Fury Unleashed (PC) Review

Fury, the armed-to-the-teeth protagonist of the comic book world the player will brave, is the distilled essence of '90s blockbuster action. He runs around the place shooting at demonic Aztec warlords, undead mages, and monstrous plants in a tropical jungle, goes on to blow up Wolfenstein-like Übermensch in a futuristic Nazi complex, and then tries his luck with laser-spitting alien scum… and then some. Surprisingly, there's an actual plot here, but it's not about Fury. Instead, the occasional intermission will speak of the comic book artist behind everything around him (including him), and his struggle with finding the necessary incentive to keep this place "alive."

Worry not violent, trigger-happy action fanatics - while enjoyable, this is the tiny tip of an iceberg made out of pure gameplay. This is all about shooting at stuff, and enjoying the vibrantly colourful fireworks. Fury is the perfect action hero. Besides being able to shoot at all directions, he is super fast, can dash, run like Sonic, stomp enemies like Mario, lob grenades, use a variety of super moves, or hack 'n' slash his way towards the end of each stage - and you need to become a master in using all these, because the enemies you'll face won't show any mercy. There's a reason why the standard difficulty mode is 'Hard,' with even easy being able to give you a run for your money.

After the first stage, or "page," which provides enough room to learn the ropes, you are thrown into an arena filled with fire-spiting traps and sharp blades, with enemies that shoot, throw bombs, try to ram you, appear when you least expect them, and even explode upon their death. There's a great variety of baddies to face, and they are never alone, so one must be able to keep many balls in the air while fighting them. The bosses are even more over-the-top; gargantuan towers of flesh or metal, or, why not, both, these almost bullet hell encounters will really put your ninja skills to the test, as you try to dodge bullets, rockets, beams, etc. Note, though, that this isn't just a "simple" shooter.

Fury Unleashed is a combo-centric game, with each kill raising a counter, which in turn increases the rate the three types of 'Ink' drop, which are divided between experience Ink for your passive skill tree, currency for buying equipment, and, of course health Ink. Apart from raising the reload speed, your critical chance and damage, and many more, this system also ensures you get some armour points - very important since there's no other way to protect yourself from harm. The way this forces you to play aggressively (but not recklessly) makes it feel like the recent id Software masterpiece, DOOM Eternal. Quite the compliment for an indie game, don't you think?

The combo system does another thing: it makes you play as fast as you can. This not only makes the experience even more adrenaline-pumping, but it also adds a tactical layer to it all. Each page is randomly generated, therefore you must carefully plan the way you play, and on the spot, which ensures that the player is in the moment every moment, especially since its rogue-like nature means that you won't always find the equipment you want to each time you attempt a run. In other words, one must make good use of whatever falls into Fury's hands, whether that's a fast-firing set of pistols, a slow but powerful rocket launcher, or something fancier, like an energy or… soul blaster.

Regarding the Ink which is used for purchases, it's all in-game - while you are attempting a play-through, not before or after. Again, that means you need to think what to accept and when. The 'Devil,' for example, is an NPC which lets you choose amongst three boosts, but you need to pay with a pretty high number of health points to receive that, and many times you'll simply be too close to death to… sign his contract. Others offer mini side-quests, which range from killing a specific number of enemies with a melee weapon, to killing everyone on a page before a set time limit. Generally, lots of new things have been added to the game since the days this critic first tried this out.

If there is one complaint that would be that not much has changed from the days of Early Access. Sure, this was a solid piece of software long before the day of its release. The talented folks behind Fury Unleashed is a really competent team of programmers, which has created something that, bar a few issues here and there (mostly some bugs in the UI), is technically flawless. It's not even a matter of a lack of content, as what's on offer is more than enough. This can indeed get a bit repetitive after trying out your umpteenth run, but this is one of those occasions where the game is so darn fun, that it doesn't really matter - a bit like Konami's classic, Contra.

No, the problem here is that, while definitely one of the better rogue-likes, the random generator can occasionally create circumstances that one can't escape from unscathed. In fact, even without the caprices of the RNG, this can be too overwhelming at times - again, like DOOM Eternal, but without the latter's finesse. Sure, this "unfairness" is actually part of the fun, as it never lets one relax, since you can never tell what's up ahead. Some rebalancing in terms of weapon damage, enemy health, and maybe a little bit more space to move in some areas, would be more than welcome, though. Does this make it a bad game? Hardly. It just means that this isn't as fantastic as it could be.

...Oh, and did I mention this can be enjoyed co-operatively with one more player?