Firegirl:
Hack ‘n Splash Rescue by developer Dejima and publisher Thunderful
Publishing—Sony PlayStation 5 review written by Pierre-Yves
with a copy provided by the publisher.
Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes.
Firegirl: Hack 'n Splash Rescue DX by
Dejima and Thunderful Publishing is the latest version to be released of this
2.5D platformer roguelike. Set in a world where fire demons are being led by a
Fire Lord and causing chaos by burninating everything in sight that would make
even Trogdor proud, you're here to stop them with the titular protagonist
Firegirl.
Firegirl is the kind of title that makes
me think that it would have had a perfect home on the PlayStation Vita a few
years back and caught my interest when Jim reviewed it for the PC. Never too heavy on
the mechanics, there's still a fair amount under the hood as you'll be running,
jumping, blasting water and using water to blast off all while exploring
various areas to save survivors caught in the destructive fiery path of the
demons currently setting the city ablaze.
What I appreciated from the beginning is
that Firegirl doesn't overcomplicate itself which is great especially for a
roguelike, or perhaps in this case, roguelite which in either case are designed
to make you fail. Your controls themselves are fairly simple. By using the
right trigger, you can shoot water forward. The harder you press, the further
the water will shoot and this can be easily upgraded as time moves on. Going
more vertically, Firegirl can jump, but, Firegirl can also use the water
pressure of her hose in order to fly upwards and then across to make it across
larger gaps in the terrain, or, to tackle enemies from above. Finally, Firegirl
has an axe to break down doors and debris that are in the way of rescuing
survivors and pets that are trapped in the burning buildings.

Once you've gotten your feet sufficiently
wet by putting out the fires in your typical run of the mill apartment
complexes though, you'll then find yourself running across a train, through a
forest and through an extensive luxurious plaza which each have their own quirks.
Just make sure to learn from your mistakes and check out your surroundings
though as Firegirl's adventure is still a rogue-like / lite and it's not afraid
to take you out if you're too overconfident.
While the initial mentioned goal of
saving survivors is a simple one, it's never quite that easy. For starters,
everything is on fire and running into the flames or the demon's flames will
hurt you. Starting off with four hearts, you'll eventually be able to acquire
more but in the meantime you'll have to be careful as there's a fair amount on
the line. If you fall while on duty, you'll get a meager pay from the city but
have to pay hospital bills. If you only rescue a percentage of the people, you
only get money from the city but don't pay hospital bills. If you succeed? It's
payday!
Like in real life, payday is the best day
of the week. It comes into your bank account and did you hear that whooshing
noise? Yes? That's the sound of it leaving. Much in the same way, most of the
money that you'll get from the city and "fans" of your work will help
to pay for upgrades. For Firegirl herself, you'll be able to get a few armor
pieces before worrying about your hearts. Also up for sale is a new lighter axe
which allows you to really move instead of having to stop every time you need
to break open a door.

Aside from these direct upgrades which
can be found in a shop across the street from the Firehouse that acts as your
hub, there are a few others which will eventually become available within the
Firehouse itself. Direct upgrades which can affect your performance are
upgrades to Firegirl’s water tank for better spray and jump range as well as
being able to hold more water in general. While useful, you'll need a bit of
help to pay for these upgrades, by buying other upgrades. These other upgrades
come in the form of bringing down the cost of all upgrades, increase the amount
of money that you can get from the city, and finally, getting money from the
above mentioned “fans”.
Fans are perhaps the most interesting
element to your income which directly affects your cash flow. Starting off with
none, you’ll soon be getting hundreds to thousands of them as you rescue
survivors, cats and cuddly looking bears in the burning forest. These fans are
where your real money will come in and will only give you money if as mentioned
above, you rescue everyone that’s required AND make it out safely. If you
don’t, you get nothing from them and by mid to late story, that’ll be the
difference in receiving 2-6k from the city, or 36-40k on top of the 2-6k from
the city to pay for some fairly expensive upgrades.
While there is a fair amount of rinse and
repeat, which is to be expected in a rogue which constantly adds more every
time you dive into it, it all comes to a climax once you manage to collect 12
of the 13 Fire Tomes. While mentioned a few times over the course of the story,
finding them is the tricky part as it’s random whether one will even show up in
the stage that you are doing which can add a bit of artificial padding. While I
did enjoy the increasing challenges, having that progression locked by luck I
found to be a bit annoying especially as I neared a point of having unlocked
every single upgrade.

Once that’s done though, Firegirl gives
it one more stellar go against the only boss fight of the adventure, the Fire
Lord himself. And you know what? It was totally worth it! Once that’s done
though and the credits roll, there’s still plenty that can be done for ingame
unlockables that may not have been acquired and plenty of PSN trophies that
will probably still be waiting for you to unlock them.
Sadly not everything on this journey was
perfect while I played off of the PS5. I found myself quite a few times having
Firegirl, both the character and the game, freeze on me making me have to close
it, re-launch it and then re-do the stage that I was already close to
finishing, or a new one, all over again. There was also another glitch where I
found myself completely upside down making me have to do the same thing as
trying to finish the forest stage while also zoomed out was just impossible. So
while I would have liked to score this higher, the issues that I would run
into, especially when grabbing a Fire Tome and having the game crash, keeps it
lower than it should be.
Summary
Overall though, Firegirl: Hack 'n
Splash Rescue DX is a fun little rogue-like / lite that can easily net you half
a dozen hours to complete the main story before sticking around for more. With
easy to pick up controls, especially with the PS5’s locking shoulders which
makes shooting water that much more precise, if you’ve been looking for a bit
of a challenge but not one that will cause you to rage quit, this could be the
one for you.
Score: 7
/ 10