The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy's Enormous Size Was A Huge Risk - But It Paid Off

[ad_1] 55 hours into The Hundred Line: Final Protection Academy, Too Kyo Video games' visible novel turn-based technique sport, I encountered a very touching scene. Two characters, who just a few days earlier realized one thing significantly shocking--one of a number of moments within the sport that recontextualizes the entire experience--get up early and find yourself watching the solar rise collectively. It is a little bit second of tranquility, of two individuals bonding over pure magnificence amid a very tough string of days, and it landed fantastically. It felt like the sport was tapping into one thing a little bit deeper, a little bit extra melancholic, than what I would seen earlier than.

In response to on-line estimates of the sport's complete size, on the level I noticed this scene, I had one other 90-120 hours to go till I might actually say that I would "completed" the sport, relying on my velocity and endurance. The identify The Hundred Line refers back to the variety of days the scholars of Final Protection Academy should defend their faculty for as waves of invaders periodically pressure them into tactical fight. However the identify really has one other which means that you just uncover as soon as these 100 days go for the primary time, about 30 hours into the sport: This sport has 100 unlockable endings, and to get the total image, you will need to see all of them.

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Now Enjoying: The Hundred Line -Final Protection Academy-: Official Launch Trailer

The promise of 100 endings feels just like the kind of advertising mistruth that pops up in a press launch to play up how a lot the sport is formed by your decisions. A sport that claims to have 12 endings would possibly really imply 4 endings, every with just a few minor potential variations. And sure, a few of the endings in The Hundred Line are form of dishonest, or are similar to every other--not each ending is created equal. However there actually are 100 of them, consisting of 21 completely different "routes" that may all finish at numerous completely different factors.

On the level that these two characters took within the dawn, I had seen eight endings; I used to be nonetheless a very good 5 hours from getting my ninth (though endings 10-12 have been all unlocked inside an hour after that). In search of out these endings had revealed new details about the sport world: The paths resulting in these endings had proven characters in a brand new mild, and a number of other of them had poked at new corners of this sport world or revealed new lore. They'd been foolish, unhappy, a little bit scary, and alternately humorous and tragic. Completely different characters died every time, and the feelings I felt over each have been completely different. As I wrapped up the pathway that, I consider, is the closest factor the sport has to a "canon" ending, I knew that I would hold going, and that figuring out the whole lot I would realized on my approach to that ending would solely deepen my understanding and appreciation of the various paths I nonetheless needed to take.

The Hundred Line: Final Protection Academy is co-directed by Kazutaka Kodaka and Kotaro Uchikoshi, greatest recognized, respectively, for the Danganronpa and Zero Escape video games: two collection recognized for his or her big twists, hyperactive narratives, and penchant for killing off solid members. This new sport has all of that too, and it throws in a reasonably competent Fireplace Emblem-style fight system on high. That is to not point out the bonding stats with every particular person pupil, the board-game-like "exploration" mode, or the RPG-style character stats and loadouts you possibly can progressively tweak as the sport progresses.

Often, in video games that promise a narrative formed by the alternatives you've got made, a serious enchantment is the notion of attending to the top and experiencing the conclusion of the story that you've co-authored with the sport's writers and designers, discovering the conclusion that represents the pathway you cast by way of the expertise. Perhaps you will play once more and make completely different decisions to expertise some completely different scenes; extra seemingly you will merely take it as a on condition that if you happen to did, the story can be a little bit completely different subsequent time.

The Hundred Line takes a unique strategy: It is a choose-your-own journey story, however as a substitute of needing to maintain one finger again on the web page the place you made your final alternative in case it would not pan out, you've a neat timeline that allows you to revisit each single alternative within the sport.

Probably the most empowering factor about this sport is that your individual decisions do not actually matter, as a result of one of the best ways to play the sport is to make all of them and see each end result. There are definitely some pathways that offer you extra info or a deeper story, endings that really feel "good" or "unhealthy" or some shade between, however there isn't any sense of punishment, or of being denied sure story beats due to your decisions.

There is a uncommon, thrilling feeling that I do not expertise usually with video games of this scale: the sense that the builders have been in a position to pursue their actual imaginative and prescient by way of to the top. The Hundred Line is the form of sport that no enterprise strategist or market professional would advise an organization to make and launch in 2025. A sport this big, with no further monetization, with a pointed concentrate on storytelling, with a $60 price ticket and plenty of unusual and difficult themes: It may very well be a possible recipe for catastrophe, particularly when it depends on 3D fashions for its tactical fight system and quite a few cutscenes. It is a sport that many media and influencers are going to be a little bit scared to the touch, too, since it is so prolonged and text-heavy.

<img alt="The Hundred Line" src="https://www.gamespot.com/a/uploads/scale_super/123/1239113/4626292-0494422003-ss_1f.jpg" srcset="https://www.gamespot.com/a/uploads/original/123/1239113/4626292-0494422003-ss_1f.jpg 1920w, https://www.gamespot.com/a/uploads/scale_super/123/1239113/4626292-0494422003-ss_1f.jpg 1280w, https://www.gamespot.com/a/uploads/scale_medium/123/1239113/4626292-0494422003-ss_1f.jpg 480w" sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" data-width="1280"/> The Hundred Line The Hundred Line took over 5 years to develop, and the script--which should comprise one thing within the ballpark of 1 million words--would have made localization terribly costly, particularly while you think about voice performing. In a pre-release interview with Nintendo Life , Kodaka admitted that if the sport didn't promote effectively, the studio "could also be finished" after taking out loans to fund improvement. Per week after the sport got here out, in response to a fan on Bluesky, Kokoda said that the corporate was "nonetheless on the point of going underneath."

And but, The Hundred Line has been a hit. By July, three months after launch, the sport was promoting effectively sufficient that Kodaka advised Bloomberg, "I do not see chapter as a severe future." Precise gross sales figures haven't been launched, however it appears that evidently the chance Too Kyo Video games took in spending a lot effort and time on creating this behemoth paid off.

A part of it, I feel, is that Kodaka and Uchikoshi have constructed up good will with their earlier collection: the Danganronpa and Zero Escape collection amassed world fanbases over a protracted interval. The Hundred Line can be audacious in a method that's simple and unusual: the sheer measurement of the factor is thrilling, extra so than a sport that supplied, say, 30 completely different endings. It additionally helps that the tactical battles are fairly gratifying, with simply sufficient depth and originality in order that going into battle by no means feels tedious.

Past all of that, although, the storytelling in The Hundred Line is--to boil down an immense amount of labor right into a simplistic sentiment--very good, with wonderful character dialogue, improbable voice performing, and an important many "what if" situations you possibly can discover. The characters are all fascinating, creating and deepening over time, and seeing how they alter and adapt to the vastly completely different tales you possibly can discover is fascinating--it's spectacular to see the sport preserve consistency throughout completely different paths.

As experiences proceed to come back in of builders tightening their belts because the business shifts in the direction of extra conservative, confirmed techniques to show a revenue, seeing an organization taking an enormous threat to make one thing each monumental and weird, and having it repay, is heartening. Even with out that context, although, The Hundred Line would nonetheless be my favourite sport of 2025. It is a breathtaking achievement in narrative design, a really wild instance of simply how a lot you are able to do with participant alternative, and some of the bold visible novels ever made.