There are three ways to approach Fear & Hunger. Yes, this is an overly reductive take, but bear with me.

The first approach is casual. Load it up, wander around, lose your shit at the first sight of a stinger, die early, and then quit and experience the game vicariously via YouTube. Approached this way, F&H is actually a great experience. It has a unique aesthetic and broaches topics that rarely appear in the medium of games.

The second approach is hardcore. Play for a while, die a lot, double down, study the wiki, learn the best strategies, take advantage of the game’s secrets, and become an F&H expert. For gamers who want to dig in deep, F&H can also be an excellent game. It offers all sorts of mechanics, many of which are hidden, for tenacious players to discover and exploit. Likewise, it’s packed with rewarding secrets for those willing to put in the work. Notably, players who play this way are also the ones who make captivating Let’s Play videos of the game.

Which brings us to the third way, a middle approach which falls between the first two. More dedicated than casual, but not as deep-diving as hardcore. This is where I fall in the F&H spectrum, and as you probably guessed from the two-star rating I slapped on this review, I did not have a good time.

The biggest issue for me is time. Fear & Hunger is a slow game. Your character walks like they’re wearing stone boots. Yes, there are ways to move faster, but you won’t find them unless you engage in lots of trial and error or read a guide.

The slow pace is exacerbated by the fact that life or death is often predicated a literal coinflip. Yes, there are many ways to avoid coinflips – methods which you can learn via extensive trial and error or guides. If you’re really crafty, you can even find a way to turn the coin flips in your favor – but it’s a secret you’re unlikely to discover without the help of a guide.

Personally, I found that the slow pace and chance-based deaths worked against the horror elements. Horror works best when there’s a sense of relief every now and then, but here it’s all tension all the time. Likewise for the obscenity: The game turns the flesh up to 11 early, and after ten or fifteen minutes I was completely inured to the depravity. When everything is obscene, nothing is.

After a few failed runs, I grew tired of the tedium. Under most circumstances I would’ve just dropped the game, but it was the game of the month for a group I’m in, so I felt compelled to finish it. So instead of quitting I downloaded a “Game Genie-fied” version (whoops – my age is showing) of the game that gave me lots of extra weapons and items and plowed my way through.

A few hours later, I limped across the finish line. Burnt out as I was, I was still feeling curious about why everyone else loves this game, so I jumped over to YouTube and watched a few Let’s Plays. Taking a step back like this, extricating myself from the brutality, helped me appreciate the game more. The art is lovely, and there are all sorts of cool mechanics that I didn’t even know existed.

That’s good and all. But it doesn’t change the fact that my experience playing the game was less Fear & Hunger and more Tedium & Frustration.

It was my second time beating this game. The first one was during its release.

You know, there're not that much games which capture my soul entirely, but this one... It's one of them.

Hi-Fi Rush is a helluva banger, and I despise Microsoft for closing Tango Gameworks. It's a game which doesn't have a deep, hard plot or something like that, but instead it has a striking and fun gameplay, a bunch of jokes, some adrenaline attractions, and, after all, a fucking soul put in it.

The entire soundtrack is a banger, especially the selected copyright songs (I mean, there's Prodigy!!!), and... Damn, I have no words to describe how cool this game is. It's just so well done, that it grabs and doesn't let you go 'till the very end. Just try it out for yourself, and spend a couple of hours of yours playing a game that actually deserves your attention and all the praise it has.

Fuck you, Microsoft. I'll never forgive you.

Despite it's cryptic, magical, nonsensical elements, this game feels so incredibly down to earth, so human.
It's a game that reminds you that every person has their own lives, their own struggles, their own pasts. The southern gothic imagery paired with the pleasant ambient soundtrack makes this game go down like smooth whiskey. The reader is asked for patience, as some part of the game did bore me and the story often lost me in it's surrealism, but looking back on all of it I find myself with the feeling that this is a game that I will cherish for a really long time.
Not just one of the best games I've ever played but one of the best stories I've ever experienced.

i loved this game

i have issues with it but i still don't know if i'd change anything, as the issues i have are also a result of things that i love!

it reminds me a lot of 428 shibuya scramble, one of the few visual novels i unabashedly and without reservation love in its entirety, in the way you play through various branches to try to find the right ending - albeit a lot simpler, as there's only one character's path you really follow, instead of the... five? in 428? i forget, but anyway it's more than one

but something different about this one is that a lot of the character beats, the moments of huge growth and connection, just don't happen in the path that i assume is meant to be the true ending, since it's when the book gets closed

one of the best moments in the game for me was when luka and beck are hanging out in beck's room during the storm, and they open the window and scream to vent their feelings of frustration at life... it was very sweet and cathartic and felt like a real, if cheesy, moment of connection between the two... buuuut! that moment never happens in the true ending's path, and i think that's a shame?

but it's also fitting, this is just how life works, any given moment is a result of the choices you and others make before you get there, there's no such thing as "fate" leading you to those moments of connection, you just kind of stumble upon them

so it's frustrating but also... correct

ahhh but beyond that the art, the presentation, the polish, the music, the everything, it's just so good!