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I am a sucker for zombie-themed games. I’ve played too many hours of State of Decay 1 and 2, finished all of the Dead Island games (even the bad ones), and messed around with old browser games such as Urban Dead. I’ve always looked for games in the zombie genre that allowed me to truly feel what it would be like to live in the zombie apocalypse.
Terminus: Zombie Survivors has done an incredible job of portraying exactly that. The mechanics of the game truly make it a fun experience that allows me to mess around as much as possible without feeling too tedious.
Gameplay – 9/10
The game is a turn-based roguelike. Each turn is an in-game hour and you have Action Points you can use to move around, loot, craft, cook, and fight. Besides AP there are 5 other stats that you need to take care of to keep your survivor alive: HP, Satiety, Hydration, Energy, and Morale. The “main goal” of the game is to take your survivor through the city and reach Terminus, a safe haven where you won’t need to face the zombies anymore, while staying alive.
What you’ll learn on your first playthrough is that reaching Terminus is actually very simple. You need to find a Radio, learn the location on the map, and just go there, looting the various locations on the way. Relatively easy. What can actually be fun is surviving for a longer time, since this will result in bigger and more dangerous fights as resources become scarce. There are more endings than just reaching Terminus, and two of them require a lot of walking around and surviving many days, such as taking back the city by building bases in every location on the map or developing the cure for the zombie virus.
Combat is also relatively easy if your pure goal is killing the zombies. When fighting zombies, you get to choose which weapon or tool you want to use for damage and then select which body part to hit: the head, the body, or the legs. Just always aim for the head and get all the buffs that increase damage to the head if you want to easily win every fight. However, aiming for the other body parts can be helpful if you have different goals. Getting rid of the legs will make the zombies slower. Getting rid of the body will make them deal close to no damage.
The only gameplay part that I find a bit lacking is crafting, as it feels the game doesn’t really give you a chance to build “real” bases. The way you create a base is by defeating every zombie in a location, exploring every hidden tile, and then placing a flag on the ground. However, there’s nothing you can really do afterwards to make the base feel like… a base. You can’t build furniture, you can’t make anything interesting at the location, you just live with what you got, which is a bit lackluster, especially if you want to live for 100 days in this apocalypse.
Survival – 8/10
Constantly juggling hunger, thirst, morale, and energy can be either fun or annoying, depending on the person. For me, it usually just completely changes my strategy, as I stockpiled tons of food, only to realize in the middle of a fight with a zombie horde that I don’t have any food left. So, I had to completely change my plans and go to the nearest restaurant to get some extra food.
Generally, you will kinda be a slave to RNG, as you will have to hope that you get good loot in the locations you’re exploring. The survival elements aren’t anything innovative, but they do make the experience more entertaining.
RPG Elements – 9/10
The RPG elements of the game are likely my favorite part. The leveling system, along with the skills, can make your character extremely overpowered. Usually the only problem you could face is missing the tools or weapons for specific opportunities.
There are six stats: Strength, Health, Observation, Combat, Agility, and Dexterity. Depending on the starting class you choose, some stats will be more important than others. Health is the most important one in general, from my point of view, because it decides your AP recovery. Otherwise, it mostly comes down to roleplay. Do you want to craft extremely powerful weapons and durable tools? Max out Dexterity. Do you want to one shot every zombie you fight? Invest in Combat. Afraid of the dark? Invest in Observation.
The stats do interesting things and really change the game experience. Unless you choose to play as a student and you max out all the stats by reading a lot of books.
Graphics – 8/10
I love pixelated art. And the game has some really good zombie sprites. The game generally looks simple. Nothing really stands out. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just that the art or graphics aren’t something you will likely hear players rave about when it comes to Terminus.
Enjoyment – 10/10
Terminus: Zombie Survivors is extremely fun, even though there are occasional things that can annoy players. The game loop of wandering around the city for loot is very fun. And if you plan exactly what ending you want to get, the goal is really entertaining to advance toward. Combat is really fun as well, and enjoyable, if you make sure you have the right weapon and always aim for the head. I just genuinely had a really good time playing Terminus, trying to make my character survive the apocalypse, looting desperately for some food, and just planning my total conquest of the city, which seems to be extremely hard with the huge hordes of respawning zombies.
Terminus: Zombie Survivors
Bottom Line
Terminus: Zombie Survivors is a great survival roguelike where you can do almost whatever you want in the zombie apocalypse.
