Full Metal Furies Review – Furious fun

Cellar Door Games made a name for themselves with the surprise hit Rogue Legacy, so with the release of Full Metal Furies comes an attempt to truly cement themselves as creators of memorable, colourful and most importantly fun co-op side-scrolling action RPG greatness. With a cast of likable characters and an art style that is decidedly retro yet completely modern, the captivating style of Full Metal Furies is pretty clear as soon as you load the title screen. Luckily, the game has some decent substance to back this up.

Full Metal Furies is a fast paced brawler, where enemies will flood the screen for you to clear before moving on to the next section. Each character has completely different move-sets but play similarly enough that things never feel confusing, with a basic attack, a dodge of sorts, and a couple of other more unique moves. This comes together better in cooperative mode with your friends, where you can work together and combine your abilities more effectively. After each round, rewards flood in which can then be spent on skill trees, additional abilities and other loot-based goodies that enhance the experience and bring in some addictive RPG mechanics after each round. It’s a setup we are used to, but it works here and becomes addictive as you get stronger.

To switch up the gameplay in cooperative mode, some enemies spawn with coloured barriers relative to the colour of each player. If it’s a blue shielded foe and you’re playing as Triss, you’re the only one that can actually remove that shield by causing damage. This means that it isn’t always a free-for-all when it comes to fighting baddies, as you have to ensure you’re clearing your colour before your teammates are able to actually be effective at all in combat. While it’s a cool idea, this does cause some frustration if one of your teammates is down and waiting for a revive while the stage is full of their colour shields. This leaves you unable to attack anything until they get back up, which can make things difficult and result in a quick death, especially if it’s only two of you playing.

There are some other moments in Full Metal Furies that make it memorable, including a solid sense of humour. The first Titan you encounter is basically a gym junkie who says things like “BOOM” as he strikes a pose, as if checking himself out in the mirror. References to the fact that you’re playing a video game sometimes try a bit too hard to be meta, but it’s all very tongue-in-cheek, as is the ability to pick up instruments when you’re back at the camp and play a tune as if you’re in a cool all-female rock band. It’s also great that this is a game about four tough women – not that they ever make any on-the-nose points about it. The one downside is the lack of voice acting and just generally uninspired audio design. It’s not bad per se (the opening ditty is pretty catchy) but some voice acting for the bigger moments would have brought even more personality to proceedings.