Released APR 28, 2023

A huge fire is raging and you are sent on the spot to stop it. Business as usual for a highly-trained and experienced firefighter such as yourself. Air dropped right in the middle of this blazing inferno, your main mission objectives are to contain the fire, investigate its causes and look for survivors.

Nuclear Blaze is a 2D pixel-art metroidvania-light action platformer, developed and released by the lead designer of Dead Cells, where you are exploring a secret military base after a fire breaks out nearby and spreads to the facility. Each level consists of you extinguishing the fire in that stage to open the exit door to the next area. Most, if not all, of the stages have a hidden cat to rescue, but this is optional to the story and game progression.

This full review is based on one complete playthrough of the game on normal difficulty.

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VISUALS

Nuclear Blaze’s visuals are 2D pixel-based, with simplistic and cute, but great looking, character designs, and well detailed environments and fire effects. Honestly I think this might be some of the best looking 2D fire I’ve ever seen in a game. The water effects also look quite good, which is honestly quite an accomplishment since fire and water are typically difficult effects to pull off.

AUDIO

The audio in Nuclear Blaze is great, and generally a lot better than you might expect. While a lot of the background music stays mostly in the background, if you turn up the volume it has quite a few rocking chiptunes that sound really great. Not sure its anything I would rush out to buy the soundtrack for, but it certainly compliments the action and adds to the overall experience. The radio sounds and other ambient noises also help enhance the experience, and generally sound a lot better than they probably needed to, which is always nice to see.

GAMEPLAY

The controls in Nuclear Blaze are tight, and always feel “right” when playing, meaning that pretty much every death is going to be 100% your fault and not because of shoddy controls. The mechanics of exploration and fire fighting are also quite compelling and will keep you moving throughout the experience. Acquiring additional skills is a bit like Metroid, but I wouldn’t necessarily classify Nuclear Blaze as a Metroidvania in the traditional sense; more like a metroidvania-light. The gameplay probably could have had a bit more complexity built in, but overall is excellent and certainly supports the experience.

If you want to see some of my gameplay from Nuclear Blaze, you can check out the video below:

FUN

So one of the most important questions is: “Is Nuclear Blaze fun to play?” – and the answer is a resounding yes!

Just the fact that I actually took the time to play it all the way through is a testament to how fun it is, and I could still go back and replay it to try and rescue all the cats, because I missed quite a few of them. Not sure if that unlocks a special cat hero ending or not, but I’m holding out hope that it does.

This doesn’t mean that there aren’t some frustrating parts to the game, and you may need to walk away a time or two since the game has one-hit kills, but the checkpoints are generous so it never sends you back too far.