Ultimate beginners guide to Termina for my friends :)

This is a guide I made for my friends to teach the absolute basics of Termina

Introduction

Welcome to the festival of Termina! This is a guide for absolute beginners to Fear and Hunger and Termina explaining gameplay and certain quirks of the game all while trying my best to spoil as little as I can.

Now the very first choice you will have to make is which character you would like to play as. Currently there are 8 playable contestants all with different abilities and gameplay each thriving in their own different play styles. We'll go through all of these characters and which are the best for beginners. The playable characters in Termina all have tragic backstories they reflect on during the train ride. You can make certain choices in these intros that will greatly affect your the start of your game. I will recommend which choices I think are best for a new players.

Levi

Starting off is Levi the Ex-Soldier. Levi is a fantastic choice for a first playthrough. His speciality in guns might make him feel a little more comfortable for those more used to traditional survival horror games. Depending on intro choices as well he can become one of the few characters to start off with a max of 125 hp instead of the regular 100 hp. And if magic is more your play style you can immediately get some affinity with the deity of your choice in his intro. Levi is incredibly sturdy, has great damage, and starts off with a great weapon easily making him one of the best starting characters.


During his character history I recommend the following choices:
Stand up to your father: This will increase our maximum hp to 125 which is impossible to achieve otherwise
Trench guns: they are easily the best gun in the game and will allow you to access the city faster than other characters
Abandon the sinking ship: you will start your run with a heroin addiction otherwise
Stock up on ammo: ammo like in all survival horror games is very scarce and getting extra in the intro is a huge boon.

Marina

Next is Marina the Occultist. Marina is an amazingly fun class specializing in more supportive magic and rituals for her party. She really struggles in the early game making her a rough pick for beginners but once she gets her skills she's one of the most powerful characters in the entire game. Marina's start is rough due to her squishy body being unable to use two handed melee weapons but if you can push through you will become very powerful.


During her character history I recommend the following choices
Study either alchemy or blood magic
Gro-Goroth
Get something to read

Daan

Our next character is Daan the doctor. Daan is an excellent all around character in several aspects. He can start with a scalpel which isn't huge but it is a nice upgrade over the other characters typical starting knife for fighting early enemies. His skills make him fantastic for being in a full party as well keeping everyone alive and exposing enemies weak spots for the party to attack. He's also an excellent character for those who aren't the best at managing status effects such as bleed or infections with his organ harvest and medicinal skills. Overall Daan is an excellent all around character and a great choice for beginners.


For his history I recommend the following choices
Try to find honest work
Continue in your studies
Join as a medic
Stock up on medical goods

Abella

Next up is Abella the mechanic. Abella might be the single best character for a new player as she's relatively simple and can one shot many early enemies that would cause serious problems otherwise. Using her skill wrench toss will have you fly through the opening zone just be sure to re equip your wrench after each use of the skill. She also has the amazing skill of weapon crafting allowing her to create one of the most powerful melee weapons in the entire game once you find all the parts. Overall Abella is an incredible choice for starting off her only real downside is that you are unable to recruit her as a companion.


For her history I recommend these choices
Learn mechanics
Take the man back home and treat his wounds gives
Help with crafting weapons
Stock up on spare parts

O'saa

The next character is O’saa the yellow mage. O'saa is a pure spellcaster, all about damage. Unlike Marina's more support focused skills O’saa skills thrive in trying to improve his spells and increase his damage greatly making him one of the best characters for solo runs. His start can be a little rough until you get more spells but the weapons you get in his intro should be enough to get you through it. He can be held back by the fact he cannot use guns which makes the earlier game more difficult but in the end game it won't matter much at all as you will primarily be using spell and melee attacks. Overall if you want to use magic in a more damage focused way O’saa is the character for you.


For O’saa’s backstory you actually have the option to do a full text based choose your own adventure through the dungeons of the first fear and hunger. It's really cool and I do recommend you go through it eventually but I'll just recommend the choices for his abridged character history.

The choices I would recommend making are as such
take the family Chac Chac
Learn methods of your home country
Learn basic techniques
Pick the Skin bible of Gro-goroth
Pick the officer sword
Stock up on magical goods

Olivia

Our next character is Olivia the botanist. Olivia faces a unique set of challenges compared to the other contestants due to her being confined to a wheelchair. As a result you will have to get in and out of a wheelchair for various obstacles such as stairs or ladders. She can always stun enemies with her wheelchair if you roll down stairs in it at an enemy fast enough. Gameplay wise she specializes in plants and poisons. Being able to pick special herbs no other characters can for powerful buffs. Her poisons are incredibly powerful, chewing through bosses very quickly. If you enjoy damage over time or just like plants she's definitely a great character.


For her character history I recommend
Stick to botany
Just concentrate in your own studies
Specialize in folkloristic side of botanism
Find something to read for your travels

Marcoh

Next up is Marcoh the boxer. Marcoh is easily one of the most powerful characters in the game specializing in powerful melee attacks. His bare firsts will likely do more damage than most characters starting weapons. He has an amazing list of skills too, helping him to do things like counter attack or increase his dodge or even attacking twice when using his fists. Marcoh is definitely the king of melee combat in Termina and is highly recommended if you wanna go beat the horrors back with your bare fists.


For his character history I recommend
Become a burglar
Train your stamina
Specialize in evasion
Get your sister and flee
Take your luxury products with you

Karin

Our final character is Karin the journalist. Karin is an interesting character gameplay wise being the most similar to a rogue with skills like persuasion and lockpicking. Her persuasion skill is incredibly helpful and might save you a lot more than you might think. She can also start off with a pistol allowing for some decent damage. She really struggles in the late game due to lacking a strong class identity and being unable to use two handed melee weapons. Overall though she can be very fun for those who like playing rouge classes in games and has a strong start.


For her character history I recommend
Convince passersby you’d been kidnapped
Run away
Stock up on self defence items

Combat

Now that our character is made let's move into the gameplay and some of the weird mechanics of Termina. Upon encountering every combat with an enemy you will have several options these include attack, skills, rev up, guard, item, and run. Let's go through all of these.

attack:
When you go to attack an enemy you will notice that you can target various limbs. Essentially different limbs will act as different enemies in a fight doing specific actions depending on the said limb like an arm with a knife doing a stab attack. It's generally always recommended to deal with a limb that has a weapon in it first. After that you usually want to destroy the head to kill the enemy but the heads generally have very high evasion compared to other parts meaning you have to destroy the legs first to bring down the heads evasion. Sometimes if an enemy's limbs have health too high it's best to just attack the torso every encounter will be different.

Skills:
This is how you can use your spells and other such combat abilities in a fight. Abilities will cost mind which is your mana bar in fear and hunger. Mind can be restored by things such as smoking tobacco or drinking alcohol.

Rev up:
Revving up is a mechanic that was introduced in Termina not in the first fear and hunger. Essentially every turn you will gain a rev point maxing out at three rev points at a time. You can use a rev point by pressing w or in the menu. You can rev up once for an attack with increased power, twice for an attack with even greater power, and three times for extra power as well as an extra attack. Using your rev points and knowing when to save them will make fights much easier.

Guard:
In fear and hunger you will be prompted with coin flips from time to time. Whether it’s to see if you get anything good in a chest, stopping yourself from falling through broken floor boards, or to see if you dodge from what would otherwise be a game ending attack from an enemy. However if you possess a lucky coin in your inventory you can flip a second coin increasing your chances at passing a coin toss. However, what if you could avoid a coin toss entirely? Well at least in combat you can as that’s what is what the guard skill is primarily used for. If you think a run ending coin flip is coming up in combat try guarding while your followers attack the enemy. Guarding will take up your whole turn but the added defense and safety from a coin toss can be very necessary.

Item:
Another very self explanatory one. Selecting this will open up your inventory allowing you to equip different items or use consumables while in a fight. Both will take up your entire action for turn.

Run:
Sometimes a fight will go bad or was just plain unwinnable to begin with either way. Sometimes the best option is to try and cut your losses and run away. Your odds of successfully fleeing a fight is affected by your character's agility. Increasing your agility through skills or items will increase your odds of fleeing, getting to the point where you can successfully run away from every fight with enough agility. Agility can also give your character an extra turn in combat if you get it up to 16+. The escape plan skill will also increase your chances of successfully fleeing from combat.

Guns

Anyone who's played a survival horror game will know guns can absolutely save you in the worst scenarios if you saved your resources accordingly and Termina is no exception so let's go over what the different guns do outside of combat. First of all to fire a gun outside of combat in the overworld make sure it's equipped, take aim and press left shift the same key you would normally use to run. There's currently three types of firearms in Termina being the pistol, rifle, and shotgun. The pistol is extremely weak and won't do much to enemies in the overworld but can do decent enough damage in a fight. The rifle is an incredible weapon that can shoot off arms in the overworld meaning you can shoot off an arm with a weapon then start that fight and no longer have to deal with that limb. The shotgun is very much the best gun for getting out of bad situations. First of all it does very high damage in the overworld being able to kill most enemies in a couple hits, it also will temporarily stun enemies upon blast creating opportunities for escape.

Status effects

Certain enemies and attacks might inflict a certain status on you, be it bleeding or an infection; these can very easily and very quickly kill you if you don't know what the effect is and how to treat it. Daan with his skills can cure most status effects with his medicinal skill.

Here's a few of the most common status effects enemies will inflict on you

Infection: This will quickly kill your character if left untreated but can be cured very easily with a green herb.

Poison: Pretty self explanatory poison will drain your health over time. It can be cured by consuming a white vial.

Bleeding: Pretty much the same as bleed this effect will drain your health over time. It can be cured with a cloth fragment or with dirty toilet paper. Using dirty toilet paper will risk infection though.

Nausea: Lowers your characters defense. It can be cured with a white vial.

Ritual circles

Those you played the first Fear and Hunger will definitely remember the ritual circles and how confusing they can be. But essentially a ritual circle is used to gain favor with the various gods of the Fear and Hunger world. Gaining high favor with said deities is very important as having high favor will let the player acquire powerful skill. However one must be careful and use the ritual circle accordingly or you risk losing favor of said god or wasting a precious circle. Termina only adds on this confusion by creating three different types of circles.The circle types include perfection circle, asymmetric circle, and the imperfect circle. Lets go over what each type does.

The asymmetric circles: These circles are associated with the old gods and will have different effects depending on which old god symbol is drawn.

Drawing the symbol of Gro-goroth on a asymmetric circle will allow the player to sacrifice companions on the circle to gain even more affinity.

Drawing the symbol of Sylvian on an asymmetric will restore all of the bodies of your party back to full. Fully healing them, removing status effects, and restoring lost limbs

Drawing the symbol of Vinushka on an asymmetric circle will grow a large tree over top of the circle. Climbing the tree will allow players to enter otherwise inaccessible/hidden locations

Drawing the symbol of Rher on an asymmetric circle will open a portal into his realm. The same wooden realm you see at the start of the game.

Perfection circles: These are the circles associated with the ascended gods.

Drawing the symbol of All-mer on an perfection circle will open a blood portal allowing fast travel between any other ritual circle with his symbol drawn on it. Generally this isn’t very advised as All-mer affinity offers the least to players compared to other deities.

Drawing the symbol of The God of Fear and Hunger on an perfection circle will allow the player to safely save their game. Arguably making it the most useful.

Imperfect circles: The imperfect circle is the most unique compared to the other two types of circles being dedicated to the new gods. Players will never have to draw symbols on imperfect circles instead using them to drop off sacrifices. You will notice that when you kill an enemy if you have a bonesaw in your inventory you have the option to saw off its head? Well that's the main purpose of the imperfect circle. A mysterious new god will give you soul stone shards for each head you bring to the circle. You can craft soul stones out of these shards which you use to acquire new skills.

Conclusion

Well that's it for now I hope it helps. Most of this information can be given to you in game through various books however getting the book you need is very rng dependent so I wanted to help my friends out so they can experience Termina. I will most likely be updating this guide more in the future in case I missed anything. Good luck all and enjoy!

Also this is the first ever guide I've written so sorry for any grammar or format issues

Credit to the Fear and Hunger wiki for most of the images used

[My Wife Left Me]

Sheeeesh, vro! You're a life saver!

[ユアスターズ]

I just want to know if there is a road that i need to use/do ? Im kinda Lost in the game I feel like i walk for nothing. I loot, i die, i try to talk to the other playable character but i cant recruit them or anything else. What should I do ?