Published 22 minutes ago

Those first 30 hours aren’t too bad either

I swear to God, the year’s best RPG really does get incredible after 30 hours

Image: Too Kyo Games/Aniplex

The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, Too Kyo Games’ behemoth tactics-slash-visual novel game, does everything big. Its characters. Its branching storylines. And, most importantly, its incredibly slow opening act. Where some games put you through five hours of gradual world-building, Last Defense Academy puts you through nearly 30 hours of it, the equivalent of a short RPG. It’s more than occasionally tedious — and the reason why everything else after that first act is absolutely brilliant.

Last Defense Academy opens with the end of the world as you and protagonist Takumi know it. Bizarre cartoonish creatures from another dimension invade Tokyo, and start slaughtering people in a very un-cartoonish fashion When all seems lost, a cute little mascot-like ghost called Sirei (cute, except for his visible brain peeking out from underneath a stylish hat) shows up and tells you to stab yourself. No, he’s not an internet troll. He’s your savior. After Takumi complies, he gains combat powers that draw on his blood for fuel in a totally-not-at-all-worrying way, fights off the invaders, and wakes up at a school run by Sirei with a bunch of other, far less psychologically well-adjusted young adults who have the same blood powers he does. Then the routine sets in.

Here’s what a typical day looks like in those first 100 days. A bell rings. I wake up, reflect on some tidbit of a recent event or looming worry, then head to the cafeteria to see what’s happening today. What’s happening is usually a fight of some kind. Everyone hates everybody else here. Sometimes, there’s just normal conversation, though, or as normal as you can get at Last Defense Academy. Maybe Shouma, a sniveling little self-deprecating creature whom I often want to punt out of a 10th floor window, makes an unusually prescient remark about the current situation. Or Yugamu, the trained assassin, says something weird and horny, just in case you forgot he’s a walking set of fetishes that even Sigmund Freud wouldn’t dare try to unpack (you never forget that).

Image: Too Kyo Games/Aniplex

After breakfast, I use a magic vending machine to craft some tiger-styled underwear for the delinquent biker Takemaru. (It was top on his wishlist of things. I didn’t ask why.) Then I take advantage of the school’s bizarre curriculum to learn how to make bombs before the day ends. And then I do it again. And again. And again. A ghost occasionally appears in my room at night, heralding an impending attack by the freaky creatures that, for reasons unknown, are hell-bent on invading the school and murdering everyone inside. Some new plot development occurs after these battles, but then it’s back to the usual routine.

The strength of the English script means no exchange ever feels wasted, no matter how deranged or seemingly unimportant it is. And big events do happen. Eventually. But for the first five dozen days, it all feels a bit… anticlimactic.

Last Defense Academy is built on trust. Danganronpa creator Kazutaka Kodaka and Zero Escape creator Kotaro Uchikoshi (founders of Too Kyo games and writers of several scenarios in Last Defense Academy) trust that anyone familiar enough with their past work to give Last Defense Academy a chance will see it through long enough to reach The Good Stuff. They trust you’ll recognize how the cast plays on recognizable archetypes from both series and look deeper than the many self-referential nods in their dialogue. It’s a bigger gamble for everyone else, though, with no reference points to draw on and the only thing to keep you going is the promise that something eventually happens.

The wait is worth it. Trust me.

Image: Too Kyo Games/Aniplex

It’s only a mild spoiler to say the first big chunk of Last Defense Academy is the game’s prologue. Once you reach a certain point (which, along with everything that comes after it, is a much bigger spoiler), the game transforms into something else entirely. It’s rare that stories truly surprise me with something unexpected, but Last Defense Academy’s initial and subsequent twists knocked me for a loop.

It reframes literally everything that happened before and makes it impossible to predict what might happen next. It explodes into a nexus of choices and branching paths that diverge in wildly unexpected ways, and over the course of its 100 scenarios, takes the cast of seemingly one-dimensional characters to every imaginable end point you could conceive of for them. It’s "what if the butterfly effect was a video game," almost more of an exercise in consequences and character writing than it is a unified visual novel. Though for all its outrageousness, Last Defense Academy rarely strains belief. Everything that happens is a natural, if unusual and occasionally horrific, series of consequences stretching back to a specific choice you make.

While specific story details reveal too much that should be experienced unspoiled, one thing is worth singling out: Takumi, the hero. Takumi helps only when he has to. He’s not a heartless monster, but his first concern is very much himself and people in his immediate circle before giving his time and energy to others. He’s a refreshing change from the typical over-involved protagonist who doesn’t know how to set or respect boundaries, and it has a positive effect on how Last Defense Academy’s stories play out. Except during key moments, Takumi, and you, stay out of everyone else’s business. They’re forced to work through their problems and develop (or not) on their own, free from meddling, free from just being blobs that you mold with your choices. That independence makes them far more interesting and unpredictable, and their stories actually feel like their stories as a result. This style of characterization is essential for Last Defense Academy, given how strongly the game relies on its characters for momentum and meaning, but the method is also one that I wish more video games would adopt.

Image: Too Kyo Games/Aniplex

It’s impossible to talk about Last Defense Academy without mentioning its turn-based tactics combat as well. The game might treat it like an afterthought, with just a handful of battles scattered across each 100 days, but its take on tactical strategy is exceptional. The goal is defending the school against waves of incoming invaders before eventually taking down one of their powerful leaders. You (usually) have four school entrances to defend and a lot of people to defend it with, but a small pool of moves you can make each turn. Defeating elite enemies gives you more action points, and as you build voltage (a spendable battle resource), you can permanently buff a character or use it for a special attack.

The big thing that distinguishes Last Defense Academy’s tactics is risk. Your characters can’t die permanently for plot reasons, and some of their best attacks only unlock when they’re close to death. Limited action points and an overwhelming number of enemies encourage you to push the cast to their extreme limits and take creative gambles. One moment, you’re sacrificing one student in a bloody blaze of death to weaken a boss for everyone else to attack, and in the next, you’re planning more cautiously, using all your points in one turn to set up a row of elite enemies the next turn and get more action points than you even need. These battles require a completely different approach to tactics than I’ve ever used in other strategy games, and while repeating encounters for other storylines does get old after the 50th time or so, a post-launch update lets you skip them if you want.

The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy consumed my gaming year. I played it periodically from launch in April until about the start of November, when I finally cleared the last ending, and I don’t regret a single minute spent. Not even in the cringiest joke endings (that’s the value of good, human-produced localization). It’s maddening, tragic, outrageous, enthralling, and wholly unforgettable. It just takes a while before you get to see any of that.