(I'd like to go on the record as saying that I bought the Fear & Hunger games before the video essayists got to it.)
It's oft said as a maxim, "To steal from one is plagiarism, to steal from many is research". A common thread amongst many retro throwback indie games you see come out is a slavish devotion to a single game, or some dubious rose-tinted era that never really existed. Indie devs who's only real creative aspirations are "What if I made Chrono Trigger again?". Fear & Hunger 2: Termina at a glance could easily be thrown under this umbrella as well: it's plot is a whole-sale reference to Majora's Mask (if you couldn't already tell from the title alone). There's an enemy in-game that's just Art the Clown from Terrifier. Silent Hill, old internet urban legends, H. P. Lovecraft, Hellraiser, the list goes on and on. Termina could easily be filed under this umbrella of unfocused & derivative pop-culture worshipping games, but despite being outwardly familiar, Termina's greatest strength is it's sense of mystique and magic; it's ability to feel like a truly unknowable black box of psychosexual Eurojank horror.
Termina uses its myriad base of familiar inspirations and influences as a jumping-off point, a way to set your expectations before it pulls the wool over your eyes and shows you what it truly wants to accomplish. With a cast of 14 unique characters (8 of which are playable, each with unique ways they affect the core gameplay loop) and a 3 day time limit, there's a sense of wonder as you try (and die) again over and over, with each playable character & NPC having some kind of obscure interaction with other characters or the world that you can stumble upon multiple hours into your 5th or 6th playthrough still. It's structure of a large and relatively static world map, coupled with a downright sadistic and unfair difficulty almost lends Termina the air of a masocore game a la I Want to Be the Guy or Kaizo Mario. It's about venturing head-first into a challenge and getting your ass handed to you in a way so insane and out of left-field you almost laugh at the sheer absurdity of it if you weren't so pissed about your last save being an hour and a half ago.
Saving your game at a bed advances time and causes characters to move around, potentially die, and limit your ability to explore, yet is also the only reliable way to access the game's leveling mechanic to improve your character. Powerful enemies can randomly show up around town and deliver total party wipeouts. While enemy positions and item boxes are static in each playthrough, their appearances and contents are otherwise completely random and up to chance. This risk and reward throughline forces a different approach each playthrough with enough variety that it always feels like you're never truly in control of the situation, no matter how many shotgun shells your carrying around or how many people you have in your party, and it manages to keep up the incredibly tense horror even after you've been desensitized to the horrific monster designs & nightmare scenarios with the constant looming threat of losing progress.
Termina is a dubiously tactful psychosexual nightmare of a game that I can't get enough of. While it will no doubt be picked apart down to its very cogs in the future, I'm enamored by it's mystical black box nature and I hope the future updates this game is planned to recieve flesh it out even more. I can say with confidence that Termina is a cult classic in the making, and a bold new entry into the RPG Maker Horror canon.
It's oft said as a maxim, "To steal from one is plagiarism, to steal from many is research". A common thread amongst many retro throwback indie games you see come out is a slavish devotion to a single game, or some dubious rose-tinted era that never really existed. Indie devs who's only real creative aspirations are "What if I made Chrono Trigger again?". Fear & Hunger 2: Termina at a glance could easily be thrown under this umbrella as well: it's plot is a whole-sale reference to Majora's Mask (if you couldn't already tell from the title alone). There's an enemy in-game that's just Art the Clown from Terrifier. Silent Hill, old internet urban legends, H. P. Lovecraft, Hellraiser, the list goes on and on. Termina could easily be filed under this umbrella of unfocused & derivative pop-culture worshipping games, but despite being outwardly familiar, Termina's greatest strength is it's sense of mystique and magic; it's ability to feel like a truly unknowable black box of psychosexual Eurojank horror.
Termina uses its myriad base of familiar inspirations and influences as a jumping-off point, a way to set your expectations before it pulls the wool over your eyes and shows you what it truly wants to accomplish. With a cast of 14 unique characters (8 of which are playable, each with unique ways they affect the core gameplay loop) and a 3 day time limit, there's a sense of wonder as you try (and die) again over and over, with each playable character & NPC having some kind of obscure interaction with other characters or the world that you can stumble upon multiple hours into your 5th or 6th playthrough still. It's structure of a large and relatively static world map, coupled with a downright sadistic and unfair difficulty almost lends Termina the air of a masocore game a la I Want to Be the Guy or Kaizo Mario. It's about venturing head-first into a challenge and getting your ass handed to you in a way so insane and out of left-field you almost laugh at the sheer absurdity of it if you weren't so pissed about your last save being an hour and a half ago.
Saving your game at a bed advances time and causes characters to move around, potentially die, and limit your ability to explore, yet is also the only reliable way to access the game's leveling mechanic to improve your character. Powerful enemies can randomly show up around town and deliver total party wipeouts. While enemy positions and item boxes are static in each playthrough, their appearances and contents are otherwise completely random and up to chance. This risk and reward throughline forces a different approach each playthrough with enough variety that it always feels like you're never truly in control of the situation, no matter how many shotgun shells your carrying around or how many people you have in your party, and it manages to keep up the incredibly tense horror even after you've been desensitized to the horrific monster designs & nightmare scenarios with the constant looming threat of losing progress.
Termina is a dubiously tactful psychosexual nightmare of a game that I can't get enough of. While it will no doubt be picked apart down to its very cogs in the future, I'm enamored by it's mystical black box nature and I hope the future updates this game is planned to recieve flesh it out even more. I can say with confidence that Termina is a cult classic in the making, and a bold new entry into the RPG Maker Horror canon.