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Few things are more Significant to a 3D action platformer than having movement that Is both Responsive and Fun, and Blue Fire Takes that fact to center. Its assortment of agile skills not just look great in actions, but also offer the sort of precise control needed to conquer its rough enemies and obstacles alike. While there’s a bit too much dependence on retreading familiar ground by the end, its collection of treacherous yet addicting challenge rooms needed me thankfully running, jumping, and dashing through them again and again.

At First, Blue Fire bears resemblance to what Hollow Knight could be reimagined in a 3D space. It’s got plenty of familiar ideas: quickly dashing between platforms in an all-but-abandoned kingdom filled with dark monsters, piecing together your mysterious miniature warrior’s purpose in the world, and striking in foes while bouncing off their head with recurrent aerial slashes. The few scattered predators who are not trying to kill you may often have little tasks to undertake rather — quests which are actually tracked in your log, which is something I have always wished for in matches with sprawling worlds similar to this one. You can even locate and equip Spirits (Blue Fire’s draw on Hollow Knight’s Charms) to modify and enhance your skills to a near-ridiculous degree.

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And yet, programmer Robi Studios has assembled Blue Fire’s platforming mechanics in a way that feels composed for 3D space, with a level of control that nearly always left me with nobody to blame but myself once I fulfilled my passing. Your character’s quick mid-air dashes can be lengthened or stopped short in will, and lock-on targeting allows you to dash towards or away from foes at any angle. The addition of a small stamina bar for wall-running and leaping is a godsend when learning the constraints of your parkour abilities, as most all surfaces are applicable – including weaving around pillars to leap at several angles. You’re only able to use 1 dash and double hop (if you don’t equip the ideal Spirits) whenever you take into the atmosphere, which turns every platforming section to a series of calculated conclusions. Every area, every challenge space, and each boss fight makes clever use of its own terrain (or absence thereof), pushing you to experiment with your platforming abilities and figure out how to best come out on top. Particular encounters can line spikes along the walls to prevent you from parkour past enemies, or restrict your time on the floor with fatal shockwaves and dangers to make sure that you’re constantly in movement to find relative safety.

Corrupted ooze, you’ll be strafing and zipping around dark creatures looking to tear you to pieces. With brief combo strikes on ground and in the air, your personality can slice and dice with dual swords which can be swapped out for updates as you explore – but do not expect to have the ability to take lots of hits in return. You are only able to block attacks with the help of a shield spell which drains quite quickly – and also shares a mana pool with a quick and lightweight ranged fireball spell, so the best defense usually proves to be moving fast to prevent getting hit altogether.

Fighting these enemies also let me incorporate movement Skills in interesting ways. I could dashboard circles around sword swiping foes, or refill my midair dash and jumps by striking them in the skies, turning my little fighter right into a really agile and mad hornet. Fights never become crushingly difficult, but Blue Fire’s protagonist is unexpectedly squishy — so much so that using a shield spell to protect melee strikes would knock me backward several feet, often sending me skidding off the narrow platforms I was fighting on. The impact of these attacks resulted in a comedic Looney Tunes moment of dashing back into the fight before gravity kicked in. This may not have even worked were it not for the fulfilling ability to do targeted dashes, allowing me to zoom directly up to floating adversaries differently out of reach and leading in some very entertaining killstreaks.

Besides, As entertaining as Blue Fire’s enemies are, the optional challenge rooms known as Voids steal the spotlight. Similar to Super Mario Sunshine’s secret degrees or A Hat in Time’s Rifts, Voids examine your platforming skills in the greatest way possible. From quickly hopping across miniature temporary programs to wall-running and bouncing off blocks to dodge a range of killer buzzsaws and spikes, every Void introduces a new trial to conquer — and makes you feel as a platforming paragon for beating them. Several Voids will have you running across more walls compared to the prince of Persia himself, and they generously increase your endurance to compensate for the amount of time you will spend before touching solid ground.

If you do not figure out how to make it into the conclusion of a single, collecting tokens along the way will enable you to unlock more Spirit slots — which means more opportunities to enhance your parkour abilities to conquer that one seemingly impossible part of the gauntlet. Even after finishing the narrative, I immediately sneaked back in to complete every last Void, especially to complete one I had been banging my head for half an hour the first time I tried it, since these things may be an excellent optional opportunity to push the limits of Blue Fire’s platforming mechanics.

Blue Fire provides an amazing platforming experience together with the only Perfect Balance of abilities to challenges and master to test you, making its own Its Zelda-like dungeon Experiences may end somewhat too shortly before it begins relying on too Familiar backtracking, however, it doesn’t dull the pleasure of dashing around Challenges and fighting enemies equally. And when the pacing of its Main path falters slightly, the irresistible lure of its inventive Challenge chambers kept me coming back for more.