Fear & Hunger: pure horror extract for mature audiences

Relive memories and carry trauma of your choosing through a thick fog towards the unwelcoming destination. The dungeon of Fear & Hunger is a hell hole where terror is ready to embrace you at any given moment. There’s no turning back until you’ve fulfilled your mission.

How deep will you go for knowledge, greed, love or revenge?

Trigger warning: this game depicts sexual scenarios, substance abuse, gore and extreme violence, you have been warned. However, there are dedicated fans making mods to censor/blur graphic scenes and graphics, making the game more stream friendly and slightly easier getting into for curious sensitive gamers. Link to a mods at the bottom of the article.

Fear & Hunger: J-RPG with some twists

Pick one of four playable characters, each intro is different and you’ll learn the motives of why they’re here, but there’s so much more to uncover and finding the truth is a harrowing journey. The choices you make during the intro sequence determine which equipments and skill you start with.

Fear & Hunger plays as a classic J-RPG with some twists and resource management is a big part of surviving the dungeon. Keeping track of hunger and sanity isn’t the most difficult thing to do, but alas, recovery items are quite scarce.

Interesting mechanics are spicing up the gameplay, protagonists can lose limbs or contract miscellaneous ailments that are deadly over time if not remedied. The more people in your party, the less you have for yourself.

Our unfortunate heroes do not level up, playing smarter and discovering different ways to do things will save time and lives. We’re also given the option of crafting helpful stuff, but first you’ll have to find the recipe books.

There are different ways to deal with enemy encounters. You could cause distractions, have a converstation or maim to gain advantage in battle. If nothing goes according to plan or you’re just one breath away from death, will you save yourself by bargaining with the gods? The deals are kind of good though…

Fear & hunger has absorbed the essence of horror games and unleashes it beautifully within the limits of RPG Maker MV. The dungeon will have a slightly different layout for each play through and loot is randomized (even after loading the game). There are four difficulty modes offering different experiences.

This surreal twisted world has some influence from popular horror games, such as Silent Hill and Bloodborne, but regardless, Miro Haverinen has created something unique and engaging. So much care has gone into the world building and exploring this universe feels fresh and exciting. Events happens unexpectedly which might leave you stunned, curious or disgusted. Fear & Hunger will show you everything, evoking various degrees of discomfort. The soundtrack and effects are the eerie sprinkles on top, ever reminding that you’re never alone in these dungeons.

As you get better at the game the quicker you’ll progress, but the game is still merciless and punishing. There are 9 endings to suffer through, good luck!

The Good
If you have an affinity for the dark and mysterious, this is for you. Yet again, I was unaware of the active and growing fanbase, which is good for engagement and reaching new audience!

The modding community seems to be quite active and offer solutions to some problems with the game. Also system requirements doesn’t demand much!

The Bad
Bugs that could potentially ruin a perfectly good start or run. I’ve experienced the agony of not being able to use inventory items in critical situations, errors after a fight and other technical issues… you do not want this to happen when doing a permadeath run.

The J-RPG look and feel isn’t for everyone.

Survival literally depends on a coin toss sometimes, put your hands together and plea to rng-sus.

SPOILER WARNING IN THESE VIDEOS
Censoring mods by NoCommentary

Farris

Long time mystery and adventure enthusiast! Kind of old-school game preferences and crusty.