The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy-

Talk about tripping right at the finish line and breaking your neck. I love Last Defense Academy, adore it, it was - for a brief time - my favorite Visual Novel. It's poetry is excellent, it's battle system functional and engaging - if not exactly XCOM in terms of strategy - and there are few enough games where having an encyclopedic knowledge of Eroges is critical to understanding the plot. It was made for me, and for 144 hours, I had never loved another piece of digital fiction the way I loved [i]Last Defense Academy[/i]. How could I not? And then it just stops. For a game with 100 endings, it's incredible how there's a tangible and notable lack of closure. While I respect the 'choose which one you like' approach (Killing Game, for the record), there's never the less a feeling that we're left [i]missing[/i] something. For a game so meticulously crafted, there's a lot of extremely important questions and unresolved emotional beats that are all aching for a 'Final Route' to cohesively tie the whole thing together. A big final battle, a big kiss, a twist to end all twists, and a [i]Climax[/i] that clearly denotes itself from the other 100 climaxes. Not an ending, but a [i]conclusion[/i], a closing statement. Instead, the train just peters out right in the middle of no where. One hundred endings, more questions than answers, and you being asked to make of it what you will. Any lesser game than this and I'd have turned against it so hard I'd be leaking venom through my keystrokes, but despite the sensation of having your favorite romance cut short before it's final season - call it getting 'Spice & Wolf'd' - I am left with more good memories than bad. The game's achingly sincere moments still sing to me, and likely will for a while. I somehow doubt we're getting a sequel in our lifetimes, but who knows. If [i]A.I: The Somnium Files[/i] can somehow get a continuation, maybe we'll get a [i]Two Hundred Line[/i], a final season, a closing arc. A big, stupid, bombastic finale to actually match the buildup. Weirder things have happened. I know; it's a bad habit to put anything on the future, but what can I say? I'm going to be holding out hope on that one.

[h1] This Game Chooses Quantity Over Quality [/h1] It's remarkable that a game can have so much content and yet still feel so incomplete. Overall, I felt incredibly underwhelmed by this game. I believe it's not worth its price and that there are better alternatives in the genre. I'll start with the good: there are definitely likable parts of this game. Everyone will have their favorite routes and characters - I especially enjoyed the Retsnom and Killing Game Routes - and there are certainly many, many hours of gameplay. No one can deny that this is an incredibly ambitious project that a lot of hard work went into it. I just wish that the finished product of that work were more polished and concise. My biggest problem with this game is how clunky it felt. For one, it takes approximately 30 hours of gameplay to even reach the main game, which is a lot to trudge through, especially when your character actions are fairly limited for that timeframe - social links aren't unlocked yet, zero branching narratives, several of the (imho best) characters are unavailable for most, if not all of that time, but at least the battles are okay. I was excited to be done with that segment of the game so I could finally play what I thought I had signed up for - a narrative-heavy decision-based game - only for the main game to be, imo, even worse than route 0. Narratively, there's just a lot going on, but so much of it is either redundant, i.e. repeating word-for-word the exact same battles and encounters you've already had, or irrelevant, whether it's just a joke with no bearing on the game or touches on a potentially interesting aspect that will suddenly get dropped and never mentioned again. Having played through every route in the game, I still can't answer several important questions about the worldbuilding and plot that were hinted at and then seemingly forgotten. Sure, there are 100 routes, but so few of them actually add anything new or compelling to the story. I might be able to excuse that massive amount of filler if at least the main story were well-executed, but even the central plotlines were unsatisfying and the ending left the game feeling unfinished. Alternatives: If you're interested in the mystery/decision part of the game, I'd recommend Steins;Gate, Zero Escape, and/or 428: Shibuya Scramble instead. If you're interested in the battle/social links part, Persona or Fire Emblem is the way to go. This game tries to do both, but fails to effectively do either, churning out one-note characters and completely mindless battles with no strategy needed. Your money is better spent elsewhere.

This game deserves a lot of praise. It offers dozens of wildly different scenatios with enough mystery and intrigue to keep you engaged, and the gameplay mechanics are easy to learn, but offer a lot of fun, satisfying ways to engage with. I clocked in 200 hours unlocking all routes and endings, and with each of them I had a lot of fun seeing the different ways things unfold. This isn't one of those games that grants the "illusion of choice", it really delivers. The devs took a big risk putting so much into this game that they had said they risk going bankrupt if it doesn't sell as they are a fairly small company. Trust me, if you play this game you'll understand why that would be a colassal shame when they can produce quality like this.

Terrible dialogue, insufferable characters and unfun gameplay mechanics completely ruin what could otherwise be an interesting story. For every single conversation, the writers thought it necessary to shoehorn each character's singular defining quirk in, no matter how irrelevant it is to the topic, and how annoying and repetitive it gets. Here's how an average conversation goes when anything slightly important happens: - Someone introduces the issue - Mentally ill girl says something about killing games or battle royales - Assassin guy gets excited about the idea of murder - Spoiled girl says something arrogant, insufferable, and out of touch with reality - Samurai girl accidentally admits to masturbating with her sword again - Guy who hates himself says something relevant but expertly weaves into it how he thinks himself to be literal garbage - Guy who screams often, screams and punches himself or something, but it's actually because he is such a good guy despite looking like a yakuza, he is just passionate, and he also helps the elderly, okay? - Girl who doesn't care about anyone makes it clear that she doesn't care about anyone (she actually does, but will never show it) - Greedy guy makes it clear that he doesn't work for free - Guy who is into his sister says something obsessive about his sister - The sister is embarrassed but later says something about eating an extremely weird food combination, because god forbid a single character is without a weird quirk - Girl who gets the urge to vomit every 2 minutes, gets the urge to vomit - Wrestler girl makes outdated wrestling references - Guy talks about friendship, but gets a headache and excuses himself - The conversation ends with the protagonist and the main love interest doing nothing because they are as interesting as a cardboard box This happens over and over again, as this is the morning conversation in the cafeteria. Remember, there are 100 days in just a single route. There are many routes and 100 endings. You will see this same conversation so many times. If you played this game, you will recognize every character I made a reference to, because this is as complex as they got after almost 40 hours. Some of them got their character arc in that time and still did not change one bit (light spoiler: [spoiler]low self-esteem guy was objectively proven to be very useful but still feels the need to constantly talk about how much of a garbage heap he is. He is so insufferable that I can't understand how they thought this would be okay.[/spoiler]) At this point, I did not even get into the gameplay. All aspects of it range from okay to completely unfun (exploration). There is simply not a single mechanic that is fun, the best parts are merely tolerable. I love turn-based strategy games, but this is not doing it for me. I could excuse that if the story was enjoyable to read, but it is simply not. Many people praise the story, but to me, it is just inexcusable how terribly the dialogue is written. The overarching setting and plot could be interesting, but it is ruined by this rabid obsession with getting every character to make some unfunny quip about their singular quirk every chance they get. I also don't get this developer's obsession with mascot-like characters and monsters. The art style and character designs are so completely inconsistent because of this. Some characters look normal, and then there's Shouma. Also, the boss enemies look actually interesting, but all the common enemy monsters look like toys. I couldn't imagine anything less threatening. I honestly tried to like this. I really did. I finished the common route and gave up somewhere in the 2nd route. There is definitely stuff hidden behind hours and hours of poor dialogue. Maybe some people don't mind repetitive, shallow dialogue, but I found it insufferable. Each person will have to decide for themselves if it's worth it to go through all that to possibly arrive at something worthwhile. For me, it's not.

The game feels way too bloated. Some routes were filler—meh at best—and seem to exist only to unnecessarily pad the game's length. Too many plot points are repeated, previously completed battles can't be skipped instantly, and as far as I know, there’s no option to "skip already read dialogue," forcing you to manually skip text that may or may not contain new lines. Not all of the mysteries were resolved, and some "goofy ahh" elements appeared out of nowhere and led nowhere—contrived deus ex machinas involving a certain person and her silver 'vehicle', an old man with no name, quantum nonsense, etc. Strangely enough, the game doesn’t feel like a complete experience—it leaves a bunch of unsolved plot points hanging in the air and throws in way too many sequel baits for its own detriment, which I don’t like in a mystery game and is the same problem I had with VLR (Virtue's Last Reward). It ends up feeling more like setup than payoff. I’d honestly rate this game a 3.8/5. But since Steam doesn't allow decimal ratings, I’ll give it a "thumbs up"—because the main timeline and a few specific routes were peak, and the battle system, while a bit shallow and easily cheesable compared to others in the genre, was actually great.

Having played every route, maxed all the stats, and squeezed all the content I believe there is in the game. I cannot recommend this game to others. Before I dump in detail my gripes with the game I want to preface it with that I am a fan of many of both Kodaka's (For Danganronpa, Rain Code, Tribe Nine) and Uchikoshi's (For Zero Escape and AI somnium) works and have been enjoying nearly all their titles which I can’t recommend strongly enough (seriously play those games). The general review of this game is that it is very middle of the road. While a fan would enjoy many aspects of this game for sure, and a lot of the unique features were refreshing to see, there are just some key points that cannot be overlooked. The game is simply way too long and viewing the entire game as one experience is put together rather poorly. I'm not going to spoil any specifics on the plot for those who wish to play it but the gameplay of this is extremely lacking. The game is not a strategy game. It is not a danganronpa-style board game. It is by and large only a visual narrative. While that may be fine for many fans of that genre, those who have played previous works would have expected some actual gameplay. To provide an example: in V3 or Zero escape, you can somewhat move the story along by your results IN the gameplay (such as lying in a debate or solving some secret code in Zero escape). While those games still feel somewhat linear since they are on rails on where the story is headed the presentation is somewhat organic and it feels rewarding to make decisions, solve a puzzle, and move the plot along. This game has none of that, there is no actual gameplay that decides what direction the story goes in. You can’t, let’s say, win or lose a strategy battle that dictates the story moving forward in 100 days. All decisions are almost solely decided with a simple "left vs right" choice box. And most of these decisions result in an immediate game over 5 minutes later for being the wrong choice. What is so frustrating about this is that the game DOES have small moments of actual gameplay and good presentation. There are moments where you must solve a puzzle by picking 1-15 characters, or by making a choice by killing one boss over another in a single strategy battle, but by and large the game only teases these mechanics and never explores them. Showing that they did in fact implement them, but once. This does add a lot of charm to 100 days though, because it has similar staples to those other games that fans will surely love. There is a "bonding" mechanic with characters, there is a board game minigame you do that looks like that of Danganronpa V3 or S, there is a report card where you have stats that you have to max, but nearly all of this has little substance to the overall game. The issue is that the key feature that is unique to this is the strategy battles, and it simply isn't that good. To its credit, the first 100 days or (tutorial) is fairly decent, but the game quickly plateaus. The issue is that out of 16 characters that can fight in strategy battles, only a handful are consistently good. How these battles work for those who haven't played yet, is that a checkerboard map is placed and you have some units to fight random monsters and elite commanders given the story plot at the time in an XCOM style gameplay. You are given turns that you can use to move and attack but each move cost a turn. This is fine but when you are given say 7 characters and only given 3 turns on your round, you cannot and will not rely on using most characters. You can earn turns in a round by defeating larger enemies on the map (who are spread out and tend to have slightly more health). So, the META is to pick a character who can attack the farthest and do enough damage to kill as many larger enemies as possible, so it is no wonder that the only character everyone is using is in a bloody Jeep and can drive halfway across the map (She is the best by far). The enemies were not designed to complement your characters (at least not as much as they'd like to think), that to be frank you really can and should just play the game using the same 5 people when available. When a majority of the cast is deemed inefficient, it simply isn't good. Now I do like the strategy battles and did enjoy some key fights but this game has ~20 paths and I could not ever find a use for some of them as much as I wanted if ever. One character was introduced as a sniper and the plot says outright "USE HER TO GET THE GUY IN THE FAR BACK" but she was just awful for doing that. Her damage output was so low I didn't even bother, so I just skipped her in her own intro battle and most of the game afterward. That's not to say you can't force yourself to use them or find a way to make them worthwhile, but overall given how you are only given so few turns, most always fall flat especially in the beginning. For those who just want to read a book though I still can't recommend this. Not because I thought any of the stories were particularly bad (I have a soft spot for their works so I can admire some bad writing or cringe) but because in a way the more you play and experience the less you will enjoy it. You MUST play this game with the idea in mind, that even given that this is a game about multiple timelines, that whichever timeline you choose it is solely unique and unrelated to every other timeline. Logically this can be frustrating cause when an actual decision in the game is "Heads or tails" on a coin flip, one does not expect the differences of that coin flip to result in outcomes of say: whether a meteor strikes that night or simply never existed. Whether its zombies or monsters that exist in the world now. To their credit, there are some timelines that do connect and involve the others but there is just so much content that a lot of it really falls flat or even worse, some major things just slip by to never be resolved. Another aspect that I think is the most important for me is the characters. I enjoy these games because of the colorful cast and their personalities. This game was somewhat of a letdown. Now I understand that this is all taste but I did not enjoy the design of most of the characters at first (except Takemaru, Darumi, Hiruko, and Tsubasa). Luckily, they grow on you after 200 bloody hours of the thing, but sadly their personalities are all over the place. In some timelines they are all outright cowards. Which is fine, since a majority of these characters feel like weird fusions from the previous Danganronpa series and given the setting you don't expect much. The issue is that while some character changes make sense, some timelines have characters be the total inverse just for the sake of plot. Having a harmless pacifist become a bloodthirsty murderer for the sake of story is just weird and makes the characters come out hollow. In all timelines the only characters that I enjoyed (and even they had some down moments) were Tsubasa and Yugamu. In nearly every timeline they are the only ones that tend to be smart, helpful, and consistent with their personalities. They may not have the best personalities but you know what you are getting with them as characters, so I enjoyed them more than the rest. This was disappointing when in the tutorial my favorites were easily Takemaru and Darumi. The more you play, the more most characters get undermined and not everyone even gets a time to shine either. I love these directors' work and I want Too Kyo Games to succeed, but this is very middling as a solid piece. If you play this, and as a fan you probably should, I wouldn't recommend playing through ALL of it to completion. Whatever ending you get on your 2nd playthrough try to accept it because there isn't much to bind all 20+ playthroughs together. When it does its amazing and I loved it but in nearly all endings it just fumbled it hard and left me disappointed of the whole "story" that took 200 hours to invest in.

So I got this game primarily because I'm a huge Uchikoshi supporter & not so much a Kodaka supporter, though I do enjoy his work. I went into the game with as little information as I could and given all this, it can be easy to get a slightly skewed idea on how the game is supposed to work. This isn't an Uchikoshi game. It's a Kodaka game with input by Uchikoshi & it has a different set of rules than Zero Escape and AI Somnium. The routes do not all tie together... though some of them do (naturally, the ones written by Ushi), which can add a bit to the confusion. But aside from these select routes, Hundred Line is a VN where the decisions lead to multiverse stories which don't necessarily relate or even stay 100% consistent with each other. And unlike Uchi's games, you do not need to get all the endings to unlock a final route with a true ending. There *is* a true ending to this game, and it has no requirements. It could be the first ending you get if you make all the appropriate choices. Some may find this odd, especially if you were expecting something like Zero Escape, but this is how the game is meant to be, and once I realized this, I came to respect it and enjoy it a lot more. Yeah, it's pretty mixed. Some routes are amazing and others... not so much. Some very blatantly exist to pad the endings to 100. This is to be expected, and what matters is the strength of the characters, which I always dig in Kodaka's games... and just the overall experience, which... honestly, it may vary depending on what order you do the routes, which is ultimately a risk you take with this format. The canon route ended up being one of the last routes I came across, which gave me a pretty strong opinion on everything. But I can see how this would be different for someone who ended on, say, the Box of Blessings route... Still, on the whole, this game has some of the most tender and emotional moments I've ever seen in a Kodaka game. He's always had colorful characters, but I've never grown as attached to any of them as I had the members of the Last Defense Academy. And I can sincerely say that now that I'm done with the game... I'm really gonna miss them. ...and that's pretty cool :) The gameplay segments... the SRPG parts... are fine. They're fine. But I can't imagine anyone not deciding to skip them when they're 10% through the game. It's not like in AI Somnium of Dangan Ronpa where the gameplay segments include characterization and progress the story. In this game the SRPG just grinds everything to a halt. And the story is what the game is about. It's what people want to see. I know it was a hard decision for them to patch battle skipping into the game... but it was the correct one. It's wild. It's a huge time investment. Not everything works. But it's my favorite Kodaka game. The True Ending is up there with the final boss cutscene in Okami on videogame scenes that made me cry the most. I spent 131 with all these weird nerds, and it doesn't quite feel like enough... How can I not recommend it?

Amazing story. Because of the scope of this game, the story can go in many varied directions. Obviously not every route can appeal to everyone, and there were some I actively disliked, but most of them were great. In my opinion there is only one real downside to this game: If you're looking for an engaging and difficult SRPG, this is not the game for you. There is no strategy here because it is so mind numbingly easy. You only get two difficulty options to choose from, easy and normal, and it shows. I have never been at risk of losing a fight, not even close. In fact, if you decide to upgrade anything to even midway level (units, potions, defensive material) you can take out most commanders within just 1 turn. On top of it being so easy already, there is also a whole system in place that allows you to redo a turn or wave if you so please; Needless to say I haven't used this function a single time. There are just no stakes and you can use their all out attacks in basically every battle/situation, even when it narratively makes no sense for you to be able to do so. Luckily the developers did listen to the community and implemented a Battle Skip option for battles you already completed in different routes. They actually made a lot of things skippable that were unskippable before (cutscenes, the endless morning announcements). Solid move since a lot of early reviews complained about this and it could get rather tedious after a while if you decided to play for lengthy periods of time. TL;DR Amazing story, amount of content matches the price. SRPG element way too easy.

I still want to find out how the story unfolds (and I probably will) but this game suffers both from some terrible side routes (that you won't realize you've stumbled into until you're already well into them) and absolutely atrocious gameplay segments, both this mindless mario-party-esque exploration segment and another mode which is basically xcom at toddler difficulty. Both have "skip" options but they still play out all of the animations of spawning the units and such that take an unfortunate amount of unnecesary time. Sometimes gameplay segments come back to back and it gets really tiresome because of how boring it is. Had to force myself to keep playing on several occasions. Overall wouldn't recommend this one. If you're still interested, I would say it's probably best to look up a guide so that you don't accidentally do any of the many bad routes.

Filler-filled. This game is Kodaka exacting revenge on us for making Danganronpa immensely popular. Watch a playthrough instead.

If there was a game to be stranded on a desert island with, it would be Hundred Line. I've got 53 hours in with very little idling, and I haven't reached even a quarter of the endings. There are so many routes, and they're each very different and involved. One exciting feature is a detailed flowchart that lets you hop around between the routes whenever you want, with ALL progress carrying over as you go. Some routes are a lot heavier on free time, where you can improve your relationships with the other characters, and grind for materials, so you could even replay those sections repeatedly if there's something you're lacking. There's no way to get yourself stuck. To be honest, the game is simply too long, but it really has the feel of a passion project. There's so much effort put into the writing and the huge number of CG's, it would be a shame to skip it for that reason. I do hope to chip away at it over time, but what I've played so far has been worth the price of admission. This is not a Danganronpa killing game, but the similarities between the two titles are clear. If you like writing and art design of one you'll probably like the other. Don't be intimidated by the strategic battles. You can change the difficulty as needed, and once your characters get powered up a little, it starts to get pretty fun. They've patched in an option to skip battles that are similar to ones you've already done on other routes which is a huge time save. The game works fantastic on Steam Deck without any tweaks and it's how I put all of my play time in. Remember, this is more of a visual novel than a strategy game, so however you play it, get comfy and enjoy.

I agree with almost all negative reviews that I've read. Ambitious ideas, poor execution. It's a really bloated mess of a game. Even with guides it takes a lot of time reading through the shitty stories to get to the good stuff. Even after completeing the game 100% there still were unanswered questions, and IMO some good ideas thrown down the toilet (Conspiracy routes for example). In almost 130 hours of my playthrough i saw one great plot advance ([spoiler]cointoss in S.F. Route[/spoiler]) and one good gag ([spoiler]Kurara's canned tuna head in Comedy routes[/spoiler]), half of everything else was pretty mediocre, other half was either above average of fucking atrocious. The "horrible truth" is just disappointing, just as Kodaka's routes overall. Uchikoshi at least tried to craft an interesting narrative, his routes are "the good stuff". Can't say much about gameplay. Not too long ago they've patched an ability to skip exploration and more battles, so it says at least about its repetativness (Glad I've started serial battles route after that patch, ffs). If I were to recommend this game: buy it only on sale, play it using guides, get to the S.F. Routes ASAP. P.S. in the first days of release there was a reviewer that forgave Uchikoshi for ZTD and Kodaka for DRV3. I can't find it now, so I hope OP just deleted it after playing it for a longer time. Because in 2016-2017 we, Kodaka and Uchikoshi fans, were eating good in comparison to this.

Lack of a True Final ending after completing all the endings makes all the plotholes and random occurences feel completely unresolved, and what seemed to be a complex game turns into a completely incompetent jumble of ideas with a lack of a good resolution or explanation. Very intriguing game that shot itself in the foot by focusing on quantity over quality. If the game focused on just a linear path to Second scenario, the tens of hundreds of plot holes and unexplored plot threads were dropped, and the game's price was dropped, the game would've been 1000x better. As it stands now, this game feels like a mish mosh of half baked ideas

Saw all the endings. Truly a forever game. Innovative and slick, mechanically and in narrative. Feels like a movie saga in game format. Super gratifying no matter how you slice it, though, combat and pacing may grate on some.

I was initially impressed by the combat system. It's very clean and concise, it's easy to get to grips with and it feels good to master. I was thinking "Oh, this is really smart, they've stripped it down so there's a ton of room to expand and complicate things to help it stretch over 100 endings." Then it just... didn't do that? Several of the battles you faced in Route 0 will get higher-difficulty versions in the following game where the arena contains multiple bosses at once. That's about it. There's a tabletop-board-based map you can explore, but once you've used as many materials as you'll need to level the characters up, the sections where you're forced to engage with it will be a slog. The narrative takes a bit to get started. You won't learn anything really important and the characters don't get to develop properly until Route 0 is finished. Even after that, the protagonist (Takumi) will sort of [i]leaaaan[/i] away from discovering information that isn't "for" whatever route you're in. He won't talk to people you want to talk to, or investigate things you want to investigate, and it's very frustrating - and I'm talking about following up on connections and theories I made in Route 0, not across main routes. Its worst sin: this story presents a lot of questions that will never get answered. I don't mean like hypothetical/philosophical questions, I mean really basic stuff like "Why do we have a magic machine that does X?", "Why is there a cliffhanger at the end of Route 0 if we're just going to pretend it never happened?", "Are we or are we not [spoiler]getting out of this damn time loop?[/spoiler]" It's very "wait for it, [i]wait for it[/i], [i]waaaait[/i] for it." Well, I've been Waiting For It for almost ninety hours. I've finished like 50 routes, including the 2 to 5-ish routes that people said had the dense story content. I've unlocked all the locks. When do I get the It? I can't recommend the game even though I enjoyed quite a few of those ninety hours - because now, having reached as far into it as I'm willing to go, I feel distinctly unsatisfied. Like my time hasn't been respected. When I think about this game, I think about the unanswered questions and the slowly-rising sense of confusion, then concern, then frustration when I realized I wasn't getting the pay-off I needed to tie the story off. I kind of wish I hadn't played it. It's like an unscratchable itch.

The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- is an incredibly fun experience & truly a one of a kind game One of the best aspects of the game is the way it rewards any kind of player from casual to dedicated: If you want to treat the game like a one & done choose your own story novel you absolutely can If you just want to play a couple routes & learn a fair bit & then settle with an ending you are happy with you can However if you want to play through and get all 100 endings and learn everything you will be rewarded with a fantastic story, incredibly detailed world building and so many insane plot twists as you slowly peel away the covers on what is truly going on behind the scenes in this game On top of the incredible story the game is filled with entertaining, unique & lovable characters & a plethora of routes the come in many different genres that will keep you entertained The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- is a fantastic game that I wholeheartedly recommend!

This game does just, SO much right. Tired of exploration missions? They eventually become skippable. Want to see all the endings? Instant chapter selection. What's that? The same boss fight exists in multiple routes? You can skip it if you've done it before. The narrative theming is on point, the mystery element is solvable without being hit-your-head-with-a-hammer obvious, and the characters are likable (unless you hate Danganronpa style characters, in which case you will hate Darumi). No notes. EDIT: Okay, maybe one note: The Serial Battles Route is giving me Endless Eight flashbacks. Oof.

“The Hundred Line - Last Defense Academy” is one of the most interesting games I have ever played. After 85 hours, I've not even seen half of the endings and therefore have no idea about the “true ending” of this game, which – similar to “Danganronpa V3” – could be a relevant factor. (I love the V3 ending.) The first 30ish hours could have been released as a separate game that teases a sequel. Everything necessary for that is already built in. However, Kodaka and Uchikoshi decided that the sequel should be included right away. If it were just a matter of cost versus content, even a price tag of $100 would have been reasonable, because there is so much content in this game. However, I now ask myself: Should I criticize the fact that for 30 hours you don't get any new information about the overall mystery (even if the routes are quite entertaining for the most part. Not all of them, some are very boring and even poorly written... but most of them are good)? Or do I find it all the better when, after 80 hours, I receive a new information that rewrites my understanding of story points because it has even more impact after such a long time? That after 85 hours, I suddenly get tutorial messages and a new game mechanic is introduced, even if it's pretty blah? Right now, I'm at the point where I'll probably never play a game like this again in my life, and it's probably something that only TooKyo could have pulled off. Even if I end up thinking the resolution is unsatisfactory, give another team 100 million and they wouldn't be able to do what this game is.

While there were definitely some parts of this game I enjoyed, they were few and far between given the extraordinary length of the game. I expected a lot more of the sorts of wild nonsense you get in the Zero Escape series and there really wasn't enough. Somehow in 175 hours I don't feel like most of the characters were even developed enough in interesting ways. A lot of playtime is fast forwarding through the same announcements, plot beats, and battles which feel repetitive even at the fastest speed you can skip through them. I think I was hoping for it all to wrap up in a way that feels cohesive, but it's intentionally the complete opposite of that. I'm glad this got made. I'm not glad I played it. I can't imagine who I would ever recommend this to. I will play their next game anyway.

Not sure how to begin this review. Last Defense Academy is a JRPG from the guys who made the danganronpa series, which i adore. It is weird, fucked up, insane, and will generally keep you guessing as to where you go next. I've enjoyed my time with it. So I'm giving it a thumbs up. Now, there were some times I thought the characters were outrageously stupid, Takumi the protagonist, has zero deductive ability whatsoever, and is suicidally trusting. He's also still a kid, and a good guy. I guess I'd also feel out of place thrust into a war I knew nothing about. With all that said, I can't in good conscience recommend it to my friends. People who have played a similiar amount of hours to me will know why haha. Absolutely stunning in alot of cases, but the investment might be asking a bit too much.

To preface, I loved Kodaka's past work on DR 1, 2 and (yes) even V3. After the awfull taste that Rain Code left in my mouth (it really was this boring to me) I thought I would never trust this man again. After seeing the inital reviews for The Hundred Line, a game which was supposedly a return to form to his more traditionnal "VN with gameplay sprinkled in" format I thought why not, let's give it a try. All I wanted was to see crazy characters doing crazy stuff in a bizzare and creative world. After having played about 90h I think I got what I wanted but it sadly was not without let downs. The only SPOILER I will give in this review is in relation to its structure (SPOILER INBOUND). The game is structured in 2 parts : the first 100 days where the story is linear and you just follow along (prologue) and the second 100 days where the player can make choices which will DRASTICALY affect the story, the characters and its ending. Since I started with this, lets continue on the subject of the "choices" you make in this game. First, this is not a Telltale game. The choices you make will, as said above, change the ROUTE you are on. Those routes dictate the tone of the story and the way the characters behave in it. What I'm trying to say is that the game will shift 180° depending on the answer you gave. Sounds good at first right? The game would let you experience what YOU WANT to experience but sadly it is done so poorly, because almost all routes that diverge from the main intrigue of the story will forgo it completely, losing a lot of nuance. The whole plot is then thrown away for a subplot which relates only to said route. What this means is any sense of urgency is abandonned for something new. Same thing can be said about the MC's and the other characters' developpement. Any change they undergo will revert to their usually tropy self which may or may not induce a sense of frustration in the player. Also, a lot of routes feel either like fanfiction or fanservice, with the obvious bad writting that comes with it. Looking at the credits, some of them aren't even written by Kodaka and should have gotten a second pass at quality control. All of that sounds pretty negative but when the story / route you are on clicks, it clicks really, really well. It took me some time to stumble about one the "main" routes (judging by the quality of the writting / the amount of CGs it got) because the choices that led to it were stupid and didn't feel logical from the MC POV. Denominated appropriately as "Chapter00", it had all the emotions, drama, interesting story and especially world building you'd expect from Kodaka. This route, and some of the adjacent ones, are the ONLY reason I recommand this game. It is a really well written war story with a lot of symbolism and emotion thrown in and the world building was on another league compared to DR. I would encourage everyone who whishes to experience the game to follow it closely, despite the strange choices you make to get there. I didn't want to end the review on a negative note but something needs to be said about the gameplay. Half way through the game, I wished it would stop asking me to do battles/exploration because of how bored of them I had become. Honestly, I had to force myself through those rather easy sections as the burnout got more and more intense. There is also way to much free time event (where you can do other activities) that it ruins the pacing of the game. You will go from the most dramatic shit you read in a VN to the jolly tune of the free time annoucement to character talking to you as if nothing bad ever happened. With that said, I still respect the insane length Kodaka went to make this game a reality, it must not have been easy considering the studio's financial situation. Wish TooKyo Games the best. Hoping they go for a "less is more" mentality for their next game (if it happens) because if they had stuck to like 3-5 well written routes similar to the Chapter00 one, it would have been a smash dunk banger. TLDR; Insane story if you follow the "Chapter00" in its second part, which is sadly dragged down by the bad pacing issues, mid gameplay that overstays its welcome and lack of overall QoL. I would recommand this game ONLY and ONLY if you want to follow this main story and treat the rest as "what ifs" or fanfiction. Overall a GENEROUS 7/10 BUT 9.5/10 for the Chapter00 story.

[h1] I was hooked, pleased, entertained—then betrayed, puzzled, confused, frustrated, and slightly disappointed. [/h1] There are too many things to be said when discussing the potential of this game—what it could've been versus what it actually is in its current state. I was, surprisingly, hooked during the demo's first seven days. The suspense was incredible. The conventional and unconventional blended seamlessly, giving me an experience that felt both nostalgic and fresh. The CGI was almost beautiful—it felt alive to me, thus making the story truly immersive. They excelled at that, especially in the prologue. But that feeling was temporary. The ambition behind the game was admirable, but perhaps too grand to be consistently realized and sustained. Maybe I had set my expectations too high. Compared to the tightly illustrated immersion of the prologue/first few days, the experience began to unravel as the story progressed. For me, what made the game special was how the character interactions and CGI storytelling aligned so naturally with the pacing of the visual novel. It felt deliberate, thoughtful—even cinematic. But then it began to fade. As the story progresses, those moments became rare, relegated mostly to fragmented filler sequences that lacked the same emotional and artistic weight. What once captivated me eventually became scenes I found myself tempted to skip. Even when the visuals still looked as polished as I remembered, they no longer carried the same impact. I won’t comment on the finer story details to avoid spoilers, but I was initially drawn in by the suspense—and by the central goal of saving someone I genuinely cared about. Frankly, that sense of urgency and emotional investment slowly faded. What once drove me to finish the game became something I felt indifferent toward. The foundation for something great was there. The early chapters promised a story I wanted to hear—and for a time, I believed I was hearing it. But that immersion never returned. I kept hoping it would. The mysterious and ambiguous storytelling left me in a kind of delusion, clinging to the hope that maybe if I continued, that it would rekindle what once captivated me. And in that "hope", I challenged through and exhausted countless hours of game play/dialogue, faced choices that lead me onto different paths, what I had hoped for, as well as my drive, was at a complete lost. The ideal of getting a significant amount of branches out for the game, has had its effects, consequently compromising the story telling itself. I'm happy to hear about all of the things that these characters could've experienced, if I was able to somewhat dive further into the path I was originally on... But I wasn't able to, and that version of the game—the one I glimpsed in the beginning—never returned to me. I will not be recommending this game to anyone I know, however it will remain a positive review to acknowledge the hours and thoughts it has convinced me to have put into the game, as well as for these who may feel the same out there.

the devs are risking bankruptcy to release such a massive & high quality game, please if you enjoy danganronpa, zero escape or any visual novel, support them by buying the game, I got hooked in less than 20 minutes you won't regret it

Is it possible to praise this game without spoiling it? But I think many people already know about how many routes there are and I'm about 30-40% through this game with close to 90 hours. GIVE THIS GAME A TRYYY!! If you love mystery VNs like danganronpa and zero escape, I think this game will be up your alley. Please support them so we can get this kinda quality games and genres!! :DDD For the price and the endless amount of possibilities you get to witness in hundred line, you will definitely reach at least one ending that satisfies you. I really respect kodoka for adding in EVERYTHING, like seriously every genre, relationship and genre you can list out has a high chance of appearing here HAHA

Great game, but their decision to bloat the game with 100 endings was a poor one. Do yourself a favor and follow a guide and enjoy the well written main content and skip the unnecessary stuff.

This game feels like 80% visual novel, 20% tactical RPG. Plenty of content for those who like visual novels with multiple endings. Some endings will be a hit or miss, lots of routes to experience. This game is very text heavy, so I recommend taking your time playing for the best experience. If you are playing this game solely for it's Tactical RPG gameplay, you will be left disappointed since the game isn't that hard and strategies are pretty straight forward, not to mention the amount of times a battle can be skipped. Other than that, I've enjoyed my time reading through each route with a diverse cast. Love and peace!

A true triumph in game-making from creators that poured their heart and soul into it. Make no mistake, this is multiple games in one, which each section being its own cohesive plot. The gameplay is surprisingly fun, though pretty easy to master. This is not only Kodaka's best cast, but a cast that you spend by far the most time with in comparison. The story was wonderful, I truly laughed out loud so many times, and Last Defense Academy really felt like a home after a while. Give this one a whirl, these noble creators deserve it. Glory to the Special Defense Unit, the hope of all mankind.

If you've ever enjoyed Zero Escape, Danganronpa, the Somnium Files or any of the other visual novels that these developers have worked on, please give this a shot. I'm 40 hours in, and I'm still unlocking new mechanics that flip everything on its head. This is a phenomenally large undertaking in terms of plot and gameplay, and it's an absolute delight to play. I'm not going to say anything further to avoid spoilers, but if you enjoy visual novels or story-driven games, I can't recommend this enough. If you haven't played any of the other games by these devs, maybe try out the demo first to see if the tone and writing style is to your liking - because if it is, you're in for a fantastic experience. Thankyou so much for this game!

this game changed my life i can no longer do anything without constantly thinking about playing this game

This game is 10/10 AMAZING. The whole experience is nearly flawless. This is hands down my personal Game of the Year. I truly had no idea what I was getting into with this game, absolutely zero idea. I didn't even watch the trailer, and didn't even know it came out this year. Do your self a favor if you're on the fence, play the free demo. I played the demo after seeing a friend share a screenshot of this game on Steam and from there bought the game, full price, and played it for over 70 hours across the last three weeks. I couldn't stop playing and I couldn't stop thinking about this game when I wasn't playing it. This game is so packed with so much content it's unbelievable. The story writing is so good, from beginning to end. I liked every single character, every moment, every twist, every reveal. The music is great, the game play loop is good and fun, and the absolute cinema of a story is so hard to put down. I'm so glad I played this game. It's a MUST PLAY. Play this game 100% blind like I did and just enjoy the ride. Look nothing up and just commit to the story to the very end.

A Wonderfully Beautiful Chaotic Mess......and i love it. (MOSTLY SPOILER FREE) Without a doubt Game of the Year easily, maybe even Game of the Decade considering how much is crammed in here but that's where the Chaotic Mess part of the title comes in. Naturally because of the sheer scope of this title and the various different routes included there's going to be some that doesn't mix with you and that's ok as for me i have 7 routes i didn't like but there being 22 it balances out even still which is also what leads me to my biggest issue with this game. Kodaka himself more or less sabotaging the project, be it on purpose or completely accidental which i'm believing the latter personally. There's many parts of this game that's extremely weird with its execution...to the point of it being obnoxious at points and its all due to the over all choices made in his main routes that really annoy me as they go against the whole identity and selling point of the game. So to make it clear the whole "All Endings Matter or are at least significant." is just not true as there's many false ends that just finish abruptly with anything meaningful brought to the table, this includes actually really good opportunities to make new routes that are just squashed immediately which makes it even more frustrating considering the choices you have. Really doesn't help matters where there's times where the game can just refuse to let you skip battles you've already done before and then let you skip an incredibly unique battle at the end of a route which completely destroys so much engagement & emotional impact it could have had which conveniently was in one of his routes so i have no idea how that got past QA... His insistence of saying "You can just leave the game after Prologue" really annoys me and comes off pretty rude given the other follow writers involved which you should be promoting which is pretty funny as the actual game begins after his 32 hour long prologue. Just take your time with the game, i strongly recommend against stopping where he says to as you just aren't getting the full experience by doing that. That being said however, Uchikoshi saves it massively which does not surprise me given how much i adore his previous work so if you ask me i recommend going into this for him instead of Kodaka as he's easily the weakest part of this game's overall narrative despite the amount he wrote ironically. Of the routes i will list my favourite to least favourite though only with their initials to keep this as spoiler free as possible: S.F > Reb > M > S > E > COT > BOC > V > Ret > Com > COA > SS > GE > KG > Prologue > Res > BOB > ME > SB > Con > Cas > Rom An overarching problem i did have with the game was the severe lack of Story Locks (A common thing in Uchikoshi's previous work) and i really wish they implemented them more as there's many instances in the game where you can nonchalantly find out something massive then go to another route and its treated like some epic gigantic reveal which a lot of these overarching issues would be fixed by having more of plus an over all more controlled experience. Conclusion: The Hundred Line: Last Defence Academy is a game that can never ever be replicated again as despite it having some definite rough spots be it bad routes and or overall design choices, given the sheer scope and effort that went into this regardless its very easy to ignore these issues as there just isn't anything like this game and probably never will in the future. This is a fantastic experience and i very strongly recommend you give it a go ❤️

After 80 hours and 65 endings, I can't recommend this game to any newcomer or casual fan of VN's. I'd only recommend this game to big fans of Uchikoshi and Kodaka's work just to experience what their "magnum opus" was. The reason for this is because there is so much slog to go through, in a lot of the routes, the same twists and and teases are given to you over and over again making the lack of a "skip read dialogue" feature the biggest flaw this game has. Once you unveil the secrets that the world building of this game has to offer, the game forces you to sit through the same information being revealed over and over again, but just written with slightly different dialogue because the circumstances are slightly ever so different. It has me constantly skipping dialogue, just hoping I don't accidentally skip past slight differences in the route. The 100 endings gimmick is also a gimmick that took surprisingly long for me to get annoyed at. The majority of endings that I've played through are either death endings or bad endings that felt like they existed to add fluff to the game with PLENTY of fluff already. The worst part of this, is when you make a choice, and get left with either a cliffhanger that has no further explanation, or a character death that just leads to the MC blanking out. For a couple of endings in this game, I audibly groaned when the credits played, because they are such blue ball endings that felt like could have been expanded on. Right now, im tired. I'll probably return to the game later to get the rest of the main endings (I've gotten the [spoiler] second scenario route endings [/spoiler]) But at the moment playing this game fills me with enough genuine pain that I don't feel like it justifies getting all of the endings at the moment. It's probably easy to say "just play the main endings" but in my opinion I think to fully experience a VN you have to get all of the endings because otherwise the game is not fully completed. I'll always feel like im missing something if I haven't technically gone through every route the game has to offer. Zero escape is dead

the demo will get you the bones of the game but there is so much more if you like turn based strategy you might have fun but still find it very easy If you like visual novels with plenty of quirky characters you might love it If you have enjoyed Danganronpa or Zero Escape YOU MUST PLAY IT also it's at least close to a 100 hour game if not more filled with plenty of crazy twists and turns I still have to finish it myself but I have been loving my second run of it

Way too many endings, and way too many repeated plot threads made the game a drag. I did not finish the 100 endings. I am writing this review after finishing all [spoiler] Box of Blessings [/spoiler] endings and trying to do the [spoiler] Box of Calamity [/spoiler]. Like these specific endings are 8 each, and they are all mostly the same, which meant playing 8 times through 90% the same plot. Many endings just also end abruptly, and many times the character's just accept things and don't question others for ??? reasons. Battles were all pretty repetitive too, and I didn't like the more crazy characters (too unhinged imho). This is all to say I played all Danganronpa and Zero Escape games, so the slow plot, subpar gameplay (like the [spoiler] game board with the cards [/spoiler] was very unfun and annoying), and bad characters were pretty grating. Get this game on a sale if you really want to.

This game really throws you for a loop. While it sometimes feels like a drag, it's satisfying to see all the puzzle pieces fall into place as you go through the various routes.

An incredibly strong start with the base route, but after that the quality drops off a cliff as you start delving into the multiple routes and endings. A few of these are great routes with an interesting plot and character development, but a VAST majority is just an absolute waste of time with the flattest endings. Those routes also just so happen to tend to take the longest (or at least feels that way) cause they're often jam packed with forced exploration and invader battles. To add on to that, the combat system itself is a lot of fun until you realize just how piss easy it gets and the difficulty plateaus fast (desperation potion voltage dumping). To make things worse a lot of the battles can be straight up skipped cause they're just a repeat of something you've done already, and you still get the BP reward afterwards anyways so what did you even miss out on? The same cycle of farming voltage wave one, dumping wave 2, then desperation potion wave 3 or the rare wave 4? This all ties back to the game having entirely too many low effort routes that it basically becomes a mediocre story with long winded skippable cutscenes shoved into it. tl;dr: a good game that way way WAAAAAAAY overstays its welcome to the point it becomes bad

The fully realised vision of some absolute sickos for us sickos.

This game took 200 hours of my life and I don't want a single second back. Exactly what I would have imagined a love child between Kodaka and Uchikoshi to be, quirks and all. If you enjoyed Danganronpa, Zero Escape, and/or Somnium Files, check this out because it may very well be up your alley. Tower Defense/SRPG combat is enjoyable and requires thought on the harder fights, and if it's not entirely your cup of tea you can skip combats when you are doing them "again" on a new route - eventually you can just skip all the combats if you want once you are further into the game. Please play this if it seems interesting and help support TooKyo Games! I want this game to be a success so my favourite game designers can make more games together!

Amazing story, quite the long read but it's worth it. I recommend everyone to finish all routes if possible, have fun.

A truly incredible feat of game and narrative design. There will never be another game quite like Hundred Line. My one piece of advice would be to keep an open mind and learn to enjoy the general rhythm of gameplay more than anything else.

Very fun and unique game! Got all 100 endings. Hoping for DLC endings!

As a life-long Danganronpa fan(Played since the original DR1 Release on PSP with no voice acting), this game feels like the next step and true evolution to the Danganronpa formula. Kodaka has said it himself that this is his magnum opus and I could not agree more. Please buy this game, it's worth every penny and more. I still only have 10 out of the 100 endings.

When gamers ask "why can't someone make a game where my choices actually matter," the answer is mostly "well, that would be an enormous amount of work to make extra content most people will never see." And fair enough. But Last Defense Academy instead says "now your choices can matter." This might be the closest we get to the ideal. Without spoiling too much, there's ~20 different timelines. You can hop between them at will, progression transfers across, you really can see all the content if you want. The tactical combat is pretty fun too, it gets away from some games having defensive play become dominant by giving you extra attack and resources for playing aggressively.

GOTY 2025 this game should not have been made it's so unique there will NEVER be another game or visual novel like it kodaka put everything into this game and you can feel it

Good underrated game. The gameplay in itself functions more like a puzzle than a strategy game in combat. Outside the story is quite interesting. HOWEVER, i would reccomend playing the game little by little. Do not try to rush the game it is not possible. Due to a very long lifespan and the story that is a slog sometimes. I was like "Bro, why do you sit on your ass for a whole 2 weeks instead of doing something NOW ?!". I absolutely reccomend this game "thumbs up" shit how do you...

This game has 100 endings. Yes. I got all 100 endings. I collected them like pokemon, and like pokemon there were some that were disappointing, some that were just outright amazing, and some that were alright. Still, the game is ambitious, and I truly wish it success because it is a great game.

100% worth the money. I've done every route and unlocked everything there is to unlock. It was a very good experience overall and definitely going to be my GOTY. There was only ONE route that I didn't like out of the 22, which is pretty impressive!

An absolute marathon of a VN. Finished all 100 endings, and if it could hold me somewhat engaged for all that time, it's pretty great by default. There is a decent amount of filler as one can expect, but at least half the endings were quite worthwhile, so expect a lengthy time investment. The tactics gameplay is surprisingly fun. Probably the most interesting gameplay I've seen in such a VN heavy game, although that bar isn't very high to clear. Soundtrack is also top tier.

I can recommend The Hundred Line only if you have a lot patience and time. If you don't have it this game turns into the torture. But it still have some good stuff in it: - Characters are pretty good, but they written in Kodaka style so most of them a little bit one note; - Some story bits are relly cool; - The routes that was written by Uchikoshi [spoiler]Steady Fundamental and Mystery routes, but to unlock them you need to read through 2 the most dog shit ones[/spoiler] a little better then the rest but still writing a lot worse then in Zero Escape and Somnium Files - Gameplay is interesting, but also kind of annoying. You can't place characters at the start of the battle, and they placed by developers in the way that you can't hit any priority targets. The upgrades doesn't do much: in story MC can absorb power of the most strong being - +1 damage on the ultimate which is stuns you for two turns, great. But it all doen't metter because this game have a giant problem, it have absoultely no reson to be this long. If you want to read through all the routes it will be around 150 hours of play time. I played for 76 hours and it should have been like 30 at best. The game just loves waste your time, each route takes one hundred days and even in this day nothing happens you still need watch through this stupid animations and new day announcement. Developers actually added in one of the first putches ability to skip the new day announcement but it actually doesn't work it only makes your screen turns black timewise it still the same. In the story is also a LOT of filler moments where they repeating the same jokes over and over. If I hear a joke about mastruabtion with a sword again I will fucking scream. Also in a lot of days you get a "Free Time" there you can upgrade your characters or give them gifts. So upgrades as I said doesn't do much and bonding events are pretty shit even Danganronpa V3 have better ones. Oh and overall about the story. Some of the moments felt really forced from route to route rules of the world and some facts are just inexplicably changes. The twists a little bit predictably and reveals doesn't planned that well. Some staff can be mentioned in one route in a way that you should be already know it. But in other route that you can beat later there will be grand reveal about the staff you already know. Overall Hundred Line have some coll ideas but it also one of the most annoying games that I played in while.

Incredible game with amazing character depth and lore.