Fire Hero - Pixel Rescue - PC Review

Fire Hero - Pixel Rescue by developer and publisher Ravenlore Studio—PC(Steam) review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.

 
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

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Do you have what it takes to be an everyday hero? Do you think you can save people from raging infernos? Will you make sure not to leave any man, woman, or cat behind? Well, then, start your training with Fire Hero – Pixel Rescue today!

Fire Hero-Pixel Recue is an interesting take on a puzzle platformer that sees you join Brigade 38 as their newest firefighter. When disaster hits the city and fires are springing up everywhere, it’s now up to you to race in, save the people trapped in the fires, and get out before the whole place comes crumbling down on top of you. There is a story here, told in short segments between stages, so don’t go thinking it’s all just puzzle solving. Can you solve the mystery of the onset of fires and help the citizens?

Fire Hero is a 2D pixel puzzle-platformer that works on a stage by stage basis. You enter a stage, and the main goal is to rescue the trapped person and then get out. You have a sort of overworld, overstreet really, where you can select the stage you want to play, so you can go back to replay stages. Each stage contains two sorts of “themes” to gameplay. The first half is puzzle solving in order to get to your target, and the second half is escaping on a timer before the stage literally crumbles around you.

So, what are your tools? What can you do? Well, this is where the developers got pretty creative. There are boxes, crates, bookshelves etc. all over the place, individual fires around, and firefighter tools. You can push most objects, lift and throw the lighter ones like boxes, and you can find handy tools. There are also valves in some stages/areas that will let you raise or lower water levels. Now, there is a very unique aspect here that I thought was rather cool: our health bar isn’t a traditional health bar. Basically, it’s really hot inside a burning building, and if you get too hot, you overheat and “pass out”. As long as you stay inside, your heat will continue to rise. No worries though! If you stand under some water or start swimming in the raised water levels, your heat gauge will go back down! There are also some stages without “fires”, but those will have a permanent impact on your health bar until you pass out or reset the room.

Each stage you explore is divided into different rooms that act as their own sort of checkpoints. If you pass out or manually reset in a room, you get returned to the entrance of the room and the room is reset to its default condition. The manual reset is nice for when you accidentally break a needed box by dropping it in a fire or if you get stuck somewhere. Other than increasing the time you spend in the stage doesn’t have any other negative impact, other than to your pride.

So, what about those firefighter tools I mentioned? Well, you’ve got a fire extinguisher and an axe, typical tools of the trade. With the fire extinguisher you can put out fires by using the extinguisher for a while, or you can use it to hover somewhat when you jump, allowing you to traverse large gaps or give you a little extra leeway to reach a ledge or stop a fall. Be careful though, as there’s only so much in the can. The axe lets you break boxes and bookshelves, opening up areas that were blocked off. If you’re near a wall and swing the axe, you’ll stick it in the wall and can use it as a platform. Fair warning on the platform thing, it’s a little finicky. If used at the top of a jump you won’t have the jump height to get up on it, so you have to hit the wall either before max height or by doing a smaller jump. Furthermore, the axe is small and goes in at an angle, so it can be tricky to judge your available “platform” space. That’s largely fine though, as it makes sense that an axe platform would be a bit unwieldy. Bonus use for the axe, you can bust down locked doors instead of rifling about for a key.

I have to say, I quite like the style the developers have gone for here. A sort of retro like style with pixelated graphics and a soundtrack that works extremely well with the style and theme, it reminds me of old games on the GameBoy Pocket, back before handhelds had colour, just with updated graphics and sound, and actual colour. I used to love puzzle platformer style games back in the day, and Fire Hero really brings that love back out. It’s really nice to see a retro style game that both captures the old-school touch but also makes modern improvements where it should, and that’s how I feel Fire Hero does well.

As much as I really love Fire Hero, there are a few issues here and there. The biggest issue I had was with carrying objects. The game is a little weird about how that works. You lift the object above your head to carry it (keys included), so you can’t lift something in a narrow hallway or if you don’t have room. That is fine, but carrying something doesn’t “add” it to your character sprite, it puts it above you with a sort of elastic tether to you? Basically you can be forced to drop the object if you try to enter a narrow hallway or collide with the ceiling the wrong way. Minorly annoying at worst, but it can be more annoying at times. Sometimes the collision detection for this is a little wonky though. I’ve had times I was carrying a crate and got too close to a ledge, now the crate is on the ledge instead of my head, and I can’t quite reach it to grab it again. The other issue is more of a personal annoyance than a real problem, but when you respawn it doesn’t reset any moving parts of the stages. This means on resetting a room, you could be waiting a long time for a moving platform for instance. Only really an issue when you are trying to escape on a timer, but overall not a problem, just it’ll probably be annoying to some people.

Other than your main goal you also have challenges to bring you back to stages. There are strapped pets to discover and rescue, journal pages, and coins you can get. There are also time challenges if you want to challenge yourself on a stage. Some of these unlock bonus stages, and some are for personal challenge, so do what’s right for you!

Overall, Fire Hero – Pixel Rescue is a great retro pixel style puzzle platformer for a great price. Stages are short but can be tricky and fun, the puzzle platforming is both unique and engaging, and the background story is present but not intrusive enough to take you away from the action for long. With a great suite of hand-made art and a fitting soundtrack to boot, fans of puzzle platformers are sure to rejoice. Get your firefighting on today! 

Score: 9 / 10