A gorgeous fantasy setting, violent action combat, a magical forge surrounded by lava and a giant muscly man stomping around the place smashing things. Blades of Fire features lots of things I love about video games, made by Spanish developers MercurySteam, who clearly have an affinity for similar satisfying tropes. It’s an adventure that feels like a modern spin on an old Xbox 360 action adventure (complimentary), and brings with it some nifty ideas that set it apart from countless other action RPGs from the past decade. It also stumbles over itself somewhat, with a terribly confusing map, repetitive combat and barely-there story. Blades of Fire is mid, but the kind of mid that still manages to be charming, even when frustrating design decisions threaten to ruin the party.

Blades of Fire’s main character is Aran, a big meaty man of the big meaty men slapping meat variety. He’s a commoner who somehow gains access to a legendary forging hammer, which gives him the power to craft mighty weapons that can be used on his quest to kill the Queen. I’d give you more story setup, but the premise is intentionally vague from the jump. When you begin your journey here, you’re told that killing the Queen is the primary goal, and that other quests will present themselves along the way. At first, I found this delightfully obtuse, but it implies a certain level of trust that the experience is going to lead you down some interesting pathways.

The relationship between Aran and Adso is one of constantly poking fun at each other, but seeing as they’ve only just met, it feels unearned and even mean at times. I lost count of the number of times Adso picked on me for being too heavy to climb a ladder, and they insisted on being sent back to camp so that they could write a story or sleep. You can teleport them away from you with the press of a button, thankfully, but they are needed to solve certain puzzles in the environment, like translating language on a tablet. It doesn’t help that the voice acting is average at best; Aran, in particular, has a tone that doesn’t match his hulking physique, which can be jarring.

Other temporary companions don’t fare much better, but I appreciate the effort in mixing things up in Blades of Fire. For example, a small skeleton child hops on your back as you run around a fort, and if you don’t protect the little guy, they get kidnapped, and you’ll need to track them down to rescue them. An old spirit accompanies you in an ancient cemetery, trying to remember the right direction to go; they are scared of combat (and constantly make jokes about being a coward), but are essential in unlocking hidden pathways so that you can progress. While everybody is a little too quippy with repeated voicelines verging on grating, you certainly won’t feel lonely as you explore the vast world.

Environments are mostly quite detailed and pretty, pulled straight out of the fantasy RPG playbook. It’s a shame then that navigating the world is a right pain in the arse. Blades of Fire takes several pages out of the Souls-like handbook, but I’d call it more of a Souls-ish. Large, interconnecting areas are filled with shortcuts to be unlocked and hidden secrets to uncover, such as gems to increase your health and stamina, or statues that provide you with specific upgrade options for weapons in your arsenal. But things quickly veer into irritating territory where you don’t know where to go next. A simple objective marker or two would make all the difference; I spent countless hours simply running around in circles, looping back on myself and not knowing what to do.

Backtracking becomes necessary during certain moments, adding to the irritation. The map system doesn’t do a very good job of communicating where you’ve been and where you need to go, either; it has no levels accounting for verticality, so it’s a shot in the dark as to which path you need to go on to make progress. Sometimes it was as simple as a crack in the wall that I’d missed, or a dangling rope I had run past several times, that was all that stood between me and the next major moment. With poor signposting and a lack of structure, Blades of Fire doesn’t respect your time, and it falls short of its more successful shortcut-filled inspirations.

Blades of Fire does, however, have a real love for its weapons and all things weapon-related, which is admirable. Unlike its counterparts, there are no class-based systems or stats to level up for Aran himself. Instead, the majority of your power is based on the weapons you wield, which is a neat riff. You can hold multiple at once, and you’ll need to, as each enemy type has its own strengths and weaknesses. For example, a skeleton can be destroyed by a hammer, but a sword is more useful on a fleshy human. Of course, if they’re wearing armour, that will need to be knocked off first, or you’ll have to pierce them with a well-placed poke of a spear.

There’s a red/orange/green stoplight system that shows you whether the weapon you’re wielding will be effective, and even just changing your stance can help; swords can slash or jab, while stuff like maces deal blunt damage. You can see their percentage of effectiveness via a handy blueprint on the bottom right at all times, which also shows you how much durability the weapon has left, and whether or not it needs to be sharpened (which can be done in combat, Monster Hunter style). It’s nifty switching between your arsenal on the fly, and that system remains pretty entertaining throughout the hefty runtime.

I did have to rewire my Souls-pilled brain a bit when getting used to the combat, however. Blades of Fire uses the four face buttons to target different body parts; triangle/Y to hit ’em in the face, circle/B to attack on the right, and so on. You’ll dodge and parry with the left bumper and left trigger. There are light and heavy attacks, but beyond the stoplight system of finding the right weapon, these 8 standard hits don’t offer a lot of variety. Combos between each button don’t trigger anything special, so I found myself sometimes button-mashing more than I would like. The animations of each blow are satisfying, though; I particularly like how Aran bounces his big hammer off the ground before thwacking it into an enemy torso, like he’s about to hit a home run.

An inventive forging system is in place that might be one of the most creative and satisfying weapon-making diversions I’ve ever seen. First, weapon blueprints are unlocked based on enemies that you kill who wield them; if you want a specific longsword, you’ll need to destroy a lot of them out in the world first. Then, you can choose the blueprint and get into the nitty-gritty of how the weapon is crafted. This goes fairly deep; you can alter the momentum, penetration, damage type (piercing or slashing), and even the durability or cost of sharpening, based on the materials you use. Tougher steel might make for better blocking, but at the cost of more stamina. You can even modify the handle of each weapon to change the reach it has; you’ll get better materials as you progress, opening up stronger weapon options, so forge trips become fairly frequent.

Once you’ve decided on all that, a minigame starts where you’ll need to hammer the metal into shape. A white line represents the weapon itself, and by hitting it at certain angles and with particular strength, it will shift the soundwave-like bars into place, with the goal being to match them as closely as possible. The better you do at this, the more stars you’ll receive, and each star gives your weapon an extra repair when it breaks, so it’s important to get it right. At first, I struggled, but once I figured out the method, I always looked forward to visiting the forge. It’s a satisfying and elegant way of creating your own tools of destruction and violence.

Blades of Fire wants you to really care about the weapons you make; they have a limited lifespan, but you can name them whatever you want. When you die, your weapon turns to stone and is left where you fell, and unlike Souls games, it’ll stay there until you collect it, no matter how many times you fail. You’ll feel it when they shatter beyond repair, and they can be recycled for their parts afterwards. The level of detail here is sure to make certain ‘numbers go up’ gamers incredibly happy, as you can really tweak them to your playstyle, and experimenting with them in battle is half the fun.

If I were stuck on a fight, I’d grind for some more materials, go to the forge, make some thoughtful changes, create my masterpiece and then come back more prepared. It makes for a pleasant loop, even if the game outstays its welcome with a 50+ hour campaign, followed by a ho-hum ending that then forces you to go back out, backtrack and grind some more for the true ending. Overall, Blades of Fire is a real mish-mash of fabulous ideas and baffling design decisions that make it a quest that I can’t either wholeheartedly recommend or suggest you avoid entirely; with a bit more focus, it could have really been something special, but there’s something inherently likeable about it all the same.