one of the best horror games ive ever played and easily the magnum opus of rpgmaker. its few flaws only add to the game rather than take away from it (such as glitches and exploits making repeat runs incredibly fun, love u doppleganger karin). despite being nowhere near finished (with new content on the way ) its somehow one of the most perfect complete things ive ever played. the quality control is INSANE. perfect art perfect characters (except caligura he almost dropped the review by half a star) I LOVE U TERMINA

Fellow Silent Hill fans! Don't wait for Konami to do something, they'll only make a Frankenstein out of the dead franchise. As someone who is a huge fan of SH2, I'd highly recommend Funger games, but you have to keep a few things in mind, I'll explain them further.

While very conflicted initially, I'd say I liked it by the end, even more than the original game. But not in all aspects.
A word of advice: if you are new to this game/series, please, start with the easier difficulty. It's a much better experience with much better save system.
The normal difficulty though, is quite crazy and up until the very endgame I was struggling a lot. I was going in blind and it was really damn hard to understand how to recruit anyone other than Abella. In the end, my party consisted of Marina (me), Abella and Daan. And you receive some insane amounts of damage on normal difficulty too, so playing solo is practically out of question, even for Marcoh who can more or less deal with the first few encounters on his own.
And that leads us to my main complaint: the game has very poor, sadistic game design. Yes, I know it was basically intended for the player to suffer. But hear me out, hardcore players, please. Losing HOURS of progress isn't difficulty. It's an annoyance and a waste of time. If I have to replay 4 hours to try some new enemy/boss because oh wow the saves aren't random this time, but just LIMITED, it's a bad game design and you can't convince me otherwise. Real difficulty is in difficult situations and encounters a game presents to you while having an at least decent save system like in the Souls games where you lose your souls for new levels, but every other progress you made remains. And no, this game is NOT a roguelike. It has a semi-decent replayability, worse than the first one despite here being more characters because the map here is bigger and all the encounters are the same anyway.
But the story and some encounters, and also the feeling of learning more about the game and getting better are truly one of a kind. The final bosses of ending B made me run around, do some things and use some items at my disposal to defeat them and THAT is a good difficulty. That is an interesting encounter. Also, unlike the first game, this one has more interesting builds because of a bigger skill tree. That's commendable. Loved what I got with caster Marina with Osaa's skills.
Loved the development of ideas from the first game and how ending A is basically a thematic remake of the same ending from the first one.
Also happy to see Miro do better work on his characters, some of them are very good in this game. I just wish the encounters with them weren't so easily missable. The same issue was in Black Souls 2. Speaking of BS2, Pocketcat is literally Cheshire Cat, but better. Love the guy.

Miro, please, bring back Prelude to Darkness. It was such a good track. Not that the new ones are bad. In fact, this game has probably more cool tracks overall, but Prelude to Darkness was special. Would've loved to hear some remix or something.

Anyway, waiting for the next game (probably set in some distant future this time) and hoping the issues with the first and this one will finally be resolved and the game will finally be fun to play. At least I've seen some steps in the right direction. It's just that one of them (limited saves) turned into the wrong one. But if you play on the easier difficulty, you'll get the book that'll allow you to save on some ritual circles and those saves won't be limited to just 1, but 3!
That's why I recommended starting your first run with it to get to learn about the game and then replaying on the normal one for some remaining endings you wanna get, but couldn't.

Dalle profondità del Dungeon di Fear & Hunger al macabro Festival di Termina; passano gli anni, infuriano le guerre, cambiano i contesti geopolitici, ma una cosa rimane immutata: la scia di raccapriccio e truculenza lasciata dal nefasto destino degli sventurati protagonisti di turno.

"Fear & Hunger 2: Termina" raccoglie tutto ciò che ha reso grandioso il prequel e, dopo averne smussato le spigolature più fastidiose, ne amplia l'offerta ludica. In maniera inversamente proporzionale, tuttavia, viene trattata la storia, ora non più incentrata su tante divinità differenti ma, principalmente, su una soltanto: la Luna, il dio imbroglione.

Al termine di quello che sembrerebbe essere un conflitto analogo alla seconda guerra mondiale, 12 individui tra loro sconosciuti e provenienti da ogni parte del mondo si trovano a viaggiare, per motivi differenti, sullo stesso treno in direzione di Prehevil, una sperduta cittadina della Bohemia, totalmente ignari di essere mere pedine sacrificali in una macabra scacchiera ultraterrena.
Il festival di Termina, a cui saranno obbligati a partecipare, è una vera e propria battle royale, il cui scopo è quello di ammazzare tutti quanti nell'arco di tre giorni, al fine di aggiudicarsi la vittoria e ottenere udienza presso la Luna.
Al di là delle implicazioni soprannaturali, la storia di F&H2 non brilla certo per originalità e di conseguenza, anche grazie ad un'ambientazione più moderna e ad un sistema di illuminazione meno opprimente, non riesce a trasmettere la tensione e il senso di novità tipici del capitolo antecedente, pur avendo in sè dei momenti indimenticabili. Inoltre, sempre restando in tema, la grande quantità di citazioni, forse un po' troppo sfacciate, ad altri giochi horror, su tutti Silent Hill e Bloodborne, contribuisce non poco all'allentamento del coinvolgimento emotivo, poiché a livello inconscio diverrà immediato capire che si tratta solamente di un videogioco; ciò si tramuta in una perdita della cosiddetta "magia", quella forza irrazionale che ci fa temere ad ogni passo della vita dei nostri protagonisti, quasi come fosse la nostra.

Detto ciò, bisogna riconoscere all'autore, Miro Haverinen, dei notevoli passi avanti rispetto al passato, a partire dall'enorme varietà e, relativa, rigiocabilità del titolo. Innanzitutto, a differenza di F&H, avremo a disposizione il doppio dei personaggi tra cui scegliere all'inizio della partita, ognuno con una sua backstory convincente e caratteristiche differenti. Una volta terminato il prologo, avremo piena libertà di approccio: possiamo decidere di diventare degli spietati assassini ed ammazzare tutti subito, oppure creare alleanze e aspettare il momento opportuno per colpire chi riteniamo più pericoloso o una preda più facile, oppure ancora cercare di fare i bravi ragazzi ed esplorare l'enorme città di Prehevil in cerca di una soluzione alternativa al massacro. Attenzione però, perché il tempo scorre a (quasi) ogni salvataggio e basterà far passare anche solo mezza giornata per mancare un evento importante, non ottenere equipaggiamento utile o perdere la possibilità di allearsi con qualcuno.
Dopo la prima run rovinata per tali motivi, diverrà palese che, per arrivare alla conclusione di questa disavventura, sarà necessario ricominciare più volte il gioco da capo, di volta in volta attuando una pianificazione sempre più performante, giorno per giorno, decisione per decisione.
Unendo ciò alla difficoltà notoriamente spietata, ad un sistema di RNG molto più invasivo, ai pochissimi salvataggi disponibili e ad un numero maggiore di nemici da affrontare, non sempre sarà confortante la prospettiva di una nuova partita che, per via delle complicanze iniziali, ci metterà un po' a carburare.
D'altro canto, questa varietà di situazioni a seconda delle decisioni prese in determinati momenti della giornata, rende ogni partita unica e più si inizia a padroneggiare il gioco più segreti si scoprono, ampliando lore e arsenale.
L'albero delle abilità qui è stato enormemente ampliato e reso più semplice da utilizzare, il che porta ad una più agevole creazione di build differenti, a seconda delle affinità con i vari dei, dunque avremo tantissimi modi con cui approcciare le spietate mostruosità che proveranno a farci le peggio cose.

Mostruosità un po' meno mostruose, a essere onesti. Per quanto sia intrigante il design dei nemici ispirato alle opere di Francis Bacon, ciò inquieta, finemente, solo a livello concettuale. In pratica, se si conosce l'artista, ad esser maggiormente coinvolto è il cervello, non più il cuore o "lo stomaco".
Molto apprezzabile invece è l'aspetto degli npc e dei personaggi importanti, visivamente più confortanti rispetto ai nemici, ma con quel tocco di leggera imperfezione tale da renderli più realistici e, in alcuni casi, austeri, funzionali a far capire al giocatore di non abbassare la guardia e di non fidarsi mai totalmente. Forse a torto, forse no.

Come anticipato, stavolta il gioco sarà ambientato nella cittadina di Prehevil, che risulterà ben presto molto più grande e vasta di quel che sembra, quasi una sorta di open map. Sebbene ad un primo momento potrebbe sembrare disorientante per via delle sue numerosissime strade secondarie e vicoli nascosti, ben presto ci si riuscirà ad ambientare pienamente (non grazie alla mappa fornita dal gioco, piccolissima, sfocata e senza la possibilità di essere ingrandita) e le interconnessioni tra un punto e l'altro della zona, gli shortcut, saranno estremamente soddisfacenti una volta scoperti. Un po' più complesso sarà lo spostamento fisico, la camminata, non sempre fluidissima o scevra da cali di frame, ma nulla di preoccupante.
Una delle abilità innate del protagonista sarà "party talk", che consiste nel parlare con i propri alleati durante le fasi esplorative. La cura apportata a questa feature è sorprendente e dovrebbe far scuola anche ai prodotti più blasonati (vero Octopath Traveler?), dato che ogni personaggio avrà un dialogo diverso a seconda di dove si trova e addirittura interazioni uniche con determinati personaggi, in caso li si avessero nel team. Questo significa dare vita propria ai personaggi, non lasciarli solamente macchiette silenziose che ti seguono senza fiatare, ma esseri pensanti e con una propria personalità, anche al di fuori della loro storyline. Pure questo tuttavia contribuirà ad allentare la tensione, poiché ci saranno diversi momenti più "allegri" che allevieranno le nostre avventure.

Maggior contenuto è stato aggiunto alla colonna sonora, sia tramite brani originali sia tramite rielaborazioni delle vecchie ost più iconiche.
Novità gradevole, ma a livello qualitativo non aggiunge granché all'offerta del primo F&H. Il sound design invece si aggiorna con diversi tipi di suoni, meno artificiali e più "umani", talvolta usando veri e propri doppiaggi che sapranno inquietare anche i più coraggiosi.

Ci sarebbe un sacco da dire su Fear & Hunger 2: Termina, ma si cadrebbe nello spoiler e sarebbe dunque un peccato rovinare la gioia della scoperta e dell'esplorazione, pienamente valorizzate in questo titolo.
Purtroppo l'aspetto horror non trionfa come nel prequel, anche visivamente ci saranno molte meno scene "nauseanti" e provocatorie, tuttavia i temi trattati e l'atmosfera misteriosa sapranno colpire nel segno, quindi gli appassionati del genere non verranno totalmente delusi.

Una cosa è certa: dopo aver terminato pure questa avventura, l'hype per un eventuale nuova creazione di Miro è ormai alle stelle... o meglio, alla Luna!

Termina's great; the soundtrack is pretty solid, and it's overall less buggy and more polished compared to F&H1. The characters' personalities and interactions with others are fleshed out, nearly making it the defining feature of this game. The violence and/or difficulty of this game will probably put most people off, but once you're willing to learn from your mistakes and understand the layout of the area, it becomes more enjoyable, just like F&H1.

The new gameplay mechanics of drawing ritual circles and learning new skills from killing off contestants/skin bibles make learning skills feel smoother compared to the original. Getting soul stones to learn skills in this game feels less luck-based than in F&H1. Although you might get unlucky by having your saw break, it's simple to behead a couple of enemies and sacrifice them to the Tainted One to eventually gain enough soul shards to craft a soul stone.

I have a few nitpicks with the game, but they're more like a "me" problem. Walking diagonally feels clunky, and I tend to bump into walls/trees fairly often (especially in the final area of Ending A). There's something about the grayish, drab color scheme of the environment that becomes straining to the eyes after a while in the city, especially in Masochism Mode where the screen always has a hue over it. Some characters' skillsets just don't work, like O'saa's Greater Meditation or Levi's Executioner.

The intro/forest section of Masochism Mode feels so much like a chore to get through, especially with some characters who don't have a wide range of options with their skills/items (like Levi). Your survivability is slightly luck-based from what kind of skin bibles you get from bookcases or evading an enemy's attack, but you're bound to die to an enemy or get moonscorched by Rher before you really get the ball rolling, which I think is fine. My own issue is that it takes a long time to wake up from the train, walk around a few screens (although you're not required to search barrels/pick green herbs, you're limiting yourself from getting decent healing items or healing infections), and walk around the Woodsman to make it to the central area of the village. It's very easy to die in this game, and unless you get lucky by getting the God of Fear&Hunger skin bible to save, you'll have to do all of this over and over before the game truly begins by entering the city. Dying in F&H1 is pretty easy as well, but at least you spawn at the entrance of the dungeon so that you can quickly go back inside and try again. I tried to complete Masochism Mode with all characters, but it feels like such a time-waste to die in the forest and start all the way back in the train. This is still a "me" problem, and although I beat the mode with O'saa and Marcoh, I feel drained attempting to do this with any other character and don't have the time to retry the forest section over and over. I know there's a hidden bolt cutter that can grant you early access to the city, but I think that's more of a dev item, and I'm limiting myself from getting loot inside houses and the bunker that'll help me face all the other enemies in the city. Eventually I'll have to return to the village to kill off the other contestants so entering the city early puts unnecessary pressure on myself.

Termina is still a great game. I prefer F&H1 a little more for its variation of enemies, the harrowing atmosphere/environment, and how good loot/books open so many options to complete the game. It all feels like an interactable puzzle piece. I think a lot of people were introduced to the series with Termina, but they're missing out if they skipped F&H1. Great stuff all around, can't wait for Fear & Hunger 3.

(TW for graphic violence of every kind and nudity of the type you wouldn’t want to see. This is an 18+ game.)
If you’ve played or read anything about Fear & Hunger, you will know it’s a punishing and macabre game. The type that no big-budget studio would approve. That’s the reason why when I saw that it had a sequel, I feared that it would lean even further into these qualities — just a very gruesome and unforgiving game. Apparently, and thankfully, I was dead wrong.
Those aspects have been toned down for the sequel. First, while I can't say it's easier, its open-ended design allows even the least experienced players to stumble through the game with enough effort. Second, yes there is still nudity (and a censor mod), it's less than its predecessor. Still, people who can’t handle sexual violence should be wary.
Playing F&H 1 will provide you with some context, but that's about it. It's not required to understand the plot. Simply comparing Termina to it doesn't do the sequel justice. It can easily stand on its own as an amazing entry into the horror RPG genre. More specifically, an RPG made with RPG-maker. That doesn't detract from the quality. This game has it all - highly detailed environments that ooze with atmosphere, an interesting limb-based combat system that requires strategies to maximize, and a fascinating storyline, with a wholly unique setting.
Termina is an instant recommendation to anyone who is looking for a horror RPG and doesn't mind some trial and error. In the case that you do find it too difficult, the wiki is always there.

𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲
Just as before, instead of making your character, you get to choose from a multitude of pre-made characters with their unique skills, backstory, and interactions.
Termina is set 400 years after the first game, around the time of the end of this universe's WW2. More specifically, in Prehevil, a mysterious and isolated town inspired by Central Europe. You are on a train heading there, when it suddenly stops in the middle of the woods, just outside of town. Everyone on the train has disappeared apart from 14 individuals. That’s not the worst part, everyone has had the same dream of a mysterious figure under the moon, telling them that they have been selected for the Festival of Termina, and should head for the tower in the centre of Prehevil.
I lied; F&H has turned to the dark side. It's now a battle royale. The Festival of Termina is a death game where you have to kill all 13 other contestants, before the end of the third day. Hopefully, you won’t get to find out what happens after reaching the time limit.

𝐌𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲
Compared to the first game, the gameplay is mostly the same, just with more content – more weapons, skills, etc. There are some changes. You can sprint now. Hooray! Also in between those 400 years, guns have been invented, and you can use them. Hooray! Last but not least, torches are no more. Hooray! There is probably more that I am missing, but those are the most prominent.
Difficulty-wise, it has been made slightly easier. Removing the need for torches and sprinting certainly helped, but the most influential change is to the accessibility, especially at the beginning. In the last game, you get dropped, and you have around 10 seconds before you get mauled by wolves. Now you have to walk some distance before someone or something attempts to dismember you. Fewer people will get immediately stuck, so it’s an improvement. That doesn’t mean it's easy all the way through. There are some broken builds, but the general strategy is still to avoid fighting as much as possible.
I have one complaint, and it has to do with the save system. The normal way to save is to rest, however that also advances the day. As such, a common tactic is attempting to do as much as possible between saves. This can lead to frustration when you lose an hour of progress and have to repeat everything.
Overall, it's enjoyable as long as you have some patience.

𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐬/𝐀𝐫𝐭𝐬𝐭𝐲𝐥𝐞
Graphics have been vastly improved, with more detail, even in the inconsequential areas, more creative designs, never though wood can be so scary, and so on.
Do you remember the macabre artstyle from the first game? It was obviously kept for the sequel, but I believe it has changed a small amount. Now certain parts, like the character, seem to have a more normal design. I don’t know if it was intentional, but in any case, it plays into the theme of the ordinary meeting the horrifying that can be found throughout the rest of Termina.

𝐀𝐭𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞/𝐈𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧
It begins with a walk through the woods, it turns into a march through a town that has gone crazy, and it ends with, well, no spoilers.
Now, rather than exploring a gruesome and macabre dungeon, you see how those same forces can twist and distort the ordinary. Streets, schools, and apartments, even without the immediate danger, are no longer places you would want to stay any more than necessary. There are only a few safe locations, but even they hold the terrifying understanding that eventually you will have to return to the outside.
There is one theme that persists throughout both games, there is no escape, your only salvation lies at the heart of this horror.

𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐤
What’s up with solo developers with no prior musical knowledge making banger soundtracks?
It is more for ambiance than anything else, as some of those tracks are more noise than music. However, that doesn’t mean they are of poor quality. Termina wouldn’t be nearly as unnerving without its creepy, anxiety-inducing OST.
My favourite part is "Save Room Theme".

𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬
Me and my squad of heroin addicts pulling up to fight God with our makeshift weapons.