Fire: Ungh’s Quest has recently arrived on Nintendo Switch. Developed/published by Daedalic Entertainment and previously released on PC in 2015, and then a year later on Nintendo Wii U, Ungh has found his next home. But is the Switch the right place for him? Upon beginning to play this game, I quickly realized the best way to play Fire: Ungh’s Quest was via touch screen. Personally, I am not really a Switch gamer that gravitates to using this console in this manor, but I may be the minority there. Playing via your TV requires you to deal with moving a curser around your screen with your joy cons. For a puzzle game that requires a lot of navigating left or right, or clicking miscellaneous items, it can get a little tiring using motion controls.
Right off the bat, it was not fun to navigate the game with Ungh’s limitations, but eventually, I did more or less begin to figure out what to do and I suppose that these limitations may be the whole point. Ungh is a cave man after all, no one would know how to even speak English. The endgame here is for Ungh to acquire fire and to take it back to what I assume was his tribe that shunned him away. It’s a cute and simple story, having said that though, I can’t help but feel a bit of laziness in its design for going in this direction. This entire game seems designed for a younger demographic; from the cute and charming designs/animations, to basically its very short length in time (depending on how good you are at puzzles) it takes to finish. Early on in Fire: Ungh’s Quest, I quickly became frustrated that there is zero writing or dialogue letting you know how to play this game. The player is immediately thrown in and you must tap away at different places on your screen to see what happens.
I will give the game credit where it’s due, and the puzzles can be rather challenging at times, and dare I say even a little fun. ‘Fire’ also does a relatively decent job at keeping each level different and unique to themselves. On one stage, you will be solving puzzles by swapping Ungh’s body into different animals to get to certain areas, and on another, you’ll be using a time machine to travel to multiple places searching for items (or bugs) you may need to solve the main puzzle of the stage.
This is all well and good, but for me, at the end of the day, this doesn’t feel like it’s a game that warrants being a Nintendo Switch game for any reason besides suckering some kids with its charming character designs and paying $14.99 on a mediocre game. Even though this may indeed be a kid’s game, I can easily see many players of all ages quickly throwing in the towel in its first stage. Fire: Ungh’s Quest really tests the player’s patience to figure the game out with zero help. The entire time I feel like this game cuts corners, it does feel low budget, and it probably was. This point-and-click puzzle game really could use a tutorial, or at least tips when you get stuck. I just don’t believe there is much meat on this game’s bones to warrant many people’s attention, let alone the price tag, which seems expensive for this game.
I’m hate to say that I ultimately did not enjoy most of my time helping Ungh find fire, which is a shame because there is potential here. With its use of touch screen, I believe a better home for Ungh would have been on tablets/mobile devices. This seems tailor made to be played on a phone, I’m shocked I couldn’t find it in the App store. Perhaps that will be the next stop for Fire: Ungh’s Quest. So, unless you are a huge fan of puzzle games and are desperate for a new one to play, I cannot recommend it. If and when it goes on sale someday it would still be tough recommendation.
Check Out the Fire: Ungh’s Quest Trailer:
For more information, please visit: https://www.daedalic.com/
Gaming since I was given an original Nintendo as a kid. I love great storytelling and unique ingenuity. When both collide in a single game, I'm a happy gamer. Twitter/IG @NickNavarro87
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