Flame Keeper – PS5 Review

From Polish developer Kautki Cave and publisher Untold Tales comes a game originally released on Switch in 2023, in this case Flame Keeper. There’s a rogue-lite element to the game too. You play as the titular flame keeper, in effect an ambulatory ember. In the game lore, they’re known as vulpises.

The core gameplay loop is collect flame energy, drop it at a bonfire, get a perk that’ll do you for the rest of your run, then do it again three more times until level completion. Your flame energy is also your life bar, so if you let it get too low and then get into a fight with an enemy, you’ll potentially die in the early stages without really understanding why.

The same not really understanding why something happens prevails during Flame Keeper, mainly due to your largely being left to get on with it. This is especially true when you play two normal stages and suddenly find yourself in what amounts to a tower defence game that’s entirely different to the main game. It’s a bit baffling, especially when it comes without any warning.

Practically, you’ll have to collect three extra lamps per stage. These allow you to send more of your energy to the bonfires and get more powerups. The game takes place over four distinct biomes: grassy plains, windy plateaus and an icy wasteland. One constant is the bonfires, totems that contain flame energy and enemies to contend with.

At the outset, the enemies are straightforward enough and can be dispatched without much bother, but soon enough you’ll face the same enemies, only with shields. The intention is you’ll fight them, but in reality you’ll sack them off and ignore them unless you absolutely have to fight them. Your goal being to retrieve lamps from the shrines dotted around the place, you have to unlock them flame energy too, so it’s a balancing act in making sure you don’t leave yourself too low on energy.

As well as lamps, you’ll have to find gears that activate otherwise dormant machinery. On the windy levels these are generally barriers to shield you, they’re more often moving platforms elsewhere. Each level also has a box with a token you’ll need to find, more often than not off the beaten track. These allow you to unlock persistent upgrades in the central village hub area that will  ease your progress somewhat.

As well as defeating enemies for extra flame energy, you can dash into totems for it too. This is generally done without much risk, though you sometimes find them inhabited by spiders. They’re fairly easily beaten at least. Where Flame Keeper gets annoying is when you’re having to retrieve lamps by increasingly more tortuous routes with obstacles into the bargain.

This highlights an inconsistency between how you’re treated against enemies. For example, you’ll have to negotiate a windy set of gates that sap your energy and will eventually kill you if you leave yourself too exposed. No such impediment applies to enemies who’ll merrily follow you and be able to attack you as you’re patiently waiting to cross. This is worse when they’re shielded. It comes over as incredibly mean spirited and if it’s irritating on the easiest level, we can imagine that it is rage inducing on the higher difficulty.

Dashes we can understand being limited by stamina but jumping less so. Especially when latter levels have lengthy platforming sections, running out of stamina mid-jump sequence and falling into oblivion is especially galling, If you’ve sufficient energy you’ll be back at the bonfire, crucially without the item you had been carrying. This is especially annoying when you’re looking at a good couple of minutes of platforms to jump over, one swamp level was particularly guilty of this. For your progress to be impeded by a hovering enemy who doesn’t have to worry about a disappearing platform makes it even worse. You can’t even see them off as you’ll end up dead in the swamp if you try. It’s not great.

At the end of each set of three levels; that being bonfire, bonfire, tower defence; you’ll face off against a boss. They are generally dispatched without too much bother, barring the final boss. He’s not so bothersome, more the fact you can’t do any damage to him until you’ve eliminated all the additional enemies that he summons. The battle becomes one of attrition and ultimately. In our case boredom.

The most annoying part is that if you lose said battle of attrition, you can’t immediately retry a boss attempt. You’re bounced right on back to the start of the first bonfire level of the boss set. It’s a cheap way to extend gameplay, only really being any use if you’re trying for the thirty bonfires trophy. Our ultimately successful run was dependent on our having unlocked the perks for unlimited weapon durability and as a retry in the event we did succumb.

The tower defence sections are you defending a central cauldron of flame energy that we guess you’ve collected from the bonfires prior to that point. It isn’t immediately clear what’s happening, so you’ll likely find yourself reaching a fail state with no real idea quite what’s happened. What you’re actually meant to do is to set up obstacles in the grand Plants Vs Zombies tradition, all the while being dependent on your own flame energy to do so. You’ve got regular enemies in the mix, thankfully this time without shields, who provide extra flame energy when you easily dispatch them. When five minutes elapse, you’ll either end up back at the hub or a boss.

Other than the enemies and environments changing slightly, what Flame Keeper has to offer is pretty samey throughout. You might find yourself a bit bored as we did. Your progress, especially on the final level, is often dependent on the RNG of the powerups you’ll get during gameplay. Yes, the village upgrades help a little, but it feels like a drop in the ocean in that regard.

In conclusion, Flame Keeper is probably best dipped in and out of rather than played to exhaustion. The fact that it originally debuted on Switch gives you some insight into how the devs probably intended you play in between public transport stops, so not really the best fit on PS5. Dare we say this reeks of shovelware a bit. Just because you can relesse something on PS5, it doesn’t mean you should. The generally uninspiring gameplay and inconsistent mechanics are an issue plus the RNG can be a harsh mistress, especially when it comes to the final boss. Key mechanics are barely explained, though a bright spot is the persistent upgrades are some use. Some of the more annoying mobs could well have shown up in massively scaled up form as bosses, but thankfully they don’t.