Furi is a boss rush game, a well established formula featuring many advantages for developers, trimming the unnecessary, they can focus on the essential. When well executed, it makes for short yet memorable games, in which players confront epic bosses. Sadly, none of that can be said about Furi despite an interesting premise of exploiting bullet hell elements into the gameplay.
Due to ludicrous choices, Furi deviates from the very easy to follow formula. Instead of focusing on the gameplay and the bosses designs, The Game Bakers studio decided their creation shall be something more than that. Between each boss fight, the pace is shattered with a long and useless walking simulator section filled with monologues, and because it wouldn't be fun otherwise, those terrible sections cannot be skipped. I first thought those were loading screens in disguise, well I was wrong and there are actual loading screens. Really, those section serves no purpose but to deliver a subpar story, even with the auto walk function, going through those sections really feel like a punishment.
Ideally, a boss rush game does have replay value, and being able to kill or approach a confrontation with a wide variety of movesets is one important factor for this said replay value, something that Furi doesn't have at all. Gameplay wise, it is very limited if not laughable, there are 3 melee attacks, 2 range attacks, a parry and a dash, the end. There is nothing to unlock, nothing to grind for, nothing that could encourage someone to play this game more than once.
One could say it's actually a great thing to have every moves available from the start, not everyone is keen on grinding, I can understand and respect this vision, but then why would the game prevent players from choosing the highest difficulty right off the bat ? Why is it required to finish the game first to unlock it ? Why is the speedrun mode also locked behind conditions ? The answer is simple, they just want to highlight the story persuaded it is good.
Instead of hiring voice actors, the limited budget they had could have gone to expand movesets, or maybe polish the boss fight design which is dreadful. The best word that comes to my mind to describe bosses fights in Furi is : linear. Not having different combos is one thing, but fights themselves are structured in a certain way, there is one set choreography and players must respect it, fights are divided in phases with only one way to advance from a phase to another, there is no place for creativity whatsoever, you either follow the path developers created or you just cannot advance in the game. It results in a very lackluster experience which once more doesn't present a single trace of replay value.
As for the bullet hell aspect of this game, it is honestly more of a keyword to grab people's curiosity rather than a fully fledge mechanic, more than often the phases with more bullet hell components are synonym to waiting room in which player must evades projectiles but have very limited options if not zero way to interact with the boss or projectiles themselves.
In conclusion, Furi is a crude representation of what a boss rush game can be, focusing too much on pointless details, the very ones the genre is supposed to ignore, The Game Bakers studio deviates from the classic formula and delivers a poor experience that doesn't satisfy the action driven player nor the shmup / bullet hell enthusiast.
Due to ludicrous choices, Furi deviates from the very easy to follow formula. Instead of focusing on the gameplay and the bosses designs, The Game Bakers studio decided their creation shall be something more than that. Between each boss fight, the pace is shattered with a long and useless walking simulator section filled with monologues, and because it wouldn't be fun otherwise, those terrible sections cannot be skipped. I first thought those were loading screens in disguise, well I was wrong and there are actual loading screens. Really, those section serves no purpose but to deliver a subpar story, even with the auto walk function, going through those sections really feel like a punishment.
Ideally, a boss rush game does have replay value, and being able to kill or approach a confrontation with a wide variety of movesets is one important factor for this said replay value, something that Furi doesn't have at all. Gameplay wise, it is very limited if not laughable, there are 3 melee attacks, 2 range attacks, a parry and a dash, the end. There is nothing to unlock, nothing to grind for, nothing that could encourage someone to play this game more than once.
One could say it's actually a great thing to have every moves available from the start, not everyone is keen on grinding, I can understand and respect this vision, but then why would the game prevent players from choosing the highest difficulty right off the bat ? Why is it required to finish the game first to unlock it ? Why is the speedrun mode also locked behind conditions ? The answer is simple, they just want to highlight the story persuaded it is good.
Instead of hiring voice actors, the limited budget they had could have gone to expand movesets, or maybe polish the boss fight design which is dreadful. The best word that comes to my mind to describe bosses fights in Furi is : linear. Not having different combos is one thing, but fights themselves are structured in a certain way, there is one set choreography and players must respect it, fights are divided in phases with only one way to advance from a phase to another, there is no place for creativity whatsoever, you either follow the path developers created or you just cannot advance in the game. It results in a very lackluster experience which once more doesn't present a single trace of replay value.
As for the bullet hell aspect of this game, it is honestly more of a keyword to grab people's curiosity rather than a fully fledge mechanic, more than often the phases with more bullet hell components are synonym to waiting room in which player must evades projectiles but have very limited options if not zero way to interact with the boss or projectiles themselves.
In conclusion, Furi is a crude representation of what a boss rush game can be, focusing too much on pointless details, the very ones the genre is supposed to ignore, The Game Bakers studio deviates from the classic formula and delivers a poor experience that doesn't satisfy the action driven player nor the shmup / bullet hell enthusiast.