#fuga 1

[This article is a companion piece for Fuga 2: A Melody of Rage]

I feel reticent in writing down my thoughts on Fuga 3 on account that I have very few notes about it: this was an almost complete turnaround from the mistakes of the second game and an appropriate conclusion to the themes that began with the first game. The biggest exercise in course-correcting I have seen in a long while!

I mean it when I say this feels designed to address all my very specific criticisms about Fuga 2 down to the wire: within the first couple of chapters, Malt gets whisked away for plot reasons, leaving the rest of the cast to rise to the occasion and restoring them as main characters - including and especially Mei. The Soul Cannon feature makes sense, Responsibility is back on the menu and, most crucially, the furry nazies are The Bad Guys again! This does not undo the damage caused by its predecessor but it’s a massive step into a more salubrious direction. The game only gets better from that moment onward.

What we have here is a reprisal of the same narrative and world-building bits that defined the framework of the entire Little Tail Bronx series, up and to the point it’s basically a remake of Solatorobo. Its status as a loosely connected prequel was overtaken by a much more delineated role within the canon, as if to bridge the gap between the older fans (me) and the newer fans (also me).

The big “Come Together” moment, right at the end, feels earned as the true final boss isn’t the (advertised) world-ending threat but a relic of the dehumanizing cruelty and blind hatred of the war machine fueled by fascist oppression, both metaphorical and literal. It’s funny because, in many ways, it’s a redo on the final boss from Fuga 2 except, this time around, they adopted the correct framing to make the intended message resonate. You know, as opposed to… doing the exact opposite.

There are elements that do not work such as the entire point of Malt’s estranged brother, who swoops into the scene with his own “Kemono Friends” to steal his backstory from Naruto’s Itachi Mishima and wind up feeling entirely redundant. Quite frankly, every aspect of the plot is extremely predictable (including the “surprise challenger”) but that’s besides the point. Fuga, Solatorobo and Little Tail Bronx in general, are games about overcoming adversity and embracing togetherness. Which can only be achieved by learning from our past, our wars, our means of self-destruction, and do better for the future, as communities and as people. It’s a message so simple yet so difficult to convey without accidentally falling into the Can’t We All Get Along? forgiveness rhetoric.

Setting aside that whole bungle, the core idea of presenting anthropomorphic animals as successors to the burdensome legacy of the Old Humanity, dealing with the damage its warring technology and ideologies continue to do to their society, makes the message so much more powerful. It’s up to the New World (furries) to undo the horrors of the Old World in order to grasp a better Tomorrow, and it all starts by eradicating fascism from the face of Earth.

So, yes, you could say that Fuga 3 is almost the same experience as Fuga 2 but more polished. How’s that for a “review”?

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As an addendum, I wish to draw a special spotlight on Les Aventures de Sucre, a comic book series that exists within the Fuga universe. Aside from the adorable art inspired by Hergè’s Tintin, it worked as a narrative parallel to the overarching story.

The “author” was introduced as an actual character in the second game and became a much more central figure in this final instalment just as the comic’s run reached its conclusion.

What I find notable is how the quality of the comic improved over the course of the trilogy, going from de-saturated, worn out pages to higher quality ones in full colour, directly emulating the growth such a series would have had in real life. There is beauty and melancholy to this approach.

It’s a reflection of the developer team’s journey in making the games they’ve always wanted to make, pulling them out from the clutches of oblivion. Sucre is, ironically, a piece of “fake” art that celebrates the reality of the Fuga trilogy’s existence.

Who knows what the future will bring us? Hopefully, it’s more furry games.

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