I’m getting some Kung Fu Master vibes from this. I can dig those vibes.
Keys of Fury, from developer Elecorn, is an interesting typing-led action game. It takes the concept of a retro-style 2D arcade game and adds an exciting gameplay element: typing. The typing portion of the game is what it’s really about, and the game’s challenge is pushed forward by gradually difficult words to spell in a short amount of time. Not a bad concept.
How Elecorn implements the typing element and good writing make this adventure special. In the past, games like Typing of the Dead and Typing Maniac had their own twists; the former was just a ported-over light gun arcade game from SEGA, while the latter was a Facebook-driven experience with word power-ups in the same vein and design as Arkanoid. But Elecorn’s retro backdrop adds a fun, yet small, narrative that sets its own mark on the typing game world. And the additional modes help a bunch.
So, ice those fingers, keep them loose, because we’re about to dig into this typing marvel.
Story
The short narrative of this game revolves around a martial artist entering a town and who is immediately stopped for not having the right credentials to enter said town. While things could have gone easily, she is soon harassed and then eventually hired to take care of some ‘bad’ characters for local politicians and earn her way into the land she has arrived in. Like a kung fu mercenary. Very Enter the Dragon.
The game follows her adventures through rough and tough areas where she is constantly attacked at every moment. Sometimes it’s robots, other times it’s from ninjas, and still other times it’s from violent vegetable-touting renegades that are trying to corner the veggie market. The game gives players whack-a-doodle enemies with some superbly written dialogue that will most certainly give players a decent chuckle.
What’s extra fun about the dialogue is that players can choose branching responses, and sometimes fill-in-the-blanks, to actively participate in narrative decisions. While you’re not going to get a Knights of the Old Republic out of this branching experience, it’s still neat to play along and be a part of the narrative as it unfolds. I wish there were more typing games of this type.
Now, let’s talk gameplay.
Gameplay
How Keys of Fury works is by throwing words and sentences at players during fights. At the beginning of the adventure, during the lower levels of the game, players will find simple words to get their hands in the groove for typing. As the game continues, players will encounter longer, less-familiar words to type, and even conclude the short adventure with a massive boss fight with a veggie big man.
Should players misstep and misspell with their typing prowess, the enemy will get in some good licks. Too many licks means that the match is lost and the player will have to start again. To add more challenge to this loss warning, the words and sentences also feature a timer, which will gradually go down and mean another hit by an enemy. It’s intense for a typing game, but well-placed for a fighting scenario.
Now, to help with progression in the game, the player will gradually gather up coins from fallen foes. Those coins can be used at the end of each round to upgrade the fighter and allow for more brutal abilities when her fury meter hits max. Oh, we haven’t discussed that. We will. Just know that the shop between rounds helps motivate players to revisit levels and gain more coins with better performances.
So, about that fury meter, as the player continually takes down enemy after enemy in a row, accurately putting together words and sentences, a fury meter will build. This meter, which is located in the middle of the screen, will act as a buffer should the player mistype a word. When it’s at its zenith, if a player mistypes a word, then instead of damage from enemies, the player will unleash a massive attack that will last multiple words and take down enemies quickly. It’s cool, and it certainly saved my butt more than once.
Beyond this, the game doesn’t offer much else in the story mode gameplay department. It does enough to make it entertaining, but the story ends up being short and sweet. I think I finished the initial story in probably under an hour. For my fingers, that was just enough time to try out other modes.
Overall, the gameplay is fun, it’s exciting and energetic to play, and the narrative aspect that players can participate in makes the short adventure entertaining as hell.
Other modes
Once players conclude the story portion of the game, there is an arcade portion waiting for them. For me, this was truly gold and worth the journey. Seriously.
The arcade mode comes with a regular fighting story mode with multiple waves, a GenX-driven mode that references several iconic 90s-related lines to type, a joke mode, and a dinosaur racing mode. Yes, you read that right, a dinosaur racing mode through typing. Anyway, let’s break things down.
The regular fighting mode puts players up against familiar foes, such as ninjas, robots, and veggie-obsessed hooligans. The first go around with this mode consists of three waves that gradually, yet very slowly, raise the difficulty level. The sequel to this mode, which is just given the moniker of ‘2’ in the title, brings harder words, shorter timers, and lots of words bunched together. It’s so darn difficult.
While the difficulty of that mode is ramped up and challenging, for typing enthusiasts, such as myself, I absolutely loved how difficult it became. There were words during the second mode that I couldn’t even pronounce, let alone ask my fingers to type accurately. This mode is something I will revisit from time to time until I can learn and type those massive words.
On the GenX mode, the player is tasked with getting rid of bad guys who are scumming up a local arcade. This is also a multi-wave journey that features words and sentences referencing the ‘90s entertainment scene. It’s quite good, at least for a GenX-er like myself. I enjoyed the challenge and the familiarity of the lines and words. I didn’t want this thing to end. Much like the initial story mode, it was short and sweet.
The joke mode is what you think it might be – players are typing out intros and punchlines to jokes. The jokes are goofy, very dad jokes, but they help to take some of the pressure off of getting the long sentences and words correct. I appreciate that and had a fun time chuckling away at the jokes. It is a unique mode that changes the design of the overall game enough to make the experience feel bigger and different.
One of the more interesting ‘other modes’ on this list is the dinosaur race. The main character is being chased by a T. rex. They are running like hell with other herbivorous dinosaurs to escape the jaws of the Jurassic Park mascot. While the experience is short, the intensity of trying to not only avoid getting eaten, but also winning the race, is somewhat entertaining. It certainly caps off a variety of different typing games that make this entire gameplay experience so good.
At the very least, the above modes add more entertainment to the overall package, and there are a couple of more modes, including an endless mode (guess how that goes). Elecorn did a great job of trying to mix things up as best as possible for the player. For the most part, they achieved that. The only caveat to all the modes is that they’re so short-lived. But who really wants to play a typing game for hours upon hours (besides me)? The game is a ‘come and go as you please’ type of experience (pun included), which means it is okay for being a short experience.
Anyway, on that note, let’s wrap up this review.
Conclusion
Keys of Fury from developer Elecorn is a short typing gameplay experience that brings a good variety of different modes, some short branching narrative moments, and tries to breathe new life into the typing game scene.
