That is to say tide us over til Dragon Age: Inquisition comes out.
I on a whim bought Bound by Flames to hold me over til Inquisition drops. I had heard of the game months before but I was sceptical after see a few minutes of a "Let's Play" for the game on youtube. I didn't much care for the over simplified character creator, and I was generally horrified by it's results no matter what you did lol. I heard some of the voice acting and I was kind of mortified by some of it though now that i've played it rather than seen a few minutes of it, I'm quite surprised by how much fun it is. Yes there can be some minor grumping based on how quickly you can adapt to the combat system, but over all it's combat is really really good.
Let me compare it to a similar game, of course I mean the Witcher, or more importantly the Witcher 2 since i own both games. The ability to learn quickly learn the controls of a game is in my opinion 1 out of the 3 most important factors for me in whether or not I will continue to play the game or enjoy it. The Witcher despite it's graphical superiority has some of the most frustrating combat, and annoying controls I've ever encountered in a action RPG of it's like. Yes the reasoning behind some of the abilities, and weapons, and how they are suppose to work in the witcher makes sense from a story angle but don't help much in terms of actual game play and the mastery of it. Example: I always got frustrated trying to remember what sword to use against what enemy, and it's benefits outside of its properties such as attack speed with one weapon, or attack pattern with it (I can't even remember if it varied), I do recall that blocking wasn't a option, and the parrying system was more difficult than I thought it should be. Switching between spells and stopping combat to do so killed immersion. The whole potion crafting system also felt tedious, while im sure some would say its very indepth and requires one to put a lot of time and effort into get the most out of it, I think there should be a certain level of investment a game should require you to do and not do in order to enhance its fun factor or difficulty challenge.
Back to Bound by Flame, Combat again is its strong suit. It's difficulty to master is on the easy side, but the actual fighting can prove to be challenging in and of itself. You are given 2 fighting styles in the beginning, two handed weapons or dual daggers. The First is known as the Warrior Stance and as you would expect it's the heavy hitting frontal assault type of combat, built around dealing heavy damage and crushing guards while blocking, and increasing your over all toughness. Dual Dagger or Ranger Stance, is the quick agile form of fighting, you do less damage but you chain hits together more quickly, combined with it's parry and dodge features this style of fighting allows you to jump in and out of combat within a instance so you are never hit in the first place. Each of the two styles have skills that help improve your performance when in one of the two stances. These skills then have higher level associated skills that can be invested in to improve the core abilities themselves, these invested skills rank from amatuer to master, and require about 36 points to master a entire style. However at some point during the story you unlock Pyromancy, and like the name suggest its all about the fire magic here, however this isn't a stance or style this is a secondary list of abilities and branched improvements that can be learned in place of the styles but don't require you to switch between it and the 2 primary fighting styles. These skills can be used in combination with the two fighting styles or you can simply focus primarily on using the fire magic while splicing in some weapon fighting when you run out of magic.
My Experience: Story wise it's decent so far, I like it, though its very simple and probably very predictable by all common RPG standards. (you know you are the chosen one, something happens you become special, choose which path you are going to go down story wise and watch the drama unfold.) Choice in terms of what you choose to do, is very simple A or B, but the deviance from what happens in story seems minor. You make a choice early on that can't be unchanged nor can you resist it it seems as the story progresses even if you don't necessarily want it to progress further. A lot of the other choices seem to function around who you wish to believe between your allies, (there is a good deal of trust issues in this game and who you wish to side with.) basically picking one side means you will likely lose the support of another side or ally.
Crafting: You're given the ability to craft upgrades to your armor and weapons while on the fly, yeah right in the middle of the dungeon or even in the middle of combat lol. However you aren't making new gear rather like I said you upgrade whatever you have in your inventory with new improvements that add new bonuses like extra damage, or improving a certain aspect of your parameters in combat, like the likelihood of a critical hit, or interrupting a action or adding special effects like poison or chance to set people on fire with your weapon, in the case of armor as you can imagine you get defenses bonuses like higher armor rating, or resistances to certain forms of attack, also increasing your hp or magic, magic regeneration can also be applied by armor upgrades. You get these ingredients by killing everything in sight, and looting their remains or search loot points found in the world. When you have sufficient materials you can select them during a upgrade, all equipment can also be recycled where in you have a chance to break down equipment you no longer want to try to get back some base materials. You also craft potions, explosive traps,and crossbow bolts on the fly as well. You can buy some items like armor and weapons from merchants, as well as materials and potions with the gold you find throughout the game. Fun thing you can also use the gold for raw materials and make it into raw metal for crafting lol but you can't do the reverse 
... for me, the Pyromancy magic is so FREAKING BROKEN! I don't even want to use weapons, after you unlock a few perks to reduce the cost of casting spells, and invest points in making those pyro spells you learn do more damage or increase their abilities in other ways, you are pretty much godly, i mean you can still die but if done right it takes a hell of a lot of work to get killed.
I rate this game a 7/10, it's definitely fun for one play through though im not sure I'd care to play through it again unless i wanted to master one of the other combat styles and thats assuming you can't get enough points to master 2 in one game (I've mastered Pyromancer, and now im spending points in ranger, though i doubt i'll have enough levels to master it.), music is mef, usually used to fill the emptiness but it does pick up when combat starts. Graphics aren't anything to write home about but it looks pretty enough to hold my attention and a lot of the characters are very memorable, and I'll say this even the lowest no body can leave a impression on you, (What ever happen to Peeler anyway, poor bastard I saw him near the middle of the opening prolog and then never again.) anyway Im liking this game so far, on chapter 3 right now.
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