Furi is, I believe, the first non-IOS game made by the company The Game Bakers, and I would say they did a very good job. Without spoiling too much, the main character is a prisoner with the goal of breaking out, and he is assisted by a man in purple with an oversized rabbit hat covering the top half of his head. At the start of the game the player is in the dark as to why the main character is imprisoned and you really don’t find out his name (or what amounts to one) until the very last boss.  Over the course of the game, though, you do find out why he was imprisoned. Now, to break out of the prison, the main character is killing his jailers and a few other prisoners. Some of them are amoral, some are mentally damaged, and others sincerely believe that letting the main character out will doom the world. The main character is not a remorseless killing machine as, in cutscenes, he does show remorse for killing the more moral enemies.

Now to the meat of the game: the bosses. They really are the focus of the game, and they are very challenging. While fundamentally the same, each boss has its own set of unique mechanics and toolsets that sets them apart from each other. In short they feel completely different from each other. To emphasize this each boss also has its own personality and backstory that further cements their differences. Going back to the gameplay component of boss fights, every boss has multiple phases that you, the player, have to go through in order to kill them. In each new phase, a boss will either add new abilities or, in a few cases, completely change up the fight. To add to this, for multiple bosses, each phase is composed of 2 sub-phases: a “free-form” phase (which is top down) and a “melee” phase (which traps both characters in a circle and the perspective shifts to the side). The last phase for each boss is almost always the same. It starts out as a free-form phase, the boss becomes invincible and the boss goes into bullet-heck mode, and the melee phase after it is slightly easier than the prior melee phases. Again though there are exceptions.

In regards to stability, I never had a crash or, more importantly for this kind of game, framerate drops. All of this is on the PS4. The music is very catchy and fits the atmosphere. You can tell that for each boss a lot of effort was put into their respective soundtrack. Each sounds like they are a level of quality one would expect from the last or penultimate boss. The music between the bosses is gentler and more relaxing. I think some of the lyrics had cursing in it. I am not sure though. When it comes to graphics, they complement the art style and the atmosphere quite nicely. The game is very enjoyable to look at and there is a clear anime inspiration. I have heard some compare the style to the anime ‘Afro Samurai’. The general feel of the game also seems to have taken cues from that anime as well.

When it comes to the moral elements of this game, there are some faults. You are a prisoner hacking his way through jailers and other prisoners. While some are easily under the realm of self-defense, a decent number are not. There are also three endings in this game. Without going into too much detail, all three are based on the rare morality decisions. Naturally, this can lead to pretty negative consequences. That said the game flat-out tells what will happen before you make a decision. As stated earlier, there is swearing. There is a lot of hacking and shooting in the game, but no blood. There is no nudity, and most bosses are fully clothed. There is one male boss that is wearing nothing but a loincloth, and one female that is wearing a suit that emphasizes some of her female characteristics. 

Can I recommend the game to gamers? To an extent, yes. I heard a rumor that the creators of this game enjoyed games like Dark Souls and bullet heck games, and that they wanted to incorporate those elements into this game along with the challenge. If that rumor is true they succeeded. Due to this, though, I can only recommend this game to gamers that enjoy or moderately enjoy very difficult but fair games. Gamers like me. If you are like me in that regard I do highly recommend it. You will have a fun time. If you are not, I can’t recommend it. There is an easy mode, but that in of itself is not worth the price given just how easy that mode actually is. In short, if you love challenging but fair games, you may want to consider this.

Now can I recommend this game as a Christian? I could recommend it to a decent portion. As can be expected there is violence in this game, but no blood. I don’t even think there was any amount of gore. The cursing is there, but aside from one instance of using the F-word there was not many to my recollection. I am still uncertain if one music track had cursing in it as it was hard to make out. The sparse amount of clothing that could be considered “sexual” do not seem to be designed for that purpose. Naturally, though, you are a prisoner that is breaking out, and and few of the jailers that you kill have a high level of morality. Again, I feel I could recommend this to other Christians with a reasonable level of comfort.