Furi

Furi is an action shoot 'em up video game developed and published by indie studio The Game Bakers available for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. The game takes place on a planet in a colorful, retro, science fiction setting.

Gameplay
Furi is a fast-paced action game with hack and slash, twin-stick shoot 'em up, and "bullet hell" elements, consisting entirely of boss fights. Gameplay consists mostly of dodging bullets, parrying attacks, attacking the bosses by melee or shooting, and quick time events. The game is set in closed world environments. Much of the game's story progresses through these interactions, along with animated cutscenes occurring before and after a boss fight.

Plot
A mysterious man spends his existence receiving endless torture within a highly advanced prison, composed of ten islands floating in orbit above a planet's surface. At the beginning of the game, an enigmatic man wearing a rabbit disguise who is known as The Voice frees the Stranger, gives him a sword and gun, and encourages him to fight for his freedom.

The Stranger must navigate each area, wherein dwells a single powerful guardian who exists only to prevent him from escaping: The Chain, a sadistic staff-wielding jailor who tortured the Stranger; The Strap, a prisoner armed with a laser cannon on her head driven mad from her imprisonment; The Line, a wise old man who wields a sword longer than his body and can manipulate time; The Scale, a vengeful diver armed with twin harpoons; The Hand, a noble knight who was responsible for imprisoning the Stranger in the first place; The Song, an angelic woman armed with twin crossbows who conceived the prison; The Burst, a sniper and master tactician; The Edge, an oar-wielding warrior who dedicated his life to fighting The Stranger; and The Beat, a young woman who strives to guard the final door.

As the journey goes on, more about the reasons for imprisoning the Stranger surface, and the Voice reveals that he was the architect who created the prison to protect the planet from the Stranger, but he could not stand being locked in it, and freed the Stranger to be able to escape with him so that he could see his daughter again. Upon reaching the planet's surface, the Stranger finds that his mere presence destroys all physical structures on the planet, including living things. Later exploring the planet more, the Stranger ventures into a structure which holds an attachable device he uses to fly off the planet and into space to meet The Star, the mothership who created him, and many other clones like him. She calls him Rider.

The game contains two normal endings and a secret ending. When facing The Star, Rider can decide to either assimilate the planet or refuse to obey the mothership, thus prompting the tenth and final boss fight against The Star. By assimilating the planet, Rider allows The Star to send out an army of other warriors like him to invade the planet. By refusing to obey the mothership and canceling the invasion, Rider battles and destroys The Star, preventing the planet from being invaded. The secret ending can occur by accepting The Song's offer to stay in her sanctuary-like section of the prison, where she will provide for The Rider. She claims that this will make her the hero of all her people.

The "One More Fight" DLC provides an additional boss, a cyborg called The Flame who challenges the Stranger in an arena beneath the structure holding the Stranger's flying rig. Like The Scale, he seeks vengeance on the Stranger for what happened to his world. If the player defeats The Flame and all other bosses on the highest difficulty setting, they will unlock the hardest fight in the game: a basically modeled figure known as Bernard who fights using an amalgamation of the other bosses' attacks.

Reception
Furi received "generally favorable" reviews, getting a critic score of 76 based off 12 critics on PC, and a 77 based off 37 critics on PlayStation 4 according to review aggregator Metacritic. James Davenport of PC Gamer gave it an 86 out of 100, claiming it "is only held back by rare bugs and poorly designed difficulty spikes." Jeff Marchiafava of Game Informer gave it a 6 out of 10, citing a lack of engagement in the environment and unforgiving difficulty.