So I've finally found some time to play this game and... it's perfectly fine. A fun action clicker that will eat up some of your time untill you get used to the difficulty.
By no means is it an AAA masterpiece and a Game of the Year material, but honestly, you could spend your money way worse. Fiery Dissaster delivers what it promisses - fast paced action with a pinch of strategy and resource management (in regards to your regular attack overheat metter, upgrades, or even unburnt ground that damages the enemies more the first time your lava plume lands on it, etc.).
I honestly don't know why somebody would find it not reccomenable for people who are into such games. One reviewer says he/she doesn't see the point of this game. Well, for the most part, the purpose of any game is to be fun for the player, and Fiery Dissaster is fun (again, if you like such games). Another one says it's not really tower defence and strategy. Well, while agree it's not a full blown strategy game, neither is Bejeweled and it still has the tag. There are different flavors of strategy, and this game is one of them. Also, it's not a tower defense game? Then what the hell is it? You have a tower (volcano), and you defend it. You don't build stuff apart from getting upgrades, but of course it's a tower defense game! Also, if you check the instructions box (or play long enough, which the negative reviewers didn't apparently), you'll see it's actually a bit more complex than meets the eye. Hell, it even has two player mode!
Ok, rant over.
In regards to technicalities, again, they're fine. Simple, but neat, 2D graphics and OK music and sounds (apart from the overheatting noise - ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, that's annoying. Fortunatelly, you can turn it of in options). You also get a well made intro and a dark-ish plot about everybody getting crazyier and crazyier as the story goes, that also serves the purpose of introducing new upgrades. Wickedly fun. Also, the game is polished. We all know what "gems" one can get from Greenlight, and this game shows that the creators at least gave a damn. I haven't had any critical errors, gamebreaking bugs or anything like that. In fact, I don't think I've had any trouble with the game whatsoever.
As far as I know, this is the studio's first game. This means not everything will be perfect, of course. Apart from the overheating sound (I know, I know, it's just... damn, I guess the creators and beta testers were good enough not to hear it constantly, like I did) and OK graphics and sound (again, enough, but nothing too fancy) there are some things that show their inexperience, but nothing too bad.
My issues/advice for the creators:
- why is it called Arcade mode when it's basically survival? You could avoid at least one negative review if you called it that, so that people don't click first to check gameplay.
- The color of unlocked missions and locked missions is the same on my monitor (the former should be white, the latter grey I guess, everything white-ish for me).
- Arcade mode has no description – the first thing that appears after clicking it is the choice between single- and multiplayer and then leaderboard. It just begs for an introduction like „Welcome to Arcade (coughcoughSurvivalcough) mode. Here, you have to try to survive for as long as possible. Note you should play Campaign first to get to know the mechanics etc. etc.”
And that's it. These are my biggest gripes with the game. Which can telly you one thing – the game is polished enough that I had to grasp at straws to find something bad to say about it thats not “derp, I haven't even checked the video introducing the game on store page and it's not what I thought, 0/10”, which, honestly, is silly.
All in all, I heartly recommend the game for people who like both action and tower defense. The game is fun, you can see the developers have potential and work hard to make it as good as it can be. I'll be looking forward to their next games, and so should you.
