Furi (PS4)

Has anyone had a chance to try out Furi yet? It's the PS+ indie this month.

I wasn't holding out much hope for it but it has really impresed me so far. It's a good mix between bullet hell and third-person melee combat. The bosses are a good challenge and it feels very satifying when you get one down. I was worried that they would start to feel samey but i'm on the 6th one so far and each has felt very unique. The whole thing is very sleek and stylish and has a really nice look to it.

The only real issue I have with it (so far) is the Resident Evil-like tank controlled walking sections between each boss. I get that there needs to be a bit of downtime and the scenery is really neat to look at but they could really have done with either shortening them a little or increasing the walk speed.

Anyways, very pleasantly surprised with this one. Anyone else have any thoughts?

I defeated the jailer and then the second boss. When I got to the third one the first phase took a long time and I couldn't really figure out what to do in the second phase.

It's .. alright? The long walks between the boss fights are kind of agonizing and the boss battles themselves tend to kind of drag. They have a lot of phases which is cool, but instead of seeing the boss naturally transition through them as you would in other games you have to repeatedly go through the same pattern a dozen times before you enable the next moveset.

The idea is neat, and the controls for your character are really tight, but overall I'm not so sure about the execution.

I think it's damn good. The moments in-between boss fights are weird, but if you press x the character just auto-walks to the next fight, so it might as well be a cutscene. The first 2 fights were fine, but I think it really comes into its own during the 3rd. EDM Dhalsim for best new character.

If I were to describe Futile I'd say it's like someone took the character action genre and distilled it too it's purist/simplest form. Something is lost with the very simple combat system, but I think it makes room for the devs to be creative elsewhere. Doesn't execute on this perfectly, but well enough for me to like it a whole lot.

This game has styyyyyyle. It looks fucking great, and the soundtrack is awesome as well. And yeah, the gameplay itself is pretty fun and challenging, too. Only through the third boss (yes, "EDM Dhalsim" is pretty cool), and I think the fights are getting better as it goes along. Hope it can keep that way through to the end.

Really liking it so far. I'm also up to "EDM Dhalsim" and I really love how different the fights have been from each other. The character design is really imaginative and I can definitely see coming back to play the game in Furier mode. I get the gripes with the combat system-it's not perfect and does feel a little repetitive. There's still enough in the balance between ranged and melee to keep me engaged, however.

Gonna download in a sec, some other site it's hard "in the wrong way" so I'm wondering what the hell that even means.

@csl316: My guess it they feel it's hard in an unfair way (irritating attacks, bad controls, ridiculous numerical difficulty such as damage, etc) rather than Ninja Gaiden sort of hard where it's just hard but balanced and on you to not fail.

Loved it until the third boss (super long, super annoying) now I'm beginning to wonder whether the controls have the finesse they need. I'll get back to it in a bit and re-assess.

Does anyone know exactly what holding back on the right stick does? I assume it's some kind of damage boost until you get hit?

So far I really like the game. I'm at the time lord fellow, and I really like all the character designs so far. I even like the walks between boss rooms since the environments are nice.

My main gripe so far is that the game has frame dips/hiccups during cutscenes, but at least the gameplay is smooth.

@brackstone: Read the "How To Play" section in the menu. It has a few tips in there that aren't covered in the tutorial. If you hold the stick in any direction while in close combat mode, it boosts your next attack unless you get hit (or a certain amount of damage, not sure). You can also parry bullets and carry your sword charge through a dash. I think there might have been some other techniques in there.

Art style is kind of meh to me but super subjective of course

Music is godlike and could end up in the Goty deliberations at the end of year

Gameplay is where it becomes spotty for me. It's fast paced and intense but then there's a delay on your dash, causing you to essentially preemptively dodge rather than do it reaction based which doesn't work once it gets bullet hell-y.

The flashing enemies that you need to parry tells the player "parry when you see the flash, yet it's actually a second or so later.

Gameplay is already starting to become repetitive and same ol-same ol and I'm only 2 bosses in.

The walking sections are completely asinine and a waste of resources. Should've just been non-interactive cutscene.

4th boss has been killing me and also killing it for me. The final phase has you locked in a tight grid and you have to dodge from one box to another, but there's no way to tell how far you're going to dodge. I'd been having a great time until then.

This game is also perhaps too radiant. After 90 minutes my eyes really started hurting, even playing in broad daylight.

I'm not a huge fan of boss fights that a) Have cutscenes and a lot of dialog throughout, and b) Can only be hit after certain sequences and are otherwise invincible. I like the risk reward of choosing when to attack and when to play it safe, when there's a clear cut window to attack it just takes away a lot of the choice that makes a (good) boss fight fun.

That said I really like the idea behind this game and I'm going to keep playing it. The walking sections dont bother me, they kind of remind me of No More Heroes when you're being hyped up for the fight ahead only instead of some saucy french handler you get some off brand Ninja Ninja.

Just finished the 8th boss. First time the game has felt like straight-up bullshit to me.

Still loving it so far though. It isn't perfect and all the complaints I've seen are totally valid. I actually haven't noticed the delay in the dash, maybe I just adjusted to it without even realising.

The sniper boss was a little buggy for me 2 or 3 times in ways that are specific to her particular mechanics but other than that it was smooth sailing for me on PC all the way through.

Just beat it and I... Umm... Kinda adore this game. :P

It got it's problems, but I almost never felt like it was anyones but my own fault when I died. Didn't even notice that the dash was delayed, maybe I just adjusted to it quickly or something. Every boss was a treat in my eyes, though in some way I felt that the melee-boss should have been earlier since that was fantastic training on gettng your parrying-timing straight. But yeah, the music, the aesthetics and the combat, all pretty damn great, especially the bullet hell-parts.

Would have wanted a bit more animations of your counter-attacks since they get old pretty fast when repeated.

The story is incredibly vague, but kinda works with the dreamlike setting and character-interactions. Not fantastic by any means, but the segments between battles was a nice breather at the very least. I also found the main characters face of eternal sadness making him more sympathetic than I thought I would feel towards him. :P

Edit: Now that I think about it, I suppose the problem many people has is that you dash when you release the button rather than when you press it, as you can charge your dashes?

Played through the first two bosses and I'm on the fence about the game. The controls don't feel as tight as I'd like for how difficult the game is, though may be it's just getting used to the timings compared to other games with similar mechanics. Primarily the dodge seems sluggish and inaccurate. But I love the idea of these extended boss battles teaching you mechanics and ramping over time, combined with the push and pull "lives" system to give you chances to try each phase, and the mix of options in ranged/melee and defense/healing/offense. If I can fully get the controls in my mind I could see loving it.

But is anyone else finding the performance to be a hot mess at times? The boss battles run fine, but everything else causes my PS4 to run like crazy in a way that seems completely out of whack compared to what's on the screen. The game even hard crashed my PS4 upon loading the main menu - not a lock-up but completely shut the thing off. Makes me worried enough that maybe I should wait for a patch before it melts my PS4.

Looks cool but 25 seems a bit much for it, i'll wait for the steam sale down the line.

@deathpooky: Finished the game and have completed 2 speed runs to get the trophies (currently ranked 6th in the world!) and it's mostly run fine for me. There are some frame drops and screen tears in the walking sections but haven't seen anything too major. I've also noticed a split second freeze during boss fights maybe 3 or 4 times. That can really throw you out but they have been so infrequent that it hasn't bothered me much.

I adore this game (other than the 8th boss). It's been a long time since I've finished a game on the day of release but I couldn't put this down (and still cant). Aiming for the platinum next. It's still at 0.0%. Gonna take a while though I reckon as that Furier difficulty is wrecking my shit.

@deathpooky: The dodge was far more manageable to me after I started pressing/holding it ahead of time in anticipation of a dodge rather than treating it as a single-press reaction mechanic. In fact, you can time it really nicely when holding it so that you dodge from pretty far out to right on top of / behind the boss for immediate punishment. Pressing it as a reaction does feel a little bit sloppy, maybe its doing some calculation to check whether you're going to hold it or not on the press which is increasing the perceived latency significantly enough to be noticeable. Also, using the dodge on the left trigger is far nicer than using it on a.

Edit: Actually, I suspect what's really happening is that the dodge mechanic is implemented as a press and release action which should theoretically satisfy both the single press and the hold options, but because it's waiting for the release when you do a quick press rather than initiating the dodge instantly it feels slower than you expect.

My biggest complaint is with the parry flash mechanic. The flash happens immediately and is supposed to indicate that "this attack can be parried", but it has no relevance for the actual parry timing of the attack. Unfortunately, our brains are trained to associate reactions with flashes, so it feels like a constant mental struggle to force myself not to react by parrying immediately. It seems like a very poorly considered design. I'd prefer the flash not to occur at all rather than triggering me to parry at the wrong time.

@ferenz: Interesting - I'll have to try that tonight. I was definitely using the dodge as a quick reaction mechanic or short press to jump over waves. I didn't even know press and hold was possible.

@ferenz: I usually really struggle with parrying mechanics in games. I love the souls series but am terrible at timing the parries, same with the Witcher. I actually think the parrying in this game is superior. It's just a matter of getting used to the timing. The flash let's you know the enemy is starting an attack that can be parried and the sound let's you know when you should hit the button.

It took me a little while to get used to it but I am able to parry most attacks now. I get how it might seem counter intuitive to people used to other games parrying systems though.

@oren87:That's funny, by comparison I'm very good at parrying at both souls and the witcher, to the extent that I haven't used a shield in any Souls game since DeS and have relied entirely on parry/dodge without issue. Perhaps that's a sign that being good at that immediate reaction parry style makes it harder to transition to the Furi delayed parry style.

@deathpooky: The game does a really shit job at even hinting the more complex mechanics in the actual boss fights / narrative. There's a "How to Play" option where it explains hold dodge, charge attacks, etc, but the game never makes any attempt to direct you there.

Love the style, love the soundtrack, love the controls. Hate to play it.

The walks are a drag (I just press a button and let him walk by himself now) and the battles are way too hard and, after you died a lot or lost one of those life squares a lot, it gets frustrating to repeat the same thing over and over again. Even the easiest difficulty can get hard sometimes, specially to people like me that isn't really that good with boss battles and identifying and dodging attack patterns.

I'm really curious about the story and, as I said, I'm really into the style and soundtrack so I guess I'll keep trying to move forward.

Oh, and the cutscenes make my PS4 sound like an airplane engine.

Playing on Furier now and its harder in the way it should be: new, more challenging patterns that demands more from the player. The fourth boss really gave me hell like no other though as it required you to charge your dashes sometimes to be able to make some of the close encounter-dodges. Quite a comeback as it was one of the few bosses that I beat the first try my first time through. Beat it in the end though and felt like the most accomplished being ever.

I've fallen for this game harder than I ever thought. I swear I shut the game off and put down the controller around 4 times this evening against the fourth boss but with new determination picked it up again minutes later.

Techno-pulsating love.

This reminds me of El Shaddai a whole lot.

2 bosses in, and I'm not entirely sure of the mechanics but I can tell that dying after 5 minutes would be extremely frustrating. It's cool and interesting so far, we'll see how this turns out.

@johnymyko: Most of the people who have beaten the game have disliked the story, so I wouldn't push through for its sake. I'm 5 bosses in and the dialogue is, without exception, pedestrian and repetitive.

There's also a full playthrough by the developers up already.

@milijango: Interesting that they'd post that so quickly. Without commentary, no less. I'd love to hear how they wound up with this sort of design.

Yeah, the story itself is not worth playing a game you don't even like. There are some lines you pick up on and understand more after you've seen the ending though wich is kinda cool, but yeah...

I did not dislike it, but it works more as a frame for this dreamlike world rather than a genuinely interesting narrative on its own.

@johnymyko: Yah my biggest complaint is that in making this game a boss rush, they stretch out each phase way too long. This combined with the system that bosses are immune to damage apart from specific openings makes repeating some sections an even bigger drag than sitting through the walk and talks. Taking down those three rings of shields on the third boss is long winded and kind of boring. It's not satisfying bullet hell and it's not a challenging character action segment either. Too many sections feel like you're just going through the motions.

I've still found no use for the right stick in melee. As soon as I let go the charge is lost and because its on the right stick my thumb is already in use so I've nothing to press square with.

@jesus_phish: When they're down on the ground you'll have time to charge up fully, glowing orange, sparking, all that good stuff, and if you manage to attack them without getting hit before you use it, the damage is well worth it. The right stick-charge is not like your attack charge, it sticks with you until you use it or get damaged.

I've found that Furier have made me realise alot of the usefullness of the different functions. Hardly ever charged my sword in Furi-difficulty, but now I'm able to charge and dash pretty easily for a good punish, as you'll often only get one hit in after an attack. Same for the right-stick charge, as soon as I have a window, I'll use it.

@karmosin: Ah ok. It wasn't obvious to me that it stuck around.

Just started it a few hours ago, got to the fourth boss and died in his last stage, which I figured was a good time to take a break. I love this game so far. The style is fantastic and the bullethell element is exciting. The enemy designs are great, aesthetically and in fight mechanics. I love the switching of perspectives when it goes to melee, too. I have to say, I dig the direction of the silent protagonist with a chatty enigmatic character nudging him along; very Samurai Jack-esque. Holding X to have the character walk during interludes is a nice addition. I actually enjoy that the game requires at least the minimum interaction there from the player; uncontrollable sections create a disconnect between the character and the player, and this keeps the player in the characters shoes, even if it is just holding a button down. It keeps the player somewhat in control. The walks are a nice break and create at least some sense of pacing.

It's pretty crazy that this came out right when I finished NieR, with both of those games leaning into the bullethell mechanics in an action game. I'm infinitely liking the fights in this game better than the ones in NieR. This is definitely one of my top games of the year so far, and I can't wait to unlock the Furier difficulty.

Playing on PS4, I haven't had any performance issues.

@ferenz: It would be pretty dull throughout the game, and for the single bosses, if every attack had the same timing with the flash; parrying would be far too easy. Different timings on different attack patterns keeps the fights fresh and requires the player to learn and adapt.

@ferenz: there is a reason for that. Because they can parry your attacks later on in the game. so the delay is giving you time to react to their parry too. So technically you can parry, attack, (they parry), you parry, attack. etc.

also they go into combos sometimes that a parry won't break through, unless its a perfect parry (orange), that way it gives you an out to go back to parry if they keep attacking you.

I honestly think the delay is fantastic. It gives you time to react, and after the spark and audio queue its AWAYS the same timing. There are bosses that have attack animations that can juke and throw you off, thats why you have to hear the spark and parry. You should be able to just close your eyes and hear the audio queue and time the parry!

@liquidsn: Thanks for the helpful info, but I have to confess that I'm still finding the system very hard to cope with. The problem is that the flash/audio cue actually distract me from paying attention to the animation, which is how I've learned to parry in other games and which still seems to be a major component of the Furi parry system. From what I've seen, the spark always occurs immediate when the attack animation begins, so I'm not entirely sure what it even accomplishes? Every melee attack I've seen in the game so far is parryable, so what's the purpose of the flash if it doesn't have anything to do with the parry timing? Even assuming that there are some melee attacks that aren't parryable, doesn't it make more sense to indicate attacks that can't be parried since they're would be the overwhelming minority? A major difficulty component of the game is paying attention to so many effects happening on screen at once, so adding more effects to deal with seems like a backwards design to me. I realize that they might have chosen to go with the flash/parry so you could pay attention to those rather than having to visually watch the animation, but that's just not how my action game muscle memory is configured. I hope that they will add an option to disable the flash/audio-cue at some point in the future.

@ferenz: Makes sense. I just took it as the game mechanics so I didn't mind much. It really dawned on me near the end with a boss that is only close combat. Before that, every combo the boss does was always in rhythm. This boss was the first one to delay attacks and speed up. If you watch the animation of the attack it is impossible without the audio cue/spark. Sometimes he spins his sword, spins, attacks. It's not aways the same animation of attacks. Also, It's super hard to see their attack animations, when you are attacking and clashing so close up.

Also when you are on the overtop mode, the boss also comes in and attacks too, which helps with the spark.

There is a boss where...lets just say... has literally no "attack animation" so to speak.

Hope you keep up with it. This to me is probably the best game I have played in a long long time. Coming from a Punch Out / Super Punch Out lover.

@liquidsn: Oh, I think it's a great game. I don't even mind the walking sections everyone else seems to loathe because I hit 'x' and just chill out with the music/visuals. I just wish it had more options to further customize the gameplay as I think that's a very valuable component of "hard" games.

The game is dope...

...but the soundtrack?

SOUNDTRACK. OF. THE. FUCKING. YEAR.

@ferenz: I've found myself using the flash and audio as a single to count to the parry.

Flash (start delay) parry = a parry. It's not always an orange perfect parry, but it'll do for most bosses.

I can understand though that if other video games have been training you for years to parry on the flash/animation that it could be a hard thing to unwire.

Also thanks to those mentioning you can just hold X to walk between bosses. I was having a few early Resi tank control moments while trying to take in the audio and visuals.

Definitely not a game for everyone, but I very much enjoy it. Very strange seeing this game drop almost out of nowhere, with no real marketing push.

The soundtrack is incredible. The gameplay is fun and fast-paced for the most part, and feels really good when you happen to play flawlessly even in short stretches. Furier mode seems to have valid replayability and for the steep price of free and eventually $15 this game is DEFINITELY worth your time.

Haven't felt this fulfilled with such a brief experience since Mark of the Ninja.

I'm really enjoying the game despite being stuck on the 3rd boss, the flashing before the attack begins is really messing with my timing and making his 3rd phase wreck me all the time :(

Whoever wrote the ending had to have been high as fuck.

I re-started the game on promenade difficulty because I couldn't get past the 2nd boss. My thumb reactions are that slow.

The last boss on Furier difficulty must be one of the hardest challenges I've ever come upon in a video-game. I'm not even sure I can make it, how you shall avoid some of the last phase stuff is beyond me. I mean, I know there's a way but being fast and frame-perfect enough seems like something I've never be.

On the last boss myself but on Furi difficulty and that last phase is pretty much bullet hell city!

@darro: Yeah, I'm just on the regular difficulty, but fuck that last phase of the last boss.