REVIEW: FIREGIRL – HACK ‘N SPLASH RESCUE DX

You are the title character Firegirl and the city’s only hope. Mysterious fires appear everywhere and it is up to you to put out fires, find the truth and find the culprit. Each course is played under time pressure where it is important to find all the victims who are in danger before the building collapses. Collect money and upgrade your equipment, get medals and hire new staff.

The Hack ‘n Slash genre I can feel is very exhausted and it is not possible to do much more than just hack and chop down enemies that are put in your way. So when Firegirl: Hack ‘n Splash Rescue DX appeared in the newsroom, I was a little curious if my feeling would be right, or wrong.

The graphics in Firegirl are really nice, 2D retro-inspired. The thoughts go directly to arcade classics such as Final Fight and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles . The music and sound design are well made and create a pleasant game feeling. The layout is simple, but the implementation makes the game difficult. Time is short and there are many dangers lurking. There is a certain 3D feel to the game in that you can look up or down to see where you are going. The enemy you encounter is live flames that you extinguish with your fire hose. You can also use the fire hose downwards and thus ascend to higher levels or use the water jet as attenuation if you jump from a high altitude.

Herein lies the game’s first annoyance: because it is not always completely logical how and when it works to jump with the hose. Sometimes you get stuck halfway up and come no further. Sickly frustrating, but the most unfortunate thing is that Firegirl: Hack ‘n Splash Rescue DX is not really optimized for the Nintendo Switch . The game lags significantly in several places where a lot happens at once. Something I think is very strange when a heavier game such as Bioshock has solved the resource challenge much better. At first I thought it was because I played the game in portable mode and then the performance is a bit stifled, to save battery, but when I docked the console it was the same problem, in the same place.

In summary, Firegirl: Hack ‘n Splash Rescue DX is a fun pastime, which gives us a slightly new version of the genre. There is an interesting story in the game and is thus entertaining in several ways. But unfortunately I can not recommend the game to the Nintendo Switch, as it lags significantly in its places and thus can not be fully enjoyed. On a stronger console, this is probably not a problem, but I will return when there is an opportunity for me to test it.