Furi’s short blurb is also the entire premise of the game. A mysterious, silent dude is set free by an equally mysterious dude wearing a bunny head. Your task is simple, take on a series of Bosses (Jailers) and shoot and slice your way to freedom.
Furi is dripping with neon swagger.
Fast and Furious
Furi is brutal and unforgiving, which makes it immensely satisfying to play through. It blends seemingly immiscible genres of Twin stick shooting/Bullet hell with third person hack and slash. There is only one firearm and one sword with no unlockable or upgradable abilities. Furi instead rewards mastery of the limited tools it provides.
It is about to get a lot worse.
Each boss has multiple phases of increasing difficulties. The player is initially given 3 “lives”, and completing a phase refills one life slot. Healing requires shooting green orbs, or successfully parrying attacks. Furi is a 2.5D game, full 3d graphics with gameplay limited in 2 dimensions. Furi’s party trick is to retain the control of the camera, removing a major source of frustration in action games. The game will swivel from isometric view to almost top down to zoomed in behind the players back. Without worrying about the camera, the player can deftly zip in and out of shooting and swordplay while dodging, parrying and charging shots.
Furi Bunnies And Floaty Hairs
Thus spake Beats by Baba, ‘tis but a scratch.
The bosses in the game are a motley crew of action gaming staples. The player character apparently cannot be killed, so they will do their very best to keep him incarcerated. Each one has seems to have his or her own motivations to do so – there is the sadist, the righteous one, the one with a personal grudge and so on. Initially the game gives little to make sense of the world around you, with vague dialogues and ambiguity similar to other Indie games.
Some of the mystery is resolved near the conclusion, painting the game’s world in a new light. The progression curve in the game has been mangled to fit the story though. There is an unevenness in the Jailer’s order – difficulty can vary too much, and one of the final bosses is a complete pushover. It makes sense story wise, but it is a complete downer in terms of gameplay.
Walking sections between fights have received criticism, though there is an auto walk option.
The graphics are great for an Indie game, and the art direction going for a neon washed futuristic look. The enemy design is generic but the combat animations are stellar. There are some brilliant touches like the way the players’ armour lights up in response to certain actions – green while healing, amber when charging up.
Sound design, or rather the soundtrack is the clear star of the show. The synth driven electronic music has contributions from multiple artists. It ebbs and rises with the on screen action and greatly adds to the pulsating experience. Good voice acting and neat combat sound effect tie up the package.
Infuriating
In a game defined by precise controls, wiggle thumbstick quick time events are an odd inclusion.
Furi has its fair number of short comings. The colour palette occasionally obscures the on screen action. Competent players can tear through it in 4-5 hours. The game needed more bosses in a more suitable order. A tutorial boss, a complete pushover and one optional foe further trim the already slim package. The brutal difficulty will also turn away many players.
Lets do this
However, if your are looking for a genuine challenge, Furi should be right up your sleeves, It is one of the better Indie games of 2016. Suck it, Inside.
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