Sometimes you just need an edgy story filled with gore and drama to get you through your day, and The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- is just that. Well, actually, that’s sort of underselling it a bit. It is that, but it’s also a thoughtful and emotive game filled with excellent characters, intense strategy battles, and an absurd wealth of choices. It’s unsurprising, considering it was created by the team behind Danganronpa and Zero Escape.
You play as Takumi Sumino, an unremarkable teenager living a perfectly ordinary life in Tokyo, where, naturally, nothing ever goes wrong. If he knew he was in a video game, he might find that suspicious. But here we are. Just when life seems comfortably monotonous, everything spirals into chaos: bizarre monsters appear, wreaking havoc and killing people. On the bright side, a mysterious entity shows up and grants Takumi strange powers. So… silver linings?
Takumi soon finds himself at the Last Defense Academy, a bizarre school seemingly plopped in the middle of nowhere, where the curriculum mostly involves fending off waves of terrifying monsters. He’s not on his own, thankfully; 14 other students with mysterious powers are there to help him out. The goal? Survive 100 days in this surreal realm and, with any luck, make it out alive.
From there, it’s up to you how you spend your time: bond with your fellow students, explore the eerie surroundings, or do absolutely nothing and suffer the consequences of your apathy. It’s a bit like real school, just with more existential dread and fewer homework assignments. And despite the grim premise, The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- is an incredibly fun game that oozes replayability from just about every corner.
