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 a couple of days earlier discovered one thing notably 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 just a little 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 just a little deeper, just a little extra melancholic, than what I might seen earlier than.
Based on on-line estimates of the sport’s whole size, on the level I noticed this scene, I had one other 90-120 hours to go till I might actually say that I might “completed” the sport, relying on my pace and persistence. The identify The Hundred Line refers back to the variety of days the scholars of Final Protection Academy need to defend their college 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 cross for the primary time, about 30 hours into the sport: This sport has 100 unlockable endings, and to get the total image, you may need to see all of them.
The promise of 100 endings feels just like the form 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 may really imply 4 endings, every with a couple of minor potential variations. And sure, a few of the endings in The Hundred Line are sort 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 varied completely different factors.
On the level that these two characters took within the dawn, I had seen eight endings; I used to be nonetheless an excellent 5 hours from getting my ninth (though endings 10-12 had been all unlocked inside an hour after that). Searching for out these endings had revealed new details about the sport world: The paths resulting in these endings had proven characters in a brand new gentle, and several other of them had poked at new corners of this sport world or revealed new lore. They’d been foolish, unhappy, just a little scary, and alternately humorous and tragic. Completely different characters died every time, and the feelings I felt over each had 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 might maintain going, and that realizing every part I might discovered on my approach to that ending would solely deepen my understanding and appreciation of the numerous paths I nonetheless needed to take.
The Hundred Line: Final Protection Academy is co-directed by Kazutaka Kodaka and Kotaro Uchikoshi, finest 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 forged members. This new sport has all of that too, and it throws in a fairly competent Fireplace Emblem-style fight system on high. That is to not point out the bonding stats with every particular person scholar, the board-game-like “exploration” mode, or the RPG-style character stats and loadouts you may regularly tweak as the sport progresses.
Often, in video games that promise a narrative formed by the alternatives you have made, a serious attraction is the notion of attending to the top and experiencing the conclusion of the story that you’ve got co-authored with the sport’s writers and designers, discovering the conclusion that represents the pathway you cast via the expertise. Possibly you may play once more and make completely different decisions to expertise some completely different scenes; extra probably you may merely take it as a on condition that should you did, the story could be just a little completely different subsequent time.
The Hundred Line takes a distinct method: It is a choose-your-own journey story, however as an alternative 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 might have a neat timeline that allows you to revisit each single alternative within the sport.
Essentially the most empowering factor about this sport is that your personal decisions do not actually matter, as a result of one of the simplest ways to play the sport is to make all of them and see each consequence. 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 is not 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 typically with video games of this scale: the sense that the builders had been capable of pursue their precise imaginative and prescient via to the top. The Hundred Line is the sort of sport that no enterprise strategist or market skilled would advise an organization to make and launch in 2025. A sport this big, with no further monetization, with a pointed give attention to storytelling, with a $60 price ticket and a variety of unusual and difficult themes: It could possibly 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 just a little scared to the touch, too, since it is so prolonged and text-heavy.
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 if you consider 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 performed” 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 getting ready to going beneath.”
And but, The Hundred Line has been successful. By July, three months after launch, the sport was promoting effectively sufficient that Kodaka instructed Bloomberg, “I do not see chapter as a critical future.” Actual gross sales figures haven’t been launched, however it appears that evidently the danger Too Kyo Video games took in spending a lot effort and time on growing 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 international fanbases over an extended interval. The Hundred Line can also 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 fulfilling, 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 glorious character dialogue, unbelievable voice performing, and an important many “what if” eventualities you may discover. The characters are all fascinating, growing and deepening over time, and seeing how they alter and adapt to the vastly completely different tales you may discover is fascinating–it’s spectacular to see the sport preserve consistency throughout completely different paths.
As reviews proceed to return in of builders tightening their belts because the trade shifts in direction of extra conservative, confirmed techniques to show a revenue, seeing an organization taking an enormous threat to make one thing each huge and strange, 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 formidable visible novels ever made.
