There is no princess in need here, but a whole world. Besides the challenge, which required well-dosed pressure when jumping and camera turns even in mid-air, there was this adventure flair with its treasure chests, switch puzzles, and traps, which reminded The Legend of Zelda.
At first, the movements seem quite hectic, the character as light as a feather - even small deviations from the angle with the analog sticks cause missteps.
You have to address non-player characters several times to learn more about the curse, the goddess, and the five temples that have to be cleared including the boss. To do so, however, you have to overcome crunchy routes, sometimes with alternating jumps, wall runs, and direct fights after landing - some facets of the level design seemed clumsily designed.
In combat, enemies could fix, dance around, shoot blue fire from a distance, and block via the magic shield; which made for stronger ripostes at the right time but wasn't implemented very convincingly.
Also in the arena duels, the qualitative deficits to the great role models ultimately become visible, because already the forest boss was firstly defeated too easily and the joy afterward was limited. Some of the gameplay seems more poorly copied from Zelda & Co than freshly inspired.
But the further you got, the more efficiently you can develop the little hero in terms of his weapons (there you can find quite quickly new double swords with more damage, which you simply swap) and abilities, by activating e.g. more speed & Co via ghosts. So the star here was the acrobatics, which was expanded over time by double jumps and wall runs - sometimes in complex courses and against time. But neither the fights nor the level design or the characters reached the level of Hollow Knight, which was also inspired by Souls, especially since frame rate problems and sporadic crashes in the last third underlined that the Argentineans ultimately dared a bit too much with this charming but unpolished project.
Conclusion
This challenging combat platformer leaves something of all that. Even if the bland art design and the clunky backdrop sober up early on, the puzzling world as well as especially the cool acrobatic challenges are appealing. Blue Fire has annoying bugs and shortcomings that dampen the desire to continue playing. It's a shame because this game had the potential for a good rating.
