Amazing Puzzle Platformer with solid progression, good enemy/zone variety, and lots to collect. Controls feel smooth and responsive on controller. Free DLC adds more challenging platforming levels. Combat varies, but isn't the focus save for boss fights, which test platforming skills as much as battle prowess. Overall a great game I'd gladly spend another 20+ hours with.

Has the potential to be on par with hallow knight. Really fun game with cool mechanics. Exploring is very rewarding. However, the timed "levers" and "gates" make the game rage worthy. The reason for my negative review is for the timed levers. YEAH lets watch the same gate open 1000 times because I mucked up and need to restart.

Blue Fire is fun with a a pretty good level of challenge and I'm glad I played it. The stylised graphics are nice to look at, the music is pleasant and helps build a nice atmosphere, and while the story is simple, the NPCs are very charming and fun to interact with.

That said, I had heard going in that it was a Metroidvania with Zelda-like dungeons, and I think that that's a little bit misleading. There are only 3 dungeons, two of which are very simple and don't test your spatial awareness all too much. As for the Metroidvania aspect, you stop getting major progression upgrades about halfway through the game, and if you think of Metroidvania maps as a type of puzzle, then the game doesn't have a lot of "noise" in the puzzle design sense - there's almost always only one way to go; even when the game splits off into three objectives about halfway through, there's pretty much nothing blocking any of them for very long that would force you to explore and find new abilities. I won't begrudge the game for its short length since this *is* an indie game, but I do think there could've been a bit more done to make the map a bit more complex in that way, which would've helped. Essentially, almost every side path at any given point either dead-ends immediately or leads to something completely optional. That said, this structure is not inherently bad, it just wasn't what I was expecting, so if you go into it without those expectations then it's fine, I just think the tag may set some people up for a bit of disappointment in that regard.

Combat is fairly simple but wailing on enemies feels fun enough and there's some depth with the ability to shield, parry, and shoot an instant fireball which gives you options. The first couple of bosses were pretty underwhelming but the later-game bosses are all multi-phase endeavours that require you to make use of your full platforming capabilities to dodge their attacks. They're very fun and pretty intense. Unfortunately the DLC boss was held back a bit by a lot of little gripes that added up and made it more frustrating than fun for me personally.

I don't have much to say about the platforming challenges that hasn't already been said elsewhere, but I like them. They were mostly fun and fair, though sometimes the depth perception can be a little wonky (especially when trying to hit the blue diamonds) and I've had the game eat my double jump quite a few times, especially against the DLC boss. I haven't tried the no-checkpoint difficulty because I feel like I wouldn't enjoy it, but as far as I'm aware it is an option if you're very good at platforming and want a greater challenge.

This game is an extremely strong first showing from this studio and I can't believe I hadn't heard of it until recently. I look forward to seeing more from them, especially if they do more games similar to Blue Fire.