12 2016 Video Game Gems You Totally Missed

7. Furi

Think you're 'good at games'? Play Furi. It'll slap the pride right out.

The Game Bakers' timing-intensive indie offering is a great mix of twin-stick arcade shooting one minute, before the camera zooms in your samurai-warrior protagonist and suddenly you're tackling enemies one-on-one, Soul Calibur-style.

Granted, the whole thing is based on honing your reflexes to respond to everything from coloured warning flashes to memorising counters you'll need to pull-off in the middle of your opponent's animations, but once you get your abilities down, battles start looking like those punch-flurry scenes from Dragon Ball Z.

Progression-wise, the game is an abstract tale of escape where your character goes up against a series of bosses on their way out of a prison (of sorts). There aren't enemies in between, as this time is more reserved for breathing in Samurai Jack artist Takashi Okazakian's excellent backdrops, combining as a sumptuous synthwave soundtrack thumps and pulsates underneath.

Together it forms a brilliant push and pull of intensity and breathing room - a phenomenal combo that'll separate the dedicated gamers from the rest.