 When it comes to Super Nintendo games that weren't released in the US, the Firemen is kind of an unusual one. For one thing it was one of the handful of games that came out in Japan and in PAL regions but skipped North America entirely. It's also one of the strangest yet easily approachable games on the Super Nintendo because you are quite literally two Firemen and you put out fires. Sounds pretty mundane, right? The Firemen is much better than it sounds on paper. It's structured in a way that has you in one giant high-rise going through six levels guided by a map at the top of the screen. And yeah, you put out fires, rescue people, fight fire bosses and robots that are on fire, but there's more to it than just that. For example, the fire patterns you have to deal with can be creative. There's firewalls rolling at you from all directions, there's flames that come at you in a centipede kind of pattern, there's fireballs shooting at you, and you have to put out each pattern in its own way. It's not a good idea to just go brute force Rambo on these fires with your fire hose, otherwise the fire could come roaring back. Yeah, to fight the fires you have a fire hose that's, uh, not really a fire hose since you just sort of produce water somehow. Yeah, I'm not gonna make the obvious joke there. You also have to do a fair share of dodging as well, and the game lets you crawl by holding the A button. The thing is you can't use your fire hose while crawling. You also have a partner controlled by the computer AI who just wanders around swinging an axe. He's also evidently completely fireproof because he just saunters into the flames with no fear waving an axe around. Hey, it works. Kind of. I don't know how, but it does. Oh, and yeah, you might think the fireman is two-player co-op, but it is not. It's just a single-player game. The biggest thing that makes the fireman stand out is how open-ended the gameplay is. You don't have to put out all the fire to progress through the game, but it does track the percentage of the flames you put out. So this is a good game for a 100% run if you're into that, and you don't have to rescue people if you're okay with letting people burn to death and suffocate from smoke inhalation. The game does reward you for saving people by filling a good chunk of your life bar back up, though. The fireman may sound like a simple straightforward game, but believe me, it gets pretty challenging once the building starts to collapse. Yeah, you have to watch out for the floor giving way and explosions beneath your feet. Also, you eventually have to contend with backdraft, and you'll be dodging every bit as often as you'll be using your hose. The game stays well-balanced, though. It's challenging, but each hazard you have to deal with has some kind of cue you can look out for. I should mention there's a lot of text in this game. A lot of back and forth between the two firemen, between you and the people you rescue, and it's all pretty standard stuff you'd expect. I guess it does kind of add to the drama a little bit, but just a quick tip, if you pound the select button, it speeds past the text much faster. Anyway, yeah, the fireman is an impressive piece of work. It takes something like firefighting and makes a very solid game out of it. I know that natural inclination is to wonder why this never came out in North America, and you might assume that it's because of the rather dry and boring subject matter, but we got our own firefighting game over here called The Ignition Factor, a decent game in its own right. But I'll take the fireman over that game. It's a well-made, open-ended, carefully balanced title that's more fun and maybe a little more challenging than you might guess.