Does anyone else find this endearingly cheap? Charmed by the lack of hair physics and any coherent art direction? Wistfully smiling at hands clipping into bodies during cutscenes? Squishing the cheeks of the stupendously ugly characters with nothing behind the eyes? No? Alright.
It's pretty good. If by 'good' I mean brain-destroyingly disjointed and frequently terrible on every level, that isn't the actual moment-to-moment gameplay of the world-class boss fights. Which, coincidentally, I do.
Furi, as a narrative work, does not exist. It is a collection of Resident Evil camera angles, mind-numbing diatribes poorly voice acted by Vanny from FNAF Security Breach and some funky-looking dude with one walk cycle strolling at 1 mile per hour. I know there's supposed to be a story. I know it's trying to have things like 'meaning' and 'symbolism' like other big boy indie games, but there isn't, and it doesn't. I went to town a few months back on Katana Zero's story, a similarly misguided collection of gibberish, but I was very endeared by it. The difference is in the way it's told. Even if it maintains a self-serious facade, Katana Zero presents its story with bright colours, explosions, and other ridiculous bells and whistles. It's, if nothing else, exciting. Or even just excited. Either way, there's energy. Furi has nothing of the sort; it is a deadened trod through slightly ugly backgrounds and uglier character designs while Roger Rabbit over here keeps gabbing about who knows what to an unusually rendered model of the Team Fortress 2 scout who does not care. It is the same kind of lame didacticism that YouTube comment section bait like Virtual Insanity launders to pretend it has something interesting to say. Art is never about what you say. It's about how you say it. Having meaning and making me care that you have meaning are two very different tasks. It's never a question of grasping what Furi is going for, it's only a matter of holding on. It's so uncompelling that the whole thing is rendered effervescent. Words come and go, moments of pathos come and go, story beats come and go. Like whispers in the wind. It sucks!
But there's more to the game than the auto walk button. Though, y'know. Pre-rendered cutscenes? Look into it. I might not like looking at the game or listening to it (ok, the soundtrack is pretty good, if a touch overrated), but there's one more sense that matters, and it trumps the rest of the experience. I adore how this game feels.
I'm addicted to attack patterns. When people tell me a boss fight in a game requires 'rote memorisation', I start clapping my hands like a toddler. Something about the learning process, mastery over an enemy in a game, is the peak of satisfaction to me. That's all this game has to offer me, encounter-wise—peak satisfaction.
Every boss falls somewhere in this excellent spectrum between a twin-stick bullet hell and a rhythm game hack-and-parry, with nearly any individual point on it working just as well as any other. Tekken battle vs. a lightning-fast ninja requiring snap reflexes and free jazz rhythms? Great! 5-phase Enter The Gungeon robot fight with a zillion projectiles? Awesome! Invisible sniper rifle lady who runs away from you for an hour? Fantasti- ok, that one was annoying, but still. Cool! Every fight is electrifying in completely new ways, and it's exciting to see the game continually top itself while maintaining a very consistent difficulty curve (with one kinda clever diegetic drop-off). With most boss rush games, people seem to prefer the 'epic highs and lows of high school football' approach, but I love a clean on-ramp.
And a quick aside: what a clever way to have six or seven-phase boss fights! They've cracked a way for the learning to happen without a game over. Regenerating one life after a successful phase makes mistakes much less frustrating and makes a clean run-through after a game over much more consistent. But them healing to full after you lose a life means you'll never lose the satisfaction of earning progress. You leave this game with that same ecstatic rush you do something like Sekiro, and the knowledge if you had to fight any of these bosses again right now, you could probably beat them on the first try. It's just the best sensation, and now there's much less repetition required to get you there. Even the visuals feel more satisfying in motion, the crackle of the sword reflecting your performance, the shonen slow motion parry, it all starts to sing! Man, I wish this story wasn't so empty.
(touches my hand to my sports commentator earpiece)
Oh. Wow! Really?
This just in, I'm so sorry folks, I was completely wrong. This game does have a theme. How could I have been so blind? Bugs Bunny over there is his inner voice! Like his conscience! And the whole game was actually about learning to trust your conscience! Sparkle on! Its Wednesday! Don't forget to be yourself! You were right YouTube comments, this game's story is great!
If you're thinking I'm being a bit harsh, you're right. There is nothing I like more than being really mean to a game I thoroughly enjoyed playing. But there is nothing I hate more than self-seriousness without purpose. Imagine if the terrible dialogue and one-sided monologues weren't there. Imagine if the didactic hammer swings of capital C Commentary were traded for any subtlety. Imagine if the grandiose self-seriousness was in service of Commentary, which actually had meat on its bones. Imagine if the devs of this 10/10 compilation of character action game fights didn't feel the need to impose a malformed ""indie game"" story onto their thunderous euphoria. It would be so much better! I should QA for every game. This is how we save the art form.
And yes, Virtual Insanity fucking sucks.
It's pretty good. If by 'good' I mean brain-destroyingly disjointed and frequently terrible on every level, that isn't the actual moment-to-moment gameplay of the world-class boss fights. Which, coincidentally, I do.
Furi, as a narrative work, does not exist. It is a collection of Resident Evil camera angles, mind-numbing diatribes poorly voice acted by Vanny from FNAF Security Breach and some funky-looking dude with one walk cycle strolling at 1 mile per hour. I know there's supposed to be a story. I know it's trying to have things like 'meaning' and 'symbolism' like other big boy indie games, but there isn't, and it doesn't. I went to town a few months back on Katana Zero's story, a similarly misguided collection of gibberish, but I was very endeared by it. The difference is in the way it's told. Even if it maintains a self-serious facade, Katana Zero presents its story with bright colours, explosions, and other ridiculous bells and whistles. It's, if nothing else, exciting. Or even just excited. Either way, there's energy. Furi has nothing of the sort; it is a deadened trod through slightly ugly backgrounds and uglier character designs while Roger Rabbit over here keeps gabbing about who knows what to an unusually rendered model of the Team Fortress 2 scout who does not care. It is the same kind of lame didacticism that YouTube comment section bait like Virtual Insanity launders to pretend it has something interesting to say. Art is never about what you say. It's about how you say it. Having meaning and making me care that you have meaning are two very different tasks. It's never a question of grasping what Furi is going for, it's only a matter of holding on. It's so uncompelling that the whole thing is rendered effervescent. Words come and go, moments of pathos come and go, story beats come and go. Like whispers in the wind. It sucks!
But there's more to the game than the auto walk button. Though, y'know. Pre-rendered cutscenes? Look into it. I might not like looking at the game or listening to it (ok, the soundtrack is pretty good, if a touch overrated), but there's one more sense that matters, and it trumps the rest of the experience. I adore how this game feels.
I'm addicted to attack patterns. When people tell me a boss fight in a game requires 'rote memorisation', I start clapping my hands like a toddler. Something about the learning process, mastery over an enemy in a game, is the peak of satisfaction to me. That's all this game has to offer me, encounter-wise—peak satisfaction.
Every boss falls somewhere in this excellent spectrum between a twin-stick bullet hell and a rhythm game hack-and-parry, with nearly any individual point on it working just as well as any other. Tekken battle vs. a lightning-fast ninja requiring snap reflexes and free jazz rhythms? Great! 5-phase Enter The Gungeon robot fight with a zillion projectiles? Awesome! Invisible sniper rifle lady who runs away from you for an hour? Fantasti- ok, that one was annoying, but still. Cool! Every fight is electrifying in completely new ways, and it's exciting to see the game continually top itself while maintaining a very consistent difficulty curve (with one kinda clever diegetic drop-off). With most boss rush games, people seem to prefer the 'epic highs and lows of high school football' approach, but I love a clean on-ramp.
And a quick aside: what a clever way to have six or seven-phase boss fights! They've cracked a way for the learning to happen without a game over. Regenerating one life after a successful phase makes mistakes much less frustrating and makes a clean run-through after a game over much more consistent. But them healing to full after you lose a life means you'll never lose the satisfaction of earning progress. You leave this game with that same ecstatic rush you do something like Sekiro, and the knowledge if you had to fight any of these bosses again right now, you could probably beat them on the first try. It's just the best sensation, and now there's much less repetition required to get you there. Even the visuals feel more satisfying in motion, the crackle of the sword reflecting your performance, the shonen slow motion parry, it all starts to sing! Man, I wish this story wasn't so empty.
(touches my hand to my sports commentator earpiece)
Oh. Wow! Really?
This just in, I'm so sorry folks, I was completely wrong. This game does have a theme. How could I have been so blind? Bugs Bunny over there is his inner voice! Like his conscience! And the whole game was actually about learning to trust your conscience! Sparkle on! Its Wednesday! Don't forget to be yourself! You were right YouTube comments, this game's story is great!
If you're thinking I'm being a bit harsh, you're right. There is nothing I like more than being really mean to a game I thoroughly enjoyed playing. But there is nothing I hate more than self-seriousness without purpose. Imagine if the terrible dialogue and one-sided monologues weren't there. Imagine if the didactic hammer swings of capital C Commentary were traded for any subtlety. Imagine if the grandiose self-seriousness was in service of Commentary, which actually had meat on its bones. Imagine if the devs of this 10/10 compilation of character action game fights didn't feel the need to impose a malformed ""indie game"" story onto their thunderous euphoria. It would be so much better! I should QA for every game. This is how we save the art form.
And yes, Virtual Insanity fucking sucks.