Let it be known now, The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy is anything but “Generic JRPG XVI.” During our brief, albeit extended, time with the game, this could very well be a hit for anybody that gives it a chance.
The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy has quite the pedigree behind it. This debut title from Too Kyo Games is the collaborative result of Kazutaka Kodaka (known for his scenario writing in Danganronpa) and Kotaro Uchikoshi (known for his work on the also superb Zero Escape series). Putting these minds together has resulted in a slow-burning and strange yet satisfying introduction that I’m looking forward to playing more of.
You’ve Heard This Before
You play as Takumi Sumino, pretty much your default protagonist living in the Tokyo Residential Complex. Nothing groundbreaking happens, until monsters come out of nowhere and destroy everything in their path. It’s convenient havoc that most gamers or anime fans have already seen more than once.
This guy is nuts.
Then things get a little bit more granular.
With no sense of hope… A ghost? A marshmallow? Whatever, he’s a sort of cute white ball with hat on, offers Takumi the opportunity to save himself and his loved ones. All Takumi has to do is stab himself. Reluctantly, he does and then he becomes this superhuman able to rid the area of these monsters.
Sound like another game? Totally Persona. Just replace gun with knife and shoot with stab. In the few hours I’ve spent with the game, The Hundred Line doesn’t do a lot of things that are unique to either video games or anime, but everything the game does has been with quality and care.
Everything, The Way You Want
The game is one part visual novel and one part tactical RPG, and each part runs extremely deep. It takes place over the course of 100 in-game days, and aside from the first couple for exposition reasons, they go by fairly quickly. The build of the game only let us through the first 29, and there’s a lot of meat to go through. After the scenario we just went over, Takumi finds himself in a school in a separate dimension with 14 other people who just went through the same thing he did, and they find out they have to protect the school from hoards of enemies for the aforementioned 100 days before they can go back home.
There actually is free-roaming, but once you’ve unlocked more rooms, you’ll be fine navigating through menus to get to where you have to go.
As you might expect, the visual novel part of the game is not only where you’ll encounter most of the narrative, but you’ll be expected to build relationships with the other characters as well. While they all follow typical anime tropes — you have the hot-headed guy who wants to fight everybody, the fat loner with no self-esteem or respect, the badass tsundere, twins who are just too close for their own good — they all are well written, and each character you interact with will open up various branching paths that’ll allow you to cater the story to your liking. Are you wondering about a romance system? Mr. Kodaka quickly nodded yes with a smile.
You’ll have the free time to do whatever you want (for the most part) over the course of those 100 days. In that time, you’ll be encouraged to engage with the people at the school to make time go by while also raising some stats. Want to sleep to make the days go by faster? Do it. Want to practice fighting with the people in your party who actually want to fight? You can; that’s encouraged. You can even go outside and explore the ruins outside the school in what’s pretty much a Mario Party game board to build stats and find items. That’s also encouraged.
That’s a lot of people to get to know, but you kind of don’t have to.
Mr. Kodoka. Mr. Uchikoshi, and the interpreter each really hammered home that this game can be a mystery, a political drama, a romance, and more, and now that I’ve played the game for as long as I have, as much as I didn’t believe it, I definitely see it. When asked how long a full playthrough of the scenario can be, Mr. Uchikoshi quoted around 20-40 hours depending on what you do outside of battle and of course how you handle the fights.
Combat That Also Tries To Do Everything
With a tactical combat system, it’s really easy to compare it to something along the lines of Fire Emblem, and honestly there’s no reason to not compare it to anything that Intelligent Systems has done for Nintendo.
While there might be A LOT of units on the field, the tactical combat feels great once it clicks.
While it has some Fire Emblem aspects to it, it also feels a bit more casual in its approach while also feeling a tad more complex like Advance Wars. For one, you don’t really have to worry about having characters die. In fact, again — it’s encouraged. When near death, characters even have sort of a “last stand” move that typically cause all sorts of damage on the battlefield before dying. You also have this voltage meter at the top of the screen that fills up with your actions, and once it reaches 100%, you have the option of giving your characters enhanced abilities that make the turn-based combat feel more dynamic.
Just an example of the crazy abilities you have access to once your voltage is up during fights.
Movement and commands are tied to AP, so even after attacking, you can attack again if there’s enough energy, but doing so can also put you at risk. The enemy AI isn’t punishing, but it’s also fair and not stupid. As someone who isn’t super fond with this kind of combat, I felt right at home as I played through tutorial matches and started doing my own training missions.
Passion You Can See And Feel, Coming Soon
So for a little insider info, I had an early build of the game before my meeting with Mr. Kodoka and Mr. Uchikoshi, but I didn’t play it because I didn’t have my Steam Deck on me during the run up to GDC as I was traveling. I watched the trailer and read every e-mail XSEED sent my way, but that was all I knew. That said, I have a lot of experience with both the Danganronpa and Zero Escape games, and their fingerprints are all over it. I wouldn’t say any of those quite made it to the mainstream, and they’re very much deserving, but with the amount of Last Defense Academy I’ve played so far — the gamer in me wants this to succeed.
A limited physical edition of the game is coming to Switch.
Again, the game doesn’t really do anything you haven’t seen in other JRPGs or visual novels, but the fact that you have almost everything that makes them great along with the twists that these two legends are known for makes me believe that this can and will be a special title. I’m strongly considering claiming it on my Fantasy Critic, and all that aside, I can’t wait to dive back in when the game comes out on April 24.
Let it be known now, The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy is anything but “Generic JRPG XVI.” During our brief, albeit extended, time with the game, this could very well be a hit for anybody that gives it a chance….
Let it be known now, The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy is anything but “Generic JRPG XVI.” During our brief, albeit extended, time with the game, this could very well be a hit for anybody that gives it a chance.
The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy has quite the pedigree behind it. This debut title from Too Kyo Games is the collaborative result of Kazutaka Kodaka (known for his scenario writing in Danganronpa) and Kotaro Uchikoshi (known for his work on the also superb Zero Escape series). Putting these minds together has resulted in a slow-burning and strange yet satisfying introduction that I’m looking forward to playing more of.
You’ve Heard This Before
You play as Takumi Sumino, pretty much your default protagonist living in the Tokyo Residential Complex. Nothing groundbreaking happens, until monsters come out of nowhere and destroy everything in their path. It’s convenient havoc that most gamers or anime fans have already seen more than once.
This guy is nuts.
Then things get a little bit more granular.
With no sense of hope… A ghost? A marshmallow? Whatever, he’s a sort of cute white ball with hat on, offers Takumi the opportunity to save himself and his loved ones. All Takumi has to do is stab himself. Reluctantly, he does and then he becomes this superhuman able to rid the area of these monsters.
Sound like another game? Totally Persona. Just replace gun with knife and shoot with stab. In the few hours I’ve spent with the game, The Hundred Line doesn’t do a lot of things that are unique to either video games or anime, but everything the game does has been with quality and care.
Everything, The Way You Want
The game is one part visual novel and one part tactical RPG, and each part runs extremely deep. It takes place over the course of 100 in-game days, and aside from the first couple for exposition reasons, they go by fairly quickly. The build of the game only let us through the first 29, and there’s a lot of meat to go through. After the scenario we just went over, Takumi finds himself in a school in a separate dimension with 14 other people who just went through the same thing he did, and they find out they have to protect the school from hoards of enemies for the aforementioned 100 days before they can go back home.
There actually is free-roaming, but once you’ve unlocked more rooms, you’ll be fine navigating through menus to get to where you have to go.
As you might expect, the visual novel part of the game is not only where you’ll encounter most of the narrative, but you’ll be expected to build relationships with the other characters as well. While they all follow typical anime tropes — you have the hot-headed guy who wants to fight everybody, the fat loner with no self-esteem or respect, the badass tsundere, twins who are just too close for their own good — they all are well written, and each character you interact with will open up various branching paths that’ll allow you to cater the story to your liking. Are you wondering about a romance system? Mr. Kodaka quickly nodded yes with a smile.
You’ll have the free time to do whatever you want (for the most part) over the course of those 100 days. In that time, you’ll be encouraged to engage with the people at the school to make time go by while also raising some stats. Want to sleep to make the days go by faster? Do it. Want to practice fighting with the people in your party who actually want to fight? You can; that’s encouraged. You can even go outside and explore the ruins outside the school in what’s pretty much a Mario Party game board to build stats and find items. That’s also encouraged.
That’s a lot of people to get to know, but you kind of don’t have to.
Mr. Kodoka. Mr. Uchikoshi, and the interpreter each really hammered home that this game can be a mystery, a political drama, a romance, and more, and now that I’ve played the game for as long as I have, as much as I didn’t believe it, I definitely see it. When asked how long a full playthrough of the scenario can be, Mr. Uchikoshi quoted around 20-40 hours depending on what you do outside of battle and of course how you handle the fights.
Combat That Also Tries To Do Everything
With a tactical combat system, it’s really easy to compare it to something along the lines of Fire Emblem, and honestly there’s no reason to not compare it to anything that Intelligent Systems has done for Nintendo.
While there might be A LOT of units on the field, the tactical combat feels great once it clicks.
While it has some Fire Emblem aspects to it, it also feels a bit more casual in its approach while also feeling a tad more complex like Advance Wars. For one, you don’t really have to worry about having characters die. In fact, again — it’s encouraged. When near death, characters even have sort of a “last stand” move that typically cause all sorts of damage on the battlefield before dying. You also have this voltage meter at the top of the screen that fills up with your actions, and once it reaches 100%, you have the option of giving your characters enhanced abilities that make the turn-based combat feel more dynamic.
Just an example of the crazy abilities you have access to once your voltage is up during fights.
Movement and commands are tied to AP, so even after attacking, you can attack again if there’s enough energy, but doing so can also put you at risk. The enemy AI isn’t punishing, but it’s also fair and not stupid. As someone who isn’t super fond with this kind of combat, I felt right at home as I played through tutorial matches and started doing my own training missions.
Passion You Can See And Feel, Coming Soon
So for a little insider info, I had an early build of the game before my meeting with Mr. Kodoka and Mr. Uchikoshi, but I didn’t play it because I didn’t have my Steam Deck on me during the run up to GDC as I was traveling. I watched the trailer and read every e-mail XSEED sent my way, but that was all I knew. That said, I have a lot of experience with both the Danganronpa and Zero Escape games, and their fingerprints are all over it. I wouldn’t say any of those quite made it to the mainstream, and they’re very much deserving, but with the amount of Last Defense Academy I’ve played so far — the gamer in me wants this to succeed.
A limited physical edition of the game is coming to Switch.
Again, the game doesn’t really do anything you haven’t seen in other JRPGs or visual novels, but the fact that you have almost everything that makes them great along with the twists that these two legends are known for makes me believe that this can and will be a special title. I’m strongly considering claiming it on my Fantasy Critic, and all that aside, I can’t wait to dive back in when the game comes out on April 24.
by Danreb Victorio
