FIREWORK

I beat the game in about 3 hours, got the bad ending, and did not obtain any of the 13 achievements - mission accomplished. [i] Firework [/i] is one of those "retro" games that does not come with a fullscreen; maybe some people like that black border format, but I would rather have a stretched version, even if the game loses some quality in the process. I guess it kinda reminds me of Mega Man, not like a clone though, just the aesthetic part. It's more of a story-driven platformer and I think the game does a decent job in that regard. It has many cutscenes that establish some narrative, not something that I would expect in a NES hard platformer. This game gets pretty hard toward the end, but it has relatively friendly checkpoints which is why I beat it so quickly, despite constantly dying. There is this "firefighting" aspect of this game that I do not fully understand; I think you have to put out most of the fire in order to get the good ending. Obviously, this game has multiple endings, so I would recommend taking your time with the levels if you not planning on multiple playthroughs. It seems like each level has a hidden area, you have to save characters in order to gain passive upgrades, such as movement speed or bullet range. It also has a couple of active abilities which tend to drop as a reward for beating bosses (4 in total, I think). Unfortunately, I missed most of the upgrades so I had a hard time with the boss fights, but you can definitely beat them with good reflexes. I found the controls to be very responsive, while the later stages got pretty frustrating, it's manageable if you play patiently. [h1] Pros: [/h1] + decent platforming elements + can remap controller (played on F310) + interesting story / multiple endings + some of the boss fights were good + can gain active and passive upgrades + achievements (not that I got any) [h1] Cons: [/h1] - black borders - can get frustrating on the darkness level - some weird soundtrack choices (I liked a few songs though) [b] Overall Thoughts: 7/10 [/b] While I have mixed feelings about this game, I do not feel like I wasted my money. I liked it enough to finish, although I think the game is a bit niche. It's really nice that it has more than one ending, but keep in mind that it has a challenging difficulty. [code]Review By: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/ [/code]

[h1]Video (gameplay + commentary):[/h1] Part 1: https://youtu.be/kRB2XzkWz_o [h1]Summary:[/h1] We're digging this game. Crunchy pixels combined with enjoyable chiptunes and some Mega Man X-inspired platforming. This game's dash and hover mechanics are a neat spin on the formula and can feel quite graceful when executed well. The scope of this game is also well defined with the story quickly conveying to you that you'll be spending your time symbolically and literally putting out fires to save a bunch of living "sphere" creatures that you are (we think) sworn to protect. The spheres have minds of their own, possess child-like wonder, and have a way of getting out of their chambers and wandering around, so part of your job is to retrieve them and keep them safe. Similar to Mega Man, there are bosses you fight and from what we've seen at least some of them grant you new powers when defeated. You also level up as you go which increases your all around abilities such as movement speed and projectile firing range. Unlike Mega Man though you don't choose a boss and go fight them but rather run into them as you progress in the story. As a side note, the game is intentionally not widescreen but instead is closer to an old school 4:3 ratio with some neat vignetting around the edges to really push the idea that it's like an old style TV, or perhaps being viewed through a camera. It's a neat effect that we like and don't really see it as a loss of screen real estate, but some people may be bothered by black pillars to the left and right of the game. Definitely worth checking out if you like platformers and a chiptune soundtrack.

so this is how it feels like to play something so good, but at the same time so underrated that you feel like you have to do something about it. Simply because I can feel the passion and love the developers have poured into this little gem and sadden me that the game didn't get the recognition it deserves. among the platformers I've played, this little gem can easily take top 3. The pixel art is charming, the music is fitting, the mechanics are better the more you play it, the bosses are hard yet fair at the same time, hence there are achievements for beating bosses no hit. And the plot is just... simple but in my opinion outstanding. I can love almost every aspect of this game other from the awkwardly slow sliding wall speed. The game is polished to every small detail, dialogs change retrospectively between playthrough. I just 100% achievement the game after 6 loops but still feel like wanting for more. the game clearly took inspirations from classic platformer like megaman, super mario but also leaves its own mark for the genre. If you are looking for something to reminisce the golden age of 2D platformer, with some new creative mechanics and elements. Please consider give this game a try.

Ainda não terminei o jogo, mas este ano indiquei o jogo na categoria feito com amor, pois é exatamente o que este jogo é. Se tu acompanha a história do Ivan sabe o quanto ele se empenhou e colocou seu coração neste jogo. Vou terminar o jogo em breve e farei uma analise da minha experiência.

Ivan Zanotti has a way with being charming. It's been a very wholesome experience so far :>

The game is just as amazing as I would expect from Ivan Zanotti

[h1]An Underrated Indie Gem[/h1] Firework is a Megaman-inspired action platformer that feels polished and responsive. It has a few interesting ideas (particularly the way the weapon functions, some of the boss designs, the fire effects and shard system) and uses a lot of established mechanics fans of the genre will be immediately familiar with, such as gaining abilities from bosses. The gameplay is on the short side at around 2-3 hours but is a bargain for the very low price. Areas where it could improve include the writing (there's some awkward phrasing and a few spelling mistakes) and the controls (wall climbing could use a little work, as could the direction of dashing when using an analogue stick) but these feel like relatively minor points in what is otherwise a very strong game. Overall, Firework has a lot of heart and really feels like it was made with passion. I'm hopeful that more people take the time to experience it as it deserves way more attention.

Firework's a great little narrative platformer. The movement system is sharp and gives you plenty of mobility to handle the masocore-inspired (but never cruel) later stages. Boss fights are the most challenging parts, old-school pattern-based affairs that took me a few tries to learn. A day after I beat it I started a new game to get 100%, which I highly recommend doing; the 100% route has some of the game's high points. The story starts as a fun mystery and ends as a sweet allegory. Overall, Firework is aptly named: short-lived but a blast.

Muy buen juego TL;DR: Si buscas un juego de plataformas entretenido y simple, que puede ser ganado en uno o dos dias, imitando la epoca del NES o SNES, compralo ya. Podria estar facilmente el doble de su precio y todavia estaria barato. Un juego de plataformas 2D que a primera vista parece inspirado en Megaman o Ducktales, pero de una manera completamente lineal. Tu personaje esta dentro de edificio, al principio, no se sabe su finalidad, que es atacada por seres hechos de fuego. Durante el juego tenes que avanzar por los niveles apagando fuegos y matando enemigos que con sus ataques prenden fuego el piso al que pegan. Los controles, al usar un joystick por lo menos, del juego estan muy bien hechos y responden bien (recomiendo usar el D-pad de un joystick). Hay una variedad decente de enemigos, desde enemigos que se arrastran por el piso hasta enemigos que pueden atacar desde fuera de la pantalla (nunca se siente injusto). El juego en si es bastante corto, se podra pasar en 3 o 4 horas la primer partida, aunque tiene algo de rejugabilidad gracias a habitaciones ocultas que dan mejoras al personaje y es facil de no verlas la primera vez que jugas. El principal problema que tiene es que las habilidades que uno consigue al terminar cada nivel no son muy utiles, hacerlas un poco mas fuertes podria hacer el juego mas entretenido, pero con como estan ahora si las ignoras no te perdes de nada. 7/10: Muy buen juego de plataformas lineal, algo simple y con controles divertidos de usar, pero las mejoras les falta relevancia y el juego es corto. El diseño de los niveles esta bastante por arriba del promedio en cuestion de calidad, haciendo que cada nivel se sienta unico, pero se siente que no llego a demostrar todo el potencial que tiene.

This is an appalling, lazy 2D retro pixel platformer (one of literally thousands of these games infesting Steam). With this particular platformer, once more we are left to wonder if it was incompetence or a desire to deliberately make a completely awful game that propels us to the very lowest level of quality in video games imaginable. Here, the game immediately insults PC gamers by advising that the developers were unable to make the keyboard controls work properly, citing a bug they had identified but not fixed related to control ghosting (part of that is of course they used a terrible off the rack game engine here, after all, laziness goes hand in hand with indie retro pixel games). To get around this, the developers double down on their insult to PC gamers by suggesting you should use a console peasant childrens toy controller instead of KB+M. And of course while there are keyboard controls, they're set to incomprehensible and unusable default settings, making me question whether the "developers" here ever played a video game before, but it's understandable there's not much time for that between shifts at McDonalds. Retro pixel "art" has been used as a very poor substitute for contemporary PC graphics. For some reason they chose to not even do retro properly, and seem to have gone for some kind of fixed 1:1 aspect ratio (not even 4:3... come on, it can't be that hard to make a game deliberately bad on purpose, can it?) All in all this is a complete train wreck of abysmally low quality, awful graphics, worse gameplay, and an affront to all things that make the PC the best gaming platform around. To twist the knife, the developers also seem to think people will genuinely pay $8.50 for this mess.