April N-E Game Club: Furi

[drahkon]

This is April's N-Europe Video Game Club.

Originally released back in 2016 on PC and PS4 with later releases on XBox One (end of 2016) and Switch (2018). Furi is an action game. A fast and relatively difficult hack-and-slash-twin-stick-shooting-bullet-hell-boss-rush-action-game. Yes, this is quite the apt description. 

The game is praised for the spot-on gameplay and precise controls. It might be a little difficult for some but there is an easy difficulty to choose.

One of the best things about the game: the soundtrack. Just listen to a sample track:

Spoiler

 

Alright, enough chitter-chatter. Play the game, rise above and tell us what you think right here.  

[LazyBoy]

Got a quick 20 minutes in after its downloaded and so far really enjoying it. Love the set up - your jailor is a dick and you ain't taking his shit no more. I don't need more than that. 

Lovely blend of gameplay styles, though I'll have to see how it develops, having only got to the second boss. Music is great, and rabbit dude is great (definite Afro Samurai nod). Very encouraging so far.

[Dcubed]

11 hours ago, LazyBoy said:

Got a quick 20 minutes in after its downloaded and so far really enjoying it. Love the set up - your jailor is a dick and you ain't taking his shit no more. I don't need more than that. 

Lovely blend of gameplay styles, though I'll have to see how it develops, having only got to the second boss. Music is great, and rabbit dude is great (definite Afro Samurai nod). Very encouraging so far.

It's more than just a nod... All of Furi's characters were designed by Takashi Okazaki... the original creator of Afro Samurai!  

[Jonnas]

First of all, I'd like to thank Lazyboy for convincing me to buy an eShop title and actually play it (drahkon usually only accomplishes one of those things). I've been neglecting Indie titles for a while now, and this is a good way to kick me into action.

Anyway, had a few minutes to try this out and get used to the game feel. First impressions:

• This game has text settings for Portuguese! Even if it's Brazilian, it's still rare to see, so that's how I'll play;
• I originally set the voices to English, since I figured that was the original language... but then I looked it up, and the developers actually come from France! Next time, I'll set the voices to French (with BR subtitles, as mentioned);
• I usually don't mesh well with bright neon colours, but I'm actually digging the art direction here. Something about it reminds me of Platinum games from the Ps2 era. I've decided to set the brightness to maximum, since it seems to fit the style;
• The mechanics were more intuitive than I expected. Furthermore, so far the game feels pretty basic. I was parrying the opponent and gaining health while barely trying. It was pretty fun reaching that point, so it's not a big issue. I'm sure it gets trickier later on;
• Since I'm using a Gamecube controller, I have to say that X to slash and A to block doesn't do it for me. And I don't see the point in giving us 4 different control schemes if all it's going to do is change the shoulder buttons. The main exception is setting C, which I think I'll be using.

So yeah, around ten minutes with it, but I'm already feeling good vibes. Can't wait to put some decent time into it.

[Jonnas]

Did anyone keep playing this? Due to a busy month, I only picked it up again today... and holy shit, it clicked.

• French audio works wonders, much better than the low volume mess from the English version. And I love the fact that it's translated directly into Portuguese text. It's a rare joy that's hard to explain to outsiders, but it makes me giddy;
• I played it up to the third boss, and I see that they get creative with the scenery. It reminds me a lot of a more colourful No More Heroes, which is weird, because I didn't play that game;
• I now see how the mechanics work. Setting C flows much better like I expected, and it's much more satisfying to dodge, parry, space yourself, and land a blow once you know everything you're doing. I might legit take up the harder difficulty mode once I unlock it;
• I really liked the bosses so far. The third boss was too much of a blabbermouth (so far the only voice to annoy me, due to how much he spoke), but that's literally my only complaint. Boss No.2 was dope as hell, and a high bar to surpass.

Not sure if I can finish this by the end of April, but I'm likely to keep playing it even if I don't!

[Jonnas]

Finished it today. It's pretty damn good. the plot remained ambiguous on many details up until the end, which really worked wonders.

And now there's "One More Fight" (originally DLC, I hear), and the "Furier" difficulty. I'll tackle those somewhere down the line.