Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
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 
