Furi was one of my favorite pleasant surprises from last year, so upon hearing that a DLC character was coming this month, I had to pick it up to try for myself. I'll focus on the new character's abilities and playstyle for this review; if you want to read my previous thoughts on the base game, you can do so here.

I've said before that Furi in many ways is a push & pull of frantic close combat and patient, well-timed execution, and that could not be any more the case with the new DLC character. The new DLC character operates with two different forms; a light, faster form that focuses on dodging and building up meter, and a heavy form that focuses on scoring damage but is far more restricted in slower movement and a worse dodge. Both characters can build up meter through careful dodging and dealing successful damage to bosses, though meter build up is far slower with the heavy form. Moreover, while successful parrying will restore some health in light form, parrying will not restore any health in heavy form. Finally, activating the meter will cause you to enter Star Form, which allows for faster and stronger bullets while maintaining Light Form movement speed and dodge. So there is freedom in how you choose to approach with the new DLC character; do you choose to play it safe and just chip away and successfully dodge/parry everything, waiting til the meter fills up to unleash Star Form upon your foes? Or do you play the dangerous game, staying in heavy form as much as possible to quickly build up damage through successive attacks and responses to parrying? (The answer of course, is a combination of these two.)

In the base game, you're already subjected to this push & pull of unrelenting offense vs calculated and patient defense through the bosses themselves. For example, you go from needing to play quite aggressively against The Strap, who loves to back away from you and fire lasers, to needing to play very defensively against The Line, who must be taken down by firing tons of bullets at mirrors and pillars while dodging resultant projectiles. The DLC character accentuates this further; now you have to juggle switching between forms to maximize damage while prepping for opponents' attacks. I'll give a few examples; The Burst will send out a ton of drones vs you, but your Light Form bullets won't do a lot of damage, so you'll need to rotate to your Heavy Form to quickly pick them off before going back to Light Form to hunt down The Burst. Bosses love alternating between firing lasers and doing sweep attacks in close quarters combat; one suggestion here is to use the Light Form when you see the laser, but use the roll from Heavy Form when you see sweep attacks so you can charge up an attack to punish the boss as quickly as possible. And during my fight with the Strap, you'll need to chase down the fleeing opponent with Light Form, but obviously Light Form's attacks will feel like glancing blows, so make sure to switch to Heavy Form as soon as you get close enough to capitalize on your punish.

If I really had to nitpick, I would say that the dodge given to you as Heavy Form is a little too shitty; the roll is good enough to dodge most sweep attacks and most bullets, but you won't be able to dodge any wave or laser attacks because there are in fact no invincibility frames given during your roll. This took a lot of time to adapt to, and is probably why the Strap is the boss I died the most to this run. I think having some i-frames during the middle of the roll would emphasize high risk, high reward despite having a shorter dodge with a greater disadvantage state, because despite having a tougher time dodging, you'd have an easier time dealing damage out of the dodge instead of having to constantly flip between forms. But then again, this is just my player preference, and I can respect the developer's decision to force you to think fast and understand both forms at their core.

All in all, despite my difficulties ramping up to the new play scheme, I'd say I had a pretty good run and a pretty good time; I managed to beat both The Edge and The Star on my first try despite dying a ton to The Burst and The Strap (and suffering my first ever game over to The Song). I think you need a very thorough understanding of the game's core mechanics to succeed with the Onnamusha, so don't play as the DLC character on your first run. But if you're looking to breathe some more life into an already rich and furious combat game, look no further! Great to see the Game Bakers going back to their earlier roots after how disappointed I felt playing Haven, and I hope they keep it up!