Welcome back to Save State, where a lot of really amazing titles were released in May this year. As such, my month has been pretty decent, finally, after several months of seemingly nothing going right. To add onto this, several games of considerable length were released this month, including The Elder Scrolls VI: Oblivion Remastered and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. But today I want to focus on an especially ambitious new visual novel and strategy role-playing game (SRPG) called The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy. I grabbed it for the Nintendo Switch, and it’s also available for the PC through Steam.
Now, while I’m an RPG fan more than anything else, with hundreds of those types of titles completed in my play history, I do still enjoy the occasional visual novel. The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy is made by the creators of Danganronpa and Zero Escape, so it’s got a lot going for it right from the start. And as I started playing, I found out that The Hundred Line is also possibly one of the most content-packed visual novels I’ve ever experienced.
The Hundred Line is a visual novel first and foremost, with some occasional turn-based strategy gameplay thrown in as a treat. Delightfully offbeat and brimming with multiple mysteries right off the bat, The Hundred Line starts with you controlling Takumi Sumino. Takumi lives in the Tokyo Residential Complex, an area in some kind of dome where nothing ever happens. Unfortunately for Takumi, when something does finally occur, he’s thrust right into the middle of it and forced to use the power of his own blood to protect his childhood friend from strange creatures called Invaders.
Quickly whisked away to a location called Last Defense Academy set on an earth that’s been destroyed by centuries of war, Takumi and several others are tasked with defending this school from Invaders in order to protect humanity using their newfound power of hemoanima. After 100 days, they’ll be released back to their regular, everyday lives as saviors of humanity, which Takumi reluctantly agrees to in order to continue protecting his childhood friend. While you have an overall goal, not everyone trusts what the upper brass of the academy says. Some refuse to fight at all, and it quickly becomes apparent that someone within the academy is working against Takumi and those he wants to protect. While many visual novels will give players some kind of choice to affect various outcomes, everyone’s initial playthrough of The Hundred Line is the same, at least for the very first playthrough of it.
It is important to note that terms like “first playthrough” are meaningless for The Hundred Line. The first ending isn’t actually an ending, and the end credits scene actively has redactions in it because it’s really only the midway point of the story. After your first 100 days, which took me around 25 hours (which is already pretty good length for a visual novel), you’ll unlock the ability to go through The Hundred Line again, but this time you get full control of the decision making. All of those moments when other characters made obviously bad choices, Takumi now gets the opportunity to change them, which leads to the story having a hundred branching paths, with most lasting multiple hours with completely unique dialogue and events.
My first time to the end credits of The Hundred Line, I spent a lot of time thinking, “Man, you can tell this was made by the Danganronpa writer” as lots of characters had pretty obvious character quirks, and once their purpose in the story was over, effectively only contribute non sequiturs to the dialogue when characters who actually had things to say were talking. However, on your way to other endings, the story completely changes depending on the choices you make, and the characters who effectively say nothing useful after the first three hours of your first playthrough, like killing game-fanatic Darumi, can become the single most important character in other routes which gives loads of insight into their character and how they connect to the overall story.
The battles in The Hundred Line are all defensive in nature, where your goal is to prevent enemies from breaking the shield generator protecting the Last Defense Academy. This mixture of tower defense and turn based SRPG gameplay is actually pretty fun and novel, and to add on top of it, each character has their own specific specialist skills and attacks they can perform, with varying strengths and weaknesses, and you can unlock more attacks for them around a third of the way toward the first ending.
The SRPG combat events in The Hundred Line are easy enough to get the hang of, as you can move your units and attack enemies as many times as you have action points (APs) each turn. Moving and attacking costs one AP each time, and units can attack multiple times each turn provided they have the APs and ability to reach additional enemies. How far characters can move, their attack ranges, etc., are all dictated by the move you’re attacking with. Whenever a character attacks, they become fatigued for a turn and can only move one space, no matter which move you select, but there are many, many ways to get around this as you progress further into the story.
As you defeat enemies or buff your teammates, you’ll earn a stat called Voltage that you can spend to use boosts on your characters, such as beefing up damage when low on health or the hilariously broken Last Yell skill that gives bonus Voltage and damage when you’re got one AP left in a turn. Another good use of Voltage is spending it to perform a powerful special attack that drains the user so much they have to recharge on the next turn. Combat in The Hundred Line isn’t exactly what I’d call difficult, and there are also several ways to break the combat system wide open if that’s what you’re interested in (my favorite involves staying at one AP for 10 or more attacks).
Outside of the combat though, you’ll be treated to story events and free time, where you can develop your characters for the next defensive battle. You actually have quite a lot of things to do with your free time, some of them not even unlocking until after you see the credits for the first time. You can spend your days exploring the ruins outside of the academy and scouring it for resources to upgrade the potions and traps you use in combat, developing bonds with your teammates, or earning higher grades so you’re smart enough to upgrade your weapons and traps.
The visuals of The Hundred Line are great. Most of the time you’re treated to extremely high-quality artwork of the main cast plus well-designed background environments. At times that call for them, there are also fully animated 3D cutscenes, with the development team even going so far as to create different versions for the same event depending on which character sacrifices themselves, for example. The team went completely above and beyond when it comes to this title because you’ll be treated to unique 3D scenes or CGs on basically every single route, and those routes can be anywhere from two to 20 hours long without reusing content from the other routes!
It’s really hard to express just how ambitious The Hundred Line is without spoiling elements of the story. Of course, there is a route where you learn the truth behind everything, and another that might function like the “true” ending, but while on your way to those endings you might encounter one where Takumi becomes a cult leader and another where a Danganronpa-style killing game occurs. Even better, if you’re worried about redoing battles you’ve already finished before, The Hundred Line outright lets you skip similar battles you’ve completed before (there are a couple of exceptions, such as if you are prompted to make a choice during the battle, but still).
My only real complaint is that the skip button takes a really long time with certain repetitive scenes, such as the magical girl-style transformation sequence that plays at the start of every combat encounter. The morning and evening announcements have animations that can’t be skipped at all, and while it’s not exactly the most time-consuming thing ever, I think I’ve heard and read “Ding dong, bing bong” more times from Kodaka’s works than I think I ever should. Everything else is excellent, however.
The Hundred Line is a visual novel with some turn-based strategy gameplay, and a game that can easily last for 120 to 150 hours if you’re out to see all one hundred endings. Not all of the endings are winners, and a good portion are simply bad ends on branching paths, but there’s easily 100 hours of story and events with a delightfully bombastic cast of characters to be experienced after you see the first roll of credits, that I simply cannot get enough of.
Seriously, The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy is incredible, and this would be a great pick for those who enjoy visual novels in any capacity, especially Danganronpa. However, I’m an even larger fan of Zero Escape, Ace Attorney, and similar titles, and still found myself addicted to this world and these characters.
That being said, I think we can bring this entry of Save State to a close. Remember to always get your pets spayed or neutered. And see you in two weeks.