For context, I've put well over 50 hours into the game, completing it twice in a fit of madness, and I think that there are still many secrets I've never seen. Although there are many narrative connections between it and the first, and familiarities in the gameplay systems, you can absolutely start Termina without having played Fear and Hunger 1. Before any spoilers, I will say I would recommend this game to most people willing to endure a game that will make them die horrible deaths many times in the process of learning its obtuse mechanics. After the frustration, there is an incredible game brimming with personality, meticulous detail, and many overt influences coalesced into a unique artistic vision.
Termina is a fascinating game, at times masterful, and at times confused in its direction and storytelling. It builds upon the first game's foundation of unforgiving survival horror gameplay where every combat encounter can be deadly, mostly retaining all of its strengths, while greatly expanding its scope. The gameplay is a bit more complex, with more options and powerful tools available to the player, and plenty of bosses that seem impossible to overcome with normal means, forcing you to use those tools.
The initial gameplay loop is running into a new obstacle, then dying several times until you figure out a method to overcome it. It can be very discouraging, given that places where you can save your game are few and far between, and many of them progress in game time, with time being a hard limit for your entire playthrough, and potentially locking you out of events where you can recruit other characters to your party. The difficulty curve of the game is almost purely knowledge, but this is knowledge that can be gathered by paying attention to clues the game gives you, and by logical deduction. It plays more like a puzzle game than anything else, where often the challenge lies in being able to appropriately apply the many consumable items you find, or which order to cut off an enemy's limbs to minimize the damage you'll take. All of the frustration of failure made these moments of small progression immensely rewarding. Despite you feeling incredibly out of your depth in the city of Prehevil, every time you figure out a method to reliably kill an enemy that's killed you half a dozen times, you can feel the tangible step of progress.
The story is far more expanded, with twice as many playable characters that each have immense personality, intertwining backstories, and tragic development over the course of the game, and a death game premise where our lovable characters have to trust, betray, and eventually kill each other. It's also a Lovecraftian horror where an ancient god in the sky's cold gaze twists everyone in the city into abominable monsters that reflect the secrets of their hearts. It's also full of extensive side plots bubbling under the surface, like WW2 era political turmoil, military experiment conspiracies, or newly emerging satanic cults, that end up becoming far more important than they may seem. All of these mysteries can only be uncovered by you, putting together sparse clues while making your way through this city of nightmares, while the moon's time limit of 3 nights until your death draws ever nearer.
All of this sounds insanely cool. And sometimes it does live up to that potential that the premise promises. There were several moments of moving character writing, be it people holding true to their ideals amidst the ever growing shadows, or more often, succumbing to the terror of the festival, and coming apart at the seems. That element of tragic, character driven Lovecraftian horror shines through as the core of the story, and yet, I think that it's immense scope is also Termina's greatest flaw. With all of these disparate narrative elements competing for relatively little actual in-game text, I think that it suffers from a lack of focus. Particularly in some of the few endings, where it feels like a very sudden shift to another story entirely that's hardly related, plot-wise or thematically. And this isn't helped by what I think are an over-abundance of overt references. Some of the most obvious ones being Majora's Mask, a fantasy species taken from furry subculture, and several designs heavily inspired by horror movies like Hellraiser, Terrifier, and Human Centipede. I think that the game still has so much original, creative material that it has a strong identity regardless of this, but it's still a bit much, and seeing so many wink-nods to pop culture hurts the immersion. This is a bit more frustrating considering that this isn't a crutch that Miro needs, the original designs are incredibly good, I just wish that the game was filled almost exclusively with them.
*This paragraph is an addition after initially writing the review, after completing a playthrough on the immensely more difficult Masochism difficulty. It's a difficulty setting that at first seemed so comically stacked against you that I wasn't sure how it would be possible, but it ended up being surprisingly fun and achievable. After relatively mastering the systems, it takes you back again to the feeling of terror and vulnerability you had on a first blind playthrough, where even the most minor encounter can be deadly and you have to carefully prepare for every step you take. I had to chart a detailed plan of progression with pen and paper, and continually amend it as I tried and failed, getting a little further each time. There were multiple moments of sudden realization where I figured out a strategy to get through a portion I'd been stuck on for hours, and then successfully executing it brought a degree of satisfaction I hadn't felt from video games in a long time.
I wasn't even able to mention so many of the things I loved about this game, like how every song on the soundtrack is absolutely perfect at building its strange and frightening atmosphere. Or how every monstrous form that each main character can potentially painfully mutate into, becoming their own boss fight, is a poetic twist on that character's inner conflict. Or the environmental storytelling of areas like the orphanage and the mold apartments, where you could peel back the old and buried dark mysteries of the city. Overall, although I think it muddies its own story in some ways, and stretches itself too thin, Fear and Hunger Termina was a powerful and consuming experience that will stick with me for a long time, and an incredibly impressive creative project coming almost entirely from a single developer. I'll be eagerly awaiting whatever Miro makes next.
Termina is a fascinating game, at times masterful, and at times confused in its direction and storytelling. It builds upon the first game's foundation of unforgiving survival horror gameplay where every combat encounter can be deadly, mostly retaining all of its strengths, while greatly expanding its scope. The gameplay is a bit more complex, with more options and powerful tools available to the player, and plenty of bosses that seem impossible to overcome with normal means, forcing you to use those tools.
The initial gameplay loop is running into a new obstacle, then dying several times until you figure out a method to overcome it. It can be very discouraging, given that places where you can save your game are few and far between, and many of them progress in game time, with time being a hard limit for your entire playthrough, and potentially locking you out of events where you can recruit other characters to your party. The difficulty curve of the game is almost purely knowledge, but this is knowledge that can be gathered by paying attention to clues the game gives you, and by logical deduction. It plays more like a puzzle game than anything else, where often the challenge lies in being able to appropriately apply the many consumable items you find, or which order to cut off an enemy's limbs to minimize the damage you'll take. All of the frustration of failure made these moments of small progression immensely rewarding. Despite you feeling incredibly out of your depth in the city of Prehevil, every time you figure out a method to reliably kill an enemy that's killed you half a dozen times, you can feel the tangible step of progress.
The story is far more expanded, with twice as many playable characters that each have immense personality, intertwining backstories, and tragic development over the course of the game, and a death game premise where our lovable characters have to trust, betray, and eventually kill each other. It's also a Lovecraftian horror where an ancient god in the sky's cold gaze twists everyone in the city into abominable monsters that reflect the secrets of their hearts. It's also full of extensive side plots bubbling under the surface, like WW2 era political turmoil, military experiment conspiracies, or newly emerging satanic cults, that end up becoming far more important than they may seem. All of these mysteries can only be uncovered by you, putting together sparse clues while making your way through this city of nightmares, while the moon's time limit of 3 nights until your death draws ever nearer.
All of this sounds insanely cool. And sometimes it does live up to that potential that the premise promises. There were several moments of moving character writing, be it people holding true to their ideals amidst the ever growing shadows, or more often, succumbing to the terror of the festival, and coming apart at the seems. That element of tragic, character driven Lovecraftian horror shines through as the core of the story, and yet, I think that it's immense scope is also Termina's greatest flaw. With all of these disparate narrative elements competing for relatively little actual in-game text, I think that it suffers from a lack of focus. Particularly in some of the few endings, where it feels like a very sudden shift to another story entirely that's hardly related, plot-wise or thematically. And this isn't helped by what I think are an over-abundance of overt references. Some of the most obvious ones being Majora's Mask, a fantasy species taken from furry subculture, and several designs heavily inspired by horror movies like Hellraiser, Terrifier, and Human Centipede. I think that the game still has so much original, creative material that it has a strong identity regardless of this, but it's still a bit much, and seeing so many wink-nods to pop culture hurts the immersion. This is a bit more frustrating considering that this isn't a crutch that Miro needs, the original designs are incredibly good, I just wish that the game was filled almost exclusively with them.
*This paragraph is an addition after initially writing the review, after completing a playthrough on the immensely more difficult Masochism difficulty. It's a difficulty setting that at first seemed so comically stacked against you that I wasn't sure how it would be possible, but it ended up being surprisingly fun and achievable. After relatively mastering the systems, it takes you back again to the feeling of terror and vulnerability you had on a first blind playthrough, where even the most minor encounter can be deadly and you have to carefully prepare for every step you take. I had to chart a detailed plan of progression with pen and paper, and continually amend it as I tried and failed, getting a little further each time. There were multiple moments of sudden realization where I figured out a strategy to get through a portion I'd been stuck on for hours, and then successfully executing it brought a degree of satisfaction I hadn't felt from video games in a long time.
I wasn't even able to mention so many of the things I loved about this game, like how every song on the soundtrack is absolutely perfect at building its strange and frightening atmosphere. Or how every monstrous form that each main character can potentially painfully mutate into, becoming their own boss fight, is a poetic twist on that character's inner conflict. Or the environmental storytelling of areas like the orphanage and the mold apartments, where you could peel back the old and buried dark mysteries of the city. Overall, although I think it muddies its own story in some ways, and stretches itself too thin, Fear and Hunger Termina was a powerful and consuming experience that will stick with me for a long time, and an incredibly impressive creative project coming almost entirely from a single developer. I'll be eagerly awaiting whatever Miro makes next.