Furi Pax East 2016 Impressions

During my time at PAX East I was able to demo the upcoming title Furi. Dispensing with hordes of one-hit enemies on the way to that boss fight, Furi is a gauntlet of boss fights. The main character is a prisoner, tortured and mocked daily by The Warden. A mysterious rabbit man, who really just wears a rabbit mascot-type hat and doesn’t have any animal traits that I know of, tells our hero that if he wants his freedom, he will have to defeat The Warden. This kicks off a dramatic walk to the arena where The Warden is waiting. Following some posturing and trash talk, the battle begins. Ranged attacks weaken The Warden’s defenses allowing me to close in and deal some devastating sword combos. While charged attacks are possible, there are no powerups being dropped and health is regained by properly timed parries. The standout of the gameplay is that I wasn’t going against the odds in this fight.

The protagonist and the bosses are evenly matched making it my fight to lose. At times the bosses would pull out a new ability, but at no point was I swarmed by minions while he hid in the corner and dropped meteors or whatnot on me. Between battles the rabbit man unfolds the narrative and guides the prisoner on his quest to freedom. Gameplay is a true one-on-one duel between two matched and honorable opponents. During the interview, we touched upon some of the design elements of Furi. Musically, it boasts composer Carpenter Brut among others. The characters were designed by Afro Samurai creator Takashi Okazaki. I asked if there were any character design elements that changed the way that the character fought, and I was told that when Okazaki San came up with a unique characterization, they tried to incorporate it into gameplay. For example, The Warden has a large ornate ring on his back, which no doubt inspired the radiating ranged attack that he would use. Game modes will include Normal, Hard, and Speed Run. Furi is scheduled to release the Summer 2016 on PC and Playstation 4.