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.
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.