Claws of Furry is a side scrolling beat ‘em up developed and published by Terahard. In this rogue-like fighter, you and up to three friends can battle the masses of rat thugs, killer crocs, and dastardly dogs in all its local co-op glory. You will encounter over-the-top boss battles, waves of enemies in the separate Arena mode, and unlock costumes that can give you an edge by granting special stats and abilities.
Our story starts with a lesson from our hairless kitty dojo master. But before the tutorial can conclude, the dog mafia busts through the walls of our feline dojo and kidnaps our fur-less master and dares us to pursue them. Once the tutorial concludes we are dropped into the dojo, where we can select our game mode, a single life ‘Rogue Mode’ where dying resets us back to the beginning, ‘Pussycat Mode’ where dying won’t reset us back to the beginning, or ‘Arena Mode’ where we can fight an endless onslaught of enemies (this mode is locked until you complete the first level).
The story mode will take us across 4 different areas, each consisting of multiple stages with a boss battle at the end of each stage. In order to beat each stage, we must destroy all the enemies in the level. To help us out, there is a counter in the top corner of the screen with the amount of enemies left as well as an arrow that points to them. It is important to note that at some points the arrow pointed into an abyss where the enemy fell off the map and did not die and was inaccessible, with the only course of action being to die on purpose to reset the level, which unfortunately means having to play all the stages after the previous boss battle again to get to that point. This puts a major dampening on Rouge Mode where dying resets all progress and you are forced to restart the game because of buggy AI spawning (I also fell through the floor a few times which causes an instant death, so be warned when it comes to playing rogue mode).
The attack system is simple enough, with a light attack that can be spammed to form a combo, as well as an uppercut attack that can juggle enemies and prime them for a bullet attack. Bullet attacks are when you uppercut an enemy, then meet them in the air for another uppercut attack that sends them flying in the direction of your choice and causes area-of-effect damage to enemies in its impact radius. There is also a dodge move that is impervious to most damage aside from a few unblockable attacks. Each of the bestiary has only one or two moves in its arsenal that can easily be avoided on a 1vs1 basis, but when grouped with different types of enemies, can become a major challenge.
Overall, I would recommend this game to those who are fans of the beat ‘em up genre. This title is short enough to be completed in a day and can all be done in local coop which is in short supply these days. The few minor bugs did not deter me from having a blast playing this with friends and the satisfaction of beating the final boss made a memorable impression on me. At its price-point, this title is well worth the money.
Developer: Terahard
Publisher: Terahard
Release Date: 4th September 2018
Price: £8.39/$9.99
File Size: 2GB
Xbox One copy provided for review purpose.