Staff Article Lists

Sometimes you just wanna be a panda dancing to the beat as you eagerly explore a lush island dotted with other friendly pandas, helping them solve little problems while you search for your Nana. That’s the experience of Dancing Pandas: Ranger’s Path as you take on the role of Mico, who has arrived at the island in search of his grandmother after a mysterious letter arrived for him. The game is a nice and cozy stroll (and soar) from start to finish, lasting about 4-5 hours if you’re trying to find most of the stuff on the island. If this style of casual exploration and chatting with quirky characters is your vibe, Dancing Pandas will aptly scratch that itch for a couple good gaming sessions at a nice price ($12.99 MSRP.)

The gameplay consists of walking around the panda-filled island, which is actually much bigger than expected at first glance, and completing tasks to gain “Courage Hearts” that will allow you to do more confident things, like attempting harder tasks or asking more personal questions to fellow pandas. As you explore, you’ll pick up collectibles and find more pandas to talk to, which will give you helpful tips, some intriguing dialogue backstory, or allow you to purchase new tools or costumes. These little moments added to the world feel, and were sometimes more deep than I expected on the surface. It felt like a nice, quirky, lived-in slice of life for these pandas, and I couldn’t have been more chill while enjoying the gameplay style the game employed. The stakes were never too high, and the ability to fast travel after uncovering a portion of the map (using gems I had collected to buy the section) was a welcome option. I did want to make a note that the game doesn’t seem to autosave enough, and you have to go in and manually save in the menu to ensure it does. When I completed the game, there was no way for me to go back and save or continue after finishing, which was unfortunate, because I wanted to finish off a few more achievements.

Other than the obviously cute, wiggly, and adorably designed panda folks that inhabit it, Dancing Pandas’ World is a colorful blast of foliage and flora, with the various areas of the island covering all types of scenery, including sandy beaches, autumnal mountainsides, green valleys, and tropical seascapes. Eventually, you befriend a lovely bird named Sofi, who will help you find any valuable collectibles you may have missed nearby. The game helps you as much as you want it to with completing quests and exploring the island, which is helpful, because some of the items to collect are pretty small and can be easy to miss if you don’t know you’re looking for them for a quest. I wish there was actually more to purchase with my gems other than map pieces and a few Ranger outfit pieces, but I’m not expecting a huge wardrobe from a game like this, admittedly. Also, your movement is based on the camera’s orientation, which was a problem a few times when my camera would whip around because it hit an overhanging structure that would cause it to reorientate. It never caused any huge trouble, but it was a minor annoyance. I also ran into a quest later in the game where I had to figure out where someone was based on context clues and a dialogue box, and the dialogue box didn’t seem to be based on where this person was in the world, once I finally found them. I spent about 30 minutes running around on a random cliff, heh. In the end, I could’ve found them quickly if I knew where to look, but I seemed to be being pulled in a different direction at first. Overall, the small issues I had were just that: small.

As you explore, you’ll be audibly whisked away by the soundtrack, which composer Tom Schipper did a beautiful job with. Luckily as well, the game doesn’t crowd the peaceful music with tons of unnecessary sound effects, and as such you’ll really get to be carried by its flowing, melodic pace as you complete your tasks. Sometimes this lack of sound effects can seem like something’s missing, like a practical beep or snap or the like when completing an action or task. Overall, the music made up for anything I felt was lacking in the sound department, and I appreciated the touches that were there.

Dancing Pandas: Ranger’s Path is what you want in a cozy game like this: a little, lively world to explore, a few tasks to complete at your own pace, and an achievable goal to pursue. All the while you get to talk with panda people and be one yourself! You don’t get to do that in every game, right? At a price of $12.99, it’s a perfectly pleasing piece of gaming goodness.

The Ace Attorney franchise doesn’t feature any anthropomorphic characters. Sure, it can get zany and feature strange stuff at times but for the most part it opts to be somewhat realistic with its cases. There aren’t any werewolves walking around or talking animals taking the spotlight. But there are characters who are animal tamers or otherwise work with animals that play pivotal roles in the cases they’re in. There are characters with names and attributes that clearly take inspiration from the animal kingdom. Animals themselves even show up as crucial evidence or get put on the witness stand. I intend to highlight those cases and characters here. Minor spoilers ahead for several games in the franchise, though I won’t delve too deeply into the cases themselves or discuss major plot points.  

Welcome to "Fresh Fur!" Our weekly installment going over the newest game releases, and which ones you can expect to find anthros/furries in!

Check the list below for all the games we could find with animal/anthro influences and characters.

Major New Releases for the Weeks of February 22-28, 2025:

• Longvinter (PC) - February 24
• Sayonara Wild Hearts (PS5) - February 24
• Spectre Divide (PS5, XSX/S) - February 25
• PGA Tour 2K25 (PS5, PC, XSX/S) - February 28
• Glover (PC, Switch, PS4/5, Xbox One, XSX/S) - February 27
• Monster Hunter Wilds (PC, PS5, XSX/S) - February 28

*Bolded games have furry/animal influences/characters

Furry & Animal Steam Game Finds:

These games were found in the New Releases section of Steam this week and will be updated as more come out throughout the week!

Ever have a game come along that instantly you know you’re going to enjoy thoroughly, to the point of calling it one of your favorite games of the year, if not of all time? Well, that’s what happened to me with Tails Of Iron II: Whiskers Of Winter, a game I originally wasn’t too interested in but now I can’t stop playing. Seriously, I never found myself wanting to keep playing a game, even after the credits rolled, as much as I did with this one.

Happy Pokémon Day! For those unaware, Feb 27th is the date that Pokémon Red & Green launched in Japan almost 30 years ago. Every year around this time, Pokémon Company does their annual Pokémon Presents presentation where the latest news and updates about all your Pokémon favorites are shared! Check out the 19 minute presentation and our coverage of it below!

It's Steam Next Fest time, which means GF is here to bring you an exhaustive list of animal & furry games from the February 2025 version! We have compiled as many games as we could find with animals and/or anthropomorphic characters featured in them! Be sure to let us know of any others you find!

We have an actively updated Furry & Animal Games List over at @GamingFurever that you can follow and get constant updates for lots of indie titles with TONS of lovely furry characters! If you're a developer of any of these games, feel free to hit us up on email over on our Contact Us page! We'd love to talk to you about your development!

Here's your February 2025 Steam Next Fest list:

Welcome to "Fresh Fur!" Our weekly installment going over the newest game releases, and which ones you can expect to find anthros/furries in!

Check the list below for all the games we could find with animal/anthro influences and characters.

Major New Releases for the Weeks of February 8-21, 2025:

• Sid Meier's Civilization VII (PC, PS, Xbox, Switch) - February 11
• Warriors: Abyss (PS5, PS4, PC, Switch, Xbox One, XSX/S) - February 12
• Dawnfolk (PC) - February 13
• The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak 2 (PS5, PS4, PC, Switch) - February 14
• Tomb Raider IV-V-VI Remastered (PC, PS4/5, Switch, Xbox One, XSX/S) - February 14
• Lost Records: Bloom and Rage (Tape 1) - (PC, PS5, XSX/S - February 18
• Avowed (PC, XSX/S) - February 18
• Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii (PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, XSX/S ) - February 21
• Die in the Dungeon (PC) - February 21

*Bolded games have furry/animal influences/characters

Furry & Animal Steam Game Finds:

These games were found in the New Releases section of Steam this week and will be updated as more come out throughout the week!

Outside of first person shooters, another genre of games I enjoy playing are the Fighting games. Games like Street Fighter VI, Mortal Kombat 11, Smash Bros. Ultimate, and the 2013 incarnation of Killer Instinct are some of my favorites to play (Not online as I am nowhere near THAT skill level yet to even attempt anyone online) now and then and I do get interested whenever a new fighting game is announced. However, sometimes, one can slip under my radar and go unnoticed by me for who knows how long and today’s game is one such game: Mostrocopy. I had no idea this was even in development until a friend told me about it and I gotta say? This is a fun fighting game though it has some minor issues that do affect my enjoyment.

I had the opportunity to spend some time with a preview build of “Shuffle Tactics”, a new roguelite deckbuilding tactical RPG developed by Club Sandwich and published by The Arcade Crew, that features a sharply pixelated cast of anthropomorphic heroes and sidekicks. Starring in the demo is the anthro canine Doberknight, as well as Catalina, along with a few animal-based sidekicks to choose from in your runs. Other than the creative characters, Shuffle Tactics focuses on blending light environmental tactics with inventive deckbuilding options.

I think of all the animals on this planet, Sharks are the ones that tend to be the most misunderstood, thanks to the many cheesy killer shark movies out there. According to a study by the Florida Museum of Natural History in 2023, in the States alone, even though there were 36 unprovoked attacks, there was only 1 fatality. In fact, you’re more likely to be struck by lightning than you are to be bit by Jaws himself. Yet, that hasn’t stopped film makers from making such “classics” like Sharknado, Deep Blue Sea, 5-Headed Shark Attack, The Meg series, and Planet Of The Sharks. However, one area that this hasn’t penetrated was video games. Sure, there was Jaws on the NES and the Xbox’s Jaws: Unleashed, but, most of the time, sharks are relegated to being just either an obstacle or a random enemy to kill. Enter TripWire with their 2021 game Maneater, where you finally control a shark and do what Hollywood thinks it does best: Eat, Kill, and Destroy. While the game does those three well, it kinda falters in the other areas and has a few design choices that, I have to say, I’m not a real fan of, but it wasn’t enough to make me hate this title.