It’s not often I take a punt on a video game. PS+ has led to the odd one, but the vast majority of the games I play are very well known, with tonnes of content beforehand giving me a good idea what I’m heading into.
But with F.I.S.T. I took a chance. And overall it’s proven to be a good one.
Rayton the Rabbit was a soldier, using a cool looking mech suit to battle the evil Legion alongside friends and comrades. But the bad guys won, and it all fell apart. Fortunately Rayton’s pal Urso still has hope and has kept things ticking over. He couldn’t salvage the entire mech suit, but he has salvaged one of it’s bloody great fists.
So with a mechanised fist on his back and encouragement from his friends, a reluctant rabbit heads out to free his world from a technological terror. He’ll find more friends, new abilities, and might even drop his gruff exterior from time to time.
First off, F.I.S.T. looks great. On PS5, there was no slowdown, even when the fights got hectic. Load times were never more than a few seconds, though you can see where the game was also designed with the PS4 in mind. Nevertheless, you’re in for a treat either way with the Dieselpunk aesthetic jiving well with the Furtizens of Torch City. It might not be the most populated city, but the story does someway to explaining why. There’s lot of details and it feels lived in at least.
The subreddit is quite small, so I managed to get an answer from the devs at TiGames around the performance difference between PS4 and PS5:
PS4 is 30FPS at 1080P, PS4 pro is 60FPS at dynamic 4K, PS5 is 60FPS at 4K, and due to SSD on PS5 the loading is way more faster than PS4/PS4 pro, for our game that needs a lot of streaming loading, this is very important. On the controller we also add HD vibrations that’s only available for PS5.
What’s also a treat are the weapons and combat. The three main weapons are distinct, both visually and in their use, as they also give you more traversal options. In classic Metroidvania style the map unravels as you gain more weapons and options. It never felt like a hardship exploring the map and using your new abilities to dip deeper.
I also like the voices, though I’m not sold on the dialogue. The intention and delivery are passionate, but the dialogue is clunky. Rayton sounding like Nic Cage is a bonus though!
For large parts of F.I.S.T. I was content, with game challenging me but staying the right side of infuriating. It took me an hour to beat one particular boss, which led to the always amusing situation of me mocking the boss dialogue before we started again. The sense of relief when I sussed him out and won was palpable. So much so that I stood up, shouted, and then punched my sofa. Normal enemies steadily climbed up in challenge as I gained more abilities. So far so good.
But then there was the final boss. That fine line that the game stood the right side of? Blown away, as I entered full on infuriation. After 2.5 hours of getting nowhere, I was overjoyed to find that TiGames has patched in an easy mode, and I could make use of it. I really wanted to finish the game as I’d started, but more importantly, I wanted to enjoy it. Having finished a few games on easy/story mode now, I don’t care! Enjoyment and good use of time is what’s important, not some imagined judgement. So I flipped the mode and beat the boss in about 15 minutes. Thank you TiGames!
F.I.S.T. might be a somewhat unfortunate sounding name (pipe down with the childish giggling!) but it was well worth giving it a chance.
| Played On | PS5 |
| Time Spent | 20 hours |
| Pros | + Cool designs + Distinct Weaponry and Combos + Just the right side of infuriating + Dev team willing to work |
| Cons | – Some clunky dialogue – The boss fight became full-on infuriating! |
| Overall | A decent entry into the Metroidvania scene, F.I.S.T. might not be on a lot of people’s radars, but it should be considered. |
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