You can continuously pump water directly into someone's throat, causing them to asphyxiate to the point of unconsciousness, then throw their limp body into a (pit of spikes/incinerator/large body of water) to have them die a long and painful death. And the game doesn't tell you this in the tutorial, so it's a pretty good game.

In addition to all the basic stuff feeling good right off the bat (particularly the weight of the characters), Wildfire excels at player driven comedy. In my playthrough, I found myself playing around with the weaker enemies to try to manipulate their "unaware" states. For example if you pop up right behind someone, they will always jump backwards, startled. Yes, that means off cliffs and into wildfires. Top notch stuff, and the situations that you can create are just great.

Sights & Sounds
- I'll be honest, I love pixel art, but the visuals here are a mixed bag. The backgrounds, for the most part, look gorgeous, as do the sprites for the fire effects. Counter to that are the character designs, which are all tiny and a little generic. I understand the desire to show more of the level for gameplay purposes, but it does make the characters look a bit featureless and uninteresting
- Additionally, the level design can result in some ugly environments, particularly when you're underground. I just don't like 3/4 of the screen to be covered with the cross-section of a wall of stone. If the levels had been more compact and looped around on themselves, the game would have benefited in more than one way
- The soundtrack is actually pretty good and far better than I initially expected based on the visuals. Nice fantasy orchestral tracks with all the strings and woodwinds you could ask for

Story & Vibes
- Spoiler-free plot summary: You're just some villager living in a small town and preparing for a harvest festival when a meteor crashes from the sky. Naturally, you decide to go poke it, which gives you magic powers. That would be fantastic news if it weren't for the fact that the local ruler really wanted those powers and decides send her army to tear apart your village and kidnap everyone to figure out who has them. Now you need to stealth your way through the realm to save your friends and get revenge
- All in all, the story is pretty generic, but I think it suffices for a gameplay-focused title like Wildfire
- The vibes are hard to articulate, mostly because there are different objectives within each level that you may or may not be trying to achieve. If you're trying to go undetected, the vibes can be tense and calculated. On the other hand, if you're going for a speed run, things can turn sideways and become frantic very quickly

Playability & Replayability
- After finishing the prologue/tutorial, you're spit out on a Mario-style map of paths and levels. You'll need to stealth or speed run your way through them all, making sure to complete the primary objective
- The core gameplay feels good. The controls all make sense and the jump has a satisfying weight to it. Each level plays out somewhere between a 2D stealth platformer and a puzzle platformer. I know the "immersive sim" tag may get applied here, but I don't think there's enough environmental interaction to qualify (i.e., I can pick up a box and drop it on someone's head, but I can't stack up a pile of them to sneak into a fort)
- Beyond the primary task (ranging from stealing a mission object to saving a predetermined number of kidnapped villagers), each level also has a unique bonus challenge as well as checkmarks for going undetected, not killing anyone, and a speedrun time
- As you progress, you'll obtain the ability to control new elements, which comes in handy as the levels become more complex. Some of these skills can be creatively used in combination as well as with the level's objects and environments for some pretty unique solutions
- This open approach to gameplay really clicked for me when I grabbed a chicken, threw it behind a pair of guards, and lit it with a fireball. The ensuing commotion scared them off a cliff and opened the path forward. Sure, I could have just snuck through the bushes, but that's a much less fun way to approach the puzzles in this game
- I've seen some reviews criticize the difficulty by saying that it's too difficult to complete all of a level's objectives in one run, which in turn necessitates multiple successful completions of each level. That may be true, but I actually appreciated playing each level in different playstyles. I found it kinda fun to do all the "slow" objectives (main, bonus, no kill, and undetected) in my first attempt while keeping an eye out for shortcuts. I'd then use what I'd learned about the level to do the speedrun
- That is to say, this game is largely what you make of it. You can play it however you like, but some ways are more fun than others. I found my own method of alternating between calculated and chaotic to be pretty gratifying
- One criticism I would levy has to do with replayability and forcing it on players. I didn't like the fact that there's not enough upgrades to at least unlock every ability. I wouldn't mind not being able to level them all up, but I still feel like I shouldn't have to go through NG+ just to see what all the skills do. Sure, I could replay it to see, but it'll be some time before I return

Overall Impressions & Performance
- I didn't go into Wildfire with the highest of hopes. Sure, it has a nice Steam rating, but the number of reviews indicates that this title got criminally overlooked. It's such a shame; this is a really fun game with some cool ideas. Sure it isn't perfect, but I still happily got about 20 hours of stealth goodness out of it. Maybe I just have a soft spot for games that let you play them creatively
- Ran perfectly on the Steam Deck

Final Verdict
- 8.5/10. If you enjoy games like Mark of the Ninja or Gunpoint, you're almost guaranteed to have some fun in Wildfire. It may not be as stylish or complex as those games, but it's still a hidden gem for 2D platform stealth fans

Como juego de sigilo es regulero, pues hay que esperar mucho a que se queme un liana, o a que los guardias se muevan de un sitio a otro. Aun así, no está mal del todo cuando tienes todos los poderes básicos y vas un poco a tu rollo. Personalmente no he usado el agua prácticamente nada, pero si que iba colgando lianas por doquier.

El juego tiene muchas habilidades, pero probablemente necesitarías jugar dos o tres veces para desbloquear todas las cosas, que tampoco son un game changer. El apartado gráfico es interesante, sobre todo el fuego cuándo quema cosas y el cómo se extiende, si bien los NPCs son casi todos iguales entre si y las frases se repiten ya en la segunda hora de juego.

Otro punto negativo a destacar es que si la cagas (y lo harás mucho), solo hay dos opciones. O empiezas tooodo el nivel desde el principio, o desde un guardado automático que hace el juego sin tu saber donde. Los niveles están bien hechos, pero un poco más de dinamismo a la cosa y el tener tu más herramientas diferentes, lo habría ido genial.

En general, creo que el juego está bien a pesar de todos sus fallos, aunque no vayas a el buscando un preciso juego de sigilo.