Firegirl: Hack ‘n Splash Rescue is a pretty simple game. You play as a rookie firewoman who must save lives by battling living blazes. All you’re armed with is an ax and a firehose, but those tools will be what saves the lives of random people and various animals! What makes Firegirl: Hack ‘n Splash Rescue even tougher is that every time you enter a map, your experience will change as the environment and enemy blaze locations are randomly generated. However, while the maps are random and the enemy placement is different, the base game is always the same, and that is where Firegirl: Hack ‘n Splash Rescue suffers a bit.

When you enter into a blaze, you’re given a random amount of people you need to try and save, a timer—which can be increased via defeating the fires—and various platforms that you need to traverse. At first, this is a fun design as you constantly have to race against the clock to try and save as many people as you can, but this format becomes increasingly repetitive no matter what environment you go to and what blaze you have to put out. Some of the people you save will help propel your firehouse to greater heights—as they allow you to upgrade your stats and gear—but even this got to be repetitive after a bit.

Firefighting in this game can sometimes be fun and frantic as you aim your pressured hose to defeat blazes and hit doors/objects with your mighty ax. However, we noticed some issues with this gameplay. The firehose doesn’t just act as a weapon against blazes but also allows players to reach various heights by shooting the hose downward. Occasionally, the hose pressure won’t let you get to the heights you need, and other times it will barely lift your character upwards. Even putting fires out has this problem where we would stand in front of minor blazes and notice it would take several seconds to eliminate a minor blaze even when the pressure is maxed. These minor problems can be fixed with some updates, but several of the bigger problems with repetitive gameplay are unfortunately here to stay.

Visually, Firegirl: Hack ‘n Splash Rescue can look quite impressive, mixing a 3D and 2D art style seamlessly, and the backdrops follow the same flow. It also has several gorgeous environments that act as big events like battling a fire on a moving train and running through a forest set ablaze. Some settings feel a bit meh—especially in the apartment fires—but, overall, Firegirl: Hack ‘n Splash Rescue saving grace is hands down the visuals.