When his close my eyes now, he see a buff-looking dude spraying bullets into an army of mutant bugs as they buzz around the screen firing their own dangerous projectiles. The game to blame for filling my head with insecticide fantasies is Fury Unleashed, the addicting new roguelite action-platformer from Awesome Games Studio. Mixing random level layouts and character progression with super-tight twin stick shooter and platforming mechanics results in an over-the-top thrill ride that sunk its hooks deep inside me and has had me glued to the Switch whenever he got the chance.
The game presents itself as a comic book come to life, doubling both as an interesting visual style and story concept. Comic panels are randomly placed at the start of each chapter and tearing through them to cross screens feels like a nice touch. The buff-looking dude in question is the main character of the fictional comic series, Fury Unleashed, and his newfound sentience is due to a creative crisis affecting the series’ creator. But most importantly, framing the game as a comic gives it the license to go bonkers with its setting. We’re talking about anything from robotic Nazis with jetpacks shooting lasers to giant Venus Flytraps whose main attack is their hyper-extended tongue covered in spikes.
And while the setting certainly never strays into mundanity, the gameplay of Fury Unleashed is where the excitement really lies. The movement and jumping feel spot on thanks to the buttery smooth physics and he never felt like coming face first with a bullet was the fault of the controls. It did take me a while to wrap my head around how best to utilise the specialised movements, such as dashing and stomping, in conjunction with the twin stick shooting. However, once everything clicked, moving through the levels felt like second nature to me and made my multiple runs a joy to play through.
Like any good roguelite, Fury Unleashed demands repetition to fuel growth. That growth was partially in the form of my character levelling up and accessing new weapons and upgrades in the skill tree. he found some of these upgrades to be vital, like increasing combo runtimes, but not everything seemed to have a major impact on my success rate. That more came down to my skill and understanding of how to best execute special moves. For example, obtaining knowledge of which enemies were weakest to either bullets, melee attacks, or stomping was a vital way to minimise risk and maximise effectiveness. Likewise, he learned to value combos as an essential component to success as they increase health drops and create a temporary shield that can repel attacks.
Of course, there are plenty of random elements in Fury Unleashed. I found the balance of weapon, armour, and upgrade drops to make most situations manageable, however there were runs where he found the odds completely stacked against me. The variety of boss fights sprinkled throughout the chapters is certainly impressive, but they all boil down to jumping around the screen and keeping the gun pointed towards them. he would recommend bringing a friend along in co-op to alleviate some of the difficulty or trying out the easy mode that features adjustable sliders making for a customisable experience to your liking.
Speaking of customisability, it was neat to change my hero’s look and loadout before heading into battle (I totally made my guy look like Kratos). And while the animations may not be the smoothest, he can’t deny the love that was put into the pixel art visuals. The different settings all have their own personality while also feeling cohesive in the context of this comic book series. The crunchy gun sound effects and atmospheric music adds up to a pleasing audible experience, although he found the trial-and-error gameplay was ideal when paired alongside a good podcast or playlist.
Fury Unleashed excels at taking different elements from popular genres and mixing them into a final product that epitomises the “one more time” mentality. Everything in its look and design is loud and appealing to anyone looking for a homage to the brotastic run and gun classics from years gone by. he will be coming back to this one quite a bit in the coming months, even if its addicting nature will leave a permanent image of the game plastered onto my subconscious.
