Furi Review (Switch)

Introduction

Furi is the latest exciting adventure from The Game Bakers, now available for the Nintendo Switch. It was previously released on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, and this new Nintendo Switch release really compliments the game well. It's a crazy action game with all sorts of elements from top-down shooter to beat-em-up and so much more all packed together in this incredibly fun and difficult boss rush. Add in a mysterious narrative with some popping visuals and you have the perfect setup for an indie gem.

Furi is available now on the Nintendo eShop for $19.99.

Story

The story of Furi is quite the curious tale. You play as an unnamed warrior who has apparently been locked up in this huge futuristic prison complex for a while now and has finally been freed by a mysterious man in a purple rabbit suit who will soon become your companion for the majority of the game. Once you are finally free you can start by defeating the jailer and going from there to combat every single one of the guardians in this master prison to fight for freedom.

Each guardian is spread out throughout the area in different sections with different environment types where you will battle everyone from the person who put you in jail, to a guardian who has been training for decades for a worthy fight. As you slowly make it through the complex and learn more about what's really going on, you start to become more intrigued and conflicted with what's happening in the story and who is really doing the right thing here. The game does this in a very smart way and makes things harder as you go on, especially as there are some interesting player choices towards the end which affect the story.

How Furi mostly does storytelling is the game will sprinkle hints throughout fights and cutscenes about how you got here and why you are fighting, and many other discoveries such as more on your rabbit-like companion who starts to become more and more mysterious throughout the journey. This way of storytelling was very engaging and worked well with this style of game, especially with how learning more with every fight really encouraged you to fight on and find out what happens next. Overall a fitting and well-told tale with some great lessons and surprises in the mix.

Gameplay

The gameplay of Furi is a unique blend of an action top-down shooter and beat-em-up in a boss-rush style of format. You can pull off many combat moves from dashing/dodging, countering, and slashing with the face-buttons, shooting bullets and charging up in close combat with the right stick, and using ZL for a charged bullet and the right stick for movement. Many control options are also presented here in case you need to rearrange something for easier play. You also learn more advanced techniques throughout the game as you go and you can charge a lot of moves like the dash and the slash. The game excellently presents these techniques to you and forces you to put these strategies into play in order to be victorious and move on to the next boss.

The gameplay here is split up mostly into two sections, a top-down one consisting heavily of shooting in a top-down shooter style, and the other heavily based on slashing, countering, and dodging up close with the enemy in a more zoomed in camera view. In the shooter based section, there is a lot of dodging laser shots and many other types of projectiles with you also usually firing shots back in this phase. There is also melee combat in this phase as well but it isn't as prominent here as the close combat phase. Then in the next closer phase, the combat is heavily focused on countering, which requires you to press the counter button at the right time to recover health and strike back, and of course, melee slashing. These sections were my personal favourite as the close battles rely on fast reaction times quite a bit which made for more intense moments. In the mix, there are also quick time events in battles that even further can add to the pressure with quick complicated movements. These combat styles blend together magically to create a very polished fast-paced combat experience and really do a great job of being the foundation of the game.

The boss battles in this boss rush were plentiful and each had their own flavour and challenge. While some can be more similar than others, each one was mostly very distinctive and had very cool themes such as a boss who can deflect your shots or a boss mainly focused on countering and much more which get more creative and difficult as you go to keep things shaken up. The arenas and environments were also surprisingly pretty varied with many hazards such as flying robots or self-rebuilding walls. The way each boss fight forces you to learn and master new techniques was clever and added to the satisfying gameplay.

The performance for Furi was quite decent other than some noticeably strange dips every now and then in the frame rate. Sometimes in fights, the game would even freeze for more than a few seconds but these moments were rare but noticeable. Other than that minor annoyance though, both docked and handheld modes work beautifully.

Graphics and Audio

The graphical style in Furi is a sort of cel-shaded look with some half realistic lighting and shadowing that really make the game pop in a lot of areas. Things such as fur and grass that blow in the wind really made the visuals feel alive and made the game's presentation feel very polished and detailed. It's very visually appealing and the environments are very dynamic because of this awesome style. Character design was also surprisingly well done and had some really creative and detailed designs that were memorable. Animations and cinematics were yet another highlight and looked insanely smooth and flowed well with the gameplay.

As for the audio, the soundtrack was an exciting mix of epic techno tracks that really added to the thrilling fights and scenes of the adventure. These tracks were very fitting and made many scenes extra memorable with the excellent composition of some of these songs. The songs with voices were especially mesmerizing as they really added to the mood and feel of the game. Sound effects were also well made and were good enhancers to the immersion of the gameplay and complimented the background music.

Conclusion

Furi is an indie gem that will push your limits and reward you in the best ways possible with its tough difficulty and creative fights. With every battle comes a new challenge and a new opportunity to prove yourself with the thrilling and satisfying combat system. Mix in the surprisingly deep story and the captivating soundtrack and you have an excellent experience that pushes its ideas to the edge with style.

Instead of being a mess that tries too many things, Furi amazingly focuses its gameplay on only several bizarre elements, but perfects them and makes an adventure like no other that you won't forget. Any action fan would be doing themselves a displeasure to not at least give this game a try.