Terror of Hemasaurus Review

If you love pixelated chaos, destruction, and kaiju monsters, Terror of Hemasaurus is a game that has to be on your radar. First, you have to decide if you want to play through the Arcade Story or the Endless Destruction mode to jump right into the action. When you begin, there are four super cute kaiju to choose from: Hemasaurus, Salamandrah, Clocksloth, or Autonomous Hemasaurus (like Mechagodzilla). The game starts on the 16th of July in Svalbard, Norway, where you watch a climate debate between a scientist named Hans Pissenschaft and Richie Hoarderson, heir to the PollutaCorp fortune. Behind the characters, we see some icebergs — one starts shaking, and you notice that there is something contained within it. Hans is warning the audience that climate change will unleash terror on this world if drastic changes aren't being made. Richie, being the businessman he is, thinks that the economy is the only thing that matters and that Hans is making a "monster out of a molehill." At that moment, we see the iceberg break off and float away.

The chunk of ice has made its way onto the beach of an island that is home to the Church of the Holy Lizard. There are people in white robes bowing to this enormous ice block; the iceberg breaks, and Hemasaurus is set free. The Shepherd of the Holy Lizard welcomes the kaiju and says they have been waiting for its arrival. The members have taken an oath, under the penalty of death, to perform their sacred duty and save humanity from its disregard for the planet. They created a time machine and sent Hemasaurus to the past, and embedded the monster in an ice cap so it would melt and scare the humans into action. Hopefully, humans will finally realise that climate change is a real threat. Apparently, heat waves, disease outbreaks, mass extinctions, and wildfires weren't enough — maybe they will take this seriously.

The cult leader takes Hemasaurus (or whichever adorable monster you selected) through a tutorial. This will teach you skills like climbing buildings, destroying buildings, taking out threats with punching and kicking attacks, and eating people. That last act will replenish your health and power you up. The leader sacrifices one of the church members for you to practise eating and justifies it by saying eating someone drastically reduces their carbon footprint. I guess he's not wrong, but I still feel guilty!  

Your kaiju will also learn valuable skills, not limited to picking up people and throwing them; kicking people and vehicles through the air to cause huge amounts of damage to buildings and threats like helicopters that attack you from the air. One of the most destructive moves is the Atomic Butt Slam; this attack can bring down buildings at a crazy fast pace and is more efficient than standing and punching the sides of the structure. As you progress, a new ultimate move will be unlocked. Each of the monsters has a special attack. Hemasaurus uses his roar to break windows, Autonomous has missiles, Salamandrah breathes fire, and Clocksloth slows down time. Still, to use these ultimate attacks, you must have your terror gauge filled. This can be replenished by causing death and destruction, or if you want something faster, eat a "portly" human to fully restore your power and health.

Terror of Hemasaurus is a bright and colourful game. The pixel buildings and tiny humans look great; the effects of destroying the buildings are so epic looking! It is so fulfilling to see a building falling down and taking out other structures as it comes crashing down. When the screen was full of buildings crashing, humans falling, and massive destruction, I experienced some lag on my computer and Steam Deck. It didn't last very long, and I'm not shocked that the system chugged a little with this much action going on. The soundtrack is upbeat and complements the crazy action of the game very well. I am always a massive fan of catchy chip-tune music!

There are a bunch of fun achievements that you can unlock in Terror of Hemasaurus. Some like "Horror Show" are as easy as killing 1,000 enemies, or "Jalopy Poppy" where you destroy 20 cars. Others, like "Aerosolized", take a bit more work as you will have to kick 50 people into the blades of a moving helicopter. If you are like me, you will play through the game multiple times as you will want to try out all the adorable monsters and their special moves. Plus, it is so satisfying to pick up the game and smash and destroy everything you see; it is an excellent method of stress relief! If you have played the game before, you can jump to any level that you have played before, switching up the kaiju you will be using if you so desire.

The humour in this game is great, and the social commentary on climate change felt incredibly accurate. One level has you saving animals from chaos and destruction by picking them up, putting them in cages, and being lifted by helicopters to make people like you more. If you happen to be killed in battle, you will see two alien creatures playing a videogame. They are asking why humans were so stupid not to take action to stop climate change and why one was dumb enough to think that he could change things by making a videogame. Terror of Hemasaurus makes you think about how the human race views climate change and how everyone needs to work to minimise our carbon footprint. Especially before a kaiju has to come to eat the humans and get rid of it for us.