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 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 slightly second of tranquility, of two folks 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 slightly deeper, slightly extra melancholic, than what I might seen earlier than.
In accordance with 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 velocity and endurance. The title The Hundred Line refers back to the variety of days the scholars of Final Protection Academy must defend their college for as waves of invaders periodically pressure them into tactical fight. However the title truly has one other that 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 complete image, you may need to see all of them.
The promise of 100 endings feels just like the type of advertising mistruth that pops up in a press launch to play up how a lot the sport is formed by your selections. A sport that claims to have 12 endings may truly imply 4 endings, every with just a few minor potential variations. And sure, a number 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 totally different “routes” that may all finish at varied totally different factors.
On the level that these two characters took within the dawn, I had seen eight endings; I used to be nonetheless 5 hours from getting my ninth (though endings 10-12 have been all unlocked inside an hour after that). Looking 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 mild, and several other of them had poked at new corners of this sport world or revealed new lore. They’d been foolish, unhappy, slightly scary, and alternately humorous and tragic. Totally different characters died every time, and the feelings I felt over every one have been totally different. As I wrapped up the pathway that, I imagine, is the closest factor the sport has to a “canon” ending, I knew that I might preserve going, and that figuring out all the pieces I might realized on my method 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 sequence recognized for his or her large 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 prime. 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 regularly tweak as the sport progresses.
Normally, in video games that promise a narrative formed by the alternatives you have made, a serious enchantment is the notion of attending to the tip 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 by the expertise. Possibly you may play once more and make totally different selections to expertise some totally different scenes; extra seemingly you may merely take it as a on condition that in the event you did, the story could be slightly totally different subsequent time.
The Hundred Line takes a unique strategy: 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 will have 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 selections 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 consequence. There are actually some pathways that offer you extra data 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 selections.
There is a uncommon, thrilling feeling that I do not expertise typically with video games of this scale: the sense that the builders have been capable of pursue their precise imaginative and prescient by to the tip. The Hundred Line is the form of sport that no enterprise strategist or market skilled would advise an organization to make and launch in 2025. A sport this large, with no extra monetization, with a pointed give attention to storytelling, with a $60 price ticket and a variety 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 slightly 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 include one thing within the ballpark of 1 million words–would have made localization terribly costly, particularly whenever you think about voice performing. In a pre-release interview with Nintendo Life, Kodaka admitted that if the sport didn’t promote properly, the studio “could also be accomplished” after taking out loans to fund growth. Every 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 beneath.”
And but, The Hundred Line has been a hit. By July, three months after launch, the sport was promoting properly sufficient that Kodaka advised Bloomberg, “I do not see chapter as a critical future.” Actual gross sales figures haven’t been launched, however plainly 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 sequence: the Danganronpa and Zero Escape sequence amassed international fanbases over an extended interval. The Hundred Line can be audacious in a manner that’s plain and unusual: the sheer measurement of the factor is thrilling, extra so than a sport that supplied, say, 30 totally different endings. It additionally helps that the tactical battles are fairly pleasing, 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, implausible voice performing, and an incredible many “what if” eventualities you possibly can discover. The characters are all fascinating, creating and deepening over time, and seeing how they modify and adapt to the vastly totally different tales you possibly can discover is fascinating–it’s spectacular to see the sport keep consistency throughout totally different paths.
As reviews proceed to come back in of builders tightening their belts because the trade shifts in direction of extra conservative, confirmed ways to show a revenue, seeing an organization taking an enormous threat to make one thing each monumental 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 one of the formidable visible novels ever made.
