F.I.S.T

 Why am I having New Vegas flashbacks?

It's not- hey, it's not what it looks like, I swear. This is a game. A game called Fist. I don't know why I'm talking about it, it just caught my eye. And that's not Fist like... it's F.I.S.T; as in 'Forged in Shadow Torch'? Oh god, that's a horrible title. No wonder they went with the acronym. Actually, they didn't even use the Acronym right, you're not supposed to use two-letter throwaways in those. I mean you can, but it's just unseemly. Then again, when you've decided to market your game as 'F.I.S.T', I suppose you've already gone far past being 'seemly'. So is it safe to say that I just jumped on this game the second I saw the title without seeing a second of actual gameplay? Declaring 'this is going in the blog' without even the slightest of periphery research? Kinda, yeah. So let's rectify that with a little google and... Bunny in a mech suit? Maybe this is worth talking about...

Aside from that agonisingly terrible title, F.I.S.T is actually a rather curiously good looking title coming out of the team at- are you serious? WHO'S NAMING THINGS AROUND HERE? Okay, give me a second. They're called: 'Shanghi TiGames Network Technology Limited', apparently. Yes, as you can tell I've never heard of this 'studio' before and am having a little trouble looking them up on anything not strictly tied to this game, which either means the Internet is lying to me or this is their first game. And in their defence, judging by the gameplay presentation I watched, the official twitter account for the game and just the name of the company itself, I don't think English is anyone's first language over there. Which still doesn't change the obscenely long, or just plain obscene, names that I'm seeing here. Heck, I have half a mind to tune this game out altogether; that was, until I actually saw it for myself and went. "Oooh. 'kay I'll shut up now." 

That's because this is a game that features an uncomfortably realistic bunny fighting through a semi-steampunk Metroidvania; and I just love me a good 'ol Metroidvania. For context's sake, my history with Metroidvania's isn't quite as storied as many of the vets you might find out there. I didn't rock up playing Metroid 2 in my T-16 back home just after a long evening of bullseyeing womp rats. Rather I only got around to Metroid literally last year, and 'Castlevania: Symphony of the Night' in 2020 too, for that matter. But I can credit this genre as my very first foray into the last console generation, strangely, so they still hold a special place in my heart. And I generally just have a lot of respect for tight, clever level design formed around ingenuity and player progression; wherein 'getting good' is matter of becoming a better player alongside getting newer tools to wind into that playstyle. Thus, even hearing that F.I.S.T is going to be pairing itself alongside those sorts of games, has me interested.

What seals the deal is the gameplay itself, which seems to lean into a rather unique 'style' of Metroidvania that I really respond to. As much as there are enemies to slay, and natural obstacles to evade, there appears to be this natural budding union between puzzle gameplay and fighting that I'm really hoping makes it the way until marriage, because that's what I want out of my 'Vanias. Apart from just straight puzzle rooms and, I'd imagine, the odd brick wall you'll need to figure out, tough enemies appear to have this delightful puzzle-element imbued into them through the very nature of the combat systems, which do a Sekiro and rely entirely on split-second parries and evasions to make them interesting.

One moment from the gameplay which really highlighted the potential here was this (I assume boss) fight against an enemy that would chuck it's huge circular saw arms around the screen. What preceded was a little spot-and-dodge scene where the protagonist almost felt like they were in a Mega Man level. Without the ability to reliably block, this becomes a tense standoff that demands the players attention, similar to how in Hades limited healing system heightens tension. (See how I avoided the classic game's journalist trap of saying the 'DS' word there? Masterful!) Or another transitory scene where the player has to make use of a Drill power up in order to float up wind torrents whilst avoiding electrical coils, showing off tools that double as weapons and mobility enablers; the cornerstone of Castlevania's which prove these developers know what they're doing.

But right now I think the most standout thing we're seeing about the game is the art style, which is really a little unlike what we're used to in this genre. What I find interesting about this is the way in which it isn't your traditional furry style, where animals are heavily anthropomorphised in a manner that makes them cartoony, but rather there's a realistic edge to the art that I find arresting. Of course, the fact that the rabbit has a robot arm on his back breaks that illusion rather succinctly, but the fact that the model itself is strictly realistically proportioned does stand apart from a lot of the other animal-based games I've seen recently. Even stranger, due to the side-scrolling perspective of the gameplay and the busy-backgrounds, it's not even all that easy to make out the character anyway, so that work on making him look so good is a little redundant. (Unless there's some substantial cutscene-content coming in the full game)

The only aspect of this game that I found myself seriously challenging is that of the combat system itself. And I'm talking about the meat behind that 'parry-centric' base. The narrator from the gameplay assures that there's a wide range of combo potential there, but it seems this is one of those games where that's a fact that's hard to demonstrate. From what we have seen there's some appealing 'give' to the enemies, in that you seem able to smack them around a fair bit (take note; Avengers) but whether or not that'll make for an engaging back and forth throughout the entire game is really dependant on enemy composition, progression and just plain game length. All of which you can't really show off until launch, so I guess we'll just have to roll the die.

Diving into random games you find online can always be a little bit of a mixed bag, but every now and then a little gem you never could have predicted shows up and those are the moments I live for. It helps to step back from the noise of big budgets and focus on smaller niche titles like this F.I.S.T, that doesn't try to be everything all at once but looks to do what it does well. Forged in Shadow Touch might just be that special little something that's exactly what you were looking for. (God knows it been a while since a good Metroidvania has hit the streets.) As for me, I'm interested enough to keep an eye out, I have a good inkling about this one.