Platforms: Steam and Switch (reviewed)
First love can be a tricky thing to capture. That feeling is something hard to replicate in any media. You feel almost obsessed, not being able to get enough of each other. Fire Tonight does its damnedest to convey that feeling. Maya and Devin are a young couple in the 1990’s that are crazy about each other. While not living together, they spend nearly all of their free time either together or on the phone.
During a phone call, the power goes out and their conversation is interrupted. Maya goes outside and sees the transformer by her house on fire. In a bid to find a payphone to call Devin back, she has to navigate through a small area of her neighborhood. This little slice of the city serves as a puzzle to navigate. The fire blocks off parts and forces you to find different ways through. While you look around the area from a three-quarter perspective, you can freely swing around the camera to find a way through.
Each chapter that you play as Maya does things a little differently. It’s nothing monumentally different each time, rather small changes in the way you have to think about the puzzle you have to solve to move onto the next area. One element in particular is an ability you gain about halfway through the second time you play as Maya. A friend gives you a walkman to listen to and, when listening to it, some of the fire recedes and you’re able to pass through areas you wouldn’t be able to otherwise. I can’t make any sense as to why that happens, so it’s just one of those things you have to suspend your disbelief and just roll with it.
While Maya is risking life and limb to get to Devin, he mills about his apartment, wondering if Maya is okay. These sections are more of a point-and-click style of game, having you click around his apartment at items for him to comment on. They flesh out Devin and Maya’s relationship, but don’t serve any purpose beyond that. It’s a fairly substantial gameplay shift that doesn’t feel impactful. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed getting a slightly deeper look at their relationship. My issue is the depth isn’t very deep and that you have to click on everything to move on. There’s no hidden nugget to discover that might make the two of them even more charming. You just have to click through all of the items available before you’re able to move on. They’re unfortunately shallow chapters that do make Devin a bit of a charming putz, but it just feels like a wasted opportunity.
This leads back to the basic idea of the game – the two of them are crazy about each other. Maya will run any risk to see Devin, while Devin sits sort of idly by waiting for her to get there. It isn’t that Devin is any less into Maya, he’s just the less adventurous and assertive of the two. In a way, the way you play as each character is a bit more of a testament to their characters, but you never really get enough of either of them to really get a solid sense of who they are. Again, their relationship is a bit charming, but it’s all very surface level.
The little noises the game makes when selecting things is something I imagine some people will find grating, while others, myself included, will find it oddly satisfying. There’s just something about the light pop sound it makes that hits my ears just so. And the music, while not particularly memorable, fits the visuals very well. While the majority of the game is bathed in dark blues, the fire pops out in a neon pink. The heavy synth music is a little out of place in a game taking place in the mid-90’s, but it fits in with the visual aesthetic of the game so well, it’s something I can easily overlook. The characters themselves all have a very bright hue to them, standing out from the backgrounds nicely. Maya’s rather small character model during her chapters stands out perfectly, making it easy to keep track of her.
I think my biggest gripe is just how short the experience is. You can get through Fire Tonight in under two hours rather easily. Just when you start to gel with the game, it’s over. No real chance to get to know Maya and Devin more than the surface-scratching level you get in their chapters. Beyond that, at the end of Maya’s second chapter, I couldn’t get the end event to trigger. I hopped on the train that was supposed to trigger the end of the chapter and nothing happened. I went back and deliberately got myself caught by one of the cops I was supposed to be avoiding in hopes of it allowing the event to trigger when I got back to the train, but no luck. It was then that I went back to the main menu and learned you could just start from any chapter you wanted, no matter if you cleared it before or not. Sure, it came in handy at the moment, but it just seemed like a weird decision to be able to pick any spot you want right from the start.
Fire Tonight tries to capture that feeling of young love through too-short interactions. The gameplay in each chapter adds a little flavor to Maya, Devin, and their relationship. Unfortunately, it doesn’t add enough to feel like you get more than a cursory glance at them. While the actual portions of gameplay are enjoyable enough, only Maya’s chapters have any real substance to them. I wanted to like Fire Tonight more than I did, but there’s just not enough on either the characterization or gameplay to recommend it.
