Furi: Mad or Insane?

Time to Beat: 7 Hours

The initial glance at The Game Bakers', Furi, reminded me of something akin to Shadow of the Colossus or Dark Souls. At best is an inferior amalgamation. Furi is an action game where the player fights a sequence of boss battles. It has no other gameplay excepts short walks between duels. The story begins with with the silent katana wielding swordsman, called The Stranger, in a prison, reminiscent of Loki trapped under the Earth by Odin. A strange apparition, a man with a rabbit mask, appears and frees The Stranger. The Rabbit Man urges the Stranger to fight the jailer, to free himself, to have revenge. The first boss, the jailer wears three masks, or has three faces, on the front, left, and right. After defeating him, the protagonist plods through a series of fantastical locations, fighting guardians along the way. He's guided by the Rabbit Man, who only appears between battles. Rabbit Man speaks to the stoic swordsmen, evaluating the upcoming enemy. Because of his advisory role, and the bulging eyes, the Rabbit Man's face is like the rabbit costume from Donnie Darko, though one is purple, red, and stupidly inscrutable, while the other is black, white, and horrific.

It's possible the Rabbit Man is an apparition, a delusion, something in The Stranger's mind. He vanishes for battles, never walks, but appears in each location. The player battles bosses with short interludes. The protagonist never speaks, though the enemies taunt, plead, or argue with him. Each boss has a unique look, as do the worlds, planets, or space stations they fight on. The Rabbit Man implies that the bosses are a complicated jail to contain the Stranger. They are connected by portals. The player can manually walk the protagonist from world to world, but Furi also includes an autowalk system. By pressing the A button on the controller the Stranger walks toward the next destination. This movement can be halted by repressing the A button. It's unclear whether the autowalk system is a convenience, or an admittance by the developer that Furi is empty of content aside from ten battles. The player begins Furi by choosing from two difficulties; promenade or furi (easy or normal). A further difficult, furier, is unlocked by winning the game. The first battle seems like a learning battle, with a minimal tutorial, but it doesn't pull punches. Though I didn't lose, I imagine it was possible, and death forces the player to restart. If the player does lose against a boss, they don't die, but restart the boss battle from the begin.

The Stranger has three lives. Bosses have between three and six lives. Lives are measured by a single bar of health. Life bars are large, and it takes many hits on a boss to clear one. Every time the bar of health is depleted, the boss begins a different series of attacks. Some bosses have a secondary health bars hidden under the first for each life. If The Stranger loses a life the boss is healed for the current life. If the boss loses a life, the Stranger is healed for his current life, and regains a life if they had lost one.

The Stranger uses a collection of abilities to confront his foes. He can dash and dodge, parry and counterattack, attack with sword, and shoot bullets and blasts out of his energy pistol. The last is very situational. The sword deals the majority of the damage. Bosses have a collection of common attacks. Most have a melee attack, a melee area of effect attack, a beam attack, an energy gun attack, an expanding circle or wave attack, and a protection circle. Each boss has one or two tricks up their sleeves, but are unfailingly similar. With minor differences and slight changes in timings, a game that claims to be difficult, like Dark Souls, is more tiresome and repetitious. Bosses don't change, but neither does the protagonist. Combat has no progression from boss to boss. The Stranger does not level up, gain attributes, learn skills, or acquire new weapons. The visual effects don't improve the combat. It's either an incredibly stylized game that I don't understand, or a downright ugly one. Characters and areas looks blurry and unfocused. The characters and objects lack edges and details. The bare feet of the Stranger often fail to touch the ground. Bosses look strange, and the appearance of one to the next, and one world to the next have no cohesion. On rare occasions Furi demonstrates a spark of beauty, but the majority is mired in cloudiness. The story and dialogue are similarly nonexistent or bland. Dialogue consists of a series of fighting words or vague conversions with no focus. The Rabbit Man does describe the bosses, but they are as flat as unjustified anger.

The ten of them don't offer a challenge. Across the first nine I never died more than four times, defeated two without dying once, and averaged 2.1 deaths per boss. The hardest was the second (the crazed prisoner), because the first boss very easy. This made the followup feel like the first real challenge of Furi. The only one which felt frustrating was the seventh, an invisible sniper, because it was difficult to find her.After the 9^th boss, the Snow Suit Girl, the Stranger walks around a grassy area, and everything seems to die as he approaches. Eventually the screen fades to black, and it seems like Furi is over, but then it fades back in, and the protagonist dons a space suit. He flies it to a space station in orbit. There is an option to end the game, or an option to fight an optional final boss. This one killed me seven times, and was the most different from the others, though still not significantly divergent. The sword which was the key tool to defeat the other bosses was useless, and the player has to resort to their energy pistol.

The story even ends with an amorphous conclusion, though the final boss does offer a measure of clarity. It calls the protagonist Rider, and numerous copies of him can be seen on the station. More than that I won't say. The question remains of the game's title. It's named Furi, and at first this seems related to the protagonist's fury at his imprisonment. But it is difficult to know what the Stranger thinks. Certainly the Rabbit Man is disturbed, but it isn't clear how the Stranger feels. The ending confuses the understand of the title, reflecting it back on the protagonist. I repeatedly asked myself, am I the evil person, and are the opponents justly restraining me.? The conversation is so vague as to leave the details of the imprisonment and conflict indecipherable.

In Conclusion, Furi may initially appear similar to Dark Souls. It has the weapon wielding swordsman against difficult foes, but it is vastly inferior, a repetitive slog absent the tactical and atmospheric depth of Dark Souls. Dark Souls has both a phenomenal visual design and story, compared to the formlessness of Furi. After consideration, Furi seems more comparable to Titan Souls. It's another bosses only game, but still Titan Souls outperforms Furi in every way. The bosses are creative and distinct, more puzzle than fight, and the visual effects are preferable. It's actually difficult, which is something Furi can't claim.

In the end, one is glad when the game is heard no more, for it is a tale, full of sound and furi, signifying nothing.

Recent:

The Presidential Events: September 2020 Part II of II

Relevant:

Tacoma: Can You Go Home Again?

Dark Souls 3: A Return to Fire and Shadow

Hollow Knight: Not as Deadly, or as Dark, as Dark Souls