F.I.S.T.: Forged In Shadow Torch

Pro - You're a rabbit with a giant mech arm that punches when you punch - Amazing environmental details - Metroidvania lite - Great vibes; all your friends are animals and they're all mad at the Iron Dogs who are robots that are dogs and they're MEAN - I just like it! Con - Mediocre story, writing, and acting, but not bad - Something about the timing on the combos never quite stuck with me - No NG+, no 100% completion bonus, no hard mode, no replayablility if you get it all in one shot Play it! It's fun.

I bought this game on sale and didn't get a chance to play it until much later. I have played similar games before, like Hollow Knight and Nine Sols. This is one of those games where there is challenging platforming mixed with beat-em-up style combat, and boss fights. The combat starts very basic, but later you can dodge and parry, and learn combos and special moves. There are collectable items that upgrade your health bar, special attacks, and item capacity, and you have to collect data disks and money to unlock new moves. You can unlock the soundtrack by discovering 100% of the map and visiting one of the shops in town. There are also posters around the map that you give to one of the characters to unlock new colours for your weapons. The theme feels similar to Final Fantasy VII's Midgar, kind of technopunk, where you're in the slums and the city is full of machinery and pipes, with neon signs and an Asian flavour to it all. The enemies are robot dogs who are ruling over the furry anthropomorphic "furtizens". The goal is to overthrow the Iron Dogs and take back Torch City. The main character is a rabbit with a robotic arm strapped to his back, which he uses to punch his way through the robot enemies. Overall I enjoyed this game, it has a decent level of difficulty and that makes it more rewarding. I sometimes got frustrated with the combo training; to me the timing of inputs is a bit unforgiving, and some button presses aren't registered outside a small window, and it says you failed when you have successfully done the combo. It's also really tricky to switch to the right weapon mid-combo in mid-air using the d-pad or shoulder buttons and then press the analogue direction and attack button all in the blink of an eye. I tended to stick to one weapon for most boss fights and switch to certain weapons for certain enemies. I don't like the use of the forward analogue stick to parry, as it's imprecise for something that needs split second timing. As others have said, the carrot juice being on the same consumable bar as weapons makes me never use those weapons, as I always need carrot juice to heal, partly due to parrying being on the analogue stick (the parry nunchuku things you get early in the game are different, and they consume item bar). Sometimes multiple enemies can swarm you, so you need to use powerful special moves with area of effect, otherwise you won't be able to take control of the situation. Some of the platforming sections were not obviously blocked in a Hollow Knight style of needing to unlock a new move to get to that platform, and I managed to get to some places I'm probably not supposed to, and spent a lot of time trying to get there without the required moves. Some of the bosses can be spammed by going behind them and doing special moves, or by volleying them in mid-air. The combat is not as difficult as Hollow Knight or Nine Sols, and you don't really have to dodge and parry everything like in those games. I enjoyed the game but there's just those niggling control issues. I also had a few times when I went too fast to another area and the background hadn't loaded yet, and I just see the rabbit floating in space while the graphics load in. I'm playing on Linux, with an SSD and specs above the recommended requirements, so I'm not sure if it's a Linux issue or not. Another thing to note is the game is not super long, I took 26 hours to complete it, and I saw 100% of the map apart from one secret area, and I sometimes leave games running while I'm away, so actual time playing may be more like 18 hours or something. You can probably get to the end credits in 8 hours if you don't care about any of the collectables and secrets, and just do the main objectives, but without the upgrades the last few bosses will be much more challenging. The short game length may be a good thing if you don't want to sink too much time into it.

Catchy music and decent gameplay. Relatively easy until the final part, but the map lacks teleport markers, which makes backtracking confusing.

Не понимаю восторженных отзывов об этой игре, унылая, скучная, душная метроидвания. Понравится только если это первая метроидвания в вашей жизни. Унылая боёвка, кривая колизия врагов, честно говоря, скучные локации, как и музыка. Сюжет за первые два часа меня не увлёк от слова совсем. Боссы обычные, не сложные, но и не лёгкие. Иследовать мир крайне скучно, ибо всё что ты получишь, это горсть монеток, апы для хила и тд. Брал по скидке, хватило на два часа... К покупке крайне не рекомендую.

一直很喜欢这款游戏，刚发布的时候买了，后面退款了，这次又买了回来，看到上次运行日期竟然是2021年10月，我才知道已经过去了5年了吗.....块6年了..6年了我还能坐在这打游戏，太幸福了.......目前玩过的最好的国产横版游戏了。

> Pretty but no personality ## Why - Much more realistic graphics than most (any?) Metroidvanias - Tries to differentiate itself with combos/multiple weapons ## Why Not - Combat is going for weighty but lands on clunky - Story/characters do nothing for me - Never felt any desire to play it ## Impressions FIST (what a name) stands out with its impressively realistic graphics compared to others in the genre, but falls down more or less everywhere else. Despite being fully voice-acted the story is ham-fisted and formulaic, exploration is there but basic and the combat just feels bad. There are plenty of optiona available between multiple weapons; each with different attack modes, but it feels too clunky and the enemies are too spongy to be enjoyable. It's a pity because there are some cool ideas here like the skeuomorphic menus and steampunk-with-anthropomorphic-animals aesthetic, but if a game isn't fun to play and its story doesn't pull me in I'm out sorry. Maybe there are people this lands for but for me it feels like a tech demo with some cool ideas that's a chore to play.

辣鸡