Furi

Here at Gamereactor we've been following Furi for quite some time, and now that the game is finally available for PC and PS4 (where it's currently free for Plus subscribers), we ready to share our opinion of the new game by The Game Bakers. They might be a relatively unknown studio from France, but they had some help in making this new title, with Takashi Okazaki, the creator of Afro Samurai, lending a hand.

The Japanese artist's influence is evident in Furi's style, which is very close to Japanese animation, but with some futuristic and psychedelic touches. The game concept is also unusual, limited to boss battles. You will face an enemy, defeat it, cross a small boring section without any real action, and then face another boss. On paper it may seem a limited experience, but great gameplay systems and superb boss fights make the game standout.

Furi plays like a mix of twin-stick shooter combined with parry and combo moves. You have a weapon that lets you shoot blue projectiles in rapid succession, or super-charge a powerful shot, without requiring ammo or reloads. At short range you can use a futuristic sword, which allows you to attack and parry - an action that relies heavily on timing. You can also quickly dodge a short distance.

It is a simple enough control scheme, but great design and strong mechanics allow for profound depth. Parry, for example, only works if you press the button moments before the enemy attack, and it only works once. If the enemy prepares four consecutive attacks, you will have to parry four times in a row. If you parry just before getting hit, you will also activate a powerful counterattack.

Each character has multiple health bars, and they correspond to combat phases. Removing a full health bar from the enemy will restore your current health bar and start the next phase, which usually adds a few new tricks to the boss and an increase in difficulty. If the opposite happens, the boss will restore his health bar and the combat phase begins again. When your enemy runs out of health, the game goes to the next boss, otherwise you need to restart the entire fight.

Although there are exceptions, each phase of a boss is generally divided into two parts: one for ranged attacks where the camera is looking down from above, and one for much closer combat, where there's a much smaller space to fight in and the camera zooms in. Some bosses prefer ranged attacks, while others lean towards close quarters. The boss designs are fantastic, but be warned that Furi is a challenging game. It will be almost impossible to beat a boss at the first attempt, because the essence of the game lies in a trial and error approach that has you experimenting with each new enemy. You have to memorise the different phases, their attack patterns, and the timings needed to parry, and to do that, you will need to repeat battles over and over.

We have nothing against a philosophy of trial and error, and the game is polished enough to never seem unfair, but it nonetheless becomes a little repetitive and sometimes frustrating. The problem is that the bosses have some time-intensive stages, and if you come unstuck in the fifth phase, will have to go through all of the others once again. This becomes problematic when some stages are more tedious and time-consuming than they are rewarding. Some players will appreciate this no doubt, but you should seriously consider whether you have the patience for it.

Another major problem that Furi suffers from arises in between battles; where there's often several minutes with almost no interaction, where you simply walk from one location to another. It's so basic that you can just press a solitary button (X on PS4) and the character will move along to their next destination. The game takes advantage of these moments to offer some narrative exposition to the player, although the story feels somewhat obtuse. We also have to mention a weird and unnecessary use of swearing, that seemed very forced.

A word also for Furi's audio quality. The sound effects are excellent, especially because they have the practical effect of feeding information to the player. You can identify when the enemy is preparing an attack, and what kind of attack it will be, just by the audio cue - and you will need this intel since your eyes will be focused on dodging dozens of blasts coming your way. As for the soundtrack, it's superb, and will thrill players with an excellent electronic rhythm that works in context with each fight's different phases.

Furi has some really awesome moments, but some flaws pull the game back from greatness. The gameplay is almost perfect and the boss design is fantastic, but then the game is also really poor in terms of the different difficulty levels it offers. If you find the "recommended" difficulty too challenging, there is only one easier option, which does much more than just reduce the difficulty. Bosses lose several phases, and some will only have one or two health bars, something that negates much of the content in the game. There's clearly a in-between difficulty setting missing. We doubt a lot of players will have the required skill, or perhaps patience, to go through all of Furi's bosses, but if you seek a true challenge with great design and gameplay, this game is for you.