Ahead of Steam’s Summer Sale next week, The Game Bakers’ excellent 2016 bullet hell dueling game Furi is having a little sale of its own. The normally $20 game can be had for just $2, and I’m taking the opportunity to buy the dang thing again myself.
Former PC Gamer editor James Davenport gave Furi an 86% in his review at the game’s launch all the way back in 2016 (Christ alive), calling it one of the year’s “biggest surprises.” “Furi’s combat is shallow, and I mean that as a compliment,” James wrote. “All you can do is observe, react, and punish. It’s advanced Bop-It, a lighting quick series of rock-paper-scissors, the Grand Finals in fly-swatting—Furi exercises the hell out of a very small set of abilities until they feel like they were always there.”
Instead of the usual flow of levels between boss fights, Furi is one long gauntlet of nine unique duels, with just short, meditative walking sequences in-between. You play as a bad ass cyborg ninja dude with a sword and a gun (the vibe is very Hyper Light), and the fights begin with top-down bullet hell shooting before transitioning into a Sekiro-style close-in melee of deflecting and dodging—two years before Sekiro even released.
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Furi rules so hard, and it’s both shocking and a little bit impressive that the devs at The Game Bakers don’t seem interested in revisiting the concept, instead shifting genres with every new game.
In 2020 the studio released the romantic RPG Haven (read our review here), while PC Gaming Show editorial director Jake Tucker thinks the upcoming Cairn is the best climbing game he’s ever played. The Game Bakers made one of the best action games of the 2010s, then ambled off to do something else. Respect.
I’d be remiss if I failed to mention the soundtrack: This is Music You Can Lift Weights To, and I do. Often. Furi’s OST shares a lot of artists with the iconic Hotline Miami soundtracks, another gaming gym banger favorite, and Waveshaper’s track “Wisdom of Rage” has been a Spotify most-played for me every year since Furi came out. It all contributes to this laconic, classically cool vibe that reminds me of shows like Afro Samurai or Samurai Champloo.
But it’s been a minute since I played. Furi was an early arrival on the Switch eShop, and that’s how I first experienced it. At $2 though, it’s about time I gave it the place of honor it deserves in my Steam Library. Furi will remain 90% off until this Thursday, June 26.