I honestly had high hopes for Blue Fire but I left feeling underwhelmed and a little disappointed.
Wether it’s the soundtrack or the visuals, Blue Fire just feels like it needs to be compared to a 3D Hollow Knight. However the visuals and soundtrack is about where I would stop the comparison.
Unfortunately the combat is an uninteresting, forgettable joke. I often found areas to have a minor smattering of enemy’s that do barley any damage or inconvenience you in the slightest. This also applies to bosses that poses little a threat when you always have max health charges. In my entire play through I didn’t die once.
I should also mention the economy, or lack there of. At any given point in time I was filthy rich (unlike reality) and whenever I found a new vendor I would immediately buy out all of their stock. Not only this it also applies to health recharges as whenever I would use 1 or 2 it wouldn’t be long before I was maxed out again.
Blue Fire does have a relatively fun movement system, as your progress additional jumps and dashes become apart of your traversal set which is nice. But it feels quiet essential as there are many points in which this game requires you to backtrack or re explore an entire area again as it now has collectables required to progress.
Personally I find for every nice thing I can say about Blue Fire I could also point out the many flaws regarding the same thing. Blue Fire feels like it wants to be more but just requires that extra polish.

the hardest a game has sought to capture my specific childhood dreams since i played tunic. perhaps my new personal favorite moveset to use in any 3d platformer, replacing a lot of more typical zelda/metroid item progression with increasing mastery over movement, both for myself and the character. and what a world u move thru...love the lore and story that has more in common with zelda's arch fables then fromsoft's hyper-dense tomes, with a constantly maintained sense of mystique and history,,,vibes on vibes, familiar tropes of places in a rich and sincere presentation that make me feel like im seeing them for the first time. topping it all off are the high end void challenges, which at their best are the closest ive seen to a 3d version of celeste or super meat boy...pure compulsive and disarmingly approachable joy of accomplishment in 30 to 60 second increments of frantic Not Screwing Up. kinda cant believe this exists, i wanna cry about it. a last minute highlight of my entire year.

Esse jogo é realmente uma pérola.
Tenham em mente que, majoritariamente, esse é um Metroidvania focado em Plataforma 3D.
O Combate existe mas é bem simples, que junto da falta de variedade de inimigos, é o ponto mais fraco do jogo.
Porém a ambientação é tão bem feita, trilha, a direção de arteestilizada, os mapas gigantescos verticalmente. A sensação de pequinez em um universo misterioso e interessante é constante.
O jogo te incentiva na exploração desde o início, visto que várias Sidequests você pode terminar assim que encontrar o NPC certo por já ter encontrado tal item. A narrativa não é cuspida na sua cara, você precisa conversar com NPCs, encontrar itens específicos no mapa, mas no geral você entende o que está acontecendo pelas poucas cutscenes progredindo na história.
E falando em progressão, a inicialmente já satisfatória movimentação só melhora conforme você libera os upgrades. E você não apenas anda pelo mapa já que o jogo possui as "voids", que são algumas fases onde você utiliza todo seu domínio das mecânicas pra passar por uma série de armadilhas e plataformas de extrema precisão, sendo recompensado por um aumento permanente de vida.
Quando terminei, vi que "platinei" ele no Xbox. Acabei fazendo quase tudo que o jogo tinha pra oferecer sem precisar de guias de conquistas ou de segredos.
Recomendo demais, parabéns aos manitos da Robi Studios.

Little hazy since it's been a few months but I had a nice week playing this game. The art style makes it feel like Hollow Knight in 3D but it plays more like a classic 3D Zelda with platforming than a Metroidvania style game. Admittedly the combat is just passable and the puzzles tend to solve themselves, but I really enjoyed the traversal in the main overworld as well as the parkour sections.

The pacing is a bit haphazard though; the game does feel a little confused at what it's trying to be, and the last third of the game involves a lot of retreading of older areas in a way that doesn't feel quite organic as, say, a Metroidvania. Also, I ended up not finishing the post-game (free) DLC, which is a shame because that has the "true" ending whereas the base game just cuts to credits after the final boss. Still, nothing wrong with a nice middle of the road platformer to play for a few evenings.

Blue Fire es una pequeña decepción en mi lista personal. Con unos diseños de personajes bonitos, más la supuesta inspiración en Zelda, este juego lo tenía casi todo para gustarme para al final no acabar acertando en prácticamente casi ninguno de sus apartados.

Lo que no me ha gustado.
- Sí, intenta copiar a Zelda en sus templos. Pero son tan sumamente básicos que aburren.
- También quiere ser un metroidvania en 3d. Tampoco acierta aquí.
- El combate simplemente consiste en pulsar un botón y tener suerte que la hitbox acierte.
- Los enemigos son simples autómatas que aporrean el atacar.
- El diseño de los jefes y sus combates son aburridos.

Lo que me ha gustado:
- Los niveles del abismo. Algunos muy desafiantes.
- Los personajes secundarios que habitan su mundo. Tenían mucha personalidad y daban la sensación de estar vivos. Muy superior al resto del juego.

Nota final: 5

A bit unfortunate, isn't it. Even though you won't be fazed by its pretty standard fantasy world and story, the basis of collecting stronger items and abilities and zooming through earlier areas without many problems is solid. The main problem is the level design, and it unfortunately affects everything.

The foundation is good: you got multiple large and visually distinct levels, a few hubs, a few teleports, lots of opportunities. But it's all so awkwardly placed that you spend a lot of time traversing the same areas. Even worse, all the areas within a level look the same. I couldn't for the life of me recall any routes or locations which makes navigation actually terrible. This is then aggravated by a bunch of quests that have you revisit old locations to collect or activate things which would be okay in any other game, but here you really turn your brain off; especially because the goals often aren't interesting - open a chest to get a key to access an area to get an even better key to access something we're actually interested in, but you then need to activate three more things (one of which needs four more things to be activated).

It made me think about fantasy as a genre though, because I thought it wasn't my favorite genre anyway, and when Blue Fire started in a castle, with gods, some evil shadowy corruption, magicians, 'you're the chosen one' etc etc, I prepared myself for something thematically uninteresting. I thought that was unfair (it is), but now that I think about it, I don't dislike fantasy as a genre - it's just not an interesting starting point for me. It can certainly be good: either by including more unconventional elements (Bastion, Hades, Wandersong, Everhood) or just having a solid thematic basis apart from it (Final Fantasy, Dreamfall, Everhood again). Blue Fire has neither. Root of the problem is the inconsistent tone, where the main story is about corrupted gods and the death of the entire land, while the inhabitants seem to be mostly just fine, maybe a bit bothered by the monsters. It's so whimsical, but not in a controlled manner like in A Hat in Time. It feels like the world you're traversing has always been this way and it's alright how it is, and your quests are totally separate.

Even if we ignore the lack of thematic depth and level design issues, at its best it would just be a mediocre game about things you've already seen with gameplay you've already experienced. Just play A Hat in Time or Supraland instead.

Detrás de una apariencia de juego cutre se esconde un plataformero/aventuras con un combate bastante cutre, sí, (olvídate del rollo souls que dicen) pero un diseño de niveles que está bastante bien, un sistema de progresión del personaje la mar de satisfactoria, una atmósfera chulísima y una historia que está lo suficientemente bien tejida como para querer seguir descubriendo lo que hay.
Ah, y estuve horas para pasarme ciertas fases sin desbloquear mejoras de salto, con lo cual es como si lo hubiera jugado en difícil.

Le jeu débute bien avec des mouvements très agréables, malheureusement le manque d'originalité et de renouvellement du jeu dans son gameplay et ses donojons m'on fait abandonner le jeu après 4 heures de jeu (le jeu étant court, environ 12h pour finir l'histoire). Les gros points forts du jeu sont les mouvements et compétences du personnage, malheureusement tout cela prend place dans un monde générique. Les graphismes faibles ne seraient pas un défauts si ils étaient accompagnés d'une direction artistique inspirée mais ce n'est pas le cas. Les donjons sont ennuyeux avec des énigmes sans originalité et qui ne sont pas engageantes. Le jeux est aussi remplis de petits challenges de plateformes qui paraissent amusants au début mais qui deviennent rapidement des corvées avec un design générique, un rythme parfois lent et l'obligation de recommencer toute la section de plateforme si l'ont échoue.