Fear & Hunger is an incredible mixture of RPG and horror with lite roguelike elements. Your bones will be broken, limbs sawed off, spirit crushed, eyes pecked out, and life force siphoned out of you - and you will love every second of it.

This game is exceptionally punishing and unforgiving, to an almost unfair degree. Nearly every encounter can end with your untimely demise if you dare to take so much as even one wrong step, or if luck simply turns away from you. Every resource is scarce and darkness is pitch-black. But this game is not purely unfair - there is always a possibility for success, however you will need a lot of trial and error to know how to properly navigate dungeons of fear and hunger. This game is specifically designed to induce dread and suspense into the player using game mechanics, and it does not shy away from the most cruel and low ways to do it. It is designed as a macabre puzzle for you to throw yourself onto its bloodied spikes again and again, to constantly make new characters and lead them to their doom. And this is beautiful - there are very few games that can achieve THIS level of tension, even if at the expense of some convenience. Art, sound design and storytelling of the game is also very good and enhances these feelings.

There are downsides to this harshness - the game really loves to waste your time due to easy deaths and restricted saves, but I think it's forgivable, considering how strong its good qualities are.

This is a must-have for anyone interested in dark, morbid, unconventional and just weird games.

In addition to the mechanics, presentation, and QOL features copied directly from P5(R), the tone of P3R is also nearly identical to P5(R). This is a problem because the story of P3 really lends itself to a darker, more melancholic tone. Just watch the opening cutscenes from each game back to back. (P3 , P3R). The original opening scene is so much darker and tense. Why is Yukari talking so much in the new one? It doesn't work for me and many of the changes are like this.

P3R is essentially P5(R) DLC (credit @mikesinouye). Folks from ATLUS gave an interview about how careful they were to not change too much, but playing the game makes me laugh at this. Like they changed nearly everything mechanically to be like P5(R), even in cases where it doesn't make sense. The example in the article of what they preserved is keeping cell phones the same lmao. It's just silly.

Some of the changes are good and the game is good overall. But by mashing together the gameplay/tone of P5(R) with the story and setting of P3, the result is worse than the sum of their parts.

Also, 'So dance, while I put you in a trance' with that fucked up vocal performance is actually absurdly good. And 'So dance if you want, go ahead / Free to do whatever, I'm chilling on my bed' in monotone mumble rap is trash and makes me cringe every time I hear it.

Writing a review because I'm so passionate about how good this game is. Literally every case is peak and easily exceed the quality of cases from the mainline series. Somehow the finale case brings all loose plot points perfectly together, actually having engaging twists and surprises I didn't see coming, but made perfect sense. Characters are amazing, I wish Ray Shields was in more games he is perfect and his theme is a banger. This is likely the least played game in the series, I really want everyone to play it right now.