Fury Unleashed (Nintendo Switch) Review

Trouble is brewing. Not on the actual in-game world where super action hero Fury gets to blow up legions of enemies, but in the real one - in the mind of Fury's "father." It just so happens that this is a comic book, thus the plot revolves around its creator's struggle with finding the incentive to keep on working on it, with doubts manifesting as a sort of chaos within the pages of the comic book. An interesting concept, sure, and well-handled as well, but Awesome Games Studio did the right thing, and didn't focus on that. Fury Unleashed is all about the action; and action is good in here.

Fury can shoot in all directions, lob grenades, hack 'n' slash (or frying pan) baddies, run very fast, and dodge enemies with a neat dash move, and even use a super ability, like an all-screen freezer, the spawning of a temporary side-kick drone, and more. You'll need all these. Fury's opposition is fierce, and each room (or comic book panel) is usually filled with various traps. What could anyone expect from a game where the standard difficulty is 'Hard?' Being a rogue-like, of course, means that, after your death, you can re-enter the fray, and stronger than before. Luckily, skill is still King here.

Gathered EXP, or 'ink' fallen from enemies, can be used to improve the passive skills of Fury, whether that's the reloading speed, or the armour points. As a veteran of the PC version, however, this critic rediscovered how great Fury Unleashed, by realising that grinding, while crucial to reaching the end, is only half of the equation. Experience gathered is nothing more than a boost here. One still needs to master all the different tools at hand, and make tactical decisions on the fly, depending on what items the next randomised run will offer - and then there's the combo thingy.

This is a very combo-centric deal. Killing increases a multiplier, that makes drops better, improves reload speeds, Fury's critical hit chance and damage, and even adds armour points, which are very important, as they are the only things that stand between your health bar, and demon fire, hot lead, and acidic, alien gob. Not only is this focus in combos helpful, but it also makes the whole experience fun, as it forces players to enter the fray and play aggressively, think which route to follow to maximise combo rate, while also gathering the highest amount of loot possible, and so on.

Now, in regards to the Switch version, there only two issues. The first still exists in the original. The RNG is one of the better ones in the world of rogue-likes, but it can occasionally be a tiny bit unfair, usually by not offering enough breathing room to move around. The second issue, which is new, is luckily more of an annoyance than a real problem. The loading times are slower. Newcomers won't notice that, because they are still fast, but it would be nice if that had the super-fast level transition of the original. Luckily, that's not enough to ruin the fun that is Fury Unleashed - which doubles when enjoyed with a friend in co-op.