Full Metal Furies

Cellar Door Games, best known for the roguelite game Rogue Legacy, is back and this time around has provided players with a more cooperative offering. The studio's newest title, Full Metal Furies, combines old-school side-scrolling beat 'em up action with multiplayer/co-op mechanics, and the results are rather nice indeed.

The war-minded world of the Furies is filled with larger-than-life characters, starting with the antagonistic Titans all the way through to the fierce ladies themselves. It's not all doom and gloom though, and the subject is treated with levity, including moments of humour that manage to crack a smile or two. The game's surprisingly story-heavy and the distinct personalities of the characters come across as nicely thought out, while the narrative provides a concrete goal to strive towards.

The title's clearly designed for four players to enjoy, but there are still some fun times to be had when going solo, as here a solitary player chooses two of the four furies to control and can switch between them on the fly. Each of them has their individual quirks and uses, as the tank relies on her massive shield for both defence and offence, for example, whereas the fighter bounces around the battlefield with a massive two-handed hammer. The Pioneer's pistols and gadgets have multiple uses, while the sniper does what the sniper does best (preferably while remaining far from harm herself). Scavenged blueprints and experience points enable new upgrades and sidegrades for each, but no character is completely tied to her archetype, and thus the tank can entertain her more offensive streak and the fighter can trade her single target damage for area-of-effect skills.

Cooperation is enforced with both more and less subtle means. Players can hit, toss, and air-hit enemies, stringing some really impressive combos together, in the process making quick work of even the tougher enemies by combining their firepower. Colour-coded shields are a more jarring form of this, with some enemies sporting impenetrable bubbles only the similarly coloured character can shatter. The mechanic is used a touch too often and can, at its worst, lead to a situation where just one person ends up being responsible for the entire horde while his or her comrades run around in circles waiting for shields to get popped.

Full Metal Furies is bright and a bit quirky - a co-op focused brawler with some nice touches to character development and storytelling. The old school mentality comes across nicely without feeling outdated, and the surprisingly expansive progression keeps things interesting throughout the Furies' campaign to rid the world of Titans.