Sometimes you stumble across games and they really surprise you! Fear and Hunger Termina is a hybrid Survival Horror/RPG with great emphasis on the former. The game is all about resource management, and makes no bones about your first playthroughs falling into guaranteed failure states. Learning the game is a blast though and once you get the hang of things it's very exciting to see the various approaches you can take for every situation in the game. With 8 playable characters with a host of different skills between them, along with 3 endings that have fairly different requirements for reaching them, the game has excellent replay value too! The atmosphere is rich and there are a host of spooks and thrills to keep you on edge most of the way. Particularly note goes to the sound effects and dissonant soundtrack.

On the downsides, as you'd expect of an open world game made by one person, the game is RIFE with bugs, particularly for recruitable characters who are notorious for breaking horribly and just disappearing from the game altogether. It's unlikely you'll complete a playthrough without seeing at least one bug. While I don't consider this a negative, the game is also big on disturbing content and imagery, from drug based to sexual to of course violent. If these things are a bit much for you to stomach, I wouldn't really recommend this game. Lastly, and once again I don't consider this a downside but some might, the game is VERY punishing. Enemies outclass you immensely, so you really need to know what options you have to declaw them for the inevitable encounters you WILL have to fight. Plus, the game has extremely limited save opportunities, so you can see a lot of progress go up in smoke if you aren't cautious. If that doesn't sound like a fun time to you, you'll probably want to pass on this.

All said, if you're a fan of the the horror genre and resource management games, I'd highly recommend this, I had a blast getting through it.

Criminally overlooked. This game is a turn-based RPG with a heavy emphasis on survival mechanics in a dark oppressive world. There are some clear inspirations here (one enemy is lifted directly from Demon’s Souls, and an important NPC was no-doubt inspired by Berserk), but the game’s overall aesthetic is wholly unique, visceral, and depraved. The art is equal parts gorgeous and grotesque, and the music, if you can call it music, is oppressive and hair-raising. The whole atmosphere of the game just makes you feel on edge, and stressed about what monstrosity you’ll encounter next.

The dev has a great sense of creating fear and stress through gameplay mechanics as well; attacks from enemies can lead to losing limbs, which makes you unable to hold a two-handed weapon, or a shield. Non-player Party Members will die outright with no way to revive them. Your party can be inflicted with poison, bleeding, tapeworms, and infected wounds, which all require precious resources to treat (and if you can't treat an infected wound, you'll be forced to saw off a limb to stop the infection from killing you outright). You constantly have to scavenge for food to maintain your hunger gauge, and pay attention to your party’s fear gauge, lest they become discouraged and abandon you altogether. All of this is propped up by the coin-toss system, wherein a number of actions in the game require you to pick heads or tails to determine an outcome, such as finding better items while searching chests and bookshelves, or whether you avoid a particularly nasty attack. This system causes you to put more thought into your actions, and play the game a bit more like an adventurer would in real life; being aware of your surroundings and considering the potential risks that your actions carry.

Most importantly, however, the coin toss system is used for saving, which is no doubt going to turn some people away from the game outright. Failing a coin toss while trying to save (done via sleeping in beds) can cause you to be attacked by enemies, or more often than not the game will simply wake you up without saving, and will prevent you from trying again for a bit of time. The game isn't totally heartless, however, and frequently hands out "lucky coins" which can be used to flip a second coin, essentially reducing your chance of failure to 25%, there are also a couple of totally safe save points which won't trigger anything nasty, and there is also a rare, consumable item which lets you save on the spot. What I love about this system is how it forces you to take the rest of the mechanics seriously, something you wouldn’t do if saving was a more available thing. If, for instance, you’ve been a long while without saving, and you lose an arm, or maybe a party member bites the dust, you’ll be much more inclined to press on rather than save-scumming to avoid a bad outcome, which makes your playthrough all the more interesting. Having to deal with a main character losing his arm and becoming less useful, or your favorite party member permanently dying, are memorable experiences that take you by surprise. And when reaching the end of the game, battered, bruised and probably down a man or two, you’ll feel like you’ve accomplished the impossible.

I can’t recommend this game enough; it evoked a feeling of helplessness and dread that even the scariest horror games can’t get out of me anymore. It’s tough, often bordering on unfair, but if you’re willing to press on, you’ll be left with an experience unlike any other.

Just wanna put this out here real quick ever since +R got rollback I think this has become my favorite Guilty Gear period and I have no idea why nobody ever talks about this game as one of the genre's best. Actually one of the coolest games ever made, this and like UMVC3 and MBAACC are one of the few fighting games where I discover something new about it every time I play it. Still has the dopest Sol Badguy to date and I think other characters here are at their most fun, even if I think Xrd utilizes their tools better in their combo game. I will forever be depressed that force breaks never returned after this entry, which I feel like it should be a series staple given how quickly you've always been able to build meter in these games.

I feel like when Xrd's rollback drops it'll be the more requested game to play among my peers since it's a lot more approachable and its balance is way more sensible (minus Johnny and Elphelt) but I have yet to play another FG where every match feel so free-flowing and chaotic like this, where you are given so many ways to execute your characters unique gameplan, and I think how completely open ended it is works the best for Gear where everyone is trying to play a one-player game on the opponent anyways. If you're gonna design your game to be unhinged, you may as well embrace its insanity and bullshit with open arms.

I haven't played enough of it to 100% confirm my opinion but so far it's super cool, and is definitely a contender for my favorite Guilty Gear. There's some really cool and enjoyable characters, some of which have yet to show up again in any later titles, like A.B.A or Justice (here's hoping for Strive DLC)
Planning on learning this game a bit more intricately so I can go online with my favs and not get my shit kicked in.
Unfortunately this was before any Valentines were made playable, so no Jack-O or Elphelt, but Dizzy is still really cool. I always like the zoner characters a lot.👍 9/10 maybe 9.5

Amazing game that is only personally held back by old game issues.

The game has great pixel art, animations and possibly the best stages in the franchise, +R stages definitely pull the heavy metal aesthetic more than any other Guilty Gear.

It has my favorite OST of the franchise, Holy Orders II, Meet Again and The Midnight Carnival are amazing as well as every other character and rivalry theme. (Holy Orders? may be included.)

On top of traditional Guilty Gear aggressive mechanics, Force Roman Cancels exists to deepen the already extremely deep and absurdly strong characters by adding a cheaper Cancel option on specific moves for every character. Had fun playing against every character, even some extreme ones like Zappa, Testament and Justice.

My only problem with this game is how strict it feels on timing inputs, since it doesn't have the input buffer from modern games and I never got used to its absence. But that's about it.

Really fun game, definitely play it. Characters are on their peak, and the PC port got amazing functionalities, it even has more single-player content than any of its sequels.

Also, obligatory praise to the Dustloop Wiki editors for the best in-depth wiki on the FG space.

Amazing roster jam-packed with 25 characters used to their maximum potential and probably the best guilty gear roster ever.
Every character feels unique and fun to play with.
Great gameplay with interesting story to go with every characters origins.
Definitely my top 2 fighting game.
For anyone who is a fan of Japanese arcade games it's a must play.

Mutazione is a game about family. Perhaps not by blood, but with love, any community can be a family and any family can feel like home. The inhabitants of the town have gone through a lot, are still going through a lot, and so are you. But as an outsider, you have to really break down these walls.
Mutazione is described as a soap opera and I can see why, but to me its almost as much that as a meditative experience? Apart from the literal imagery in the game, coming into somewhere new as an outsider, with no judgement unto you, and being able to just help, unbiasedly help all inhabitants deeply and spiritually is lovely. Planting plants and singing to them helps beautify the area and gives you materials to help more. Just helping an entire town, alongside your playable character grow and change and move on from pain and seeing the physical space grow with you is awesome.
The soundtrack is absolutely paramount in this experience and coupled with the art creates the most calming, surreal experience. I love this game.