Fury Hands-On Impressions - Fast-Paced Arena Combat

Online role-playing games typically let you play some kind of elf or dwarf, then join up with other players to bash skeletons and goblins until they drop treasures and let you gain levels. Once you invest enough time and effort into a character and get to an extremely high level, you might then turn your attention to player-versus-player (PVP) gameplay, where you pit your elf wizard against all the other elf wizards out there in head-to-head battles. Auran's Fury takes a different approach, since it's based more or less entirely around online head-to-head matches, using the same kind of character development you'd see in an online RPG, and we took the game for a spin.

Fury takes place in a high-fantasy realm in which your character is apparently the reincarnation of many dead heroes who have fallen and been reincarnated. In order to become more powerful (in classic RPG fashion) as well as to unlock more of your hidden memories, you must compete in arena matches against other players, winning points by supporting your teammates and slaying your enemies.

Your character starts off with a basic sword and can choose from a variety of professions that each use the game's different types of magic powers--life, growth, decay, and death magic. Each of these schools of magic is used by different character "archetypes," which are essentially preset groups of skills your character can take on at the beginning. However, there's nothing stopping your character from acquiring totally different skill sets later, if you prefer to change things up. Depending on which skills and which archetype you choose at first, your character will end up with various magical powers that may damage enemies at a distance, damage enemies up close, or heal or otherwise benefit yourself or other characters on your team in a team match. Some will build up power "charges" in the four different schools of magic; the more powerful abilities, including area-effect abilities, will expend the charges you've accrued.

Like you may have experienced in other online RPGs, in Fury, your success in battle will depend on how you juggle between your characters' different abilities and their ranges (that is, being able to properly distance yourself from your enemies when using ranged attacks, or getting up close enough for a close-combat ability). This is easier said than done, because the battles, which take place on large, multilevel arena maps, can be very fast-paced and involve a lot of bobbing and weaving to get your character lined up with an enemy to deliver just the right opening shot before getting in close and sealing the deal. Our character chose the "destroyer" archetype, which focused on offensive skills, such as fire strike, a low-level fire-based melee attack that generated fire-based charges, and torture, a special ability that deals damage over time.

The majority of Fury's gameplay takes place in arenas that are less like sprawling fantasy worlds and more like maps from a deathmatch multiplayer game such as Quake. When you've equipped your character with the weapons, items, and skills you prefer to bring into battle, you line your character up in the queue to spawn into the map and appear at a random location. There are miscellaneous items that spawn throughout the map, such as items that will instantly heal you or let you regenerate health over time, so you may wish to grab the nearest ones. However, it makes the most sense to keep an eye out for any enemy characters at all times, since getting in the first strike can often help decide the outcome of a fight (for instance, the destroyer's "seize" skill lets you rush toward faraway enemies and stun them briefly, opening them up for a follow-up attack). Then again, the combat is so fast-paced and chaotic that it's sometimes over before you know it, especially if a player from the opposing team is able to flank you or sneak up behind you with a stunning attack.

Depending on your performance throughout the match, afterward you'll be rated on your performance on a scoring screen, which tallies not only how many times you defeated other opponents (and how many times you fell yourself), but also how well you played a specific role in the match--the best healers of the match, for instance, will receive recognition as well. The last part of the match is the division of the spoils of war, which appear as a pot of different items. Each player may randomly "roll" for up to three of the items by selecting them from the pool, then all players finally leave the arena to see what, if anything, they've won.

After leaving an arena, players are zapped back to a hub area, which contains a mailbox that will include any messages for your character, as well as any items you may have won through random draw. The hubs also have merchant characters from whom you can purchase items, such as weapons and equipment, as well as trainers that can teach your characters new skills and grant you combat-related quests. It won't be long before this unusual, highly chaotic online combat game is released, so players who can't get enough of in-depth role-playing with skill trees and loads of random loot, as well as competitive PVP gameplay, should keep an eye out for the game when it launches later this month.