My complete playthrough of the game took about an hour, which definitely wasn’t what I expected going in. That said, it’s a fun action-packed romp that manages to include a lot of fun mechanics in its short playtime. It’s hard not to compare it to its fellow SNES firefighting game, The Ignition Factor, but I’ve played both and much preferred the fast-paced arcadey gameplay of The Firemen. This game has multiple unique boss fights where you’re literally fighting living fire!

Given its short length I also expected a death to mean an instant game over, but you get 2 or 3 continues and get back up right where you died without losing any progress. It’s amazingly fair, and I get the feeling that if The Firemen had come out in the US, the continue mechanic would have respawned you at the start of the level, if it wasn’t removed entirely.

The NTSC conversion patch seems fine to me- I popped the Japanese version open in an emulator and the speed appeared to be the same. The negative reviewer must have been used to a reduced PAL speed, or the difference isn’t enough for me to notice for a game like this.

The harsh letterboxing is also there in the original Japanese release, so I can’t fault that to the patch either.