Quick Look: Furi

Seems like a Jason game.

I gotta keep playing this. Been enjoying what I've seen so far.

Great game. If this kind of music is your cup of tea, the soundtrack can be listened to on YouTube.

oh that second fight took me at least 6 tries... i'm afraid to carry on!

Brad plays more Furi! Awesome ! Great job on killing the second boss :)

Happy that this game ended up being good.

Ehhh.. good.. I would say it ended up being "alright" or more appropriately - flawed but interesting.

EDIT: Of course thats just my opinion, but judging by the thread here on GB people had mixed feelings on it.

That's quite an unfortunate name. Can't think of anything else when I read it.

"Best Style contender for sure!"

This quote from Brad pleases me since I agree wholeheartedly. Finished the game earlier today and it is great in my opinion but oh boy there are a few fights later on that are frustrating. The true final boss I didn't find as annoying as say The Edge but his last phase is a homage to bullet hell stuff pretty much.

This looks awesome!

@brad I haven't played it, but from watching it looks like when you deplete one set of health bars, you get one back and vice versa.

@brad if you survive a phase and knock a pip off the boss, you get your health bar refilled. It leads to some satisfying swings in momentum.

As the guys said below, it seems if one fighter's health bar is depleted, the other's is refilled. Also the close-up duel phase appears to happen once you deplete the blue phase of the opponent's health. Dueling then depletes the red. Finally, that will remove a pip.

A flawed, but really interesting game. I'm about halfway through at this point, the controls still aren't exactly what I'd like them to be on parry/dodge, and the difficulty combined with the length of bosses/phases make for some frustrating replays of material to get back to the exact thing that killed you. But the concept and marrying of bullet hell / melee combat remain strong, there's surprising depth to the combat, and the style/music/boss design are all pretty amazing from what I've seen.

Not sure how I'll shake out on the whole thing when I finish it, but it is a pretty amazing thing to pop out of nowhere.

Edit: Also others have noted, but you typically burn down a bosses blue health in ranged, then they get stunned with the orange circle and you knock them into the melee with red health, then you knock off a pip and proceed to the next phase if you win there. Dying knocks off a pip of yours and takes you back to the start of the phase. Beating a phase earns you back a pip and full health.

oh shit did danger make new music for this game or is it old stuff?

I don't understand this game at all. I played it. Don't get it.

It reminds me a lot of Hyper Light Drifter.

Uhh what is there to 'get'?

Furi kuri?

Great concept that ends up being only above average as a game due to design flaws and lack of customization options. Dodge and parry both have major issues, dodge with its 'on-release' design and lack of distance precision and parry with its flash/sound/animation muddling that forces you to memorize the enemy animations rather than being able to parry dynamically based on reaction. The default button mapping combined with the lack of remapping option is a confounding oversight, considering that the default button mapping makes some of the more advanced/powerful combat moves in the game almost impossible to pull off comfortably (try parrying while maintaining a charged slash). The bosses have too much of a reliance on bullet hell for difficulty and the health/stages pacing combined with the final bullet hell phases of almost every fight makes replaying them extremely tedious, exactly the opposite of what you want to see in a 'difficult' game. It's unfortunate, because the underlying skeleton is fantastic and could have been a near perfect action game without these issues.

@humanity: Well, not bad at least.

SHOOT THE GREEN MAN, BRADLY. I'M GOING INSANE. JUST SHOOT HIM. SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

I think this game is fucking terrific. Ain't for everyone, but I'm waaay into everything that it's doing. Seems to be something of a divide here on GB over it, which somewhat surprises me, but hey, you can't argue taste.

EDIT: You owe me 15 bucks, Ryckert.

@amethystrush: In a game with swords, why would you use guns? :V

It's got a cool Aeon Flux vibe to it.

I am aaaaaaalmost completely in love with this game. It just feels so fresh!

The art and music and styleeeee is just HMMMMMMMM *french chef finger kiss*

The mix between melee en guns is super fun as well and dodging with L1 makes a HUGE difference imo.

That said the way the health works is kinda what is killing this for me though, I constantly get to the last pip of health on a boss without any difficulty to die over and over again on that goshdarn last pip. It feels like most of my time playing has been spent doing the early/easy phases of a boss over and over to just get a chance to try the hard part again. I'll admit it does add something to be able to overcome that but I'm not sure if it actually makes it more enjoyable to me overall.

I still cant get this game out of my head when im not playing it though and thats a good thing. I'd definitely say its a great game if not for everyone.

@danryckert Midtown NYC salads are about 11.99 a pound (make your own deli style) from http://www.essenfastslowfoodnewyork.com/ here.

Our rent is a little teensy bit cheaper, but our salads are still pretty expensive.

This is a good year for abstract games with protagonists that wear capes and neon glowing swords, huh?

I might pick this up at some point.

I don't understand how Brad doesn't understand that the big giant target on the enemy after bringing down their first layer of health is the marker for hitting them with melee and entering the close combat phase. If you don't hit it in time, the bosses first layer of health comes back, as you see in the fight with the robot lady boss here. He was confused by that giant orange target on UPF, too.

Also, he doesn't know that your health refills after each boss phase. Comeeee onnnnnnnn. The tutorial skips over a lot of things that it should cover in full, but those things are pretty self-evident.

Just for the record I'm not in the "this game is perfect" camp, I'd give it a solid 3/5 but I do think some of your criticism is a little unfair.

First of all the dodging has to be on release because the dodge is chargeable and varies in length which is actually important in some of the later bosses. Also I've honestly never had a problem with parrying on reaction and I never had to memorize their animations beyond their basic attack pattern.

I suppose not being able to rebind the controls does suck but the default bindings suited me just fine and I honestly didn't even know you could parry while charging a slash, are you sure you don't mean dodging while charging?

Regarding the bullet-helliness I don't agree with you at all, I think this game only makes sense as a bullet-hell game with some action elements, there simply isn't enough depth in the swordplay to be the other way around. You've got a single combo consisting of 4 X presses, a charged slash that only ever triggers an animation and the parry system which is a simple reaction/rhythm system. Oh and that weird power up thingie that's just a dmg buff iirc. The meat and potatoes of this game is in the dodging.

As for being tedious, I guess i can't argue about how you felt playing the game but I thought the life system handled that smartly, giving you one of your lives back with every boss phase you beat and allowing you to screw up majorly once per phase without any impact on the rest of the boss. That pretty much guarantees you get to tackle every new phase you see with a completely full health and life bar.

If anything I thought the game was way too forgiving in some spots, allowing you to basically "farm" a full healthbar without much danger to yourself.

I'm about to start the third boss, it doesn't seem that hard compared to the woman...

The depth to the combat isn't even surfaced by the tutorials like charging your right stick in the duel mode, the charged dash, and the two types of parries (perfect gets you the cutscene, and good parry gets you just health where you glow green).

This game SEEMS amazing, curious to actually try it.

Glad to hear about the latency thing. I thought I was going insane.

Game looks like it plays just fine, but there's a lack of fluidity to the animation that really bugs me. Gives it a rigid, unfinished look, as if it's missing frames.

@noval:I don't think the dodging "has to be" on release, it's a design choice the developer made to combine charged dodge and immediate dodge into the same action, hence why I considered it a 'design flaw' in my statement. That design, combined with the reliance on bullet hell for difficulty, leads to an experience that I don't find nearly as precise and skillful as it could be otherwise.

It seems like your response is basically a repetition of "there's nothing wrong with <x> because I found it easy," which I'm not sure has much information value. In my experience, when a new game comes out with some inherent difficulty component those who find it easier and feel as though they're skilled at the game will be more inclined to argue with any criticism of its mechanics. It's interesting that you state that the game is 3/5 but then unequivocally refute every flaw I presented. What exactly did you have a problem with that led to you judging the game to be only 60% successful in its execution?

Edit: Second paragraph came across as more combative than I intended, made some language tweaks.

@spacefish: all new, not all of the soundtrack is him though, some others in there too

I have no interest in playing this, repetition isn't my thing, but that music is pretty hot.

I'm really, really, really into the style of this game, I love the visuals and the soundtrack, I'm curious about the story and the controls feel good. But, sadly, this isn't the type of game for me, I'm having problems to defeat it even on the easiest level. The walking between fights seems to be a bit of a drag as well, usually I just push a button and let him walk automatically.

Also this game, specially on the cutscenes, makes my PS4 sound like a jet plane.

As far as I know, it's new music and it sounds great! And they all still have the typical names Danger gives to his tracks. Here's the bandcamp page.

Im stuck on the third boss. Some gandhi looking dude. Great game, but man its difficult. I love Dark Souls style challenge, but this might be abit too much of a effort. If you loose a battle its like 20 mins wasted each time, brutal. Must get better. I wana persevere and see whats ahead because the style and music is amazing.

FLCL? I think that was the last anime I watched from beginning to end and shit, I would totally play a game based on that. Seems like something that would be up Suda51's alley -- pre-teen boys whose heads inexplicably turn into giant handguns; an alien descending from the heavens on a Vespa; a mysterious industrial facility which looks and acts like a giant clothing-iron the size of several buildings, a grizzled police detective whose eyebrows detach from his face and flutter to the ground like falling leaves whenever he's shocked...yeah.

@hassun: Definitely not! From what I played it's a really interesting idea and the mechanics are solid! I just think there are some pacing issues that hold it back from being as fun and action packed as it could be. There's a little too much standing around waiting for the enemy to attack so you can dodge and get a hit in. This system of being funneled into playing only defensively can make certain portions drag a little.

I know they were just being hyperbolic, but I don't think you could find a $0.36 salad anywhere.

BTW, you can deflect back all purple attacks, so that homing one becomes no problem at all and in fact super useful.

the purple bunny guy makes me think of 2 things 1: ravio from a link between worlds cause of the look 2: the ninja guy that annoys afro samurai in the cartoon

I look forward to seeing other people play this at a high level, rather than play it myself. I'd probably get frustrated playing even the "easy" mode. The deal breaker for me is the length of the battles and lack of checkpoints.

@ferenz: I don't know how you could separate dodging from charge dodging without just splitting it up into 2 buttons or requiring a button combination which would make the game way clunkier imo. I guess you could just remove charge dodging altogether but I think it ads something.

I mean yeah, you're right about my opinion being subjective but I don't know how else to really discuss it? I mean aren't you doing the same thing when you're saying the parry sound/animation are muddy? I simply disagree. I don't think either one of us really wants to do frame by frame analysis so our subjective experience is really all we have to go on.

And just because I disagree with the flaws you presented doesn't mean I didn't find flaws of my own.

I don't really have the time for a proper review but in short my problems are mostly about the story or lack thereof and the execution of what little there is.

Also some of the boss fight design(some pretty small stuff, which is still a bad flaw to have when it's all there is to the game) and the relatively short amount of playtime for the price tag. The style, music and gameplay does a lot for me though.

In short I didn't regret my purchase but I'd probably wait for a steam sale to pick it up if you aren't in a rush. Unless you're really into score/time attack stuff.

And just fyi my final score was a D which is the literal worst rating possible as far as I know :D

@noval: Regarding the dodge, I understand that the separation of the immediate vs hold functionality would be a tricky consideration. However, this is where customization would come into play and provide an immediate solution. If one could choose to separate the actions into separate buttons (there are more than enough open input options on the controller) or, say, hold a trigger button to indicate one action or the other that would allow for combat refinement. Also, I could argue here that the idea of a charged, blind-distance dodge is actually an inherently problematic design in a game heavily reliant on precise movement, so at a certain level the implementation details aren't even relevant to my complaint. I guess what it boils down to is that I think it's a bit shortsighted to completely dismiss the idea that the current design could be improved to provide a better experience. It's not a game ruining issue in its current form by any means, but, in my opinion, it stops the game from achieving the heights it has the potential for.

My complaints about the parry system were far more subjective than I indicated. I've built all of my parry muscle memory around games like Witcher and Dark Souls which have no secondary indicators outside of the attack animation, so the inclusion of the flash and sound are really throwing me off, but that's not really an objective flaw in the game as I presented it. I'm sure with a bit more practice I'll get used to it and find it perfectly sufficient.

One thing I do have to poke you on, though, is that it sounds like you played it on PC :p A number of the control/timing issues are much more noticeable on the PS4 version due to some performance issues of both the controller and the game engine. By comparison, I played the steam version on an xbox 360 controller yesterday and found it to be far more precise and forgiving. I guess I should suck it up and buy the steam version myself, but then I might not have as much to complain about when I get rekt.

This game uses a lot of boss concepts from Nier, just from watching this QL. Obviously it looks a lot tighter, mechanically. I'll check this game out later but it really just makes me even more hyped to see how Platinum does with Nier.