[This review is spoiler-free, most stuff I talk about here you can encounter in the first hours of playtime]
I. have. done it. After 55 hours, I have just beaten Fear & Hunger 2: Termina. I have beaten Ending A. I have been hyperfixated on this game for over a week now, my motivation for getting out of bed being playing this game as early as I could.
Compared to Termina, Fear & Hunger is an adventure, an adventure through some dungeons that end up on some ancient city where you kill a bunch of bosses and the game ends.
Fear & Hunger 2 on the other hand, is a JOURNEY, a journey through old town, through Prehevil's massive city and the various locations you have to go through to collect the three effigies. And I guess let's just start talking about that:

The tone shift is interesting, going to a 1942 post-industrial revolution world, with an open map instead of an enclosed one. This makes the game not feel constantly claustrophobic, but that doesn't detract from the experience, as it very still is a survival horror/simply horror game. The aesthetics and vibes, taking huge inspiration from Silent Hill, are very well laid out. Many times you will have this uneasiness exploring the map, since it looks somewhat normal, but in the back of your head you know something is very wrong with the whole place, and you never know what could attack you next.
My absolute favourite part of the world is the Rher dimension, where I see the most Silent Hill inspiration, as a fan of that game, the Rher dimensions are TERRIFYING, specially the one at the orphanage, It creates this sense of urgency, this feeling of "wow I really really don't want to be here.", it repulses you, and it is (exaggerating, of course) somewhat of a mental restraint/challenge going through these areas. Specially since you don't know If the next thing could easily kill you or not.. on that note:

While the previous section doesn't necessarily mean an improvement over the original, since It's up to you which world you prefer (I can't decide myself just yet), I really do believe difficulty in this game feels more balanced. Trust me, I love the chaos of Fear & Hunger, "oh this enemy just chopped off your arm, tough luck buddy!" or "Oh you just stepped in that nail by accident? Hope you read item descriptions to know that green herbs heal your run-ending infection!", but Fear & Hunger 2 seems much more fair, I was actually surprised to find out the developer included an Easy(er) difficulty before the Fear & Hunger one; I never played it, but after watching some gameplay It really does feel pretty easy compared to the normal difficulty, but It's a good option to have in case someone that has never played Funger (Fear & Hunger) wants to give the game a go. I still think it is essential you experience the first one over this one.
Anyways, the game has most important items in 100% guaranteed positions, while RNG may bless you with something like finding Vodka, 2 Light Blue Vials or a Salmonsnake Rune; it feels even less RNG-dependant than F&H (and that game wasn't that RNG-dependant to begin with). The game has a Map in the vein of Silent Hill, to help you get to important locations and a Combat manual that straight up gives you a tutorial on combat, some thing the first game completely lacked and if for example you decided to kill Ser Seymor to get his Claymore, you would never learn that Guarding before a CTA (Coin Toss Attack) completely dodges it. I never found out about that until after BEATING the game. So in general, game feels a lot more fair, or at least you don't need to collect as much knowledge of it to feel powerful. This game was the one that created the Lucky Coin by the way. Since I started discussing about combat...

ABSOLUTELY THE BEST PART ABOUT THIS GAME.
You thought F&H 1's combat was innovative with its limb dismemberment system and CTAs?
This game takes that, polishes it, adds new status effects, new weapons, new armors, new spells, new items to use in battles...
It has left me speechless. In Fear & Hunger 1, your experience with the game sort of pushed you to avoid as many enemy encounters as possible unless there was some reward for you, you had to pick the encounters. But here the game encourages to get into enemy encounters, thanks to both the amazing combat + sawing off heads being turned into the primary way to obtain Soul Stones. It simply left me in awe how fun it was. Combat in F&H felt like a puzzle you could tackle from some different angles, but combat in here feels like a puzzle you can tackle in many different ways, and 90% of them are fun as hell. I am really excited to beat the other ending to wreck those bosses and kill the hardest boss, the secret encounter of "The Heartless One"

The main premise of the game takes a bit of twist you may have seen in other RPG Maker games such as "GU-L" or "Peret em Heru", having a vast cast of characters that can die in certain events throughout the story, although props to the developer for making it actually interesting, having all the souls and different endings to spice it up and not make it boring. It is actually quite interesting.
The only real "downgrade" I feel from F&H1 are the characters, which I completely understand, and It's not something to cry about really, the developer is really trying to add depth to the characters with upcoming updates, so I bet in the end all characters will be somewhat deep and interesting. There are already great examples of characters with a bunch of depth, that are really interesting, likeable and constantly interact with the other contestants and the world itself, like Karin, Daan, Marina and O'saa. The other contestants, while are cool and spite interest, in my opinion still need some further deepening of their backstory or just overall giving them more interactions.
The party talk skill is an outstanding addition and improvement over Fear & Hunger 1's Talk skill. I love pressing the key shortcut the game provides everytime I enter a new area, gives life to the characters and you can truly see how their personality is, and some have really cool interactions like Daan and Karin, Daan and O'saa... Overall, the characters are great, but could be improved. And I like to believe that they will.

Closing off, since this is getting pretty long, I do enjoy the new lore that has been added. Being a sequel, the question of "which endings from 1 are canon" are answered, and it is very nice looking how the story develops, new gods emerging, new ages... The lore and story of the Fear & Hunger world are something monstrous in size, that the developer has put great detail into. The fact he made up all of this by himself is beyond me. The story never feels quirky, corny or out of place (except maybe Marina being trans but.. whatever to be honest, it is barely mentioned in the game).
I have only experienced Ending A, but they feel kinda less fulfilling than the endings from Fear & Hunger 1, which again I can't really blame on the developer because of the expanded roster of characters. There's also only 3, opposed to the several from the first game. Probably my "biggest" gripe with the game, they still left my mouth wide open and shocked, but the endings from the first game left a lasting impact on me, I thought about them days after getting them.
Finally, in conclusion: I feel like Fear & Hunger 2: Termina is an unforgettable game, that everyone that doesn't have a problem with its themes should play. I think I never really played an RPG Maker game besides F&H1, yet, Termina is now on my Top 6 favourites games of all time. Yeah, that's how good it was. Now I just need to beat the secret boss and the other endings lol. Please, for your own sake, give this game a try.

[h1] "You are getting terrified!" [/h1] [This review is spoiler-free, most stuff I talk about here you can encounter in the first hours of playtime] I. have. done it. After 55 hours, I have just beaten Fear & Hunger 2: Termina. I have beaten Ending A. I have been hyperfixated on this game for over a week now, my motivation for getting out of bed being playing this game as early as I could. Compared to Termina, Fear & Hunger is an adventure, an adventure through some dungeons that end up on some ancient city where you kill a bunch of bosses and the game ends. Fear & Hunger 2 on the other hand, is a JOURNEY, a journey through old town, through Prehevil's massive city and the various locations you have to go through to collect the three effigies. And I guess let's just start talking about that: [h3] - Prehevil, Setting & World [/h3] The tone shift is interesting, going to a 1942 post-industrial revolution world, with an open map instead of an enclosed one. This makes the game not feel constantly claustrophobic, but that doesn't detract from the experience, as it very still is a survival horror/simply horror game. The aesthetics and vibes, taking huge inspiration from Silent Hill, are very well laid out. Many times you will have this uneasiness exploring the map, since it looks somewhat normal, but in the back of your head you know something is very wrong with the whole place, and you never know what could attack you next. My absolute favourite part of the world is the Rher dimension, where I see the most Silent Hill inspiration, as a fan of that game, the Rher dimensions are TERRIFYING, specially the one at the orphanage, It creates this sense of urgency, this feeling of "wow I really really don't want to be here.", it repulses you, and it is (exaggerating, of course) somewhat of a mental restraint/challenge going through these areas. Specially since you don't know If the next thing could easily kill you or not.. on that note: [h3] - Difficulty [/h3] While the previous section doesn't necessarily mean an improvement over the original, since It's up to you which world you prefer (I can't decide myself just yet), I really do believe difficulty in this game feels more balanced. Trust me, I love the chaos of Fear & Hunger, "oh this enemy just chopped off your arm, tough luck buddy!" or "Oh you just stepped in that nail by accident? Hope you read item descriptions to know that green herbs heal your run-ending infection!", but Fear & Hunger 2 seems much more fair, I was actually surprised to find out the developer included an Easy(er) difficulty before the Fear & Hunger one; I never played it, but after watching some gameplay It really does feel pretty easy compared to the normal difficulty, but It's a good option to have in case someone that has never played Funger (Fear & Hunger) wants to give the game a go. I still think it is essential you experience the first one over this one. Anyways, the game has most important items in 100% guaranteed positions, while RNG may bless you with something like finding Vodka, 2 Light Blue Vials or a Salmonsnake Rune; it feels even less RNG-dependant than F&H (and that game wasn't that RNG-dependant to begin with). The game has a Map in the vein of Silent Hill, to help you get to important locations and a Combat manual that straight up gives you a tutorial on combat, some thing the first game completely lacked and if for example you decided to kill Ser Seymor to get his Claymore, you would never learn that Guarding before a CTA (Coin Toss Attack) completely dodges it. I never found out about that until after BEATING the game. So in general, game feels a lot more fair, or at least you don't need to collect as much knowledge of it to feel powerful. This game was the one that created the Lucky Coin by the way. Since I started discussing about combat... [h3] - Combat [/h3] ABSOLUTELY THE BEST PART ABOUT THIS GAME. You thought F&H 1's combat was innovative with its limb dismemberment system and CTAs? This game takes that, polishes it, adds new status effects, new weapons, new armors, new spells, new items to use in battles... It has left me speechless. In Fear & Hunger 1, your experience with the game sort of pushed you to avoid as many enemy encounters as possible unless there was some reward for you, you had to pick the encounters. But here the game encourages to get into enemy encounters, thanks to both the amazing combat + sawing off heads being turned into the primary way to obtain Soul Stones. It simply left me in awe how fun it was. Combat in F&H felt like a puzzle you could tackle from some different angles, but combat in here feels like a puzzle you can tackle in many different ways, and 90% of them are fun as hell. I am really excited to beat the other ending to wreck those bosses and kill the hardest boss, the secret encounter of "The Heartless One" [h3] - Purpose and characters [/h3] The main premise of the game takes a bit of twist you may have seen in other RPG Maker games such as "GU-L" or "Peret em Heru", having a vast cast of characters that can die in certain events throughout the story, although props to the developer for making it actually interesting, having all the souls and different endings to spice it up and not make it boring. It is actually quite interesting. The only real "downgrade" I feel from F&H1 are the characters, which I completely understand, and It's not something to cry about really, the developer is really trying to add depth to the characters with upcoming updates, so I bet in the end all characters will be somewhat deep and interesting. There are already great examples of characters with a bunch of depth, that are really interesting, likeable and constantly interact with the other contestants and the world itself, like Karin, Daan, Marina and O'saa. The other contestants, while are cool and spite interest, in my opinion still need some further deepening of their backstory or just overall giving them more interactions. The party talk skill is an outstanding addition and improvement over Fear & Hunger 1's Talk skill. I love pressing the key shortcut the game provides everytime I enter a new area, gives life to the characters and you can truly see how their personality is, and some have really cool interactions like Daan and Karin, Daan and O'saa... Overall, the characters are great, but could be improved. And I like to believe that they will. [h3] - Conclusion, Lore and Endings [/h3] Closing off, since this is getting pretty long, I do enjoy the new lore that has been added. Being a sequel, the question of "which endings from 1 are canon" are answered, and it is very nice looking how the story develops, new gods emerging, new ages... The lore and story of the Fear & Hunger world are something monstrous in size, that the developer has put great detail into. The fact he made up all of this by himself is beyond me. The story never feels quirky, corny or out of place (except maybe Marina being trans but.. whatever to be honest, it is barely mentioned in the game). I have only experienced Ending A, but they feel kinda less fulfilling than the endings from Fear & Hunger 1, which again I can't really blame on the developer because of the expanded roster of characters. There's also only 3, opposed to the several from the first game. Probably my "biggest" gripe with the game, they still left my mouth wide open and shocked, but the endings from the first game left a lasting impact on me, I thought about them days after getting them. Finally, in conclusion: I feel like Fear & Hunger 2: Termina is an unforgettable game, that everyone that doesn't have a problem with its themes should play. I think I never really played an RPG Maker game besides F&H1, yet, Termina is now on my Top 6 favourites games of all time. Yeah, that's how good it was. Now I just need to beat the secret boss and the other endings lol. Please, for your own sake, give this game a try.