On the surface, Furi

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Furi centers entirely around boss fights: 10 main battles plus an 11th bonus fight that I won’t spoil, each lasting anywhere between 10 minutes and half an hour in a roughly four-hour campaign. It’s a risky framework that ends up working well thanks to a tight, precision-based combat system that bounces between a top-down arena mode and a close-up, fighting game-style battle.

“ ...some battles are notably weaker and more repetitive than others.

The Strap – a berserk, scythe-wielding prisoner who speeds around her electrified jail on wheels, blasting you with energy beams and torrents of bullets from afar – is a much different fight than close-quarters battles against more traditionally melee-oriented bosses like a knightly sword-and-board-wielding father called The Hand, or The Edge, a stylish samurai-inspired warrior much like your own character, but they’re all equally fun and surprising.

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With boss design by Afro Samurai creator Takashi Okazaki, each character has a distinct look and colorful personality that pairs well with their moveset. Some bosses even subvert the power and application of your moveset in unexpected ways — moments that often stood out as the highlight of a battle for better or worse.

The fight against The Line, a deceptively meek-looking old man with time-controlling abilities, is a particularly strong example of this. As I fired away at the three layers of rotating shields he hid inside, dodging the swarms of my own ricocheting projectiles bouncing all around the arena, I realized I could reduce the number of obstacles by simply changing my strategy.

Furi - Fighting The Line 2 IMAGES

“That’s your own violence turned against you,” The Line says, “You’re fighting yourself, can’t you see?” It wasn’t until I switched to my charge shot instead, patiently chiseling away at one part of each barrier as they continued to circle around The Line, that I could break through and trigger his next phase without creating a flurry of projectiles around me. Patience, rather than brute force, was the key to this fight.

“ ...rarely is there a moment of downtime between the furious dashing and slashing.

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Most fights begin with an overhead view of the arena. Here you’ll be dodging enemy projectiles, which take on diverse forms including energy balls, homing neon bullets, beams of light, rings of non-parryable orbs, electric arcs, and more. But you’ll also be doing plenty of hacking and slashing, if the boss lets you get close enough, and parrying their own attacks when they do. Furi definitely lives up to its name in this regard: rarely is there a moment of downtime between the furious dashing and slashing. A pumping electronic soundtrack composed by artists like Carpenter Brut and Lorn paired well with the flashy neon action on screen.

“ I took joy in each perfect parry, dodge, and well-timed slash...

These moments were Furi’s high points: I took joy in each perfect parry, each last-second dodge, and each well-timed charge slash that would send my foe flying into their next stage, which reverts back into the overhead arena view so the shooting can begin again. At its best, Furi feels like a hyper-challenging rhythm game, a dance of precise button presses set to the beat of each boss’ routine.

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“ Furi can go from fun to frustrating pretty quickly.

This is a welcome change of pace from most other action games, and nailing the timing of each move is fun and rewarding on a technical level. But dealing with some of Furi’s most ridiculous obstacles (I’ll be happy to never do The Scale’s grid-based dodging sequence again) can bring its action down from a fun, fair challenge to a repetitive, frustrating grind. Losing three lives during a single phase of each fight restarts the whole thing, which means trudging through three or four phases just to return to the part you were having trouble with, with no opportunity to really practice until you get back to that point.