Fear & Hunger Review: Not Safe for Soul

The Dungeons of Fear & Hunger are dark, cruel, puzzling, and unfair. This game deals with disturbing subjects and trauma-focused topics. Before going on, here is a warning that this is not a game for those who experience activated responses from such subjects.   

You have four choices of characters. Cahara, the mercenary. A versatile fighter with a shady past. D’arce, the Knight, focused on defense and close combat. You have Enki, the Dark Priest and practitioner of Dark Magics. Fourthly there is Ragnvaldr, the Outlander, the classic barbarian class.

Those you don’t pick can be your ally… Or enemy.

Each one has personal, sometimes conflicting, and or insane reasons for entering the Dungeons. It is up to you as the player to find what you are looking for and either find a way to escape or delve even further. You will die in this game many times. If you are lucky, because “There are worse fates than death.” The odds of surviving are slim. The odds of winning intact are slimmer. 

Fear & Hunger is currently available on PC for $7.99.

Story – Descend Into Terror & Starvation

The story of Fear & Hunger is just as equally dark and puzzling. It is told primarily through conversations you can have with NPCs and books, texts, journals, and diaries scattered in the dungeons. These entries are contradictory, fragmented, often written by the insane/enlightened, and can have agendas. Piecing the fragments and uncovering the truth is part of the game. 

From what I understand, the game takes place in the Kingdom of Rondon, which has become corrupt and expansionist. They Conquer, imprison, and torture anyone in their way for power. Rondon has sent many to the dungeons of Fear & Hunger. One of whom is a man named Le’garde. Most playable characters are after him for revenge, love, or simple bounty. 

The corruption of the dungeons and inhabitants by the horrors of what happened and potentially the old, new, and ascended gods altering reality. Many are insane and or evil and will do horrible things to you that I will not describe if you are unfortunate enough to be taken alive. The gods themselves are paradoxical and insane, aptly shown in what Sylvian calls “The Marriage.” Their powers are as potent as they are cruel. Their twisted gifts always come with a price. 

And the stench will only get worse from here…

The First Steps Onto Rusty Nails 

The game starts after you choose your character. You get a bit of backstory on the one you chose and can decide some parts of it. These choices will affect your starting equipment, items, skills, stats, and phobias. Hearing about how punishing the game is from my friends in my playthrough, I chose to play The Knight to be tanky and survive a hit or two.

As your character approaches the dungeons, impenetrable mist surrounds you. No turning back now the way you came. If you wait and mess around too long, you’ll find out like I did, as wild dogs will tear you apart.

Just arrived and already someone has beaten a dead horse.

Finding Le’garde 

Whatever your character’s reasons are, you want to find Le’garde soon, and I mean very soon. According to a few characters and texts, he could be the key to finding answers. During your journey to find Le’garde, you will learn about some of the Gods and can pray to three of them for potential awards and gifts. 

Ominous thy name is subtitle.

Gro-goroth is the god of destruction. He craves bloodshed and awards those who commit human sacrifices. Sacrificing your party members to him will gain you access to blood magic and potential souls.

Sylvain is the goddess of love and fertility. She wants performances of love done in her name. One such is marriage, which is a union of flesh between partners. In Fear & Hunger, this is horrifyingly literal but can sometimes be the only way to heal from certain types of injuries. 

Come with me, creepy mysterious child. I’m sure you were locked up here for no reason whatsoever…

Thirdly you have Alll-mer, who was mortal before becoming a God. His lore seems the most expansive due to being the current most worshipped god in Rondon, including by D’arce. Earning his favor will allow you to alter aspects of reality, such as walking on water. There are more gods and supposed gods, but you will have to discover more yourself.

If you brave the horrors and are clever enough to survive and find Le’garde alive or otherwise, you can finally leave the dungeons and get one of the endings. Or continue down its depths to discover more mystery, horror, or other endings. If you play on the hardest difficulty, there are more potential endings.

Not sure, ask my invisible friend.

Gameplay – Nostalgic Nightmares

Fear & Hunger uses a modified version of RPG Maker as its engine. For those unfamiliar, it plays similarly to a classic JRPG like the original Final Fantasy. The modifications are very impressive and make the game a fun and punishing challenge. One of the differences is the limb system. On enemies, each limb has its own health bar, abilities, and difficulty to hit. 

For example, if an enemy has a sword in one hand, a shield in the other, and a tail, cutting off the hand with a sword will prevent the enemy from using it on you. Hitting the head is the fastest way to defeat an enemy but often the hardest to hit unless you damage their legs and make their head vulnerable. To some enemies, this is not the most effective strategy. As they can hit you very hard and potentially instantly beat you if you don’t stop them.  

The same limb system applies to you as well. If an enemy cuts off your arm, you lose that arm and can no longer hold things with it, including weapons. Losing both your legs will force you to crawl. When you lose all your arms and legs, and somehow still live, you won’t be able to keep playing until you choose game over.

That last fight cost me an arm and a leg, but I don’t think it saved me in the long run.

Hard Mode

Fighting is often more risky than it’s worth. You don’t gain experience, and loot is rarely worth it. If you are clever and careful, you can sneak around and avoid most, if not all, fights. The only way to ‘level up’ is by collecting soul stones and using those on defeated enemies if you happen to find the stone and the Hexen table to use. 

What makes this game extra challenging is the items and status effects. At first, it seems like how you would imagine JRPG items and effects to be, but then you see in the menu that there are no descriptions. You will learn what they are through trial and error or in-game books like medical journals or recipes. Is this blue vial a healing potion or a poison? Does this icon of a leg mean my leg is broken or infected and will cause me to game over unless I cure or amputate it? Is this life potion I bought from a shady stranger in this dungeon legit, or have I been grifted? 

Top this off with the fact that you can only save by sleeping in a bed, and if you happen to get lucky on a coin toss, that makes your decisions all the more impactful and tense. If you like twists on JRPGs, this game is a good one. I recommend treating the gameplay philosophy as similar to a rouge like such as the game Hades. With each game over you learn more and more to not only survive, but conquer the dungeons.

I tried to sleep here twice. The raven said I would wake nevermore.

Graphics & Audio – Less Is More

Fear & Hunger is a pixel art sprite game that does fantastic and creepy work with the art style and animations. In such simple ways, it can convey such horrifying monsters and situations that I will not post that particular stuff here for obvious reasons. Like I said, it is some disturbing stuff. The art and portraits are detailed and gloomy, like characters from the Berserk manga.

As for the music is quiet and atmospheric, sometimes not noticing until it creeps up on you. The track Basement of Flies and The Four Apostles especially gets to me. Mixing a few instruments to environmental sounds like dripping water, scratching saw blades, pained howls, and swarms of flies with a low bass hum.