That’s it! Furi is available on Switch and that makes us very happy and proud. The players’ response so far is extremely positive and the press seems to validate the quality of the port.
Some players asked if there was any differences with the other versions (PS4, XboxOne, PC). There are some minor differences indeed, that I will list below. I won’t talk about the small technical optimisations we did. For instance, in the other versions, the hair and coat of the main character are rendered with physics, and in the Switch version, we made all the movements within the animations. It looks almost better, and saves a lot of frames. The list below focuses on differences that affect gameplay.
Difficulty balancing
The bosses HP has been reduced by 20% in long range combat only, and in Furi difficulty mode only.
After a year of watching players and getting feedback, we felt that the Switch version could benefit from a minor difficulty tweak. Because we think that difficulty is key to make a boss memorable, we didn’t take that change lightly. We asked Switch owners who never played Furi to come to the studio and playtest this new balancing. The didn’t feel it was to easy – oh boy no they didn’t.
They difficulty tweak doesn’t remove what’s difficult in the game (learning the patterns, the time required to parry or dodge), but makes retrying a little bit less tedious. I guess for the speedrunners competing on the global ladder, this means the Switch version is a different category.
Shoot patterns optimisation
Some shoot patterns have been modified to improve the performances on Switch.
This can mean: reducing the amount of bullets but increasing their size, reducing their time on screen, or designing a new pattern. It only affects a handful of patterns in the game, but was necessary to keep a smooth framerate.
You can see on this video that visually, the game is on par with the PS4 version, but you can also see the difference in one of the shoot pattern from The Chain (around 2:10):
(Note: in this video, the audio on Switch was badly compressed. There is no audio difference between the PS4 and the Switch, we double checked).
No speedrun leaderboards, but a « Furier Speedrun » mode
There are no global leaderboards in the Switch version, but on the other hand you can speedrun the game in Furier difficulty, which includes The Flame and Bernard (the DLC « One More Fight » bosses). The Speedrun in Furier is not available on other consoles.
« One More Fight » unlocks after finishing the game once
The PS4 & PC DLC « One More Fight » unlocks after getting any ending in Furi mode (also true for the secret ending in The Song level).
It also unlocks if you use the TGB code: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdbDZMkfl7E
That’s all the differences there are with the PS4 and PC version.
