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Firegirl: Hack ‘n Splash Rescue DX" is a retro-inspired action platformer where you play as the titular Firegirl, who is fighting fire-demons with water and rescuing people and cats from burning buildings. The game was developed by Dejima Games and published by Thunderful Games.
The story is quite nice, though it's nothing you haven't seen before. Firefight girl starts as a rookie firefighter for a run down fire department. There is a new wave of arson in the city with fire-demons summoned by an unknown person and setting buildings on fire. Firefight girl is tasked with fighting the fire-demons, rescue people and cats from burning locations. You earn money and fans for saving people and animals, basically you get fan donations for successfully saving all people, which helps you build up the fire department. Additionally you need to find the 13 fire tombs which are used to summon the fire demons and the Fire Lord, and solve the mystery of who is behind it all.
Firegirl is fairly easy to control: You can hack doors open with your axe with
, spray water with the right trigger
while aiming with the right stick
, can jump and spray downwards for higher jumps (
+
) and can look and down with the left shoulder buttons (
&
). The only issue I had was that Firegirl cannot spray forward if you are midair. There are several fire-demons which all can be defeated by spraying fire on them, but you will need to learn their patterns in order to avoid damage (like from those pesky ones with the arms that jump at you and the bat-like fire demons that fly towards you). On the top left side of the screen you will have a HUD where you can see your health, water reserves and the number of people you need to rescue.
The game has randomly generated levels, where certain rooms will look the same, but enemies, doors, survivors, items and the layout of the level are all random. There are only for 4 locations (an apartment building, a moving train, a burning forest and a hotel plaza) but you will be replaying them fairly often. Each level has a time limit which you can extend by defeating fire demons, finding clocks or buying an upgrade to extend the timer. You will have to find an exit for each level and there is a certain risk/reward element to it, where you can decide to exit a level or continue to find more things like collectibles or animals to rescue. The game also seems to scale the number of survivors based on the upgrades you unlocked. Some of the survivors you rescue will offer to work for you at the fire department, one is a medic and can reduce your hospital costs in case you fail your mission, one is a union worker and can increase the money you get per mission, one is selling your fire gear like boots and helmets which increase your damage resistance, etc.
Visually I think the game looks great. The developers mixed retro 2D pixel sprites for the characters and demons with detailed 3D environments. The lighting is pretty robust with the fire demons illuminating dark rooms. Sprayed water can create puddles with detailed reflections of the environment. The background music is also quite good, featuring some really catchy tunes. My only issue was that during the forest the camera zooms out quite far and there is a lot of effects going on in the background which makes it difficult to see incoming enemies resulting in cheap hits.
Personally it took me around 5 and half hours to complete the game and unlock all the achievements. The achievements are mostly skill and progression based, nothing missable, but I do recommend checking the guides for where to find certain cats.
In conclusion I really enjoyed Firegirl: Hack ‘n Splash Rescue DX. It's a fun retro throwback with a unique theme, nice visuals, tight gameplay and a high replay value. I felt the urge for just one more level run and unlock new upgrades once the game clicked with me.
4.0