Fury Unleashed is a 2017 action platformer built on a simple, sturdy joke: your hero is a comic-book character, and the comic book is the level. Developer Awesome Games Studio shipped it across PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android, and the critical consensus settled at 7.7 out of 10 across seven outlets, according to the IGDB critic aggregate. That number is fair. Fury Unleashed has a strong idea, a sharp combo system, and a progression loop that gets its hooks in early and then asks you to keep paying attention.
Trailer, via Awesome Games Studio.
A Hero Who Lost His Powers
The setup is the best thing Fury Unleashed has going for it. You shoot your way through the pages of a comic book that keeps rearranging itself. The perspective is side-on, the genre is shooter first and platformer second, with role-playing and adventure elements layered on top. The theme is action, fantasy and science fiction at once, which sounds like a mess and mostly reads as a game that knows it is a comic and dresses accordingly.
The story gives the hero a reason to be angry. Chaos has entered the comic-book multiverse, and your whole world has gone nuts. You come from a long-gone era and were once a great hero, but your powers have been lost. The quest is to write your story anew and relive your greatest accomplishments. Order gets restored when you prove you are the true Hero. That is thin, but it is the right kind of thin for a game that wants you moving.
Ink From Defeated Enemies
The mechanics are where Fury Unleashed earns its score. Your guns are your best friends, and ink is your most valuable resource. You collect ink from defeated enemies and spend it to permanently upgrade your hero. That permanent part matters. This is not a run-based game that wipes your progress when you die. It is a game that wants you to keep what you earn, which makes the loop feel generous rather than punishing.
The combo system is the centerpiece. The more dynamic and brave your play style, the greater the rewards. Play cautiously and you get less. Play like a whirling tornado of destruction and the game opens up. The tension is that staying focused is mandatory. Lose your concentration and you will die sooner than you think, and you will lose everything you looted on your way. That risk-and-reward math is the whole game in miniature.
The modes support the design. Fury Unleashed runs single player, multiplayer and co-operative, which is more than most indie platformers of its size bother with. Co-op in particular suits a game that rewards aggressive play, because two players pushing forward cover each other’s mistakes.
Why the Score Lands at 7.7
A 7.7 out of 10 is a specific kind of score. It is not a rave and it is not a dismissal. It says the game does its central thing well and does not do much beyond it. The comic-book framing is a genuine idea, not a skin. The ink economy gives every kill a purpose. The combo system rewards the player who takes risks instead of the player who hides.
Where Fury Unleashed falls short is in range. The story is a premise rather than a narrative, and the hero’s lost powers are a reason to play rather than a character to care about. The game tells you to prove you are the true Hero, and that is about as much characterization as it offers. For a game built on the idea that you are living inside a story you are rewriting, the rewriting stays mechanical.
The genre mix is also worth flagging. Shooter, platformer, RPG, adventure and indie is five labels for one game, and the RPG elements are the thinnest of the set. Permanent upgrades are not a role-playing system. They are a progression track. Calling Fury Unleashed an RPG oversells what the ink actually buys you.
What Holds Up and What Doesn’t
Fury Unleashed is a good game that knows what it is. The comic-book multiverse premise, the ink economy, and the combo system all point the same direction: keep moving, keep shooting, keep upgrading. The 7.7 aggregate is the right landing spot for a game that executes its core loop cleanly and does not pretend to be more.
If you want a side-scrolling shooter with a co-op mode and a reason to replay, Fury Unleashed delivers. If you want the story to carry weight, it will not. The chaos in the comic-book multiverse is a frame, not a plot. The lost powers are a tutorial in disguise. What holds up is the moment-to-moment play, and that moment-to-moment play is genuinely good.
The score is 7.7 out of 10.
The Numbers
- Title: Fury Unleashed
- Release year: 2017
- Developer: Awesome Games Studio
- Publishers: Awesome Games Studio, Beawesome Games, Happinet Indie Collection
- Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC (Microsoft Windows), Mac, Linux, iOS, Android
- Genres: Shooter, Platform, Role-playing (RPG), Adventure, Indie
- Themes: Action, Fantasy, Science fiction
- Modes: Single player, Multiplayer, Co-operative
- Perspective: Side view
- Critic aggregate: 7.7/10 (IGDB, 7 outlets)
What Fury Unleashed Offers
- A comic-book multiverse setting where chaos has broken the world
- A hero from a long-gone era who has lost his powers
- Ink collected from defeated enemies for permanent upgrades
- A combo system that rewards dynamic and brave play
- Single player, multiplayer and co-operative modes
- A quest to write your story anew and prove you are the true Hero
Fury Unleashed does not need a sequel to fix its problems. It needs a sharper story to match its sharp loop. The comic-book idea is strong enough to carry more than it currently does, and the ink economy is strong enough to justify the grind. What the game gets right, it gets right immediately. What it gets wrong, it gets wrong quietly. That is a 7.7.
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