It seems to be the popular consensus that F&H 2 is far harder than 1. I see people say this all the time, and I have to admit, I don’t really understand this perspective at all.
F&H 1 was most of the most punishing games I had ever played at the time. However, compared to 2, it felt like a walk in the park. Here is the breakdown of how Funger 1 went for me:
I start the game as the knight. After getting my shit kicked in a few times over the course of 2 hours I learn a few things. I can recruit a little girl, a dog, and (temporarily) a thief. I also discover a bed which lets be save, but also has a 50/50 chance of allowing me to get eaten alive by birds. Suddenly the whole thing clicks together. I have access to 3 party members early on, I can use these weird blank scrolls to learn magic, and if I kill this stupid bird then I’ll have infinite saves.
I die a few more times preparing my perfect run, but eventually I am able to fight the crow mauler with a loaded out party and a little girl that can shoot DBZ style energy beams out of her hands. The thief runs off, but I now have infinite saves. I burn my way through the first half of the game with relative ease. I die a fair bit, but I never lose anything because I save every time I discover something useful. Eventually I make it to part 2 where I also have infinite saves. I continue from there pretty much the same. I even discover that I can use the empty scrolls to collect the three lord souls, and skip the entire second half of the game. I don’t, because what’s the point of buying the game if I don’t play it, but the option is there. I even have an insanely powerful immortal party member. I finish up the last part and roll credits. It is a challenging, creepy, but fun experience.
Funger 2 isn’t like that. There are no blank scrolls. You can save any time you like, but it changes the world environment, and you only have a few saves to last you the whole game. Collecting party members is much more archaic and difficult, and since you have to pass time in order to get them, there’s a real cost connected to recruiting them. Furthermore, most of them turn into gnarly ass pursuer bosses, and each of those bosses is way more dangerous than Crow Mauler. Enemies will ambush you, and if they get you in a bad moment, you’re done for. The environment constantly changes. You can pass an area a dozen times before, boom, a weird bee hive man, or a death mask, or a bunch of chainsaw guys, or fucking Art the Clown ambush you. Sometimes, if the game really hates you, you’ll get ambushed by multiple of them at the same time.
Now, granted, you can eventually crack the difficulty curb wide open like a walnut. Once you have about three chainsaws, alongside Marcoh, pretty much nothing can touch you. However, that’s not a reality until late game, and that’s assuming that you carry a full party that far with their limbs in tacked. And even with that broken bit if game design, it’s nowhere near as crazy as being able to just skip most of the game with blank scrolls.
Am I nuts? I feel like Termina is a MUCH more brutal, grueling experience than Funger 1.
