An old school run-and-gun that clocks in under 50 minutes and will have you smiling the whole time.
What Is It? A throwback pixel art run-and-gun arcade game following the Terminator 2 storyline. The “No Fate” portion of the titles refers to there being some alternative path decisions you can make in story mode to see how the movie might have played out if some key choices were made differently.
Playing mostly as Sarah Connor, you replay scenes throughout Terminator 2, with a few flash-forward scenes as John and even a T-800 section or two as well. The game switches between a few different styles of levels, but the majority of them arm you with a gun and have you running through dozens of enemies and a boss or two until you reach the end. A glorious two or three minutes at a time, in most cases.
Shooting in the game is in eight directions, a fact that you will constantly leverage to avoid taking damage from enemies and, especially, bosses. You can jump, duck, melee, and slide along with shooting. In the future levels you will get pipebombs to throw as well. Sliding gives you brief invincibility which becomes very important as you make your way through the various obstacles the levels provide. Most of these obstacles are in the form of something dealing damage to you, with the occasional opportunity to fall into a hole or lava pit mixed in for good measure.
Enemies are robots, humans, or sometimes both, depending on the level. None of them are terribly smart but they do offer a variety of fire coming your way and movement patterns to understand. You will likely come to despise the few enemies whose fire is not high enough to duck under to avoid.
Alongside the normal levels, there is a stealth level, beat-em-up level, and a couple of chase levels. These are all good fun and do well to break up the standard action. There are 12 levels on the first playthrough, which follows the movie’s storyline. Subsequent playthroughs allow you to make different choices in a few spots to unlock different levels, there are 19 in total although some are simply repeats of others playing as a different character.
The story mode can be completed in about 45 minutes on your first playthrough. The game also offers:
- Arcade Mode: a subset of the levels, no saves or continues
- Infinite Mode: endless waves of enemies
- Boss Rush Mode: self-explanatory
- Mother of the Future: Sarah’s missions only, no continues or saves
- Level Training: replay any single level
All of these can be played on Easy, Normal, Hard, and Very Hard difficulty levels.
The Best Part: How many scenes they ripped directly from the movie and how perfectly they ripped them. Maybe because we don’t really get movie tie-in games these days, but seeing a movie play out with my controller was an amazingly novel concept in 2025. The bar scene, in particular, is so perfect compared to what is shown in the movie. This makes me wish for this developer to get their hands on numerous other movie licenses to give it the same treatment.
The Worst Part: If you play this game on Normal difficulty you will likely beat it in somewhere around 40-50 minutes. Despite the numerous game modes and advertised branching paths for alternative endings, this initial 45 minute playthrough will show you roughly 75-80% of the entire game. Your long term, or even medium term, enjoyment of this game is going to rely on you wanting to replay this game repeatedly to chase down trophies, beat high scores, break record times, and learn every pixel of the game to beat the Very Hard difficulty level. I had a great time replaying this a bunch of times to get the platinum trophy, but those who aren’t looking for replay value through replaying the game will find this one lacking.
The Verdict: Terminator 2D No Fate is a fantastic retro-inspired run-and-gun game. It is also a fantastic movie tie-in game as it hits so many notes directly from the movie, it is fun to act those out with my controller 30 years after T2 was in theaters. There are dozens of other movies of that era I’d love to see get the same treatment Terminator 2 did here.
I have a few minor gripes with the gameplay. During my 10th and 11th replays I got a bit tired of the motorcycle chase level, and maybe a couple of others. The platforming controls are a bit too retro-inspired and could have used some cleaning up, although you don’t use them all that often.The branching, alternative paths are very limited.
None of the above are major issues to me; this game is a blast and I beat it more times in one weekend than I have beaten 99.99% of the videogames I’ve played in my lifetime. That says a lot.
The one thing I can’t really wash away as being minor is that this game is simply a very bad value for certain people with the $30 price tag. Comparing it to other $30 retro-inspired games from this year, Terminator 2D falls quite short in terms of overall content. If you only want to play out the movie, and even the alternative paths, it is extremely difficult to recommend this game at full price. If you want to really dive into something and try to overcome some very difficult challenges, there is likely enough here to satisfy you.
Personally, I had a great time with this game and have no regrets about the purchase. I spent eight or nine hours in the game to get the platinum and feel like I got my money’s worth, especially as this is definitely a game I’ll revisit later for a quick blast of retro run-and-gun.
Regardless of the value proposition, I think Terminator 2D No Fate is an extremely well made game. It is fun from the first level to the last and I had a great time playing it over and over.
How to Play: PlayStation 4/5*, Switch 1/2,Xbox One/Series, PC
*console played on for this review
Leave a Reply