Fear & Hunger doesn’t go soft in terms of enemies and bosses, providing a set of disturbing and grotesque creatures, including challenging boss battles against gigantic abominations able to wipe out the entire party in a festival of mutilations. In fact, this is the second entry for Fear & Hunger in Boss Battle, previously featuring the relentless Crow Mauler: When it is impossible to Save: surviving all the mutilations of the Crow Mauler in Fear & Hunger [Boss Battle].
Fear & Hunger has a complex Pantheon of gods, specifically divided into Old and New. While the New Gods are humans ascended to divinity, the Old Ones are ancient twisted and macabre beings, mysterious creatures born at the beginning of time. Usually, the Old Gods are described and portrayed in books scattered around the dark dungeons, manuscripts probably wrote by cultists trying to assign a physical form to their deities, even if this is often far from the God’s true form. At least 5 Old Gods are described in the books, starting with Alllmer, a sort of twisted revisited version of Jesus Christ, to the hermetic Moon God, which has a relevant role in the sequel of Fear & Hunger. However, two Old Gods appear as hidden boss battles in the original game, offering brutal and challenging fights.
Gro-goroth is also known as the God of Destruction, a dangerous and malevolent entity connected with death and carnages. The Old God lies beneath the most difficult dungeon of the game, deep inside the mouth of a gigantic monster, after passing deadly traps and monsters. Moreover, Gro-goroth can be faced only by going for the Ending B, meaning that a party member, the Girl, should be dead (if you want an idea of all the horrible things that can happen to this party member, check my article: Fear & Hunger: the many ways to permanently sacrifice the Girl [Evil Quests]). Gro-goroth will emerge from the darkness below a platform entirely made of dead bodies, ready to fight the party after an existentialist conversation. Only the upper half of the gigantic creature is visible, a muscled torso made of twisted flesh, grotesque organs, wings, and gigantic stone-like claws. Gro-goroth is a visual cacophony of flesh, even having a mouth opening in the middle of its chest, or sort of beak-like elements decorating its neck. The face somehow keeps a sparkle of humanity, a pale mask similar to a marble statue.
As expected from an end-game boss fight, the enemy is a devastating force of destruction. The gigantic god has multiple attacks, caused by different limbs and organs. The sharp claws are its main weapon, able to inflict tremendous damage, including the bleeding effect. Taking this into account, cutting-off the claws is a vital strategy to facilitate the fight. But this is not all, multiple eyes can emerge from the flesh of its body, creating additional enemies. The eyes will cry out a scorching liquid on top of the party, causing moderate damage and the burning effect. Up to 5 eyes can open in its body and, even if they have few HP, not taking action against them could cause a swarming of damages and effects in each turn.
If this is not enough, Gro-goroth also knows powerful spells, such as Burning Gaze or the mysterious Whisper of Gro-goroth. The second enchantment is particularly peculiar: it will mark a party member with a countdown and, when it will reach 0, that character will instantly die. After all, Gro-goroth is the god of death and destruction for a reason.
The second Old God was added to the game in one of the last updates. While going for ending C, the player will now reach an empty and dark wasteland, a sort of abyss out of time and space. In this extreme environment, the main character should find again the other party members while avoiding deadly and dangerous hunting creatures. But it is on a stone bridge suspended above a green light that the party will face Sylvian, the god of sex and fertility. If Gro-goroth was very similar to the images inside the unholy manuscripts, Sylvian is drastically different. The books portray her as a humanoid goddess with the body covered in breasts, a fitting representation for the god of fertility.
Sylvian is honoured with orgies from her followers, worshipped as carnal and universal love. However, Sylvian’s love for mankind got twisted during the ages, becoming a sick parody of sex, passion, and love. For example, people marrying in honour of Sylvian will be blessed with an abominable marriage, meaning that their bodies will be fused together in a grotesque mass of flesh. This is also reflected in the true form of Sylvian: a grotesque mass of green flesh and tentacles surrounding a half-exposed ribcage, with pointed breasts and a shark-like head.
The boss battle is probably the most difficult in the entire game. The god has an insane amount of HP and it can use some really dirty tricks. Each tentacle attacks individually causing different negative effects, such as stun or bleeding, but the bigger ones are the true danger, especially if they grab party members, basically trapping them in a suffocating hug. Sylvian can also strike the mind of the characters, complicating the life of spell-casters. Color of the Unknown is the most dangerous between these attacks since it will damage the minds of the entire party.
However, the most disturbing move is related to a sort of tumorigenic mass that will grow at each turn from the ribcage of the god. The attack is very similar to the one of another creature, Uterus (you can read about this monster here: Monster of the Week: Uterus (Fear & Hunger)), just this time it is even more dangerous. If not defeated on time, the mass will transform each turn into a more humanoid figure. The fully developed creature will add an extra layer of difficulty in the battle, with the possibility of completely murdering a character with one attack.
While other Old Gods are present in the game, such as the dead body of Alllmer, only Gro-goroth and Sylvian can be challenged and defeated in battle.
However, as expected from images and Demo, the Moon God, Rher, plays a central role in the sequel Fear & Hunger 2 Termina. The Moon God is very mysterious, hidden in plain sight from humanity and with ambiguous plans. It is also addressed as the Trickster God, described as jealous and incredibly resentful of humanity. On the other hand, in contraposition, Rher is also considered the God of Truth. In fact, people exposed to its “moonlight” mutate into their true selves… of course meaning mutating into grotesque and insane abominations. While common people go into a shared mutating path while “moonscorched,” as if this is a sort of supernatural disease, special people evolve into more dangerous and personalized monstrosities, often keeping a sparkle of their intellect.
Several creatures and characters from the previous title, specifically the disturbing Pocketcat and the Lady of the Moon (which you can read more about here: The Pocketcat of Fear & Hunger: what RPG merchant could be more disturbing than one exchanging items for children? [Evil Characters]) are servants of this mysterious Old God. They are obsessed with children, especially to kidnap them, probably not only to despise humankind but also to remove gifted people from the equation. In Termina, Per’kele is the emissary of Rher, in charge of organizing the Termina festival to select the surviving candidate and admit them to his tower.
As for the two previous Gods before, it is also possible to fight Rher in Termina. To face the God, the player should look for ending B, meaning to become the only candidate reaching the tower alive but still not considered worthy of the Rher’s attention. After defeating Per’kele, he will reveal that the god left this reality, leaving only a trace behind it. And still, as if pulled from a chain, a gigantic smiling moon will drop from the sky to crush the unworthy player. And this is where the battle against Rher begins.
Rher appears as a creepy gigantic face with holes as eyes and a skeleton-like mouth, surrounded by two rings full of eyes. The God is an insanely difficult battle, especially since the player must kill all the other potential party members to face it. So basically you can only fight it alone, or maximum with an evil goat, weak ghouls, and summons. And if this was not enough, Rher has a tremendous range of attacks. Its base attack, Moonscorched, is a column of light falling from the sky, a single-target high-damage attack. Two hits from this attack are enough to kill any character. Lunar Storm materializes a meteor shower from the sky, heavily damaging the entire party. Dreamscape is probably the most visually striking attack. Rher will briefly summon a warrior made of light, which will slash one target. The attack is not as damaging as Moomscorched, but this is not a relief since Dreamscape has a high chance of severing limbs.
However, the most complex side of the battle comes from the eyes surrounding Rher. The eyes attack after Rher using multiple times the All Seeing Eyes ability. In the beginning, these attacks look like a minor concern, only slightly damaging the Mind. But there is a powerful downside to this. When Mind reaches 0 against Rher, each turn there is a 50% chance of simply dying because your Mind cannot manage Rher’s vision. First, you will become blind. Then, you will only see indescribable horrors. In the end, the brain will simply melt.
So while avoiding powerful attacks, without a party, the player must also kill as many eyes as possible while managing their health and Mind to avoid instant death. This is what you call a secret super boss battle against an Old God.
Fear & Hunger was, in part, the game that made me start this blog. And you can see the results in the many articles I wrote about it. A one-man-army project, Fear & Hunger is probably the grimiest and darkest RPG available, with a satisfying and brutal combat surrounded by a deep lore. Last December, the official sequel, Fear & Hunger 2 Termina got released, bringing the horror and despair in a more modern post-World War setting.
Between an evil moon, grotesque mutations, old and new gods, and a set of disturbing and deadly enemies, Termina brings back the essence of the first title and encases it in a more open world format. In fact, you have three days to join the Termina festival by murdering all the other characters, and each time you sleep and save, the time will dramatically advance. Exploring the town by learning routes and possibilities is essential to survive and understand the mechanics. There is a lot to learn and optimise, not only how to efficiently manage the save points, but also how to use the sigils of the gods to obtain powers and which possibilities are available at a specific times. Because the characters around you move with time, and it is impossible to see many events once day/time changes.
As its prequel before, Fear & Hunger 2 Termina features grotesque and different enemies, some of them randomly appearing to destroy your party, while others are the bad endings of a specific characters. If you want to see some of the most dangerous enemies in the game, have a look at my article: Sadistic maniacs and grotesque abominations: the unique stalking enemies of Fear & Hunger 2 Termina.
When the first Fear & Hunger was released, I had the possibility of asking questions to the creator, Miro Haverinen. Together with Miro we explored the secrets, lore, and references of Fear & Hunger. The interview is available at the following link, if you missed it:
Back then, it was the first interview posted here on Dark RPGs and now, with the release of Termina, talking again with Miro is like continuing a path. Because Miro Haverinen was kind enough to provide a “part 2” interview, this time completely focused on Termina. Together with Miro, we will analyse more the references, secrets, and curiosities of Fear & Hunger 2 Termina.
If you enjoyed the game and want to know about its future, or discover the secrets and curiosities behind some mysteries such as the Irrational Obelisk or the Iki Turso, have a look at the following interview.
Q1: Hi again Miro, and thanks for the possibility of asking again some curiosities about the expanding world of Fear & Hunger. Fear & Hunger 2 Termina released last month, bringing a new breeze of disturbing horror for RPG fans. The biggest surprise is probably the change in time, moving from dark middle-ages to post-WW2. Why did you decide to shift toward a more modern setting? Were there also other ideas before, including maybe a more directly-tight sequel?
A1: Hi! Glad to answer these questions again. It helps put things in perspective for me too.
As for the setting – I wanted to create something new. These games are pretty big commitments, it gets boring working with the same setting for years on straight. I also felt like there were lots of other dark medieval games around. The world didn’t really need another one. So a more directly-tied sequel was never in the books really.
I got the idea for the main ending of Termina pretty early on. I felt it was a logical direction for things to progress towards with the rules and themes of this universe in mind. The story idea played a big part in the decision for the setting. I first toyed around with even more modern setting that was lighter in tone, but felt it was too big of a departure, so I dialed things back and came up with the 40s setting. Although I approached the setting pretty liberally and it is far from an accurate depiction of the times. Much like how F&H1 is wildly inaccurate in its historical take, it’s more like a hodgepodge of multiple different centuries. Termina’s 40s is very similar in this regard. There are things in the game that would better suit a 1800s setting and things that would make more sense in 1960s-70s setting.
If the old dungeon was full of monsters, modern war now truly creates monsters.
Q2: If this was hinted at in the first Fear & Hunger, it is now clear how the setting of Termina is an alternative version of our world, with connections and references to existing places and figures. And the perfect meeting point for these influences is Prehevil, the main city of Termina, a complex character of its own. How did you manage to combine the fictional and historical aspects of Termina to build Prehevil?
A2: The game was even more tied to real world history in the beginning of the development, but with each passing month the game universe drifted further and further away from historical events because it felt a bit constraining. I like how with this “strangereal”-like setting people can fill in the blanks in worldbuilding easily but there’s still plenty of room for the world to grow to any direction that benefits the overall story.
As for Prehevil, I wanted the city to have strong European feel in its architecture and the story benefitted from the city being in the middle of all these different coalitions, that’s why I ultimately settled into Prehevil being (very very) loosely based on Prague of Czech Republic. I was browsing through WW2-era photos for inspiration and something about Prague just appealed to me.
Q3: While Old Gods already appeared in the previous game, Rher, the Moon God, was always referenced on the side. But now everything changed, and Rher is the central element of Termina. Why did you decide to use the Moon God as core element of Termina? Which were the references and the ideas to build this god and integrate it into the gameplay?
A3: This delves into the in-universe lore a bit, but in many ways Rher always had the main antagonist role when it came to human progress and reaching new heights. Being the “Jealous Moon” that he is. The first game was mostly set in dark dungeons though. Not much moonlight reaches those depths, but this time it made more sense for the moon to follow the events more closely in broad daylight. I’ve just always been personally fascinated by the moon, I think that’s the main inspiration really. The real thing. I know many draw parallels to a certain Nintendo game with the words “Termina”, the moon and the 3-day time limit, but that game didn’t really play big role as far as inspirations go. The most significant influence Majora’s Mask had to Rher was that I was desperately trying to differentiate Rher’s design from the moon in Majora’s Mask. It’s not easy to design a moon with a face that doesn’t look similar.
The jealous moon Rher watching down from the sky.
Q4: Termina has a new and interesting mechanic based on sigils, which really expands player management during the game. However, Rher’s sigil is a very peculiar one, allowing the player to shift toward an alternate reality made of wood. As a fan of Silent Hill, and in general of parallel dimensions of pure pain, I am curious: which are the lore and the ideas behind building this reality? And why was wood the main element of this dimension?
A4: No comments on the lore reasons, sorry. I don’t like explaining the lore too much outside the game and this particular topic would reveal a lot of big things. The basic aesthetic of it came from some old drawings I had done years ago. I think I originally got that visual of crude wooden walls rising infinitely to darkness above from a dream of mine. My dreams played a big part with many visuals found in the game. The dinner with the mayor, the intro scene, the church, the mold apartment – they all came to me in different dreams. I guess dreams also play a big part in the lore too? Of course the parallel universe also takes strong influence from Silent Hill. No escaping that fact.
Q5: Termina really hits strong with the enemy design, between a horde of grotesque abominations and deadly maniacs. Which is your favourite enemy and why?
A5: I think I like the generic moonscorched enemies the most. Or the evolution they go through from enemy to enemy. Like you can see how moonscorching advances from first slightly distorting one’s features, to their skin peeling off revealing the innermost desires, to hardening of the exposed flesh, until that hardening growth takes over the whole body. It’s pretty interesting visually I think, but it also has interesting implications. The moon reveals the truth and all that.
Q6: Prehevil city hides many secrets, but one that I really couldn’t solve was the Irrational Obelisk. For those who don’t know, hidden inside a shop lies a tower made of clothes, apparently purposeless and impossible to kill. Can you give us some clues about the purpose of this mysterious being?
A6: That thing exists for real. How scary is that? I once saw it in a small art exhibition in Helsinki, Finland. It’s been years since that encounter though, so I probably don’t recall my meeting with that irrational being accurately. This is just my depiction of the events that went down. I’ve had irrational phobia for buttoned shirts too since I was a toddler. That probably played part in its creation too. When making something that’s trying to be horror, you have to go with your gut instincts. I find that stuff weird and eerie.
The impossible battle against the Irrational Obelisk.
Q7: Compared to the previous entry, Termina doubled the number of playable characters from four to eight. Which is your favourite main character and why?
A7: Hard to pick just one. I like the whole cast and my favourite changes based on the time of day. Maybe right now at this moment it’s Tanaka. I like the idea of Hero’s Journey in the world of Fear & Hunger, even if his arc isn’t a complete quest just yet… I guess technically this doesn’t answer to your question though. Tanaka is not one of the eight…
Q8: Are there still secrets that you think people still didn’t discover? Maybe something about the mysterious Doppelgangers?
A8: There are some things I haven’t seen anyone mention. But I’ve been mostly in bug fixing mode since the release and honestly I haven’t properly been able to follow the discourse. It’s hard to have secrets in games these days. People start datamining even niche games like F&H. I think that’s like a magician revealing their secrets. Just makes things more boring. But it is what it is. You probably haven’t seen the last of doppelgängers yet though.
Q9: I already had the same question for the previous part of the interview, but I have the same curiosity for Termina: were there during the development monsters and bosses that were not included in the final release?
A9: Yeah there’s always content that doesn’t get to the game. Although I think I got most content in that I really wanted. I did have delusions of grandeur at times during development when I thought I could expand the game even further, but I never seriously thought that stuff was going to make it. At least not for the vanilla release build. There is at least one Pillarman variation I thought about adding and also wanted to have another Iki Turso creature randomly walking around the city on day 3. Those didn’t make it. At least not yet.
Imagine that Iki Turso was supposed to randomly walk in the city on day 3.
Q10: The first Fear & Hunger received many updates, including new endings, places to explore, and even the more light-hearted School Mode. Are you planning similar support for Termina? If yes, can you give us some clues about what to expect in the future?
A10: I’ll keep supporting the game with free updates. Not 100% sure to what extent quite yet, but there will be things to come. I think the first new content to come tries to deal with some replayability issues. A completely new route to the city might keep early game more fresh on repeated playthroughs and bring some variety to the areas you find in the game. New playable characters and a new ending route are also pretty high on the list. Some of these additions would take a lot of work though, so no idea when/if they are all coming to the game. I’ll just keep working on this stuff for as long as I feel like it. The game has certainly been received well enough, so the motivation is there in that regard.
Q11: Between jumps in time and different continents, such as the mysteriously hinted Vinland, the world of Fear & Hunger is continuously expanding. Maybe it is early to ask since the game only got released last month, but could you say us something about what to expect from the future of the saga?
A11: I have a couple of more fleshed out ideas, but it’s too early to tell if either of them become anything more. When F&H1 was close to being done, I thought of a thematic throughline for a trilogy of games. So I have a pretty good idea what F&H3 would be about even if there is a lot of freedom in the surface story to set it in different places in the timeline. It could take place before the released games or after, and that’s pretty much what those fleshed out concepts are. One happening before the events of F&H1 and one happening after F&H2. The other is a more conservative idea that’s closer to the established formula, while the other one is a wild card. I’d probably prefer to stir things up because I fear if things settle down to a more clear formula, any deviation from that in the future would be more difficult.
I do have some ideas for potential spin-offs too, so who knows, I might make something completely different than what’s on my mind currently. That’s what happened with Termina too. I had few very different concepts for F&H2, but ultimately I picked a wild card idea that came to me at the last minute.
Final Remarks:
I would like to thank again Miro for the opportunity. Miro provided really interesting answers to my questions, and I truly hope to see new contents for Termina in future. As a big fan of the saga, it was a pleasure for me to explore again the grim world of Fear & Hunger, and Termina really offered a huge amount of new contents. Meanwhile, Termina was quite a success, reaching already an “overwhelmingly positive” evaluation on STEAM. And if you still didn’t play it, Fear & Hunger 2 Termina is available on STEAM and ITCH.
Fear & Hunger 2 Termina is the sequel of probably the most grim and horror indie RPG. However, this time the setting is not in a dark version of middle ages, but a war-affected town in 1942. The change in setting influenced everything, from the inclusion of firearms, to more modern-looking creatures inspired by war machineries and medicine. But the world is still the same, imbued in cosmic horrors and malevolent Old Gods (and you can see some example here: Challenging the Old Gods of Fear & Hunger [Boss Battle]), where magic is real and people dies in unthinkable ways. Another huge difference with the prequel is that Termina is an open-world to be explored in the span of 3 days. The changing in time and day will affect the world, from quest and characters, to secret bosses and the appearance of new enemies. The combat system staid the same, still brutally difficult and based on severing the opponent limbs to reduce risks. After all, a deadly sword is not dangerous anymore if the arm wielding it is severed.
Grotesque and deadly enemies are still the core of the horror experience. From insane villager to deformed abominations, the world is a place full of dangers. And since Termina doesn’t feature a classic experience system, avoiding fights is a must, since the reward is often nothing… or maybe a severed limb as a souvenir of the battle. Understanding which enemy can be safely killed without risking permanent mutilations and damages is a core skill to acquire in such a difficult game. Interestingly, by having a doctor in the party, the bodies can be analysed to discover lore regarding their appearance and condition. Because the moon is not a regular object in Termina, and being “moon-scorched” brings terrible consequences. However, standard enemies are not the only one roaming the streets, and unique stalking enemies will often appear to chase the player. These enemies must be avoided at all costs, especially when met the first time and without a full party. From a sadistic clown stalking the city to kidnap people in their “fun dungeon” to an abomination made of beehives hiding in the shadows waiting to strike, the streets of the city are a dangerous place.
In the following article, I will analyse the most unique chasing stalkers of Fear & Hunger 2 Termina. The creatures analysed are unique enemies, non-mandatory, which should be in general avoided due to their strength. Without a fully equipped party, or a perfect solo set-up, they are almost impossible to kill without huge risks and consequences. They are also fast and relentless killers, which will chase after the player around the map. I will cover only pre-existing enemies, and not the moon-scorched forms of the human characters, which are indeed very interesting boss battles that I will probably cover in a future article.
Welcome to a world of pain ad suffering.
Death Mask
Death Mask is a challenging and disturbing enemy, not much in his appearance, but definitively in his behaviour. A gigantic humanoid creature, Death Mask looks not much affected by the deadly mutation scourging the area. Other than for the gigantic size, Death Mask looks like an extremely muscular male human, wearing a green chainmail-robe, a sort of plague doctor mask, and wielding two machete. Death Mask is often maniacally laughing, a sound distorted by the mask that he is wearing. In fact, the mask modifies the horrible death gurgle of the wearer into a “joyful” laugh.
The most bizarre behaviour of this enemy is definitively his entrance. Locked coffins are scattered all around the city, useless objects never containing any items, offering to the player only the purposelessly action of knocking on them without receiving any answer. However, in one random unlucky occasion, one of the dozens coffins will open, and Death Mask will rise from it, quickly stalking the player. Death Mask is an incredibly strong and deadly opponent, able to attacks four times in a turn, dealing incredible damages and amputating arms like if they are butter. Escaping from this fast enemy is already challenging, and one missing escape could mean losing limbs or party characters. And discovering that he could jump out from any coffin will create a pure sense of dread for the rest of the game. The bravest will be rewarded with different items, including a chainmail armor, and the powerful death mask itself.
Beekeeper
If being chased by a gigantic hulking humanoid is already a terrifying experience, being chased by a gigantic hulking humanoid made of hornet-hives is the quintessence of terror. The Beekeeper is a grotesque being that hides in the city. A pale mass of muscles, the Beekeeper body is almost covered in hornet-hives, especially arms and head. Moreover, after examining the body, it is impossible to determine where the hornet-hives end and the creature starts. And if this was not enough disturbing, the creature is practically hollow inside… with the exception of hornets.
The Beekeeper hides behind a metal door, inside a sort of empty garage in the city. The first time that the player will pass by there, they will only hear the hornets buzzing. However, when crossing again that area, the door will suddenly open, and the Beekeeper will start the chase. The creature is a very difficult battle that must be avoided early on. In fact, the massive foe not only has a huge amount of HP, but can also attack multiple time in a turn. First, the hornets will swarm the player, stinging multiple times and inflicting poison. Then, the Beekeeper will finish the job, hitting them with the arms as strong as a maul, able to deal an insane amount of damages. And, after the strenuous fight, the reward for the victory is… nothing. This is another reason to completely avoid this dangerous fight.
Stitches
While wandering around the city, the player can meet grotesque creatures made of human body parts stitched together. But it is only when reaching a mysterious bunker, hidden in the deepest woods, that the player will discover the evil mind behind these creatures. Stitches is the disturbing lunatic stalking the bunker while satisfying her obsession of surgically sewing humans together. Looking at her appearance, Stitches is a female vile looking maniac, with a grinning face and the skin slightly peeled up and sewn, like an ancient Cenobite. She tries to speak, but since she sewn her own mouth, this is an impossible task.
Stitches is a dangerous maniac that loves to cut and sew things together, but the most dangerous details is that she is not alone in the bunker. One of her creation, an amorphous mass of flesh, is also slowly wandering in the bunker. Start a battle with one of them, and you have one turn to escape, because on the next one, the other will join the fight. The mass of flesh has only a strong one-hitting attack, but also an insane amount of HP. On the other hand, Stitches is a jack-of-all-trade, able not only to heal herself, but also to quickly sever limbs and to immobilize characters using wires. The battle is excruciating and not very rewarding, and fighting two hunters at once is a huge challenge. Moreover, losing against Stitches unlocks a very disturbing Game Over scene… let’s just say heavily inspired by the movie “Human Centipede.”
Centaur
A grotesque and disgusting abomination, the Centaur is probably the fastest creature in the game. It dwells in the woods, protecting a military bunker, charging and chasing whoever enters the area. The territorial beast is an offence to every sense, a nauseating being composed of two bodies horribly fused together. The main body is a horse-like creature, with a pale skin covered in deformities and bandages, and a bizarre head similar to a sort of grotesque flesh mushroom. The upper body is instead humanoid, with similar colour and aesthetic to the animal one. However, by closely analysing at the humanoid figure, it looks almost as the human and the animal were “very closed” together when they morphed. This is even confirmed by analysing the body, when the doctor addresses the issue as the “elephant in the room.” As before for other creatures in the prequel (and you can find the analysis HERE), the Centaur could be born from a marriage to the God Sylvian between a human and a beast, when the bodies get fused together.
The Centaur is fast and deadly, a creature almost impossible to avoid without using traps or taking weird trajectories hoping to kit it. And as the fastest creature in the game, this is a huge challenge. The fight is difficult to win without heavy damages and casualties. This is especially true due to the stampede attack, which will damage the entire party. Moreover, by having two heads, the creature is even impossible to kill with only one lucky head-shot. And if this was not enough, the wounded limbs spray an acidic blood. As other stalker before, the Centaur also gives no reward, so it is crucial to avoid this deadly fight.
Vile
The first unique chasing enemy met in the game is a disturbing mutant wearing a pig mask. The towering humanoid is dressed like a sort of pest control worker, also wielding a spray canister with an acid liquid inside. The pig mask is not a simple ornament but it is fused with his head, a secondary effect of the moon scorching mutation. The creature is first met in the village outside the city while spraying the pesticide liquid on drying fish. Even if it looks like a gigantic demented killing machine, the creature is instead one of the few still able to talk and keeping a sparkle of intellect.
The Vile is an extremely dangerous enemy, especially since he can be faced in the beginning of the game. The first time that the player crosses the village, the creature can be easily avoided, since he is busy spraying the fish. However, after entering the village again, the maniac will quickly appear to chase the player. And he is fast. The battle is tough, especially without additional party characters. The Vile can hit twice in a turn, first by spraying acid, and then by smashing with the gas canister. So severing the arms is an essential task to survive the battle. An interesting detail is that the battle can also be won by… talking. In fact, by talking at the creature and selecting the correct option, it is possible to trick the monster into temporary lifting the mask, a sufficient time to inhale the gas leaking from the canister and dying from it. A really unexpected solution to get rid of such a killing machine.
The Mob
By looking at the image of random enemies grouped together, you would never expect this to be probably the most dangerous and annoying enemy in the game. Not only they are fast and extremely challenging, even with a full party, but the fact that they can randomly appear in different parts of the city could ruin a perfect run or cut you out of that area. The Mob are three enemies grouped together: a unique one and two common enemies. The first one is a sort of doctor or scientist wielding a rifle, with a deadly aim and a modest damage output. The other one is a grotesque half-cocooned mutant using a hammer to hit hard. But the most dangerous one is a unique gigantic mutant wielding a deadly circular saw.
The Mob can randomly appear when entering specific areas. First, you will hear the sound of a breaking bottle. Then, the buzzing chainsaw, and only in the end, you will see the three maniacs charging at you from multiple directions. They are fast, and just touching one of them will start the battle against the entire group. The Rifleman is a pretty standard enemy, but still able to inflict serious damage with his attacks, same for the Half-Cocooned with the hammer. However, the Meat Grinder, wielding the circular saw, is the most dangerous of the trio. His attacks hit multiple times, causing an insane amount of damage, bleeding status, and probably severing an arm. Even as standalone enemy, the Meat Grinder is a deadly challenger, but together with the other enemies, it becomes a battle almost impossible to win without losing characters and limbs. Moreover, each enemy is an individual target, without any body part to attacks, meaning that it is impossible to disarm any enemy. The Mob can completely ruin a run by locking the player out of a zone, because not only they can appear in very important areas, but are also extremely difficult to defeat and avoid.
Needles
Needles looks extremely inspired by Art the Clown from the horror movie Terrifier. And trust me, behind this look lies the most aggressive and disturbing stalker of Fear & Hunger 2 Termina. The deranged clown takes his name from his obsession for needles. In fact, not only he uses as weapon a syringe full of a mysterious liquid, but also a flail with medical needles in the end. The clown is a tough enemy, apparently only an ultra muscular human, but still incredibly tough to kill. Moreover, after examining his body, the question of “is he really dead” rises up. Judging by the sadistic behaviour, the strong bodies, the obsession for medical instruments, and the names, Stitches and Needles probably share a similar origin story.
Needles is an almost mandatory fight inside a military bunker, but later he will become the main stalker through the city streets. He can appear everywhere, accompanied by a maniac laugh and an on-screen message. At that point, Needles enters somewhere in the map, starting to hunt the party. He can be avoided by exiting the area, but sometimes his appearance is so repentant to nullify every escape plan. It is possible to kill Needles, but only after a dangerous battle. He attacks twice, once with the mysterious syringe able to inflict deadly status effects, then with the whip inflicting bleed and heavy damages. Plus, he also has a huge amount of HP. And he also has an ace in his sleeve. If you sever one of his arm, on the next turn, Needles will change his weapon for a gun, inflicting by surprise even more damages. Dying against Needles will not always cause a direct Game Over. The main character will wake up chained in a bunker, without a way of escaping. Then, a mysterious spirit will appear, entering inside the main character’s body and causing… well, let’s just day “massive happiness.” After that, the game will continue, leaving everybody puzzled about what happened and the motifs behind Needles’ actions.
Lakeview Valley is a very peculiar game, sometimes described as a murderous Stardew Valley. This is in part true, since the game allows many secondary activities, including gardening, fishing, and decorating the house. However, Lakeview Valley is also a gory, vile, and disturbing horror game, where the protagonist can act as a serial killer. After every murder, hiding the bodies and erasing the clues is essential to don’t get caught by the sheriff the following day. So be ready to murder every witness, throw the bodies inside the lake, and use ammonia to clean the blood.
While Lakeview Valley is widely known for its adult and violent components, as the other games in Lakeview saga, few is known about its deep and complex lore. The town is full of creepy inhabitants, hidden secrets, multiple endings, and even a morality system. Seriously, to discover every element and complete all the achievements, the player will need multiple playthroughs… or time loops. If you want to find more about this town and its secret, you can find Lakeview Valley and similar games in the article Towns with a Dark Secret.
Playing the good Samaritan comes with a price, because murderers receive a reward in this insane world. After murdering the first victim, a mysterious Circus will open during night in the woods outside town. Mergo is the mysterious creature in charge of the Circus, a tall guy with a hat, hiding in the shadows and showing only a wide row of sharp teeth. For every homicide, the player can select new dark powers from hollow trees outside town. These come in a wide selection of powerful skills, from infinite stamina and oxygen to unlocking a realtime map of the town.
And this is not everything, because between the many secrets, the existence of a hidden hellish dimension is one of the most unexpected. Even more, because this dimension can only be accessed by sleeping in a random bed inside a deserted house. The house is always locked, and finding a special key is required to open it. After that, by sleeping on the bed, the main character will twist in a vortex, ending up in this grotesque and violent hell. The place is full of demons, which will not directly harm the player, and will offer some disturbing philosophical conversations about hell and torment. The main area includes many characters, but it is also quite small. Only a long bridge connects the main area with the Queen’s room, but, of course, it is protected by a guardian. Entering this bridge without being summoned by the Queen or in possession of a holy power will lead to a horrible death. A gigantic invincible demon will crawl toward you, with the only viable option of running away from this place.
Every of your victims will end up in this violent and brutal hell, tortured for the eternity by the demons residing here. By talking with the victims, you can see detailed portraits of the brutal torments they are enduring. Some of them have their hair ripped out, burned, or skinned alive. Seriously, this is not a place for weak stomachs. But there is an exception. The mischievous boy of the town, Billie, will not being tormented by demons. Instead, Billie will act as one of the torturers, and the demons will compliment his skills. Well, looks-like not all the kids are pure and innocent in this twisted town.
What will happen when you murder all the town? That is the time when you will get an audience with the Queen of Hell. Meeting the Queen is the ultimate step of the most evil ending. But what should be the reward for such evil act? Well, let’s just say that the Queen is so amazed by your actions that will allow you to “satisfy” her.
Murdering to obtain supernatural powers, causing a hecatomb to sleep with the Queen of Hell, and a hellish dimension of torments: what other horrible destiny is waiting for this poor town? A detail is still missing, because if the victims’ souls will go straight to hell, their body will roam the streets as zombies. The town is never a safe place at night, between mothmen, the upper league demons, or a moving scarecrow (you can read more about it HERE). But after each murders, the victim will become a zombie, and the streets during the night will have a new enemy roaming around. Afterall, there is a small price to pay for being evil.
Being chased by an enemy almost impossible to defeat, relying on hiding or running away as the only chance of surviving, is one of the most extreme feelings in survival-horror games. And if famous pursuers such as Nemesis or Mr. X from early Resident Evil games, or Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2, are the most iconic examples, other games such as Clock Tower made escaping an immortal stalker the core element of their gameplay (and you can read more here: https://surrealandcreepy.wordpress.com/2021/04/10/best-indie-games-similar-to-clock-tower/). However, pure horror games are not the only example where immortal stalkers are present. And sometimes, you can even experience this anxiety in very unexpected genres.
It is the case of turn-based JRPG, a genre usually associated with slow and static games, which instead surprisingly show several examples of immortal pursuers. As expected, several of these creatures come from Atlus games, the developer of the most known horror-themed JRPGs such as Persona and Shin Megami Tensei. On the other side, it is also true that some similar enemies can also be found in less horror-themed JRPGs such as Final Fantasy. Because I think everybody remembers the robot spider from the beginning of FF8. Moreover, this is especially true for more recent horror JRPGs, especially Idea Factory games, and even more fitting for dungeon-crawlers. Probably because of the mazes to explore, or the first-person view, dungeon-crawlers have a huge selection of immortal stalkers, chasing you till an unexpected dead end. And if instant death once trapped is not that different from any survival-horror games, being stuck in an almost impossible-to-win turn-based battle has a completely different taste. And if you find difficult to imagine that, try to think about the pressure of selecting the best move hoping to survive, while the creature annihilates at each turn a different character, or about attempting to escape the battle but failing each time. Moreover, random battles and turns create a denser atmosphere, because you don’t know how many different attacks the creature could do, or when it could appear. Another very interesting concept is that, while in pure horror games there is always a scheduled encounter to kill the immortal stalkers, in JRPGs this could be instead level-based. So maybe 50 levels later, when you are strong enough, you can come back to the stalker that was terrifying you early on to finally kill it.
So what will be on this list? I selected examples of immortal stalkers from different JRPGs, especially if horror-themed, and all with turn-based battles. If not, there would not be much different from pure horror games. The selected creatures should be also almost impossible to defeat, especially when met for the first time, and able to quickly annihilate the party. They should also be active stalkers, or appearing only when connected to rare or unwanted events or mechanics, in fact acting as a negative reward.
Mary Skelter– The Nightmares
Mary Skekter is a trilogy of dark dungeon-crawlers where everything is horror-themed. Not only the games are set inside a colossal living being but also blood is a central element in the gameplay (more info here: Mary Skelter Nightmares: When the dungeon is a colossal living creature with its own needs). But what truly shines as pure horror gameplay are the Nightmares, the immortal stalkers at the core of the experience. Every dungeon has its Nightmare patrolling around, disturbing creatures that are, at the beginning, impossible to kill. They will randomly appear when the player explores the dungeon, accompanied by creepy sounds and a white aura. If they spot the party, the only chance of surviving is to run away as far as possible till the chase is over. The worst thing? The map will be disabled during the chase, so you can easily finish trapped in a dead end. In battle, each Nightmare has an external shell that can be destroyed to briefly stun them, facilitating the escape. However, if random battles happen during the chase, the nightmare will join the fight, creating a very challenging situation. A Nightmare can only be truly defeated after losing the immortality, which will happen by destroying a core at the end of its dungeon. Moreover, the Nightmares are also seriously creepy and disturbing in appearance, linked to the theme of each dungeon and the background of the main heroine there, thus incorporating twisted fairytale elements in their grotesque design. If you are curious about more details, I also wrote a long analysis about the Nightmares, which you can check here: The Nightmares of Mary Skelter: fairytale characters reborn as twisted immortal stalkers.
Downtown NightmareStation Grounds Nightmare
Undernauts Labyrinth of Yomi – Luci
Undernauts is another dungeon-crawler JRPG, set in 1979 Tokyo where a mysterious structure appeared in the middle of the city. Full of dangers but also resources, soon mining companies start to explore this huge dungeon to unveil its secrets. Developed by Experience Inc, Undernauts is somehow connected to their main series Stranger of the Sword City. However, Undernauts is much more horror, violent, and disturbing than their other RPGs. Let’s just say that the first scene inside the game sees you as the only survivor of your mining expedition, which was was devoured by a kid with a giant leech-like arm. And you survived, only because the child was too full to eat you. While wandering around the dungeons, you will soon meet again that “sweet” cannibal child that spared you. Her name is Luci, an immortal child with a giant leech-like arm, which follows the orders of a mysterious man from a radio around her neck. While exploring the dungeons, you could randomly hear a radio massage of the mysterious man sending the girl to devour the party. After the message, whichever random or stationary battle in the dungeon, will be instead against Luci. So the only way to surely avoid this fight is to quickly run back to the main camp before a battle starts… and this is pretty stressful while exploring. During the fight, the little girls seems so weak and yet so disturbing. But she has the bad habit of attacking the rear row, usually quickly killing your magician or healer, thus making your life pretty miserable even if you succeed in repelling her. Yes, I didn’t use the word “killing” because Luci is immortal and, after behind defeated, she will just stand up and run away, after saying some very sad lines about failure and loneliness. But she will surely come back another time, trying to devour you. Moreover, Luci will also appear in some mandatory boss battles, together with other minions and the ability of massively healing, making such fights even more difficult. Without doubts, Luci is one of the most scary and disturbing stalkers on this list.
Persona – The Reapers
Persona started as a spin-off of Shin Megami Tensei, and now is more famous than the original series. Mixing real life and dark supernatural events, since Persona 3, the saga allows the exploration of huge dungeons while investing in your daily life. And also starting with Persona 3, the Reaper appeared to torment the main party. Especially in Persona 3, the Reaper is a pure horror stalker, integrated since the beginning of the game into the mechanics. If you explore for too long in a dungeon, depending on its size, the Reaper could appear on the floor to hunt you down. Since characters with levels below 70 have practically zero chances of defeating it, finding the exit as fast as possible is the only way to avoid death. Meeting the Reaper means starting an impossible battle, where the party will be annihilated in a couple of turns. The good side is that an end-game party can instead defeat the Reaper, unlocking very rare rewards. The Reaper is also present in Persona 4, but this time it acts only as a secret super boss, which can be faced only during a second playthrough after opening a mysterious chest. In Persona 5 the Reaper is back to stalk the party inside the dungeons, very similarly to Persona 3. When the Reaper appears, accompanied by the sound of rattling chains, the other party members will try to warn you about its danger, and how running away is the only option. Again, the battle is almost impossible to win due to the Reaper’s high defence and instant killing spells.
Etrian Odyssey – FOEs
A JRPG saga that truly integrated challenging battles against almost impossible foes is the dungeon-crawler Etrian Odyssey, published by Atlus. In almost every game of the saga, strong enemies called by the acronym FOE wander around the dungeons. They are always challenging enemies, usually very difficult to beat during the first visit, so it is always a recommended strategy to avoid these fights. However, Etrian Odyssey also integrated very interesting and variegated behaviours for the FOEs. In general, red FOEs work as relentless stalkers, charging at the player if in their sight. For example, the Freed Savage (Etrian Odyssey III) is a grotesque being caged behind gates but, once freed, the creature will quickly run toward the player to attack it. Other similar examples involved FOEs acting in pairs. For example, the Cruel Slayer (Etrian Odyssey IV) is a relentless robot hound almost impossible to outrun, but it will only start to track the players if they are spotted before by a wandering sentinel called the Cold Watchman. However, FOEs also exhibit more complex, hunting, and disturbing behaviours, creating challenging predators to avoid. A deadly example is the Vampire Tree (Etrian Odyssey III), an invisible FOE with a very horror-predatory behaviour. The tough monster will get visible only if close to you while you are in battle, slowly advancing at each turn of the fight. If you are too slow in the random fight, the FOE will join the battle. And having a tough boss with high defence, and a lethal poison that will both damage the characters and cure the monster, is not an easy challenge. Talking about erratic patterns, the disturbing Taurus Demon (Etrian Odyssey V) doesn’t directly charge the player, but once they line up with the monster, the FOE will start to mirror their movements, even if they are very far away. And since the creature is a deadly physical attacker, avoiding it is a necessity. Another deadly and peculiar FOE from Etrian Odyssey V is the Mounting Horror. The monster doesn’t move from its position, but will instead generate clones as strong as it to hunt the player, and the only way to survive is to find and kill the real monster. But the top spot for the scariest and most peculiar FOE from Etrian Odyssey goes to the Death Wall (Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold). Imagine being trapped in a twisted labyrinth typical of dungeon-crawler games, trying to find your way out. At some point, maybe you start to see that a wall was never there. What is happening? This is simply Death Wall, a FOE that mimics a normal dungeon wall… which will move only if you are not watching it. And once you are trapped in a dead-end hallway, you are forced to face it. And this is a battle where you cannot escape, and the Death Wall will literally try to crush all the party with strong physical AOE attacks.
Death WallMounting Horror
The Lost Child–Nyarlathotep
Another dungeon-crawler to add to the many on the list, Lost Child is a spin-off of El Shaddai, an action game involving Catholic mythology and angelic wars. Sharing many similarities with Shin Megami Tensei, in The Lost Child, the main character can trap demons and fallen angels to fight in the party. And the design of the enemies is very original and interesting, as you can see here for some demons: The most unusual Demons from the Japanese dungeon-crawler The Lost Child. However, angels and demons are not the only enemies, since the main bosses are Lovecraftian creatures, including Cthulhu. And Nyarlathotep from the bonus dungeon R’lyeh Road is an immortal stalker that deserves to be in this article. R’lyeh Road is a gigantic bonus dungeon of 100 floors, which can be faced at any point during the game. Each floor has only one exit, and a switch to open it. And the big twist is the presence of Nyarlathotep, which will manifest on every floor once the door is open. Nyarlathotep does not physically face the party but, as a sort of alien parasite, will take control of normal enemies, appearing behind them like a sort of puppeteer, enhancing them to a boss-level threat. The other unique feature is that Nyarlathotep will physically appear on the map, charging toward the player, one step at a time. By planning your moves and using big rooms to your advantage, it is fact possible to avoid Nyarlathotep and escape to the next floor. So how it is possible to truly defeat Nyarlathotep? You can discover the answer only on the 100th floor of R’lyeh Road, making Nyarlathotep one of the most relentless stalkers on the list.
Mother 3 – Ultimate Chimera
Earthbound saga is a cult game not only in Japan, but also worldwide, one of the weirdest RPG ever developed that influenced recent RPGs such as Undertale or Omori. Between funny and disturbing moments, the party will face different creatures, each requiring very peculiar strategies to be defeated. And in Mother 3, there is also an immortal stalker: the Ultimate Chimera. This creature, created inside a lab, looks like a fluffy pink monster with a pair of small wings. But behind this innocent-looking monster lies a deadly enemy. Once it sets free, the monster will roam the lab attacking NPCs and chasing the player. The terrible surprise is that, instead of starting a normal battle, meeting the Chimera means an instant Game Over. There is no hope in fighting the creature, so running away is the only alternative. Luckily, the ultimate Chimera can be deactivated by a button on its back… but only temporary since the party will meet the monster again during the game.
Death end re;Quest 2 – Dark Shadow
The sequel of one of the most horror and disturbing JRPG from recent years is even more insane and terrifying. Hopping between a cursed virtual reality and a town hiding a cult, Death end re;Quest 2 shows a set of really grotesque enemies (that you can check here: The most creepy and disturbing enemies and bosses of Death end re;Quest 2). But random enemies are not the only threat, since another entity could appear anywhere to hunt the party: the Dark Shadow. This cryptic creature appears together with some distortions in any point inside a dungeon. The towering shadow creature advances slowly toward the player, but a mere wrong turn inside a dead-end hallway… and it is Game Over. Because as with the Ultimate Chimera in Mother 3, simply touching the Dark Shadow means a sudden death. Moreover, sometimes the game will position the Dark Shadow in impossible points, where gimmicks like finding hidden suspended paths are the the only way to avoid the creature.
Shadow Hearts – Fox Face
Shadow Hearts is the first (or the second, if we consider Koudelka) entry of a dark saga of JRPGs released for PS2. Mixing European history with demons and eldritch abomination, the game knew how to assemble RPG mechanics with horror elements. And an immortal stalker could not miss this setting. Shadow Hearts involved a very peculiar mechanic around the Malice, a dark and malevolent energy released from death. The more the main character kills enemies in battle, the more Malice is accumulated. Till the breaking point, where the UI becomes red and the Graveyard opens its door. At this point, the Fox Face can appear instead of any random encountered. At first, the creature is not very intimidating, merely a human with a fox mask. However, this adversary represents the protagonist’s fears, and can be challenged only in a 1-on-1 combat, where death is the most possible outcome since the enemy has many dirty moves. The player can lower Malice and avoid Fox Face by going to the Graveyard, to then speak to mysterious floating masks demons and participate in their fighting arena. This is a perfect example of a terrifying stalker very well integrated into the game, so deadly and scary because the main character must face it alone.
Fear & Hunger – Crow Mauler and Greater Blight
Fear & Hunger is probably the darkest RPG ever made, set in a world so grim and sick that will make you often chill. Featuring a combat based on mutilations, where several negative effects are permanent, including death, and lacking any experience coming from combat, avoiding enemies is the standard in this game (and for more you can check the different articles I wrote here: https://darkrpgs.home.blog/category/videogames/fear-hunger/). But some enemies are even more specifically design to act as terrifying Stalkers. The most fitting example is the Greater Blight, a gigantic creature roaming the empty wasteland of the Void, a secret end-game area. While wandering around, sometime a message saying that something is following you will appear. Ignore the message, and soon enough more intimidating ones will appear. If you find a hole in the ground on time, you can hide there till the creature loses your scent. Otherwise, be ready for a tough battle. The Greater Blight looks like a gigantic T-rex missing the eyes, a deadly foe that can slaughter the entire party in a couple of turns. However, a strong and lucky party can still defeat the creature, which will only escape to prepare for another chase. And the player will gain nothing from this deadly battles, except probably for dead characters and mortal wounds. Another infamous enemy is the Crow Mauler, probably the most hated boss in the entire game. In the beginning, Fear & Hunger has only one save point, an old and forgotten bed inside a jail. However, saving in the game is also dangerous, since you have a 50% chances of facing the Crow Mauler. And an underprepared party will also surely die there, because the tough creature has even one-shot attacks. But if you want to freely save the game, soon or later you must defeat this creature. And if this was not enough, the end-game dungeon has trapdoors scattered around. If you fall inside them, you will finish in a basement… chased by a two-headed Crow Mauler, an enemy almost impossible to defeat. Anyway, if you are curious to know more about the Crow Mauler, I wrote an analysis here: When it is impossible to Save: surviving all the mutilations of the Crow Mauler in Fear & Hunger [Boss Battle].
Crow MaulerGreater Blight
Shin Megami Tensei – Jailer and Dante
Shin Megami Tensei saga doesn’t need introduction, since it is probably the most famous and longevous dark JRPG around. Moreover, the monsters based on mythologies around the world, created by Kazuma Kaneko, are still now an example in monster designing. And surprisingly, some of them also worked as immortal stalkers. An example is the Jailer from Digital Devil Saga (also known as the Buddhist demon Kumbhanda), a deviant creature in charge of a prison. The jail is also a factory where humans are converted into canned food, the Jailer’s favourite. And yes, if you didn’t know, cannibalism is a central theme in Digital Devil Saga (and you can read more about it here: Digital Devil saga: A cannibal JRPG — Surreal and Creepy). During the first battle against the Jailer, you will realise of a drastic anomaly: the boss has an attack able to paralyse everybody with a 100% success rate, quickly ending the battle. Later on, the prison becomes its hunting ground, where the main character should physically escape from the Jailer and its traps, while finding a way to trick it into losing its powers. If the Jailer is a pure horror stalker, another enemy is an even more emblematic hunter in Shin Megami Tensei. Just this time, it is an enemy that you would never expect. “Featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry Series” became quite a meme for SMT 3 Nocturne, and the legendary demon hunter from Capcom’s games truly appears in one of the bonus dungeons. Dante will literally stalk the player while exploring a complex maze, shooting them if they are far but still in his range, or starting a deadly battle when reaching them. In the last case, Dante will immediately kill the weaker demon in the party with his sword. And if the main character is the lowest-level one… well, time for an instant Game Over.
Persona Q – FOEs
Persona Q is a spin of the main series released for 3DS, with a gameplay more similar to Etrian Odyssey than the regular Persona. The similarities are so many that, even in this case, while exploring the dungeons, you can meet deadly FOEs. As well as for Etrian Odyssey, FOEs have different behaviours, and, in general, it is often recommended to avoid them. Moreover, due to the darkest nature of Persona setting, the FOEs are even more disturbing. For example, the Beast of Lust is a sort of small Cherub seated on top of a bondage horse, creating a very disturbing enemy that follows the player if they are directly watching the creature. So no eye contact, no pain. In the next dungeon, the Evil Spirit Club, the party must face creepy clusters of dolls, the Lovely Dolls, which share some similarity with Junji Ito’s Tomie. They are stationary, but tends to surprisingly teleport toward the player causing a jump-scare. Luckily, the light can repel those dolls granting safe passages. And if the Loving Dolls are not enough, the ancient version, the Old Doll, will actively chase the party and can even block some doors to create smaller hunting grounds. Other FOEs, such as the Festival Dudes, act as super tough side battles. They are a group of 4 monstrous and coloured muscled guys bringing around a shrine, which move in a fixed pattern around the dungeon. However, even if they are extremely strong, they can be defeated by selecting specific characters for a very unusual party. To conclude, the Reaper from previous Persona games is also there to hunt and terrify the party in the last dungeons.
Scarlet Nexus has quite simple mechanics for a JRPG, but what it lacks in gameplay is amply balanced in terms of lore and enemy design. Because the antagonists of Scarlet Nexus, called The Others, could easily join the roster of creatures of a never-released Silent Hill game.
Every creature is a chaotic mix of random items, such as vases, and human parts, especially female legs. The elements are combined together in the most grotesque and surreal way, creating figure that could be part of a Dalí or De Chirico’s painting. In fact, the creatures are created by the modern Japanese artist Masakazu Yamashiro to convey the most alien-looking aesthetic.
While many Others show truly interesting concepts, the most disturbing and brilliant design is always Dominus Circus. One of the last bosses of the main story, the creature will suddenly appear in a giant labyrinth inside the mind of the main antagonist. The monster never appeared before, and only a brief cutscene before the battle provides a barebone background of its past. The only provided information is that Dominus Circus is a immortal Other that was never defeated, a boogeymen for all the soldiers in Scarlet Nexus’ world. And soon after this cutscene, the player should be ready to face the terrifying creature.
The introduction of Dominus Circus is a disturbing surprise. In the beginning, the boss appears only as a sort of classic ghost, a humanoid figure covered under a white shroud. Then, after starting to rotate, the creature will reveal multiple human legs on a monocycle. But only after reversing upside-down, the real monster is revealed: a complex humanoid architecture kept together by thin horse legs. According to Masakazu, Dominus Circus is the climax of the Others’ anatomy, a creature so alien and bizarre to represent the ultimate Other. And from this apex symbolism comes the name “Dominus,” a being almost looking like a disturbing pagan god. The “Circus” part of the name is even more evident, since many details of the design are inspired by the circus, from the umbrella remembering a tent, to the monocycle of the upside-down creatures and the elephant head.
To have a glimpse of the complex and disturbing design of Dominus Circus, you can have a look at the creepy intro in the video below.
The battle against Dominus Circus is one of the hardest of the entire game, especially because it will challenge your memory in 4 long stages. In fact, each phase needs a different approach, and the specific use of supporting characters. This is because, in Scarlet Nexus, connecting with secondary characters unlocks special abilities, including hyper velocity to slow time, telekinesis, or teleportation. The correct use of different powers is necessary to overcome the main obstacle of each stage of this long and complex battle.
During the first stage, Dominus Circus wields a big umbrella as main weapon. With this bizarre spear, the creature looks even more whacky. However, regardless of the appearance, this is probably the most challenging form. In fact, the umbrella will not only completely shield the boss from frontal damages, but will also erupt a water jet that inflicts heavy damages while also knocking the characters down. Moreover, the rotating lower body can also become a deadly drill that the boss uses to charge at the characters to inflict huge damages. And if this was not enough, Dominus Circus can also summon a gigantic water storm, so gorgeous to see as deadly to experience. Using quick skills to jump behind its back, bypassing the umbrella shield, is crucial to kill the first phase.
After each form is defeated, for a brief instant, the small ghost-like figure on the monocycle will appear, completely harmless. Then, it will fall on the ground, disappearing below, just in time for a new dangerous form to remerge.
For the second stage, Dominus Circus has no weapon, but instead it proudly wears a disturbing elephant head. As you can expect, this is the deadly weapon of the second stage. From the trunk, the boss can shoot different kinds of projectiles, including oil. Moreover, Dominus Circus can also summon a thick mist, which completely hides the creature. Using the clairvoyant skill is essential to counter this move and see through the mist. The second stage is very disturbing and intimidating, but luckily less challenging than the first one.
For the third stage, Dominus Circus will be again headless. However, this time, instead of an umbrella, the boss wields a disturbing sword, which looks like made of a combination between a seashell and multiple human arms twisted together. If the other forms are creepy, just looking at how this fleshy sword bounces in its hand is pure nightmare inducing. During this stage, Dominus Circus shows, as expected, dangerous melee combos, which can easily and quickly kill a character. More unexpectedly, the sword can also throw wind-waves, also working very well as a distance weapon. With a good timing while dodging and a balanced use of powers, this stage is not so difficult to overcome.
Now that the 3 main forms are defeated, it only misses the last stage, in which Dominus Circus will combine all the previous weapons and attacks. Yes, you read right, every move and ability will show off in the final stage. So the elephant head to shoot projectiles and create mist, the tricky umbrella to shield from frontal attacks, and the deadly sword, everything packed together in a complex battle that will test your memory and reaction times. Once the combined form is defeated, after a stylish execution, Dominus Circus will be finally and truly dead.
Scarlet Nexus shows since the beginning a set of very creepy and disturbing creatures, but is only with the long and complex battle against Dominus Circus that it clearly shows its climax.
The first Mary Skelter was a pleasant surprise, a really dark dungeon-crawler JRPGs, where fairytale-inspired characters are imprisoned in a living environment, forced to fight by using blood. And if this was not horror enough, the gameplay is also influenced by this gigantic living ecosystem (as you can read in a previous article here: Mary Skelter Nightmares: When the dungeon is a colossal living creature with its own needs), while immortal monsters stalk the group like a proper survival horror (and here an analysis about these Nightmares: The Nightmares of Mary Skelter: fairytale characters reborn as twisted immortal stalkers). However, the sequel was released in the west only on Nintendo Switch. Luckily, it recently became available also on STEAM, so more people can try it.
Mary Skelter 2 is really difficult to describe without spoilers. Because for almost the entire game, the player who previously played the first game has no idea of what is happening. In fact, Mary Skelter 2 is altogether a prequel, a sequel, and a remake. And why some things are the same, some will drastically change. This is especially true for Jack, the only male protagonist.
In the first title, Jack was the classical “good boy who cares for a complicated girl” inside a harem of female characters. However, his function was unique and essential, since by managing the use of his blood, the player could avoid the girls to fall into a deadly frenzy. It was an interesting balance: shoot too much of Jack’s blood and he will go KO, but by being too strict you risk that your party will self-annihilate in a bloody frenzy.
Even in Mary Skelter 2, Jack is essentially the same… but very briefly. In fact, Jack will suddenly transform into a Nightmare, a gigantic, obtuse, and grotesque creature barely able to talk. This insane twist will not only affect the story, but will also reflect on the gameplay. Nightmare Jack can only communicate with Otsuu, the new protagonist princess, and will share two turns with her.
The monstrous new protagonist act quite differently from his previous self. But he can still shoot blood to momentarily reduce the frenzy of the party. However, this time instead of affecting his body, the action will have a toll on his mental health. This time, Nightmare Jack has a bar representing his mental health, which will deteriorate the more actions he will take. Of course, there are ways to regain sanity, for example by walking around the dungeons without using his powers. Moreover, Jack can also relax on his own by spending an action to take a Deep Breath, reducing in this way his level of stress. But what will happen when Jack’s mental health completely deteriorates? He will truly become a rage-full Nightmare, attacking indiscriminately both enemies and allies. And yes, he is far more dangerous than any other party member in frenzy.
Luckily, Otsuu has also ways of calming Ripper Jack (a familiar name for his nightmarish version), and can in fact talk to him by using “Counseling,” an action to calm him down. The other girls can also try to Embrace him, hoping to calm him as well. But often, only a single turn of Ripper Jack could wipe out your party. Moreover, if Jack loses control three times in the same battle, there is no way to turn back. It is Game Over.
While hopping between sanity and deadly frenzy, Jack has also other interesting actions. While outside battles, he can use a power that in the first game was of Alice, allowing the player to create a Save Point everywhere, at cost of Jack’s sanity. While in battle, Jack can use a very special power: Nightmare Zone. This attack can change the course of a battle by completely inhabiting the enemy for one turn. But of course, such power will have a drastic effect on Jack’s sanity.
The sudden change of the good-boy Jack into his nightmarish counterpart strongly marks what Mary Skelter 2 is trying to achieve: a huge change inside the comfort of your pre-built knowledge. Everything is similar to the previous game, but there are also huge differences in the plot. What is happening in Mary Skelter 2? This question will need a lot of time to receive an answer. Nightmare Jack is a really peculiar protagonist for a JRPG, not only for his grotesque appearance but especially for his intrinsic danger. Managing the mental health of this character to help the party survive, while avoiding the appearance of Ripper Jack, is an interesting and unique horror mechanic. This is also reflected in the exploration, because if Jack’s sanity is already low, creating a Save Point could lead to your annihilation in the next fight.
Like the previous entry, Mary Skelter 2 offers a unique combination of dungeon crawling and horror, plus some interesting new mechanics, and a twisted plot that is quite difficult to figure out till the very end.
Elden Ring is surely a surprise, the quintessential of Souls-like games set in a gigantic open world. If previous Fromsoftware’s games were full of creepy enemies and cryptic lore to analyse, the huge world of Elden Ring has an incredible amount of secrets to discover. Between decadent families of demigods, different continents, mysterious characters, mystique […]
Yakuza Like a Dragon (YLD) is a brilliant new entry in the Yakuza franchise that completely changed the gameplay from brawler to classic JRPG. And the result is a brilliant masterpiece, combining a dark and grim crime story, with out-of-mind humor and very likable characters. Moreover, on the gameplay side, YLD creates a complex and complete system, including many skills and jobs to interchange, dynamic turn-based battles, and even insane summons!
While the majority of enemies and bosses are thugs, weirdos, or crime lords, in some cases the game will go out of the ordinary with more complicated boss battles. For example, on a couple of occasions, the party will face industrial machinery, such as a wrecking ball, and even a tiger. But the game will always give its best in the nonsensical secondary quests that, sometimes, will also end up in insane boss battles. And this is exactly what happens with the battle against Sojimaru, a gigantic Roomba that went berserk and is trying to vacuum clean everything.
The insane quest that will bring to this crazy fight is called “Preparing to Suck.” In the beginning, you only need to provide funding for an eccentric scientist that created Soji, the best vacuum cleaning robot in Yokohama. After collecting the money, the scientist will show its progress: Sojimaru, a gigantic version of Soji aimed at cleaning the streets of Yokohama, while also providing coffee and massages to the people passing by. Then, of course, something will go wrong when the scientist will activate the hyper mode, sending Sojimaru insane. Before starting the actual battle against the gigantic robot, there will be space for nonsense comedy, where the robot will suck inside its body not only the scientist but also a kitten and an elderly woman! Just to don’t put pressure on your success.
The battle is a concentrate of pure madness in every detail, starting with the music. While the normal battles have a very standard soundtrack, the battle with Sojimaru plays boring and repetitive music, which sounds like the one that you can find in an elevator. But the explanation provided by the scientist is very straightforward: this is the music that Sojimaru plays when offering a massage, which now got stuck in a loop.
The proper battle against Sojimaru has multiple phases. In the beginning, the main body is impossible to damage, and the party should focus on the two more fragile extendable arms. The robotic arms will attack independently, each of them using a special move related to their function. For example, one arm will use a powerful fire-based attack, which consists in throwing a jet of incredibly hot coffee, like a sort of altered flamethrower. The other arm has installed the massage function, which now got altered in a deadly electric attack, like a sort of high-voltage taser. The friendly and serviceable robot transformed all its “to serve and pleasure humans” functions into deadly elemental weapons.
The main body of the gigantic cleaning robot is also able to independently attack, mainly by using a frontal extendable platform, which is also electricity-based, but definitively less dangerous than the arms. However, another attack is the highest danger while facing Sojimaru. The robot will create a sort of beam vortex, spinning and vacuuming the party members. The attack is visually very appealing, and also dangerous. In fact, this spinning attack can hit a character multiple times, and can even affect more than one character at a time. The deadly “Giant Slalom” can truly turn against the player the sort of the battle.
The long battle will move to the next phase after the arms are destroyed. The main hatch on the body will open, revealing a weak point in the military-grade defense of Sojimaru. By attacking this point, the player can finally damage the main body of Sojimaru. Moreover, the panel is also weak against electricity, which can be exploited to speed up the long battle. The enemy has a lot of health, and it is quite resistant to physical damage, so the battle will be a very long one. Luckily, without the arms, Sojimaru is less dangerous than before. It can still use the powerful rotating attack, but at least it will not attack multiple times in one turn.
However, the battle is still not won. After more than half of its health is depleted, Sojimaru will enter into another hyper mode, boosting its stats. This event is also accompanied by a comic scene, where the scientist will reveal that only a secret password can activate this hidden power mode… but since you beat Sojimaru too much, the mode got self-activated for the damages.
After finishing the quest, Sojimaru will be repaired and a “management” mode will be implemented to its key component. This means that the robot can now be recruited as an employee in the business management minigame of YLD. Yes, this is a strange game.
But the flights against giant vacuum cleaning robots are not over in YLD. In fact, there is a secret version of Sojimaru, called Seiso Shogun, hidden in a secondary dungeon in the sewers of Yokohama. According to the in-game Bestiary (called Sujidex, just to mock Pokemon), this Sojimaru version was stolen and modified by a hacker, creating practically a war machine. The fight is identical to the base Sojimaru, just much more difficult, especially now that the arms can inflict an insane amount of elemental damages.
Action RPGs are definitively a prolific genre these days, challenging games often inspired by Fromsoftware’s works for their mechanics. Due to their challenging gameplay, death is always ready behind a corner, and players will learn to advance cautiously. For this reason, “Souls-like” mechanics combine very well with horror or dark atmospheres. However, while many titles use dark fantasy worlds and characters to enhance the stressful environment, very few games try to build a completely different world. Now thanks to Hellpoint, action RPGs have a representative for horror sci-fi settings.
Hellpoint is an action-RPG set on a mysterious orbital station where something catastrophic happened. Between cosmic horrors, claustrophobic corridors, madness, lack of oxygen, and a gigantic black hole constantly imposing its presence outside the station, Hellpoint’s atmosphere couldn’t be more horror. The oppressive feeling while walking around the station exactly triggers all the right notes of a proper horror sci-fi product. Also in terms of gameplay, Hellpoint is a great addition to the genre, including nice variations such as firearms, insane weapons including the hand of an eldritch god, cosmic magic, and alternative dimensions where the main bosses offer dialogues instead of a brutal fight (you can read more here if interested about: Why fighting when you can ally with Cosmic Evil Gods in Hellpoint? [Evil Quests]). And the surprises are not over, because one year from the official release, Cradle Games studio, the Canadian team behind Hellpoint’s development, announced a new DLC called Blue Sun.
While waiting to step back into the claustrophobic tunnels of Idis Novo station, I had the possibility of interviewing Cradle Games to know more about Hellpoint and its development. Cradle Games’ designer, Mathieu Boudreau, was kind enough to answer my questions. Also known as “Gropwel,” Mathieu is a veteran in game development and worked before with Activision and Ubisoft before co-starting Cradle Games.
If you want to know more about the development of Hellpoint, how its atmosphere and system were born, and the future of the series, you should read the following interview with Mathieu and Cradle Games.
Q1: Thank you for the possibility of interacting with you. Hellpoint is an interesting new take on souls-like games, how did the project start, and how Cradle Games was born?
A1: Of course! The project took off in the Fall of 2015 when we founded Cradle Games with a couple of fellow game devs with which I’ve been working for over a decade at Ubisoft and Activision. It all started in my house basement where I concocted this strange dark sci fi universe and we were just obsessed with the new trend of hardcore games. I took all the ideas I’ve been carrying on from childhood from Doom 1993 and Super Metroid and it was on.
Q2: The oppressive sci-fi atmosphere is clearly one of the strong points of Hellpoint. Which movies or games did you use as a reference to create this horror environment?
A2: The main inspiration for the game world came from my love of old Swedish death metal like In Flames and Meshuggah who often incorporated elements of cosmic horror put on top of face melting riffs. Game wise it was 1993’s Doom and Super Metroid that I wanted to explore again, with that unrestrained old-school level design jam packed with secrets and the feeling of no hand holding, the strong feeling of isolation deep within an alien world.
When you are alone in a space station, finding a cult of demonic creature is never a good sign.
Q3: Souls-like games are definitely one of the most famous genres now, with amazing games both from big and small studios. While developing Hellpoint, which were your “to do” and “to don’t” things to create your personal view of Souls-like games?
A3: While we adore the Dark Souls series, it’s really Bloodborne that left the deepest trauma on our gamer mantra. To me the main character is really the game world, and it’s got its own story, logic and attitude so very early on we forgot about the soul series to build and expand our own thing. It’s a really fun process! But from the beginning we made it a point of honor to invent more new ideas and mechanics than we borrowed from existing game, so yes Hellpoint has a stamina bar and “bonfire” kind of checkpoints, but beyond that it is its own thing with the jump mechanic, the real time station orbit, the way we handle multiplayer, etc.
Q4: From the huge hand of a dead god to a scythe made from the bones of an interstellar whale: Hellpoint’s weapons are a true blast of innovative and well-integrated designs. Could you name some of the favourite weapons of your team?
A4: Oh, thank you so much! We’ve put a lot of love in the weapon design and really pushed it as far as was humanely possible for us. My personal favorite is Nemundis Occulus, I find it really bad ass to defeat a boss and then fight using his eyeball. I think the team is really into the new weapons that we’ve produced for the Blue Sun DLC. They are very YOLO.
Some of the amazing combinations of weapons/armors inside Hellpoint.
Q5: Hellpoint is rich in weapons and monsters, but I am curious, were there some creatures or weapons that for some reason were cut out from the final release?
A5: Probably we should have cut more, hahaha! That was a lot of content to produce for our small 11 people team. But yes, there was some cut content but I’m glad to say we’re putting it all back in with the Blue Sun DLC.
Q6: A very unexpected feature of Hellpoint is that the Cosmic Gods are not only enemies to be defeated but, with the right choices, they can become allies and even provide quests. Why did you decide to implement this feature in the game?
A6: Well I think it’s an interesting aspect of the “Lovecraftian” cosmic horror genre that these giant entities are too massive to really give a damn whether we live or die. So it’s an achievement for the player to be able to interact with them in either ways. It also fitted with the concept of the “Underworld” which is an inversion of everything you find in the real world.
Sometimes you can talk with Cosmic Evil Gods, and sometimes you cannot.
Q7: Hellpoint is full of novel and interesting mechanics. One of the most interesting is how the orientation of the ship around a black hole basically defines “hours,” and specific events or places can only be accessed at a specific time. How did this concept evolve during the development of the game?
A7: Something that we always like to do when we make game is try to make it feel like the game world is ever evolving whether you’re in it or not. It’s not like the show Truman where the world revolves around you, rather the opposite. It makes the world feel more concrete, alive and unpredictable. But for Hellpoint, the black hole orbit system was a huge challenge! We had to plan many different game states and mods for environments that were already immense, we had to design a dynamic skybox that spins and twists realistically, we had to make correct maths for the spin of the Irid Novo station so that the black hole always looks glorious in the sky, we had to create many different sets of stat balancing and loot drop tables for every bosses and enemies… a bit insane but it paid off by making the game feel so unique and alive.
View of the black hole in the outer space from inside the space station.
Q8: Surely Hellpoint can be defined as a challenging game, especially some sections (personally still having nightmares about the zero-gravity sections outside the ship). How did you balance the difficulty? Were there some areas that were majorly reviseddue to being too difficult?
A8: To be honest for us it was rather the opposite that happened. Prior to Dark Souls the whole industry was in a “casual gaming” and “accessibility first” trend so we were very thankful to From Software for making hardcore games popular again. We cranked up the difficulty to make a very skill-based game but we also wanted players to be able to personalize their experience, allowing them to skip to late game environments if they find the right secrets, or letting them craft items that would allow them to lower the stats of the enemies. The character stats and upgrades are basically not capped at all. But the enemies are still savage and can be buffed if the black hole is in the sky. The game can be played in coop uninterrupted from beginning to the end, etc.
Q9: Recently, for the first anniversary, the DLC Blue Sun was announced for Hellpoint. Could you tell us something more of what deadly and lurking things a player should expect in the new DLC?
A9: I think we really outdid ourselves with this DLC! I can’t really say much but I really hope players will see how much we evolved as a team since last year. One thing I wanted to do is making sure the added content doesn’t feel tacked on and expendable, I wanted to make content that makes the whole game more exciting and motivates another playthrough, and make sure that we make it interconnected with the base game so it doesn’t feel tacked on.
Q10: Now that the DLC is coming out, I imagine this will be your main focus for some time, but I am curious, do you already have plans for a future game or a sequel of Hellpoint? Could you tell us something just to satisfy our curiosity?
A10: We’re on fire. We got tons of projects and ideas, we’re expanding, we can finally not worry about money so much and focus on crafting our art and working with our fan base. We got new IP’s in the work as well that is sure to make folks fall off their chair. I don’t think anybody can possibly expect what’s next for us. We want to concretize as many ideas as possible while we’re not too old. It’ll take time but it’ll be worth it.
Final Remarks:
I would like to thank Cradle Games for the nice opportunity, especially Mathieu for the very interesting answers. I look forward to diving again into the oppressive universe of Hellpoint with the new DLC Blue Sun, mentally preparing to slash new grotesque monsters using the eyeball of a cosmic god. While waiting for the new DLC, if you still didn’t try Hellpoint, it is available on STEAM and all the major consoles.
Dark RPGs 