheap assets but they made a cool vibe out of it. Music was okay but will be pretty forgettable, a few tracks are nice and haunting though.

The game lasts just long enough to not feel "short", but doesn't feel long at all. Good pacing if you like games that don't overstay their welcome at all. But it does the thing a lot of seemingly rushed games do where there's no final dungeon, you just go straight from a normal dungeon (the 3rd dungeon - the fire dungeon, in this case) into the final boss. Makes it feel anticlimactic.

Overall doesn't feel very polished. Got stuck in a wall twice and had to return to main menu. Got one bug where I got stuck in cutscene and couldn't even open menu so had to Alt+F4 and lose progress. Some obstacles (red pulsating lasers) in voids seemed to just... not activate so there were just no obstacles. Heard the game had even more bugs at launch and was patched a bunch.

The weirdest part was how you can buy a Dash Length Extender and Jump Height Extender for the shop, and this lets you get to various areas that you seem to have been meant to only reach when you find the Double Jump. Made me feel like I was constantly cheesing things because I had more mobility than the level was designed for, even though I wasn't cheesing, I just... bought shop items.

I don't regret playing it but it also didn't meaningfully add anything to my life either way. But still good job to the devs for their first game, it's solid overall and I'm sure they'll only get better, the DLC was already an improvement over the base game.

okay i'm pretty sure i just sequence broke the ice temple? i made it through the whole thing without ever getting the double jump lol - i skipped the key door that leads to the gauntlet that gives you the first holy key - i did the other key door instead, climbed the tower, made it up top and opened the gate behind the double jump chest, then did the next room and found the second holy key and used it to reach the boss room.

probably only doable because i had the "increase jump height" and "increase dash length" spirits - i felt i was probably doing something unintended while i was doing it, so i'm not surprised