Somewhere around the middle of its second world, the brawler veneer to Full Metal Furies begins to peel away. Underneath, you find something rather surprising. The familiar action loop that interrupts the ubiquitous screen-scrolling is not just a chance to mash buttons and eliminate foes, but a new configuration of recognizable patterns and enemy behaviors that feels designed to test your ability to quickly solve an ever-shifting jigsaw puzzle. It is beautiful, it is unique, and it is mad. It is also a glimpse into what these types of games could be.

Dec 14, 2017  FULL METAL FURIES puts an emphasis on team play with a unique combat system where everyone is important. Play on the couch, alone or with friends. FULL METAL FURIES puts an emphasis on team play with a unique combat system where everyone is important. Play on the couch, alone or with friends, or make it an online party for up to four players!

At its outset, Cellar Door Games’ Full Metal Furies feels like the kind of side-scrolling beat ‘em up that we’ve seen make a resurgence since Castle Crashers struck it big on the Xbox Live Arcade back in 2008. There are four characters from which to choose (Triss the Sentinel, Alex the Fighter, Erin the Engineer, and Meg the Sniper) and each of the four Furies has her own unique set of attacks (e.g., Alex is melee-focused while Meg shoots a sniper rifle). If you’re playing the game alone, then you’ll select two of the Furies and can freely switch between them, and if you’re playing with friends then each player chooses the Fury they like best (no repeating characters, unfortunately). Once you get into the first level, things appear pretty standard. You’ll move across a screen until you reach its edge and transition to the next one, and enemies appear in little groups that are easily dispatched by mashing the attack button. Then, a new concept is introduced.

Every Fury has her own dodge mechanic to help her evade or escape enemy attacks, but it’s not something you can spam endlessly like your primary attack. There’s a cooldown attached to it, which means you have to think carefully about when you use it and how. Every Fury also has a special move (Triss, for instance, has a shout that hits all enemies within a radius around her) that similarly has a cooldown attached to it, and can also be used in clutch moments to get you out of a jam. Mouse craft switch.

Immediately after that idea begins to take root, Cellar Door tosses another new mechanic into the mix: Fury-specific shields. Each Fury has a color associated with her (Triss is blue, Erin is green, Meg is yellow, and Alex is red) and enemies can spawn with shields around them of the same color. In order to break the shield and leave the enemy vulnerable to all Furies, you have to attack the enemy using the appropriate character - red to red, blue to blue, etc. Fortunately, enemies will only have shields that can be broken by the Furies you have in your group, i.e., if you’re playing with Erin and Meg, green and yellow, respectively, an enemy won’t have a red (Alex) shield as you’d have no way of breaking it.

From a gameplay perspective, this has some interesting results. In single-player, this mechanic forces you to switch back and forth between the two Furies you’ve selected, while in co-op it forces players to focus their efforts on specific enemies so their friends can damage those foes as well. These are the overt responses to the shield mechanic. Subtly, though, it’s forcing the player to make choices about which enemies are priority targets and which can be ignored (for now). None of these mechanics are exactly new to the brawler space, though they are more frequently encountered in shoot ‘em ups, and if that was all Full Metal Furies decided to do, then it probably would remain firmly within the realm of side-scrolling brawlers. But then, Cellar Door Games decides to take a sharp left turn.

When enemies are knocked into the air, they can be hit again to inflict extra damage and keep them airborne a little longer (and, thus, not attacking you). What’s more, enemies will bounce off the borders/sides of the screen, meaning they’ll never be out of reach. The catch is that every Fury combos and juggles in a different way. Triss, the Tank, can knock enemies into the air with her basic attack, but she can only juggle them by using her dodge or her special attack. Both of those have cooldowns attached to them so you can’t just keep using them over and over again. If you’re playing the game in single-player, then you could switch to your secondary Fury and use one of her attacks/abilities to “Air Crit” the foes. In co-op, you can call out to your buddies in a fashion that’s reminiscent of Babe Ruth calling his home runs. You knock ‘em up, and your buddies knock ‘em down.

Every once in a blue moon a game seems to hit all the right notes, creating a symphony of sound that resonates perfectly with a player. As with every great symphony, one does not necessarily need to love the particular melody or harmony to appreciate the complexity and talent needed to create the music.

In the same way some games although not necessarily a players preferred genre or style, can be appreciated for their excellent design and implementation. This is our Full Metal Furies Review.Over the last week, I have spent some time with Cellar Door Game’s latest entry, Full Metal Furies, and suffice to say I walked away seriously impressed. Cellar Door, the creator of the award-winning Rogue Legacy, have infused their charming pixel art and creative design to produce a delightful side-scrolling team-based brawler that reminds me of a blending of classics like TMNT: Turtles in Time and Castle Crashers.

So without further ado let’s jump into our review of Full Metal Furies.Set in a world where ruthless titans fight in an ongoing war for power, a group of warriors set out to put an end to the titans destructive reign in the hopes of saving humanity. You pick from one of four heroines, each with their own very specific set of skills, and set out to defeat the Titans at any cost. The game is built from the ground up with team play in mind with each hero’s abilities complimenting the others. Even in a solo game you choose up two of the four heroes and can hot swap on the fly between them during battles. The mix of diverse characters and complementary skill sets create some seriously fun moments in Full Metal Furies.As with Rogue Legacy, Furies offers a fairly robust upgrade system for your characters allowing you focus your energy on one or two characters and really develop a play style that fits you. Using gold collected from missions you invest in new abilities and skills that further power up your character.

It’s a simple system to pick up and as Full Metal is a much more forgiving game than Rouge is, it doesn’t hurt too much if you invest in something you don’t end up using later.Combat and controls are handled best with a controller (which is strongly recommended by the developer). The gameplay is smooth and easy to pick up but as with Cellar Doors previous title, the real challenge is mastering all of the mechanics. Sure it’s easy to shoot, smash and run around on screen but the variety of enemies, each with their own unique style of combat and weaknesses, forces you to think fast and smart as you progress through the levels. It all works together extremely well and offers a fun level of challenge.The visuals in Full Metal Furies feels very reminiscent Cellar Doors previous work yet still manages to squeeze in its own unique take on the pixel art design. One item to note is that even as a side-scrolling brawler, Cellar made sure to offer some unique perspectives to maps offering different depths of field, a variety of objects that actually become the foreground, as well as few other little touches that really show the attention to detail the developer has put into their title.The inclusion of full couch and online co-op is what really helps Full Metal Furies stand out as a retro side-scrolling brawler. As mentioned, the game really reminds me a lot of TMNT: Turtles in Time and Castle Crashers and as such is most enjoyable when played with others.

With its easy setup and synergistic gameplay, Furies is a great co-op romp for those that enjoy a fun gaming night with friends. Throw in added cross-play support between Xbox and Windows 10 players and it really does open up the playing field and flexibility for groups to get going on this indie title.Full Metal Furies is high-quality side-scrolling brawler that understands its roots while still managing to both pushes the genre forward with its inclusion of some great RPG elements as well as add its own unique style to the genre. Furies offers many hours of single-player fun and shines exceptionally well when played to its full potential as a co-op experience. I highly recommend picking this title up if you’re looking for something new and charming. Final Full Metal Furies Review Score: 8.7/10 ProsExcellent gameplayWonderful art directionGreat RPG elementsConsWhy isn’t it out on PS4 or Switch?