Furi

While the visuals aren’t anything mindblowing on a technical level, the art direction is terrific, bringing to mind games such as 'El Shaddai' and creating some truly fantastic settings. Takashi Okazaki’s character designs are surprisingly strong, too, and while there are some lowlights (the rabbit man is the weakest design in the bunch), there are also some fantastically creative designs here, helping each boss feel totally unique.

Absolutely phenomenal. Sound is a crucial part of the game, largely in the audio cues used to dictate when to parry an attack. It’s carried in part by some great voicework, with options for English, French, and Japanese audio, but the real highlight lies in the music. The score is handled by a variety of electro artists who deliver my favorite soundtrack in quite some time. For fans of artists like Justice or Daft Punk, this is a mindblowing soundtrack, with every single track altering based on the phase of the fight, slowly escalating and ratcheting up the tension of every given scenario. In a lovely touch, pausing the game tells you exactly who worked on each stage, giving a spotlight to composers who far too often go ignored in gaming.

From a studio I’d never heard of and who, in turn, I expected nothing special from, 'Furi' makes me feel like a fool for ever judging it so harshly. Very possibly the best action game of this generation thus far, this is a rare example of every facet of a game's design working perfectly to create an amazing whole. This is an outstanding effort from a studio I’m going to follow wholeheartedly from here on out.