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Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)

Back in 2018, a new studio called Too Kyo Games was formed, with the main creatives behind it being Kazutaka Kodaka (the creator of Danganronpa) and Kotaro Uchikoshi, the director of the Zero Escape games. Four projects were unveiled as part of the studio’s reveal, and while three of them saw release over the following years, it’s taken until now for the fourth one to finally see the light of day. That project is The Hundred Line – Last Defense Academy, a visual novel and tactical RPG hybrid that combines the themes that made Danganronpa and Zero Escape so beloved, and we’re happy to report that the studio has stuck the landing with this one.

The narrative in Hundred Line follows an ensemble cast, beginning with the perspective of Takumi Sumino, a high schooler living in a huge underground society called the Tokyo Residential Complex. Here, life unfolds basically as it does in the real-world Tokyo, but the days are irregularly interrupted by sirens that signal impending attack from a force of strange monsters.

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Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)

During one of these attacks, Takumi is offered a mysterious weapon from a talking ghost creature named Sirei, and when he uses it to successfully rout the monsters, he is whisked away to a lonely school in a wasteland called the Last Defense Academy.

Takumi finds himself as part of a group of other high schoolers recruited under similar circumstances, all of whom are tasked by Sirei with working together over the next hundred days to use their newfound powers to defend the school and a hidden MacGuffin deep within that the invaders are dead-set on stealing. If the team fails, all of humanity will die. But Sirei is also keeping a lot of information from the teens, and thus their quest begins to not only neutralise the monster forces once and for all, but also to unwind the mystery of the conflict.

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Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)

It's a thoroughly compelling narrative, buoyed by both the strong cast and the frequent plot twists that recontextualise everything you know so far. The larger-than-life personalities play off each other well, and it’s satisfying to see this ragtag team slowly reveal more of their histories and vulnerabilities as they work to become a more cohesive unit. You’re pulled forward not only by a desire to see how these characters come together over time, but also through the frequent wrenches thrown into the works to shake up the status quo and put the story on a completely different trajectory. There are apparently 100 unique, full endings, so there’s no shortage of routes to take as you replay this one.

Hundred Line is a pretty explicitly narrative-focused adventure, but it isn’t a pure visual novel—there are plenty of compelling gameplay features to help keep things moving along. As long as the plot is sticking with the status quo, the gameplay loop is typically organised around a Persona-esque system where you spend the 'Free Time' that you have in a day on various activities that can boost your character and teammates in a variety of ways.

You can do things like participating in interactions with other team members in a Social Link-like system that fleshes out each character and leads to unlocks and upgrades for better moves, grind for a bit in controlled VR battles, or leave the campus on an excursion with a limited team to explore the world via an extended board game (more on this in a bit).

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Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)

More activities are slowly unlocked as time passes to give you more to do with your day, and much like in Atlus’ famed high school RPG, planning out your days and strategising how you want to spend your limited resources is a big part of what keeps the gameplay loop interesting. You’ll never be able to do everything or spend time with everyone that you’d like to, so you need to prioritise, especially given that you (much like the characters themselves) never know when the next attack may come.

When you choose to leave the campus, either for plot reasons or for resource gathering, you’re presented with a ruined world that has an almost Mario Party-like board game layout snaking through it. Each point on the board is coloured to indicate the level of risk associated with the space, and each one can give you things like item drops, enemy battles, or Etrian Odyssey-esque interludes where you’re prompted to make some sort of decision and either gain or lose something for your party based on the outcome.

Your main goal is often reaching the various unlockable checkpoints throughout the map so you can fast-travel around and begin excursions on future days deeper in, but it usually takes a decent amount of time and effort to reach the next one, especially given that movement is dictated via a semi-random card system.

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Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)

We really liked this board game setup, as it features an almost perfect balance of risk and reward as you judge how far you want to push your team in search of more goodies. Not only is team composition critical right from the get-go, but the highly random nature of the spaces means that a run which is going pretty well can turn in an instant when a character suddenly takes huge damage. Plus, building up your checkpoints over time helps to give you a strong feeling of progression and makes the otherwise rote passage of days feel meaningful.

Whether on the board or otherwise, you’re inevitably pulled into combat encounters that employ an interesting tactical-RPG combat system. You have a fixed amount of ‘AP’ per turn, one point of which is spent on each character action. Every character has their own playstyle which feels like it goes a step beyond the typical class differences in a tactical RPG.

One character, for example, rides a motorcycle that gives him a lot of mobility on the field, but he also has an ability that passively grants him more armour the farther he travels in a single turn. Another has an ability that passively increases her damage output with each enemy she kills in a turn, which can be cheesed by finding ways to buff her up on a bunch of low-level mobs before taking on a bigger foe.

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Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)

Things are then complicated further by the inclusion of the shared 'Voltage' meter, which goes up by a bit more every time a character attacks. When this is maxed out, you can either trigger devastating super moves or trigger targeted buffs for characters that will last for the rest of the battle. Related to this, a character who’s near death can also always trigger a different super move that acts as a big sacrifice play where they kill both themselves and several enemies in a big flashy display.

We really appreciated the thought and care that has gone into this combat design, as it feels tactically deep and satisfying without also being too drawn out to the point that it takes the spotlight away from the story. Each character having such well-defined niches and distinctive playstyles makes battles dynamic, and the difficulty is perfectly tuned to push you to make full use of your team’s abilities.

Visually, Hundred Line employs an exceptional 3D anime art style from Rui Komatsuzaki that looks great in motion. Whether it’s the creepy, Jinx-like design of Darumi or the silly frog-like Shouma, character designs are top-notch and perfectly fit with all the colourful personalities.

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Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)

Meanwhile, combat encounters are all smoothly animated and feature just the right amount of bombast, especially in the cinematic shots of the characters as they unleash Voltage attacks. Best of all, this unfolds with hardly a dropped frame; in a time when new Switch releases are more likely than not to have noticeable performance problems, it’s refreshing to experience a game that both looks this good and feels like it fits well with the hardware.

Special mention goes to the voice acting, which is generally excellent. Whether it be the calculating quietness of Haruki or the gruff, angry outbursts of Takemaru, each line is delivered with a distinctive passion and verve. Joseph May turns in the standout performance here as Sirei, perfectly capturing the inherent silliness of the character while bringing a certain gravitas to the role befitting his leadership status.

The VA work is so good, that our main complaint is that there’s not enough of it. Perhaps it would be unreasonable to expect a title with such a thick script to have every line voiced, but it’s nonetheless disappointing to go from a masterfully voiced cutscene to a more muted group interaction where everyone’s lines are punctuated by groans and grunts.

Conclusion

The Hundred Line – Last Defense Academy is an excellent tactical RPG that fully showcases the strengths of the creatives behind it. A well-written and compelling story, strong and strategic gameplay, attractive art style, and passionate VA work all come together to make for a comprehensive experience that you won’t want to miss. It's an instant recommendation for fans of Uchikoshi and Kodaka’s past work, but even if you’re not so much into visual novels, consider adding this one to your library. The Switch has plenty of life in it yet, and Hundred Line stands as a strong reminder of why.

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