I can’t think of any other game that had you play as a Kaiju (think Godzilla or the monsters from Pacific Rim) before playing Loren Lemcke’s latest indie title, Terror of Hemasaurus. Featuring a crazy backstory (more on that in a bit), the game will have players taking control of one of four carnage-causing kaiju, Hemasaurus, Autonomous Hemasaurus, Clocksloth and Salamandrah, as they evoke devastation across levels that take them through different locales in the USA.

Kaiju Destruction Meets Tiny Tower

As a chibi-sized Kaiju (no taller than several stories) in the game, your job is to DESTROY. And yes, there’s a prolific amount of destruction that you can dish out with each kaiju and all this played out in glorious retro 2D pixelated glory.

I particularly like toppling down buildings in creative ways, much like a kaiju-inspired Jenga, causing the multitude of cute, Tiny Tower-like (remember that mobile game) civilians to scamper about to save themselves. Talking about civilians… Eat them, punch them, smack them, throw them at a copter, throw them at each other, crash a copter into them, kick their vehicles when they are driving, kick a vehicle INTO them, drop a building on them, broil them with radioactivity, finish them off with a missile…..

As a Kaiju, you couldn’t say no to ALL OF THAT! Terror of Hemasaurus is literally a playground of Kaiju-caused-destruction. There’s so much pixelated blood in the game, it’s no wonder that it has a mature content description that reads: violence, gore, blood, etc.

Modes of Play

The story mode has aliens coming over to Earth, taking over human form, start a kaiju-worshipping cult and sending back a kaiju back in time in a somewhat bonkers idea to save humanity. Each level will have you carry out specific acts of destruction with your chibi-Kaiju, whether it is killing a number of civilians, kicking x number of vehicles or participating in time-attacks such as quickly destroying a tower block.

I kept getting stuck at the level where I’ve to hit two thrown civilians with another civilian (I think) that thankfully there’s an Endless Destruction mode where objectives be damned, just DESTROY! And if you are ever bored of destroying cities on your own, the game supports 4-player local co-op play.

Steam Deck Surprise

I spent majority of my time with the game playing it on my primary gaming rig (AMD Ryzen 5800X, 32 GB RAM and NVIDIA RTX 3070) and the game performed admirably. I was also curious on whether can I take the game on the go with me on the Steam Deck and while it’s Steam Deck compatibility was marked as “Unknown”, I’m happy to report that it runs really well on the portable device. In fact, most of the screenshots in this article were from the deck.

What’s the Verdict?

We rate Terror of Hemasaurus at a must try 4 out of 5. Terror of Hemasaurus is now available on Steam at USD 10. You can check it out over here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1016180/Terror_of_Hemasaurus/