Fear and Hunger is one of the most interesting games to come out on the RPGmaker platform in a while. The moody atmosphere is just right, and the brutality of the game is enticing in a good way. Combined with the art style, I felt immediately drawn to this game and had high hopes for it after seeing John Wolfe play it.
Despite that, the game is at odds with itself. It's very clear the game emulates rogue-like elements: The rearranging dungeon, coin-flip elements, and brutal combat. The game wants you to learn from trial and error, but in practice the game demands perfection. How can I learn from my mistakes if the punishment is having to start from zero? It's probably worth re-evaluating your rogue-like mechanics in the context of an RPG, instead of other more common rogue-likes.
The way I see it, this game has a problem trifecta: No Save + Lethality + RNG. One of these problems is worse than the others, and the easiest way to fix the other two is to simply add in a consistent save system. Not even allowing the player to save at any time, but maybe function like Resident Evil, where you have a limited number of guaranteed saves, thus encouraging players to hold onto their saves while keeping the heavy atmosphere.
Brutal lethality immediately stops being a problem once you can save more often. As I mentioned, I like how severe the game is. Every single battle is deadly. But it's implementation has problems that would be far more tolerable with saving. For example, every single enemy in the game has the ability to either: Break Bones, Cut off Limbs, or Give Status Effects. Some enemies can do all of the above, or stack multiple statuses. This becomes a problem when statuses are so lethal that even when you win, if you can't cure those effects immediately, or in the case of broken bones or lost limbs, can't cure it at all, it's the same as a game over.
A single misstep or events that are out of your control in any battle, like an attack missing or an enemy landing an attack after death, can spell the end of your run. At the very least, if you could save more frequently, you could 'rehearse' combat until you get it just right, but as it currently is you find yourself pigeonholed into extremely limited forms of play like "Attack the torso/head as hard as possible" making you not want to experiment with combat whatsoever to reduce risk, since allowing the enemy even a single turn can be the end.
Combine this with the coin-flip nature of item finding in this game, and the problems are exacerbated. The items you need to cure the aforementioned status effects are very rare, and if you run out, your only hope is to find the alchemy book that lets you craft them. However, if the coinflip doesn't favor you, it's possible you could never find it, thus sealing your doom by bleeding out or poison the next time you get into combat. This also goes for books, gear, and even saving, which goes without saying at this point.
If the coinflip doesn't go in your favor throughout the game, your chance of death increases exponentially, and if you aren't lucky enough to find a save book, you're gonna be seeing the intro cutscenes a lot. Let's not even mention that the one guaranteed save in the game is guarded by an enemy with an instant kill attack that doesn't even require a coinflip. If the game allowed you to save more frequently, these would be less bad, as you'd have a buffer against negative consequences, and even be able to reattempt failed coinflips.
Yes, I'm advocating for save scumming but it's far more tolerable than the current state of the game.
I still like this game a lot, and still want to see it succeed and do well, and implementing a more favorable save system would go a long way in making that happen.