Although a great 1 hour game. Not worth the hype price. Wait for appropriate discount. $10 or less. Way less content than a $10 game, but worthy if you really want it. Let's clear up some of the bs the fanboys are parroting in discussions. "it's arcade style and there are multiple modes which gives you hours of gameplay" ***the "modes" are: *boss rush- which is just what you'd think. *infinite- which is the same game but you can use any of the 3 characters. *mother of the future mode- same levels but only sarah, no continues, and it switches the level order. There are a couple "yes/no" branches in the story, but not really anything like Fight N Rage or a true branching path of a level like you'd see in other deep side scroller games. No new level environments. Slightly different paths with different writing txt is it. I saw "voice acting" in the credits, I heard ZERO voice acting in the game. This game is very fun, but ultimately I decided as well as many others will, it's just not worth the 28 for what it is. Will prob buy it later when it inevitably hits a more reasonable $10 or less. There are games with much more to offer. I bought Huntdown for about $5 and it has 6hrs of just the base game, with deeper mechanics +3 character roster and all of the animations present here maybe slightly less flashy fire explosions. Even at $20 base price it's over 6x more value than this. Neon Inferno has 4 hours and is co op. $20, was 17 at launch. SOR4 Absolum Fight N Rage Iron Meat is the only one that comes close in playtime but that one has so many customization and character options it actually DOES add more playtime, plus it's $20. I'm not saying this game is bad, it's actually amazing- but could have used at least 2 more hours of levels or should have dropped initial pricing to $20 and 10% discount. Then they would have way less refunds. I'm not going to argue with anyone. The facts are present. I smell a lot of refunds coming. Wait for better pricing. Set higher standards.

Just played through the first couple levels and it's already everything I ever wanted a "T2" game to be. Much better than the ports of junk we got on Nintendo and Sega from our childhoods' in the 90's. All we had to do was not die for 34 years so someone would make it...

Was drawn to the game for months after seeing how cool the old school graphics and gameplay looked. NOT a fan however of the continues model.... Arcades did it to suck money out of you. Here, just doesn't make any sense

This is the biggest let down of the year. A fast paced, Metal Slug like Terminator game? Who thought this was a good fucking idea? Bosses die in seconds, even on the hardest difficulty. All you do is run and gun. RUNNING AND GUNNING TERMINATORS. Make that make sense. Not to mention $30 dollars for this garbage? What a massive failure of a game. This was the last game I was excited for this year and once again I am reminded that gaming is dead. The ONLY redeeming qualities of this game are the pixel art and soundtrack. I wouldn't pay more than $5.99 for this. $30 dollars is a literal scam. They new hardcore fans are desperate for anything and would pay anything. They didn't even give Tim Cookey a mullet in the story mode cutscenes. SPOILERS ----------- To follow up. It took me 47 minutes to beat the story mode on hard. You play as the T-800 for like 5-10 minutes. You have to turn the horrendous HUD back on during the break out level so you can see the stupid unlock mechanics. The fight with the T-1000 is literally just run for a couple minutes while shooting 3 times every time he pops up. The second phase of the last boss is so fucking terrible due to having to jump and shoot down, but pushing down and jump together makes you roll, so you'll be rolling off the edge to your death if you aren't perfect. Just a total complete mess and let down of a game.

Worth the wait... Stayed up past midnight to play this, wish I could keep going but unfortunately I need to get my old ass to sleep for work. This is the 2d Terminator game we all wanted to play growing up.

This type of game is for me, but as of now I’m just not sure it delivers. To get it out of the way, this game is NOT too short. Anyone saying that doesn’t understand the point of arcade games. Arcade games are like chess, tennis or a card game. You replay them over and over to get into their nuances, push your skill further and further, and they tend to open up and get better the more time you invest. So those thumbing down the game for being an arcade game are basically just thumbing down a game because it’s not in a genre they like, which is unfair if not dense. Anyway, I’d say the issue with T2D ironically is its length— it’s too long. Without the alt path there are 12 stages, and around half of them are drawn-out filler levels perhaps meant to protect the game from the very criticism of being too short. There are 2 vehicle sections that are literally just press up/down to avoid incoming obstacles, just a reaction check and nothing more. These are both around 3 minutes long. There’s a beat em up level that’s also laughably bad to the track “bad to the bone” that is very hard to take seriously design wise. You can just spam the shoulder check attack pretty much. There’s also a generic “avoid the guards with flashlights” stealth level, with little to no real punishment for getting spotted by the guards. The level throws you a few “hold B to hide” for 10-20 seconds which just feels pointless. Some other levels just feel like nothing burgers even near the end of the run. Too much of the level design feels not just scripted but superfluous time padding. Running through long halls while enemies pop in left and right that you can take out with no difficulty at all, dropping down from platforms and jumping up on ledges with no danger at all just to artificially inflate the length of levels. It’s like the game just gave up design wise after level 2-3 rather than developing its ideas and decided it would just be a by-the-numbers generic run and gun meant to bank on it’s pixel art cinematography and references to the movies, which admittedly was quite well done as expected from the trailers/images. Occasionally the game gives you glimpses where you think “hey, this could’ve been a pretty competent run-and-gun that does a good job at exemplifying the fundamentals of the genre” even in spite of its lack of any defining gameplay mechanics to make it stand out. Those glimpses are too few and far between for me to recommend the game. Ultimately T2D is a padded, weakly designed and generic arcade game that tries to lean on its source material and visuals rather than strong fundamental run and gun genre design.

A pixel-perfect scam wrapped in nostalgia. I hate refunding and I fucking hate writing bad reviews... It hurts as a linux gamer to refund something that comes with native Linux support... I have been obsessed with the Terminator franchise since I was a kid. I own the movies, and I’ve played almost every tie-in game since the NES days. Future Shock anyone? When I saw the trailer for this, I thought we were finally getting the 16-bit masterpiece T2 deserved. Instead, I just paid $30 for a 90-minute tech demo. Let's get the good stuff out of the way first, because it’s a short list: The spritework is genuinely beautiful. The artists clearly loved the source material, and the synth soundtrack captures that cold, metallic dread perfectly with some good new nuances. If you just look at a screenshot, it looks like a 10/10 retro revival. But then you actually press start. The gameplay is insultingly basic. Calling it "Contra-style" is an insult to Contra. There is no strategy, barely any pattern learning, and no excitement. You mostly just hold the fire button and walk to the right. The "cover system" feels clunky and tacked on, and the enemy AI is brain-dead. I wanted to feel like an unstoppable killing machine or a desperate resistance fighter; instead, I felt like I was playing a repetitive flash game from 2005. The worst offense is the campaign structure. It is shockingly short. I beat the main mode in about an hour. And the story presentation? Laziness pure and simple. Instead of animated cutscenes or even in-engine events, you get text boxes over static images. They even butchered the dialogue, scrubbing out the personality of the films. Why do you barely spend any time playing as the actual Terminator? Why is Arnolds Face not Arnolds Face? Why are essential Scnenes badly summarised as Cutscenes? Why are there Jumps of about 15 Minutes of Movietime? Why is the Minigun Scene Missing and not playable? -- I just double checked - you see it in the Trailer but and i just rushed through the game until the end of Cyberdyne Sytems... the scene is missing somehow??? -- Edit: apparently this is part of the alternate timeline you can pick WTF!? Why does this not feel as good as the Gameboy game i played in my Childhood? This one I can answer: because they went the most uncreative route and made a pretty Generic 16 bit Sega/SNES homage. Pros: - Pixel art is top-tier. - Soundtrack is a banger because of the template - that is what creates Atmosphere. - Nostalgia bait works for the first 15 minutes. Cons: - Criminal price point ($30 for 90 minutes of content is theft). - "gameplay" consists of holding a button and walking right. -- Edit: older games had tons of alternative minigames and these were also part of the genre in that era on 16 bit machines. Also the controls are not as polished as they could be. Like droping from a ledge sometimes causes sliding and jumping is sometimes inconsistent in height or "aircontrol". Yes that on the other hand may be 16 bit machine accurate but I doubt this is something to strive for today... - Lazy, slideshow storytelling with missing scenes and therefore missing context - Wasted the license—barely any T-800 gameplay. - Some lore/canon deviations are ok - and some are needed to make gameplay viable in this concpet - but in some instances it is just going too wild for my taste Verdict: Do not buy for f*ck sake! I cant believe that Reef Entertainment signed off on this with Terminator Resistance under their Belt aswell... Wasn't as mad on a game with a franchise I liked as with the RGB Ending of Masseffect 3... -- Note: more time on the game than 2 hours because i left it open while prepping and eating dinner... One Play through is 90 minutes MAX!

Its OK. If you’re a Terminator 2 fan, this game absolutely nails the nostalgia. It’s easily the best T2 game I’ve played, and hearing the exact movie music instantly pulled me back into the film. There are genuinely fun moments that clearly come from a place of love for the source material. (The swat vehicle - helicopter chase scene is my favorite level) That said, the gameplay a little feels off. On normal difficulty, there are sudden and inconsistent difficulty spikes that come out of nowhere on some levels. On harder difficulties, enemy spawns can feel unfair—get unlucky, and you’re basically dead. The hardest difficulty crosses from challenging into frustrating: it demands extreme patience, memorization of enemy placements, and near-perfect execution, all while the game is still timing you. There’s very little room for error. I didn’t find the core gameplay compelling enough to make the hardest difficulty feel worth the effort beyond simply trying to 100% the game—and even then, the difficulty spike feels so poorly tuned that it’s not worth the time or frustration. I finished the main mission on normal in just a little over one hour on my first attempt. For that reason, I also think the game is overpriced. This would feel far more appropriate as an $8–$10 title, especially when other games at similar prices offer more depth and replay value.

It's an arcade game for older people (like me) who play arcade games on MAME and can't get past the first boss. 11/10

Not worth asking price. Really high price for this kind of game considering that Steam keys for Arc Raiders and Expedition 33 are below 30$. Otherwise pretty fun gameplay. OST is great. I would give a positive review if it was 10$.

This is easily one of the best retro throwback games ever created, but I still can't get past the fact that they decided to terminate the T-800's penis.

I know We all Love the Terminaor and most of the Movies, especially the first one. Now the game...good repetitive music, great graphics as expected, but gameplay so far is the lower part of OK. The controls are absolute trash. If you dont believe me, well try this Unpolished, lame control setup and repetitive enemies simple side scroller for $27. Jeez really. Point gun with a button to aim, cause thats the only way to shoot forward when your ducking, or dont point gun and you shoot and if you Point the gun while walking you CANT move! Super simple side scrolling game with the skin of pixel terminator and horriable controls. It does work on steam deck and you can remap your buttons, ill share my layout. PC layout is garbage, with no button remap. Can NOT recomend for that price tag.

Reading positive reviews makes it feel like I'm reading about a completely different game. Fun gunplay? You just hold the fire button. Great platforming? You mainly just hold right to reach the end. The game is incredibly short (40 mins for a single playthrough) and it feels excessively unfair. Nothing interesting is done with the original material. The game is basically 3-4 min "T2 inspired" levels with some movie frames slideshow between those and extremely, extremely basic gameplay. Trailer was much more fun to watch than actually playing it.

Look... It's a great game BUT its gonna need more content. To finish this entire game in 3 hours (with a lot of levels re-used with different characters) just becomes a one and done event and at this price point..? I don't know. Would love to see something to add replay value. Multiplayer might be a great start, etc... This combined with the price leaves me to not recommend this game, at least in its current state. HOWEVER Aesthetic 10/10 Gameplay 8/10 OST 10/10 Fan service/ Passion for the intellectual property 100/10

A perfect score for style and presentation can't save Terminator 2D: NO FATE from its abysmal gameplay, which is made up of all the worst aspects of the SNES era that nostalgia usually filters out. As someone who got one for Christmas the year it dropped in the US, I can confidently say that the SNES era *looked* a lot more fun than it actually *was*. The art for many of the games still holds up, the soundtracks are legendary, but people look sideways and begin to mumble when discussing the actual gameplay for many of its platformers, and for good reason: They were often visually appealing exercises in futility. Even games designed for young kids had jank controls and were so impossible that there are whole Youtube dissections dedicated to them now. Any game from the Souls series or its peripheral properties pale in comparison to the difficulty of any one the major kid friendly games on the Super Nintendo; from Pitfall to The Simpsons to the Lion King to anything with Nickelodeon on the cover, the difficulty was ramped up to 11 to pad out "replayability" (read: re-rentability) and the quality testing on gameplay mechanics was generally done with a "good enough" kind of mentality. What does any of that have to do with Terminator 2D: NO FATE? Well, its developers were a little TOO faithful to that era, and the resulting game plays exactly like the kind of LJN title you might expect to have seen on an episode of The Angry Video Game Nerd: stiff controls, useless "power ups", overly precise placement expectations for you, lax, off screen bullet hell placement for enemies and hazards. If the art is doing it for you, take a page from the scores of SNES "fans" who have never actually played a Super Nintendo and just watch a video, otherwise you're in for a needlessly frustrating time.

Outstanding. Not only nails the look and feel of the film but has tight gameplay and oozes nostalgia. I had a smile on my face the entire time while playing. Made with love and it shows. People complaining that it's "too short" or "too expensive for what it is" probably don't realize the amount of work that goes into something like this, or the cost of licensing music, likenesses, etc. Considering that if this game had come out in 1991 it would have cost 70 (in 1991 dollars), had its play length artificially extended through unfair, unchangeable difficulty, and wouldn't feature any extras, I think the price is a steal.

Terminator 2-D: No Fate – “Too short” is the laziest criticism imaginable I’m going to address the elephant in the room straight away, because it’s the most common complaint I’ve seen in reviews: “It’s too short.” Frankly, that criticism says far more about the reviewer than it does about the game. This title is very clearly, deliberately, and proudly designed as a classic 16-bit arcade-style experience, aimed squarely at players who grew up when games were judged on feel, challenge, atmosphere, and replayability — not on a stopwatch. If you’re coming into this expecting a modern, padded, checkpoint-every-five-seconds experience that you can breeze through in one sitting while half-watching YouTube on another screen, then yes — you may miss the point entirely. But if, like me, you grew up in the late 80s and early 90s, this game immediately feels right. Difficulty, not duration, defines this game I’ll be completely honest: I’m not an elite gamer. I openly admit that. I’ve already died multiple times in both Story and Arcade modes — on easy — and I’m loving every second of it. Why? Because this game isn’t designed to be beaten first try. It’s designed to be learned. Back in the 16-bit era: Games weren’t criticised for being “short” They were respected for being hard Completion was earned through repetition, pattern recognition, and improvement If you were genuinely good enough to finish a game like this in under an hour in 1992, you were the exception — not the norm. And you certainly didn’t complain about it. The idea that a tightly designed, skill-based arcade game should be judged primarily on how many hours it takes to finish is a thoroughly modern and deeply flawed mindset. This is how licensed games should feel What truly impressed me — within the first five minutes — is how authentic this game feels. The visuals are pitch-perfect 16-bit style The controls feel deliberate and weighty The atmosphere respects the Terminator universe rather than parodying it The challenge is firm but fair — no cheap modern tricks, just honest difficulty This doesn’t feel like a cynical cash-in. It feels like a game that would have absolutely existed on the Mega Drive or SNES, and very likely would have been considered one of the better licensed titles of its time. Had this released in the early 90s, I have no doubt it would’ve been regarded as a standout game of the year, not something docked points because someone speed-ran it. The delays were worth it Yes, the game was delayed — and yes, that annoyed me at the time. But knowing now that those delays were to ensure physical copies launched alongside digital, rather than because the game was unfinished, only reinforces how much care went into this release. That is an old-school decision, and it shows in the final product. The game feels complete, intentional, and confident in what it is. Final thoughts This game is not too short. It is precise. It is not designed to waste your time. It is designed to test you. If your idea of value is measured purely in hours played, this may not be for you. But if you value: challenge atmosphere tight design and games that respect the player rather than coddle them Then Terminator 2-D: No Fate absolutely delivers. For players from my era, this isn’t just a good game — it’s a reminder of how games used to be judged (pun intended), and why many of us fell in love with them in the first place. Highly recommended.

God tier game. Ultra fun weapon kinetics making all the gunplay feel incredible. Amazingly fun tight and varied stage design. Constant variety with the different characters and situations, every moment polished to an incredibly high level with both the art and gameplay. First playthrough is the movie accurate story, then in subsequent playthroughs you can change the story, unlocking several new levels. People complaining the game is too short with only 1 and a half hours clocked seem to be completely unaware of this which is hilarious. Beyond the main playthroughs of the alternate routes the game offers different difficulties and an incredibly fun score system along with online leaderboards, so the majority of the replay value is for those interested in challenge and mastery where the game becomes even more fun and amazing playthrough after playthrough.

Waited 30 years. Paid $40. Finished in 30 minutes. Worth it.

I know now why you cry..

46 minutes to beat the main story mode. The only time you get to use Arnie is when he's naked fisting men in the bar. Refunded. What a let down.

Great experience right up until the last level which is fucking bullshit insane and full of undodgable bullshit no matter what difficulty you're on, lost all my continues on the last level alone TWICE and if you get a game over you have to start again from the beginning of the game Fucking awful and it ruins the whole experience

Good game without question, but too expensive for what it is. Wait for a sale.

For crying out loud, i wish the person who designed the final steps towards the last boss (somewhere on the 12th level) - right there, near the finish line - to lose the keys from a snowmobile whilst fishing on a frozen sea somewhere beyond the borders of Alaska and game development! Just so you know, i played the game several times on normal difficulty flawlessly - as if i am ready to make a PhD out of it's contents - collecting at least 8 continues to find myself in this 10th circle of hell - dying more times than Bruce Wayne's parents in a crime alley or Tom Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow! Tell me who is that giant of thought who decided, out of nowhere, that you can break any sense of a balance maintainted thought out the game to make this bait-and-switch move, thinking that it can be a worst level of Contra?! A prolonged section where you are fighting a side-boss which is a guranteed loss of health, leading into a cargo elevator section with straight lasers shaving you like Audi on a car factory and a whole freaking beehive of Skynet's drones (exploding nearby, mind you, if you weren't busy enough shooting of the crimson red meat grinder to the left that is the lasers, after surviving a whole boss above you!) in such astronomical numbers you'd think they were sent to you from Amazons orders!

If that wasn't enough, playing this on normal not only ensures the increased number of lasers/smaller drones, but a pocket army of terminators on your way below and an easy to fail platforming section. Why easy to fail, you may ask? Because:

• these platforms are moving faster than hummingbird's blinking;
• you just survived through all of this on your way there, not having much HP;
• that giant of thought also decided to place more terminator units on tops of this platfroms, so you might as well break your fall on their knee-height projectiles

That right here is a tutorial on how to ruin an entire game with one small, poorly designed section by assuming that placing a NES-tier meat grinder as a part of your endgame is in no way a means for someone to actually put an end to the game. https://youtu.be/17KmNrG9pE4

I need your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle.