Feral Fury (XB1) Review

Panda-monium.

Feral Fury is a twin-stick roguelike, that has the player controlling a space marine, who is also a panda. Like many other roguelikes, XP that’s accrued during a run can be spent after the character dies, allowing players to upgrade them. The player comes across several different (mostly) conventional weapons like the assault rifle, handcannon, and SMG, but only two weapons can be held at a time and one of those is always the default pistol.

What’s exactly happening throughout the game’s plot is unclear. From the 15 second intro, it would appear that a faction of panda space marines is invading a planet. Their enemies include big bugs, demons, ghosts, robots and other monsters – all of which are on the same side.

Price: $9.99
Platform: XB1 (reviewed), PC
Price I’d Pay: 9.99

I don’t need to know much, especially when it’s a smaller game (made by only two people) and possibly going for a retro feel, but the absence of any info of the world is something I’ve never seen in a game before. No text crawl in the beginning to establish things. No name of the faction that the pandas belong to. No reasoning for shooting at this army of several different types of creatures. Again, we don’t need a heap of lore, but we need something.

DOOM – I’m guessing – is the main inspiration for the games look and tone. Enemies and the main character explode in mists of blood; there are blue and red key cards that look exactly like the ones in DOOM; and the demons look similar as well.

The gameplay, however, is not very DOOM. The small rooms that make up the procedurally generated levels are dense with enemies and traps, which really compel the player to slow down. It took me a while to learn to stay still when entering a room because I’d frequently get damaged by a spike trap or an enemy standing there. The plus side to all of this is that it adds to the tension and difficulty of the game which is key in a roguelike.

Ammo for guns is limited, and is an important resource because the pistol is so bland and ineffective. While the guns don’t get too crazy, the buffs and abilities that one can get during a run are fun to discover and use. The game does a good job at giving the player lots of options and opportunities to make trades/purchases of guns and abilities. The option to attack hard-to-kill merchants to take what they have for free is a unique risk-reward option, which is very welcome in a game that is pretty generic in other areas.

Feral Fury plays it safe in many ways, but it also plays well, runs well, and does enough to satisfy the roguelike enthusiast. It isn’t crazy enough or unique enough to recommend to anyone who isn’t already a fan of the genre, though. The laziness in the world-building was also a key disappointment.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.

Written by
Wyatt is a recent college graduate of Ohio University’s Journalism program. He’s an Xbox guy, but loves playing great PlayStation exclusives. Also, he has far too much nostalgia for the old Nintendo.