Starting my "replay" of Termina I did not really expect to glean much more than I had from my first playthrough of this game. I absolutely adored the game more than I have most other games and I've viewed as much content as I could find online for it. I thought I knew every inch of this game, every single intricate mechanic, character interaction, etc.
And this couldn't be any further from the truth.
My most recently completed run was with Abella, I got endings B and C on the same save file and I have so much more to appreciate this game for in this run now that I've seen all of the general endings firsthand. The sheer level of labour put into this game is inconcievable to me. Just the quality put into an rpgmaker game alone leaves me dumbfounded. Building upon the world, mechanics, and systems present in the first game in such a splendid manner. I have spent many hours merely thinking about this game and truly I cannot find anything to complain about.
Diversity in this game just breathes so much life and uniqueness to the world of Fear & Hunger. Just within the 8 playable characters, there's so many attributes that give each character their own distinict feel. In design, combat, and even just how you go about the navigating the world. Every playthrough feels magnitudally different just by the starting character alone. The soul absorbption mechanic adds on to this and creates so much depth for the progression system and understanding of the lore and game world. I've poured so many hours into perusing the wiki and watching too many a video covering unique interactions between the cast members and how they interact with the world. Mind Read, Diagnosis, and the Party Talk are all so intricately created it genuinely breaks my fucking mind to think that this game was produced by one person.
Combat once again follows in the foundation established by Funger 1. Though remaining more-or-less the same, the new REV system brings so much more depth to combat and I love it. The already complicated puzzle that is within each encounter now has an additional layer of which has heavy impact on the outcomes. Management of REV points could be the make or break for an encounter, and being so limited on how many you can store in your backend at a time PLUS being forced to commit to REV point usage adds so much stress to the gameplay itself. It really does wonders for establishing the brutal and ruthless resource management that this game has.
Style is something that I will infinitely praise this game for. I've watched some of the speedpainting videos, listened to every track (some hundreds of times over), and read through just about all of the dev's comments to other people regarding the music. Thematically the game never falls short and everything feels just so perfect. Again, it's so fucking mindblowing to me that this game even came to exist.
Funger's in-game world captivates me the most. All of the textbooks, flyers, papers, diaries, newspapers, everything. Nothing feels cheap in its delivery and nothing feels superfluous in its inclusion. I've read all of the pocketcat tales, all of the bibles, I cannot understate just how much I love how everything ties together both from the prior entry and from this one. Dialogues aside, the actual spritework and level design for the game itself is so magnificent and beautiful. Environments are put together and tracks are paired together like a match made in heaven. I cannot recall a moment where I've felt underwhelmed with the music and environment or annoyed with the design of an area. It's beautiful through and through. Character's and their relations to the world also do much to add depth and vibrancy to the characters themselves and those surrounding them. Again, the Party Talk and Mind Read mechanics are so perfectly executed and insanely deep. Nearly 3 hours of party talking paired with the mind reading ability (spoilers for obvious reasons). There's so much that you will miss out on sheerly because you don't play the game a certain way or don't unlock whatever skill. Characters in your party are also important because the Party Talk has unique dialogue based on those present/absent from the party. Words cannot express how much I love this system and how quite frankly fucking insane you have to be to put together all of this dialogue singlehandedly knowing that 90% of the playerbase won't even read a fraction of the interactions.
Miro has done a wonderful job with putting together such a game nearly singlehandedly. It's this game and Metal Gear Solid 2 that I believe are truly works of art. I'll admit I'm cranking out this "review" as something of a obligation because I want to write something of much grander scale but I lack the first-hand experience to do so. Think of this as something of a prelude if you would.
I'm currently 43 hours in and starting another run as Marina. This shit is crack. Help me.
STEAMDECK ADDENDUM:
I played this game on Steam Deck and it runs pretty OK. I'd suggest playing this on windows if possible. Unless you are running the latest protonGE version & the protondb fix for the game, you'll be fighting against massive fps drops very often.
And this couldn't be any further from the truth.
My most recently completed run was with Abella, I got endings B and C on the same save file and I have so much more to appreciate this game for in this run now that I've seen all of the general endings firsthand. The sheer level of labour put into this game is inconcievable to me. Just the quality put into an rpgmaker game alone leaves me dumbfounded. Building upon the world, mechanics, and systems present in the first game in such a splendid manner. I have spent many hours merely thinking about this game and truly I cannot find anything to complain about.
Diversity in this game just breathes so much life and uniqueness to the world of Fear & Hunger. Just within the 8 playable characters, there's so many attributes that give each character their own distinict feel. In design, combat, and even just how you go about the navigating the world. Every playthrough feels magnitudally different just by the starting character alone. The soul absorbption mechanic adds on to this and creates so much depth for the progression system and understanding of the lore and game world. I've poured so many hours into perusing the wiki and watching too many a video covering unique interactions between the cast members and how they interact with the world. Mind Read, Diagnosis, and the Party Talk are all so intricately created it genuinely breaks my fucking mind to think that this game was produced by one person.
Combat once again follows in the foundation established by Funger 1. Though remaining more-or-less the same, the new REV system brings so much more depth to combat and I love it. The already complicated puzzle that is within each encounter now has an additional layer of which has heavy impact on the outcomes. Management of REV points could be the make or break for an encounter, and being so limited on how many you can store in your backend at a time PLUS being forced to commit to REV point usage adds so much stress to the gameplay itself. It really does wonders for establishing the brutal and ruthless resource management that this game has.
Style is something that I will infinitely praise this game for. I've watched some of the speedpainting videos, listened to every track (some hundreds of times over), and read through just about all of the dev's comments to other people regarding the music. Thematically the game never falls short and everything feels just so perfect. Again, it's so fucking mindblowing to me that this game even came to exist.
Funger's in-game world captivates me the most. All of the textbooks, flyers, papers, diaries, newspapers, everything. Nothing feels cheap in its delivery and nothing feels superfluous in its inclusion. I've read all of the pocketcat tales, all of the bibles, I cannot understate just how much I love how everything ties together both from the prior entry and from this one. Dialogues aside, the actual spritework and level design for the game itself is so magnificent and beautiful. Environments are put together and tracks are paired together like a match made in heaven. I cannot recall a moment where I've felt underwhelmed with the music and environment or annoyed with the design of an area. It's beautiful through and through. Character's and their relations to the world also do much to add depth and vibrancy to the characters themselves and those surrounding them. Again, the Party Talk and Mind Read mechanics are so perfectly executed and insanely deep. Nearly 3 hours of party talking paired with the mind reading ability (spoilers for obvious reasons). There's so much that you will miss out on sheerly because you don't play the game a certain way or don't unlock whatever skill. Characters in your party are also important because the Party Talk has unique dialogue based on those present/absent from the party. Words cannot express how much I love this system and how quite frankly fucking insane you have to be to put together all of this dialogue singlehandedly knowing that 90% of the playerbase won't even read a fraction of the interactions.
Miro has done a wonderful job with putting together such a game nearly singlehandedly. It's this game and Metal Gear Solid 2 that I believe are truly works of art. I'll admit I'm cranking out this "review" as something of a obligation because I want to write something of much grander scale but I lack the first-hand experience to do so. Think of this as something of a prelude if you would.
I'm currently 43 hours in and starting another run as Marina. This shit is crack. Help me.
STEAMDECK ADDENDUM:
I played this game on Steam Deck and it runs pretty OK. I'd suggest playing this on windows if possible. Unless you are running the latest protonGE version & the protondb fix for the game, you'll be fighting against massive fps drops very often.