4/5 ★ – Taco_'s review of Furi.

Overall score: 8/10 Credits time: ~4 hours Speedrun time: 1:01 Achievements: 31/33 I don't usually write *actual* reviews, but this game deserves it. This review will be segmented. Gameplay: 9.5/10 Furi tackles combat spectacularly. It introduces the basics to you, such as what buttons to press and when to perform them. What it doesn't teach you outright, you get to learn the good ol' fashioned way: experience. Certain bosses present a spectacularly harder difficulty than others, and yet, not so difficult that you can't complete them after 5-10 minutes of failure (at least Furi mode). This game doesn't beat around the bush when it comes to bullet hell segments. While they might not be particularly long, about every other boss has a section with it towards the end. Even then, it's on the simpler side of bullet hell, so it is not exactly infuriating. What was initially infuriating were the "walking-simulator" sections that most poor reviews attack. While the sections are unskippable and some are rather long, I enjoyed the narrator's lines enough that I quickly forgot I was even in these sections. I learned to embrace them instead of hate them, as I got to see the graphics that were designed for the game as well. As I will touch on later, the dialogue even offered a new perspective upon the second reading. At my third time through the story to grab another achievement, I did get a little bored watching them, however. If they were skippable, I would rate gameplay at 10/10. Graphics: 7/10 For an indie game, I believe that the graphics were done quite well. At first, the blocky edges were a bit hard to look past, but after playing the game for a couple hours, it's an acquired taste. The colors pop brilliantly, unfortunately a bit too brilliantly at times, as I felt a bit of discomfort in my eyesight during a couple sections of bullet hell. Story: 8/10 Dang, did not expect this kind of story from a bosh rush game. As to not leave spoilers, I will say that it is simple yet refined. For those that have played the game or are looking to purchase it, please play the storyline through again, even if just in Furi mode again. The narrator throughout the story makes several remarks that hint to a greater story underneath, and it adds complexity to each of the characters presented. There are even 2 endings as well as a secret ending sprinkled within the story. While some basic tropes were present, they were important nonetheless. Sound Design: I had to give this it's own category. The voiced dialogue of characters [English] was phenomenal, the lines were delivered excellently and it really made me invested in some of the characters. Not only that, the sound design within combat is great too. Sword slashing sounds right, lasers sound simple like they should be, nothing ever felt out of place. 9/10 Overall: The achievements were fun to collect as well, really brought out the more minute details within the game. Props to the devs for creating a great game, I could easily sink WAY more hours into it to complete the last two achievements, but I'm gonna take a break for now. I attempted Furier mode and got rather frustrated with my failings on the *first* boss. I was rather impressed with how much more difficult Furier mode was, I'll have to return to it another day. Getting this off my chest: this game definitely does not deserve an M rating. While there is combat and one particular cutscene within combat that's pretty gruesome (The Scale's fight where he impales you), it's no worse than the likes of movies like Black Panther (yet it is only rated PG-13). As for language, there's one instance of the F word but that's kind of hard to avoid anywhere on the internet these days. I suppose if you fail the fight, you would hear it again, or if you quit to the menu it would also present that dialogue yet again, but that particular fight was rather simple and I only heard it used once. I think the Teen rating would fit it better in today's circumstances.