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S1 Ep4: Furi
70 Plays8 years ago
Join Dave and Jake in hopefully the last upload before using the correct new podcast name! With the most edits from Jake so far and a killer soundtrack, we talk about and entirely spoil Furi!
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Transcript
Introduction to the Peppercast
00:00:55
Speaker
I'll tell you what I know on the way. But don't expect all the answers. It's all about what a man does.
Game Overview: Fury
00:01:03
Speaker
Hello everybody and welcome again to the Letters Peppercast.
00:01:08
Speaker
I'm Steve, joined by my co-host. I'm Dave. Hey Dave, thanks for joining me. Today we're going to be talking about the game Fury. I think it's pronounced Fury, not furry, right? It depends on where you're from. It's spelled F-U-R-I. You can check it out on Steam. I think a couple other platforms as well.
00:01:27
Speaker
A quick preface. This will be spoiler heavy because I will be filleting the game for the extent of this podcast. It's pretty much what we do for anything we've covered so far. Softcast for games that we love. I mean one day we'll probably change up the formula or something. Maybe. If we find something we
Steve's Initial Impressions
00:01:43
Speaker
really need. This game fucking sucks. Typically if you hate a game you don't play for that long. That's true. I would like to believe that's true. We'll wait up to another time.
Fury's Development and Release
00:01:56
Speaker
I mean, Dave. I mean, Steve. Yeah. So do you want to have some of the game stats in the background? So the game was made by somebody no one knows, the GameBakers. I don't know who they are. I don't know who they are either. But it was released 2016, which is a good year. Yeah, it's fine. And it was actually a lot of people played it because it came out
00:02:24
Speaker
From what I saw, a lot of people actually played the game for PlayStation 4 when it came out, and it was available for free during a time on PSN. Fuck, I entirely missed out on that then. Yeah, I mean I definitely did by two years, but I regret not playing it for as long as I did. When you played it, did you play it on PlayStation?
00:02:48
Speaker
No, I saw it on Steam. I think I was tracking it because I saw like a trailer like that looks bad ass as
Core Gameplay Mechanics
00:02:55
Speaker
shit. Yeah. So the hype was built and then I think it came out of like somewhere between 20 and 30. So it's a reasonable price point. Yeah. I was like, we're doing it. So I got it once it came out.
00:03:06
Speaker
I think I had it on my wishlist for like forever, but it was never must buy priority. I didn't have it like I didn't realize how good it was until I played it. I tried to hype it up, but the people like Dave shut the fuck up. Okay, that's fine.
00:03:21
Speaker
I know and I was like why you guys telling me to shut up going back to the first joke yeah anyways Joshua no but essentially the game mechanically you want to you want to talk about what the game is moment to moment like what is fury what type of game is this
00:03:46
Speaker
Jake just adjusted his glasses while looking at me like a big interview.
Combat Style and Tactics
00:03:50
Speaker
And Q. So basically it's a just boss rush. So you have a fight. You have some cut scene and some dialogue to get more backstory and then you're on to the next fight. And it's kind of like a rinse and repeat and you go through.
00:04:04
Speaker
I'm not going to give the number of bosses because that's better if it's a surprise. Yeah. Until I spoil it later. Dave's already given a spoiler disclaimer. I'm giving another one. Play the game if you have absolutely any interest in it. Yeah. And probably if you don't. And then listen to the podcast. That's it. Sorry. I apologize. But it starts where you're essentially in this prison and some guy breaks you out of prison. He's like, hey, you killed a jailer.
00:04:32
Speaker
And so you fight this guy who's standing in front of you, who's kind of taunting you, and you have kind of a circular arena for combat, and using your right analog stick you can shoot a laser gun, and then tapping X you can, I think, hit with your sword. Yeah, I believe that's, I believe that's correct. I got this cool Katana vibe going on.
00:04:54
Speaker
And you can also guard impact attacks, or kind of like parry if you time it correctly, with B. And that's essentially the game. You can also dash with A. Yeah, there's some other controls. Yeah. But essentially avoiding their attacks and then hitting them, and just getting their health down. You have three full bars of health, and the enemy also has however many bars of health.
00:05:18
Speaker
But essentially if you beat out a phase of theirs and you take their one bar all the way down, any health you would have gained during, sorry, any health you would have lost during that fight gets regained back to your full bar and vice versa. So if you guys are having like a nice scrum.
00:05:35
Speaker
He starts to wail on you a little bit and you get into half health. And then he knocks you down and takes out the health bar. You kind of have to start over for that phase. Yeah. I think you actually, um, if you're missing one of your bars on the bottom, it'll actually, uh, refill that too. You'll get like, you'll get a pip and then your full bar will recharge. So, um, it can be more than a full health bar if you're like about dead, which is a really nice, you can kind of learn the game. The game lets you make some mistakes, might lose your health.
00:06:05
Speaker
I feel like the reason you have three health pips and full bars is because if you start out you don't know the enemy, you don't know the mechanics of the fight. Maybe you're still learning the controls.
00:06:16
Speaker
And then once you figure that out, you're like, okay, if he does this, I'm gonna parry him and then slap him in the face a little bit. And so you get that buffer time to adjust. So you're not usually having to re-grind boss fights, unless I'm sure we'll get to one leader that will consistently fuck this up. Yes, for sure. The game is very difficult.
00:06:38
Speaker
And there are many times that I went back to a continue screen, which is if you run out of health bars attempts, essentially. But you always, assuming that you learn from your mistake as soon as you make it, and you lost a full bar of health, you'll beat the game without ever seeing a continue screen. As long as you never make the same mistake twice, then you'll make it to the end like that. Now, I don't know that many people that did. I don't know of anyone personally. I don't do it in real life. I don't do it in this game.
00:07:08
Speaker
But yeah, the bosses are super hype. So the first boss is essentially functioning as a tutorial, right? You'll have limited access to your abilities. The game says, specifically do this. This is how you parry. This is how you attack. It gives you the tool tips as you go. Yeah, it doesn't teach you everything. There's a few things that I wasn't even sure of until really close to the game, like the ability to parry projectiles.
00:07:33
Speaker
what yeah I know right and you kind of so it lets you figure some stuff out it doesn't tell you absolutely everything but mastering the basics if you actually master the basics that can do you through the game
00:07:44
Speaker
Yeah, and also the combat always feels really smooth. Obviously some of the boss fights are, some moves are telegraphed to a degree, but as you go it gets quicker and you learn to pick up on certain cues and also have audio cues for when they're about to strike.
Fury's Narrative and Themes
00:08:02
Speaker
You can time that parry and it's so rewarding.
00:08:05
Speaker
There's like a flash of light. There's a little flash before attack but some attack some enemies have Slower attacks, so they might be like two fast attacks one slower like overhead smash or something So you you kind of aggressively parry early. Yeah, and then like the hand comes across. Yes First boss though. Yes first boss
00:08:30
Speaker
Canonically known as the chain The most first like a boss. Yes. Yeah, this is the boss. It's basically designed to make you hate the bosses kind of at least to set the game up as they're they're clearly the antagonists to you so you're released from your cell by a
00:08:51
Speaker
guy with this weird bunny hat and like a walking stick staff thing. Hashtag anime. Yeah. Called The Voice. And he gives you the line that's recurring through the series. The Jailer is the key. Kill him and you'll be free. And you'll be free. And I
Boss Encounters and Strategies
00:09:10
Speaker
feel like for most people, that first boss, you don't need too much more incentive to kill him. He's constantly taunting you. I swear I'll
00:09:31
Speaker
He's trying to get you to go back in your cell. He's just like, oh, I'm just gonna kill you. It's like, I'll make you beg to go back in your cell. That's one of the things he says.
00:09:41
Speaker
And he's kind of just there to build up your drive to escape, but graphically really interesting. Like he has a bunch of masks, like a mask helmet essentially, and they'll like rotate throughout the fight, right? Yeah, I think it's, if you imagine kind of like a Zenyatta face, the three of those, one is like an angry Onamusha type face, then you have one that's kind of a
00:10:05
Speaker
Buddha happy smile and one that's I think a sad, just a sad white guy face. I can't think of a colorful language for that one.
00:10:14
Speaker
But then he also has essentially like a laser disc on his back, which kind of represents like the phases he goes through for the attacks. Interesting. I actually miss that. I think it corresponds to his health bars as well. Oh, he's got like a little dead space health tracker on the back. I think it's more for like how his combat changes. Interesting. Kind of like his style at the moment. That's interesting.
00:10:43
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I didn't have too much trouble with him, you know, maybe got knocked back a couple times, but definitely gets you hyped for the rest of the game. Like after you beat a boss, there's usually, I guess in all cases, there's like a walking segment where you can just, the game prompts you like, hey, here's your auto walk button. Just hold this for a second and you will walk all the way to the next boss. Like you'll see a cut scene once you arrive and then you'll be right into the next boss. That is the gameplay.
00:11:12
Speaker
There's a couple points where you can walk back and the voice is the bunny guy, he'll follow you through this and try to lead you to the next boss, maybe give you a little bit, some tips, some warnings about it, and sometimes if you stray off the path, you'll have a couple quips, basically, a little piece of the dialogue. But don't worry, I know them. I can help.
00:11:39
Speaker
Believe me, what's waiting at the end of all this is so worth the trouble. But it's linear, right? It's the definition of linear. It seems kind of boring by that description alone, but you really learn a lot about the game and its backstory through these little pieces of information that you get from the voice. That's true. And at this point you really don't know anything about the character, the voice, or his motivations.
00:12:07
Speaker
And your character, who later gets referred to as the stranger, because I don't think you have a name. I think the closest is writer at the very end. Okay. Yeah. But you don't have a real name. Yeah. But your character doesn't speak at all. So you're only going off of what you're getting from the voice. Yes. And also as you're progressing through the areas, you're essentially going to different cells of this
00:12:33
Speaker
celestial prison yeah that's kind of uh off of the planet's atmosphere yeah you're getting closer and closer to the plane as you go so you get to see these really beautiful landscapes of these different areas everything seems kind of a little bit 80s new age yeah there's like technology blended with nature on these like discs
00:12:56
Speaker
it's just it's really cool and you still have the music playing through as you walk so it gets you hyped for the next fight yeah the music's unavoidable like we can't go that far into this episode without talking about the music because it it cuts in right at the beginning yeah it's super hype yeah it's all i think
00:13:18
Speaker
Do we have a list here? I don't have a list. I know. It's kind of a wave shaper, perturbator-esque. Yeah. It's got some scattle in there. Mm-hmm. And Danger. Danger was the other one. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And yeah, the OST is great. I would say almost listen to the soundtrack, listen to this podcast.
00:13:40
Speaker
Like stop listening to podcasts, listen to soundtrack, and then after you play the game, and then listen to podcasts. We need views. We need views specifically. Listening's not enough. If you're not watching that progress bar right now, not a true fan.
00:13:59
Speaker
But the music's amazing. The music is easily one of the top five game original soundtracks, personally. I've played it on YouTube at work many a time. It might just be the best. And that's heavy. I've played games near. I've played games like Undertale. See, I know. It's top, right? It's right there. I can't flat out say it's the best. I just love this type of music. No, it's super good.
00:14:25
Speaker
I was listening to it today, actually. There's no escaping it for me. But the music's intertwined in the story. It's really like in the walking sections between the boss fights. It'll cut it back a bit. It'll take it back. And if you're listening to the OST, a lot of times tracks will have a kind of like slower, lower BPM kind of start, and it feeds into
00:14:52
Speaker
dropped which is amazing like goes straight into the boss fight and
00:14:58
Speaker
I think that without the walking sections kind of in the game, where the voice is talking to you, trying to motivate you for the next fight, saying like, we need to get out of here, right? Yeah. The pacing would have felt like really rushed, should be really hard to keep up with it. Yeah. If you just went to the next room and they're like, oh, hey, like, what did you do in another room? You're like, I killed a guy. That's bad. I got to stop you. That's illegal. Killing people is wrong.
00:15:27
Speaker
But yeah, after that first boss, there's many more. We don't have to cover all of them, but we can mention one of you. Yeah, for sure. Because the next one is the strap, who that character is also locked in, in a sense. Yeah, the other prisoner. For character design, I'm going to say it looks like the lamp from Pixar that jumps and squashes the eye.
00:15:55
Speaker
The letter I. And it's surprisingly accurate. But this character doesn't really have a motivation as far as you know. It is just constantly streaming and like frantically trying to attack you because you're just there. Yeah. Yeah. It's clearly mad. Yeah.
00:16:13
Speaker
So though it is technically also a jailer, it's more of a prisoner that is a jailer of convenience because it's a buffer for you leaving the next tier. Let's put a crazy person between us and them. Yeah. But you and me, we know that being locked up fucks you up inside. We know that so well, don't we? The next was the line. Do you remember that fight? That was the...
00:16:43
Speaker
The old aborigine guy. Yeah. You could control time. There were some warnings from the voice beforehand. The old man coming up. There's more to him than meets the eye. A master of time, so they say. That was an interesting fight because if you tried to just rush it, you're being super aggressive. Take the fight as fast as you can. It's much, much harder. He reflects so many of your attacks and it builds an intensity that if you're just unloading on the guy the whole fight,
00:17:13
Speaker
It's now filled to screen with bullets that you have to dodge. Yeah, it's the definition of a bullet hell game at that point. And some of those later, as you're getting to the later phases, you can't just shoot at him constantly. He requires specific movements and a pattern, like a flow you get into. And it kind of feeds into this whole, he just wants this sort of tranquility order piece.
00:17:37
Speaker
He wants his clocks to start ticking again is basically his opening line, but I'm here to make my clocks tick again Really interesting fight it took me a couple of times to beat that guy for sure you remember the next guy at all the scale yeah he was a
00:17:57
Speaker
a real fucker. I'm glad you said it. I can't say it. This was the worst boss for me. This was the hardest boss I should say. Yeah, because all of his attacks
00:18:10
Speaker
Like if he hits you, kind of adds like this poison, kind of blurs your screen a little bit, which is mildly annoying. And then a lot of the bosses, I think, not all of the bosses, when you get to their last bar, they kind of have an invulnerability phase where it's like, hey, I'm going to do a lot of crazy shit, don't die. So he kind of sets like this waffle pattern of
00:18:34
Speaker
Poison on the ground. And you have to avoid that. It's shooting out other rings of attacks. You have to dodge between that as well. It's crazy.
00:18:47
Speaker
And there's a special animation if he actually beats you. Or every time he depletes one of your health bars, he stabs you with essentially two harpoons. And I saw that so many times. So many times. Shaping out of your harpoons? Yeah, now that's a little bit of a problem. Man, you soldier!
00:19:16
Speaker
But definitely an interesting boss and this guy this guy He has like he's he's one of the first bosses I feel like where they the voice talks to you beforehand. It was like hey
00:19:27
Speaker
This guy's gonna, he's basically lost his mind. He's going crazy. Don't listen to whatever he says. I doubt he can speak at all. He says that and then the fight starts up and he talks a lot. The scale talks a lot and it's all about revenge on you. Finally!
00:19:49
Speaker
and how he's your mirror, essentially. And it's just, it's one of the bosses that the dialogue starts to get you thinking about what's actually going on in this game that the voice wants to escape this prison with you. Yeah. It's also the first time that you hear, essentially go to a very destroyed area.
00:20:14
Speaker
And he says, yeah, this guy's going to be crazy since like the meteor hit it. Yeah. And you're like, what? He's getting a little bit more backstory. And you're wondering why this character outside of the other three you've already encountered has so much disdain for you. Yeah. Cause you're like, I don't, I don't know. You know, I'm just killing dudes all the way to get out of prison. But it starts to open up some questions for you as to what's going on in the backstory and what's going on with your character.
00:20:42
Speaker
I remember one of the lines from the voice here as you're approaching the bosses. It only took one. It's the amount of devastation from just one impact. Wiped out in one single impact.
00:21:01
Speaker
Yeah. You're just like, that's crazy. You know, like, how's this? We'll get into it eventually. So at this point, you know, built up all that frustration you get through. Uh, the voice goes ahead and takes care of the guy and the next room, obviously. Um, or he says he does says, you know, I need to carry my, my share too. I've already taken care of the guardian in this room. After the last jailers, I felt you deserved a little more for me.
00:21:29
Speaker
I know you're itching to talk about the next guy. Yes. Okay. So the next guy is the hand. So we've completed that innuendo, I guess. So the introduction for the hand is he's, the voice says, this is the guy that imprisoned you, that actually brought you in here.
00:21:49
Speaker
And the opening cut scene has... He looks essentially like a paladin. He's basically a paladin. An energy paladin. And he's got a small boy with him.
00:22:02
Speaker
um who you come to realize is his son and uh the the kid runs away from you yeah and the the dad steps in essentially the the hand steps in and challenges you to a fight right i really enjoyed this fight what did what did you think about this one oh it was good yeah you like it um yeah he's a pretty balanced fighter for sure doesn't do anything too crazy until
00:22:30
Speaker
his final sequence where he just starts wailing on the attack after attack. He's just a martial fighter. That's a refreshing thing. He doesn't throw poison at you. He's got some laser attacks and he hits you. But they're straight beams. They're not projectiles he's filling the area with. And also I do remember when he first talks to his son, because his son sees you first, he kind of runs away. And then his dad calms down, puts on his help, and he's like, it's okay to be afraid, but it's
00:22:58
Speaker
It's what we do with that fear if we like rise up to the challenge or if we just run away. But yeah, I think that that fight overall is actually
00:23:18
Speaker
actually it's so refreshing after the scale like there are those transitions he's using lysers he's using his weapon but for the most part he just tries to hit you if you shoot him he punishes you by reflecting yeah he has uh like any paladin a sword and a shield so
Thematic Depth and Player Choices
00:23:33
Speaker
just deflecting anything is fucking pointless yeah if you do a fully charged shot because you can charge your projectile and fire to do a fully charged shot it uh
00:23:44
Speaker
It comes back and hits you for I think like four bars of damage, something obscene. It just chunks through you. So you don't do that. But yeah, it's a really satisfying fight and it's honestly like one of the first ones the game throws at you where it's like,
00:23:59
Speaker
I'm not, I'm not really sure I'm the good guy anymore. Yeah. Like you mentioned before, since he's the guy who took you in. Yeah. He also did it with, I think an army of like a hundred other people. He led the men who captured you.
00:24:14
Speaker
hundreds of them against you. Was that fair? And you're like, I am awesome. Yeah. It's like, why am I this kind of badass where I need like 101 people to imprison me? Yeah, it's kind of like, yeah, I'm a badass. And then you're like, wait, am I bad? Are we the baddies? Are we the baddies? But yeah, really satisfying fight. The kid's gone, you know, if you actually beat him at the end.
00:24:41
Speaker
Well, the kid runs away. He runs away. Yeah, the kid's gone. We just killed the dad. Yeah, yeah. The kid's probably fine. He's falling through the atmosphere, actually, since all these platforms, they suspended about the planet.
00:24:58
Speaker
I think we can move on from the hand. Yeah. So after the hand, I mean, just to solidify the feeling that maybe you're not the good guy. Your next opponent is the song, right? Yeah. So do you remember the song in the area before the fight? I thought the song was like, hey, Mickey, you're so fine. You're so fine. Hey, Mickey. Mickey. No, the song is a very mercy-esque archetype character.
00:25:26
Speaker
but you have a cutscene with her before you get engaged with battle or you have some dialogue. I shouldn't say dialogue. She talks at you because you don't ever speak. Yeah, not even once. But she's essentially pleading with you saying like, hey, like don't progress further. Don't try and escape. Yeah. She's like, I can share with you stories of my world. You can share with me stories of yours. We can come to like build a relationship and stuff and we'll take care of you here. I'll tell you the tales of my world.
00:25:55
Speaker
You will tell me yours. It's really nice, too. You've got like a fountain there. It's this garden-like world. Each of these platforms is different. You go through a portal. I've never been offered a garden in my life. Maybe I need to go to prison. Yeah. But if you actually wait, I think there's like a time where like two minutes, you do get an ending where you stay there, and that's it. Our garden will blossom. But if you try and continue from that point, it makes you try to game over. Yes. So myself, I'm sure Jake included,
00:26:25
Speaker
We're like, that sounds great, but I need to progress the game, or more. I need to get off this damn boat. So you leave, and she's like, you're going to fucking spit this in my face and it offered you everything. How dare you shun me. But you're just going to try and walk away from it. And she's like, well, I'm not going to let you leave.
00:26:47
Speaker
And then she gains wings, her halo becomes a combat visor, and then she has two fucking repeater crossbows. She's pretty great. That was a good fight for sure. It's an interesting stage too, because this is one of the first ones where it's like, hey, there's a lot of null space, essentially, space you can't be in between these platforms, and just a lot of jumping around and dodging.
00:27:09
Speaker
Yeah, once the fight actually starts, you feel less bad about rejecting her offer. You're just like, alright, like when it comes down, if you're gonna be a jerk, then I'm not gonna feel bad. You made me do this to you. I didn't want to hurt you, but I will. But yeah, eventually, you know, you do defeat her. It took me a couple attempts, for sure. Not as much as scale to scale, just ruined me forever, but yeah, that is a...
00:27:41
Speaker
one of the one of the last fights we're coming up on but uh but yeah after the after the song uh do you remember the next fight? I remember all of these Jake as I also recently re-researched them today that's a good idea um actually I guess if you want to talk about the fight I'll talk about right before the fight this this was an interesting part as you're walking up uh to the burst
00:28:05
Speaker
It is the next boss. You essentially get scanned by some of these drones that the boss has and they give you some information about your character that can kind of start filling in some of these questions or even causing more questions. One of them is that your heart's like BPM is like four or five or something like a 15, I think is what it was.
00:28:31
Speaker
And I'm like, well, that's not good. That's a serious medical condition for a normal human being. But yeah, they're just there to give you those questions right before that next fight. So how did you feel about the burst?
00:28:59
Speaker
The burst is probably one of my favorite as far as musically, designed thematically. Cause you're essentially jumping between a bunch of different hexagon, hexagonal areas. I'm a sucker for hexagons, like super hexagon. Yeah. Good example. They're super. But the music is very hype for the fight that you're doing, very fast paced. And you're essentially jumping through these hexagons, avoiding drones, which are trying to attack you and trying to find where she is. Cause she's stealth. Yeah.
00:29:29
Speaker
And then if you can engage her, you start fighting in that hexagon specifically and going through some phase and maybe she'll run away again. But throughout the fight, she's very taunty slash like a cat playing with a mouse. You can't see me, but I can see you. And she has a sniper rifle. She does have a sniper rifle. Yeah, with your missionary attack.
00:29:53
Speaker
It's an instant down I think. It is an instant down. So you have to dodge in between these hexagonal pillars to use as like a buffer.
00:30:03
Speaker
But I think the adequate description from her that the voice gives is, on a scale of 1 to 10, she's an 11, and she'd give herself a 12. It's pretty good. That was a tough fight, actually. Oh yeah, it took me a couple attempts to beat the burst. I do like that in the culmination of it, you're basically forcing her into melee, even though she's got this sniper rifle, you're like, alright, no more of that.
00:30:30
Speaker
you're gonna have to do some kind of shadow strike attacks and I'm just gonna parry him and take you down. Which is a satisfying end to being shot in the face over and over again. I think after that fight, the edge, which was the next fight. So this is definitely one of the best bosses in the game. I'm gonna let Dave also talk about that one, but I'll lead into it. The scene is basically a dock. His area is,
00:31:00
Speaker
this really peaceful, there's like a robo out at sea or on beach. I was going to say a robo at sea. A robo at sea. Good luck. Can't get there. But you meet him here on the dock and his attitude, this next boss, the Edge, is different from all the other bosses. He's not like, oh, I must stop you, you know, any of this, the imperative of the mission. He's here just to challenge himself.
00:31:26
Speaker
And every time that you go down in combat, he encourages you. You have more strength than you think. I want nothing but your very best. What do you think about the edge? I fucking love this boss. I really like the constant challenging encouragement. Like he's a fucking gym trainer. Yeah. And he wants you to succeed. When you first get down there, he says, I was hoping you'd make it this far. Because he was waiting for this opportunity to
00:31:56
Speaker
engage you to like train himself as well as have you be better. Just a good all around fight. Yeah. Um, he's like, I need this, right? This is the next level of challenge. Yeah. And you can tell he's been training for awhile. He's got that full full on cyborg Afro samurai vibe going. Yeah. Uh, and he starts out with a sword. It doesn't seem to have that many bars of health. You're just kind of like fighting on the dock. Yeah. And.
00:32:23
Speaker
His attacks are a little bit, they're not like one, two, three, they're staggered, so you have to- He's got a rhythm. Yeah, you have to learn that specific rhythm for the parries, otherwise you get punished, and if you get punished, it takes like a third of your health each time. Yeah, two bars, two bars for every hit, instead of just one. Yeah, it's super brutal. He has a quote throughout fighting him.
00:32:48
Speaker
Excellence is not an art. It's pure habit. We are what we repeatedly do And this guy consistently fucked me up because I got punished hard multiple times and I was like motherfucker so it builds this feeling against you always when you play games you want to you want to have that sense of completion I Came up to the challenge. I conquered the challenge. I continued on and
00:33:13
Speaker
And I didn't want to let this guy be a roadblock. Yeah. Cause I also want to see how the game ended, but he's also giving you that motivation at the same time, along with the good music that fits. Yeah. He's the opposite of the scale. Yeah. I mean, the scales just like you suck going to stab me with my heart. A lot of the jailers have such disdain and animosity towards you, but he's like, come on, let's make this good.
00:33:36
Speaker
this is a big day for me because i don't know if he truly thinks he can beat you but he at least he really wants to try yeah he he wants he he if he beats you he wants to beat you at your very best yeah and if he loses he wants to be he wants to go out fighting at his very best yeah
00:33:57
Speaker
And you get the feeling that he tried and gave it his all. Yeah. Not that he's coded because he's dead. Spoiler, I killed him. Oh, is that why he wasn't there when I played through, Dan? But after you do the dock portion, the phase changes after I think two health bars, and you go to a little walkway dock where it now becomes just linear.
00:34:21
Speaker
Yeah, it's like a 2D fighter essentially. Yeah. So you have to parry those attacks and his projectiles and learning like the walking back and dodging forward. I'm sure you remember that. Yeah. But it felt really good to finally beat him. Also, the cocky motherfucker switches from a katana to a wooden ore. Yeah, I know. And was stomping on my shit so much more. It was bad. He just traded out for a top tier weapon right there.
00:34:48
Speaker
It's like, you can't beat an ore. The Joke Tier, Soul Wolf Caliber. It was pretty great though. Feels super good to beat that guy. And yeah, it's a refreshing, refreshing fight, even though it's really hard.
00:35:03
Speaker
Also to note, he does look a little bit like you. Yeah, I commented this to Dave kind of when we were done. I thought that maybe he was related to you in some way or something like that. And I don't think that's necessarily true. The person who did the art here was Takashi Okazaki. I might have messed that name up, but the guy who did the illustration and writing for Afro Samurai.
00:35:29
Speaker
There are, you mentioned Afro Samurai earlier, there are connections, loose, but made by the same person.
00:35:37
Speaker
So coming off of that, a very difficult fight opponent hits you really hard. The voice has to hype you up for the next one.
Final Thoughts and Sequel Speculations
00:35:45
Speaker
He goes back to his quote that's come up several times at this point and says, the jailer is the key, kill her and you'll be free. So one last time, the jailer is the key, kill her and you will be free. If I remember correctly, you can correct me if I'm wrong.
00:36:05
Speaker
It says that the next fight is going to be very difficult. Like, you might not leave this fight, I think is one of the quotes. She's treacherous and she's fast. And there's something in there that is meant to stop you for good. And at the time, you know, before the fight, I was just like, oh, it's going to be stuck on this enemy forever, right?
00:36:28
Speaker
Um, but that's not really the case. What, what was your impression of the beat? She's an amateur. Bitch ass. Not, not the phrase I would use, but basically this is, this is your victory lap, kind of at the end. It's the beat is kind of, uh, I don't know, probably late teens, early twenties, uh, girl, essentially who's, who's the final jeller jailer, uh, presumably because.
00:36:54
Speaker
Uh, nobody wanted to see her get hurt, essentially, right? Like, she's just like, yeah, you volunteered for the job. We do need to have you on the bench. Yeah, exactly. But she's the last one. Why did they let her join? How many were they prepared to sacrifice?
00:37:09
Speaker
And you can actually, there's jumping over platforms, dodging lasers to like get to her platform. And usually like if you lose your health bar, you set back a phase. The boss goes back, you have to refight whatever phase. If you lose your health bar, like on your way there, you don't lose anything. Like your health bar, you lose the pip on your bar, but you regain all your health exactly where you were. You can keep chasing her and as soon as you reach the platform, you'll gain another pip of health.
00:37:35
Speaker
like another full bar. It's super forgiving compared to everything else the game has thrown at you. But she talks to you, right? Like she's talking throughout this. Do you remember what she was saying or talking about? I remember at least early on when she first sees you, she's like, everyone said that you were a monster, but you don't seem like a monster. You seem just like us. I look at you and I don't understand. We're so alike.
00:38:04
Speaker
And she's very like, why do we have to fight? Yeah. But then you start the engagement and she's running away. If she's still talking to you, almost as equals, like she's trying to understand where you're coming from, right? And things. But then after you fight a little bit more, she's like, no, you are a monster. Yeah. And she, I guess maybe she feels like some evil aura about you or something else. Cause again, you're, as your character, you're not providing
00:38:34
Speaker
any speech or dialogue or commentary. It's just what people perceive by your actions and constantly going forward and this trail of murder right down to the surface of the planet. She says things in the fight like we're so alike. She actually says the line. She's just like, I can't
00:38:58
Speaker
I have to stop you, you have to stop here. It's like everything around you withers and dies. And you're like, I mean, yeah, I've killed a lot of bosses, but I mean everything, there's the bunny guy right over there and he's fine with this.
00:39:16
Speaker
Um, important to note, uh, nobody else seems to interact with the voice. That's true. He's not there during the fights. Nobody mentions him. He just teleports around. Yeah. So as far as you're concerned, it's a contraption that your mind has devised. We're breaking out of prison, prison break, just you and me, buddy. Yeah. He says to himself, exactly. Uh,
00:39:42
Speaker
But yeah, it's, and you get to the end and she's not even a threat. I think in the final phase of the fight, her attacks, even if she hits you, which she very, very rarely attacks, it doesn't do any damage. Literally nothing. Yeah, like she tries to trigger a giant, gigantic laser to shoot you down. And you being a badass would kind of go through it. You just ninja through it, yeah. Yeah. High frames.
00:40:15
Speaker
But then she's pretty much expended all of her energy part of her suits broken Yeah, and she's trying to go at you with all that she has which you'd imagine like a very tired exasperated person Swinging like literally a stick at you. Yeah, and just kind of like you'll never play hockey again So you cut her down pretty quickly
00:40:35
Speaker
And then you're done. The jailer comes up and is like, hey, we've finally done it. And there's sadness. You can't skip this. You can't skip this because it made me feel so bad. The final cutscene is you stab her through the chest and she says, please hold my hand. And then dies. And your guy just stands there. Like the ultimate douchebag. The douchebagiest douchebag to ever douchebag.
00:41:01
Speaker
And I'm just like, Oh, I hate my character so much right now. But yes, you don't exactly feel like the best person. You don't see, you don't feel like the main hero protagonist. You feel more of a, some form of anti-hero, but you're still not entirely sure. But then you finally get to leave the prison and you go down to the planet. And I think there's a,
00:41:26
Speaker
We can talk about the voice now. This would be... I don't think it jumps immediately to... You see the voice, right? No, no. You have to cross a bridge and some things to see his thing. But as soon as you get down onto the surface of the planet...
00:41:42
Speaker
There literally is a black ring of decay around you and wherever you walk on the planet while it's playing the main theme does wither and decay and does not regenerate. And so you're like, oh shit. You are the end is the song that plays.
00:41:57
Speaker
And so as you explore around, you're obviously making more things wither, but you explore on the beach and then you get a cutscene with the voice. And it's a really lush, like, world. Like, this is a very, very pretty world. There's towers, there's some villages and things. And everything you come close to just dies. And he just casually walks through it. After the credits start to roll and eventually it goes to black, when the credits complete, you actually regain control and you start ninja running like you're in Naruto.
00:42:26
Speaker
But yeah, you can go to the beach, talk to the voice, and he's there with his daughter. And this is the reason that the voice wanted to escape the prison. He was one of the guardians. All of the guardians were locked in there, the jailers, to keep you there. That was their duty. They couldn't leave.
00:42:46
Speaker
And he went against that to free you because he couldn't stand being without his daughter. And he saw you as a means to an end. So essentially break all those barriers to get down to his daughter.
00:43:01
Speaker
There comes a moment in the fight with the song at the end. There's a bit of hesitation before the stranger or writer kills the song. And right after that, the voice says, it's like, did you hesitate? Like, I never expected that of you. It's like, maybe there's hope after all.
00:43:20
Speaker
which is such a crazy line for someone who's encouraging you to kill every jailer. And that's because throughout the whole game, he's feeding you all these lines about how bad these jailers are, the things they've done. For the beat, he actually makes her seem like the worst of them. I think he actually says something like that. She's the worst of them. And it's just a girl. But he knows that he has to make her evil to you, or you might not follow through. Yeah. He didn't want to risk it on the chance of us finding
00:43:50
Speaker
a sense of guilt, possibly. Yeah. He didn't want you to develop a conscience until he could be free. Yeah. He's honestly like, he's so manipulative and I thought I was going to be fighting him up until the end, but there's no way to. Yeah. It always seems like when you have a mystery character like that show up, it's like final boss material. Yeah, I know.
00:44:15
Speaker
I tried so many times to find some way out of here. But there wasn't one. Except for you. If only I could have found a way out. Without killing them. Without freeing you. But I couldn't outsmart my greatest work. And slowly that ancient animal part of my brain took over.
00:44:40
Speaker
The urge that made me fast when she was in danger, that kept me awake when she was sick. The architect gave up and the father came up with a plan. I know what you're thinking. There's a thin line between love and madness. Time will tell. So then as you walk away, she's like, I'll wear your bunny hat for a hat. Wait. Your hat is down my hat.
00:45:10
Speaker
So as you walk away and you know you're essentially some force of destruction, you go to this tower and I'm going to TLDR some of this stuff, but basically you find out that you essentially crashed on this planet
00:45:28
Speaker
you were the comet that hit and caused so much destruction and people fought against you and imprisoned you and they didn't want to actually kill you off because they were worried that more of you would come. So as you enter the tower, you get shot up into space and there's a satellite facility up there where there's basically an AI saying like, hey, how did it go?
00:45:55
Speaker
And it's like, did you kill everybody? It's like, what's, what's the evaluation for the planet? Is it ready for a simulation? Cause you are not an individual. You are one of many, many riders who are sent the planets to for the purpose of destruction. Is it worth the simulating? Basically, I think is what it came down to.
00:46:13
Speaker
So you have this option to say, like, yeah, fuck the planet, fucking nuke it. Or you can say, you know what? This isn't exactly for me. And you can essentially fight the AI that's on the mothership, which is called the star. I don't think Jake and I or I have explored that option. I was pretty satisfied at this point in the game. So I was just like, I'm good. I also was hard and I was tired. I am at time. Yeah. And that's.
00:46:42
Speaker
it's just it's this crazy culmination you get a choice at the end if you choose to cause the invasion all of the writers the other writers just descend on the planet and this this firestorm and you see the voice and his daughter kind of like hugging in this final scene
00:47:01
Speaker
And we did, I think we both looked up at the other end, if you do manage to actually beat the star, in which case the ship explodes the station and Ryder falls back down to the planet. You know, like, you know, maybe, maybe, maybe it'll work out a little bit of hopefulness at least.
00:47:17
Speaker
So though you've killed a lot of important people, the planet itself and all of its inhabitants are safe. So, little trade-off. That's not the canonical ending though. You definitely nuke it all. Nuked it for the plot. Yeah. No, it's crazy. And the fact that they can drop so many hints about
00:47:39
Speaker
he's the architect the voice that's the other thing is the voice is the architect of the whole jail the whole prison like he designed this system to hold you and yeah i'm like i'm not sure if they completely clarify whether they avoid killing you just because they're afraid another one's going to come out or if you're actually mortal they say you're immortal they say they can't kill you but it's all really suspicious at the end when you see all of the other ones
00:48:06
Speaker
It's just too cool. It's just this perfect unfolding at the end. And I really like games when they let you assume you're the good guy. They're like, you're a good guy. You're a prisoner. You need to get out. The desire for freedom is fundamentally ingrained in people. Even if you're playing a video game, you're kind of like, I'm being held by the bad guys.
00:48:33
Speaker
Yes, Skyrim, yeah. Yeah, like most of the elders for all these games. There's like, there was some, not to take this too far into the real world, but there's some countries where attempting to escape from prison is not in itself, does not cause punishment. They'll return you to your cell, they'll do whatever, but they don't increase your sentence because they think it's, they believe that the desire for freedom is a fundamental human trait.
00:49:05
Speaker
So like, it's really interesting, right? I kind of like that. It's like, you did a good job, you tried, but I don't know. Yeah. I mean, like, it's our bad. We almost let you get away, right? That's our responsibility. I mean, depending on how you go about it.
00:49:20
Speaker
I guess in that situation, I'll probably just cut this whole thing. I don't know how much we ought to go into real life politics. But the idea is if someone is escaping and they're going to be caught, they're like cornered or something like that, they're not going to do something super risky to like hurt anybody because they know... Because it's not an all or nothing situation. Exactly. You can reset back too.
00:49:39
Speaker
Yeah, you still have that hole in your cell that you've been digging. You'll just go right through again. But no, a game sets you up as the prisoner. You're gonna think the jailers are bad. And the game tells you the jailers are bad. The voice does. But the voice is not reliable. Narrator. This is true.
00:49:58
Speaker
Anyways, that's all I've got for Fury. It's an amazing game. 10 out of 10, easily. Yeah, you should have played it before listening to this. Definitely should have played it. What have you done, you poor fool? Do you have any possible criticism for the game or things they maybe could have improved on or things you'd like to see if they were ever to attempt something like a sequel?
00:50:19
Speaker
um it's i don't know it's really tough like if this is one of those games where i think if they jumped in on a sequel and they tried like to maintain continuity it's really hard because the first game was
00:50:31
Speaker
like surrounded in twists and a lack of knowledge. One of the things driving you forward I think in the game is obviously just the boss rushes, you know, the actual gameplay mechanics, but the story is not explained to you. It's left completely open and they let you guess, which is the most important thing. I was watching a video about like how people make movies and the advice was if you are going to present something to the audience,
00:50:58
Speaker
the main character or something like that is going to learn. Only present the dots, don't present the connections. And I think letting people make those connections and making those theories and things like that would make Fury way better for me.
00:51:13
Speaker
I was talking to Dave while I was playing through it. I'm like, I'm really suspicious about this thing and it's spooky. I think you called pretty much most of the games plot. No. I just, you know, you're the bad guy. That's the point. You're like, there's no hope. I just hope there's a worse bad guy. But.
00:51:34
Speaker
But yeah, I mean I would I would definitely play a sequel I would hope that they kind of They take it somewhere else, you know, they do they do something else with other questions Or they expand on things so that there's bigger questions, right? They're just like oh, yeah, you're still writer, but this is this is a thousand years after the destruction of the civilization you're traveling through space or something like that and
00:51:59
Speaker
just bring it into a space where there's more questions. We'll make that game. We'll get on that. We'll be sending our ideas over to the GameBakers and we'll get on this. Hey, two generic white guys that had some advice for you. Some helpful advice.
00:52:18
Speaker
But what about yourself? Do you have any final thoughts on the game or whether you could play more in the future? Whether you think the artist should make any more music? This is something I still am considering buying like a physical soundtrack for. I know they have released some actual LPs. Yeah. But I think the game set out to do
00:52:47
Speaker
Like one or two specific things and achieve them flawlessly. I don't think there's any chaff in the game. I don't think there's extra fluff. Yeah. I think it's exactly what it is and what it needs to be. And it just hits all dots for me. I definitely want to go back and replay some things, maybe try and do like, uh, how fast could I do a run or be down here. Hardly difficulty for you. Um, so much fun to play.
00:53:18
Speaker
I think it's about time we wrap it up, folks. Hopefully you enjoyed the game, since you've definitely played it before listening to this podcast. Right. Or if you didn't, which I know you didn't, maybe check it out afterwards. It's still a decent game. Even if you have stuff spoiled, it's very fun and challenging and enjoyable. Yeah. And if you did take a break to play the game and then came back and finished off this podcast, you can now listen to our next podcast that has been released since you started listening to this one.
00:53:48
Speaker
Because you're a working adult, we understand. You don't have that much time for games. You're gonna beat this over the course of several days. On that note, thanks everybody again for listening, and have a good day, night, or weekend, whatever the fuck your deal is. Peace. See ya.
00:54:18
Speaker
So now you know. Maybe you think I'm insane, or maybe you understand. You were my only chance. I hoped it would change you. I think it did. It doesn't really matter. What does matter is what you are going to do.