Fury Unleashed

As the other reviewer said, this game is "sadly overlooked." Thi is my newest addiction. I haven't had this much trouble putting down a game since Bloodborne. It's a rogue-like where you find playthrough-exclusive loot during runs, and upgrade your character permanently between runs. The game's controls couldn't be tighter, and you have all kinds of shooting (guns, rocket launchers, alien shard launchers, dark matter launchers, nail guns, "souls guns," "acid throwers," flame throwers, and more!), as well a variety of melee weapons, suerpowers that get recharged every time you kill a certain number of enemies (this game's version of the "cooldown" effect), and grenades. The game also involves plenty of double-jumping and dashing for quick movement. Why do you want to move as quickly as possible? COMBOS, BABY! This is where the game really shines. Killing an enemy initiates the combo timer and, for every enemy you hit, the timer resets. You only have a short window with each reset, so you want to move quickly and get to the next enemy ASAP. But your combo ends if you get hit by any enemy or environmental hazards/projectiles, so you have to balance your rapid movement with avoiding damage. The best part is that the game REWARDS COMBOS. Combos can confer all sorts of benefits, from healing orbs, to potions (e.g. the "ice potion," which allows you to freeze enemies for a short time when you shoot them), to both black and gold "ink." Ink is this game's currency, and black ink allows you to upgrade your hero, while you spend gold ink within your current playthrough, on weapons, armor, and other items. The hero upgrade system also shines and, if I had more words left for this review, I would talk about it endlessly. It has great and innovative upgrades. The graphics are incredibly fun perfectly fit the comic book theme. You play as a comic book hero. The comic book world's lore is slowly revealed as you progress through the game, and there are many funny points.

What a gem. This game is the embodiment of "git gud or die trying" mentality. You can nearly physically feel your own personal experience meter going up during gameplay. This game is extremely awareness based, you need to know your surroundings, understand your enemies and learn to use all the tools at your disposal while still being constantly on your toes. And to top it off, the game literally pushes you towards fast paced play due to it's combo system. The combo system is brilliant on it's own. Instinctively you want to play cautiously, since (as true in most games like this) not getting hit more important than dishing out damage. However, it's actually through fast-paced action you raise your combo meter, which in turn gives you bonuses like shields, faster reload, health drops etc. - so you're constantly walking the tightrope of caution vs recklesness. At first it feels almost unfair - in order to regain health and gain life saving shields you are supposed to risk getting killed in the first place? But after you manage to flawlessly go through several rooms of enemies springing at you from everywhere, all because you know exactly how to deal with each and every one of them while avoiding all their attacks and traps... you know this is why you're playing this. The game is perfectly executed too. The movement, the level design, the controls - everything is just how it's supposed to be. The character progression is well thought out too, with most skills being very usefull while neither being gamebreaking (though some are essential if you want to progress far into the game). A word of caution though: the game can feel extremely punishing at times. I play on hard (which is the default mode) and oh, it does feel hard. Later segments of the game can be brutal and be ready for getting kicked arround quite a lot, especially if you want to start from later levels. Up to you if you wan't to lower the difficulty, but i recommend against it. It does pay off.

"Fury Unleashed" is an extraordinary platformer - in various aspects: There are 3 features which are implemented as a reference for other games: 1) Perfect pre-defined controls and additionally the option to define 2 controls for keyboard and 2 for gamepads for each function; 2) One can really fine tune the level of difficulty - not only normal and hard like some other games ...; 3) You can suppress blood so it can be played with smaller children. While the latter seems minor I would like to select this - also for soft games to be more realistic (for playing when no children are around). The comic background is wonderfully implemented and fits perfectly to the game - no strange story which does not fit (found much too often), the 2 player local Co-op works as it should like solo mode, the skill tree is comfortable and is a lot of fun and strategically useful (more than some RPGs), the graphics is suited for a 4k screen, no bugs which could spoil the enjoyment of the game; graphics, sound, story, controls, difficulty (it is a Roguelite), replayability ... every detail seems to be perfect. OK, one can want more worlds, even more skills ... but for me it is a rare case that all fits together to really enjoy playing - alone or with a friend. It is not all - for a contemplative twin-stick shooter I would see "Rush Troopers" in the lead, for a story driven twin-stick shooter (Top-Down view here) "Children of Morta" may be more deep (depending on personal taste). But if I would be asked (with more than 500 games under Linux) to name the best of all - it must be "Fury Unleashed". If you are happy to be in combat, prefer Twin-Stick shooters (keyboard/mouse is also perfectly supported - I would just recommend that as I am using a Logitech F310 under Kubuntu 20.10), like a comic story and a little RPG-like tactics, want to play extreme easy/extremely hard or something in between after your choice: THIS IS YOUR GAME! ;) So don't miss it: worth full price!

Excellent game that can be enjoyed 15 minutes at a time. Great gameplay and a very clever premise. I bust Fury Unleashed out at least once a day for a quick fix. Highly recommended.