Whereas a few of the greatest story video games inform a definite story that is set in stone, videogames are in a position to elevate the format by involving you straight within the final result of occasions. Committing to this as a developer is hard; do you restrict the selection largely to the very finish, guaranteeing nearly all of your recreation is seen by everybody, or do you settle for that your gamers may miss massive chunks of what you’ve got created? The Hundred Line: Final Protection Academy commits to the latter in a approach few video games can get away with, and the end result has wormed its approach into my mind and wrapped itself round my very psyche.
One among final yr’s most hanging recreation tales was Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which retains its good selection till the ultimate second and delivers it masterfully, leading to no clear proper or improper reply. However E33’s inventive director Guillaume Broche was wanting to not let The Hundred Line: Final Protection Academy fall by unnoticed when its launch landed alongside each his personal recreation and Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls Oblivion Remastered. Broche bemoaned the variety of good video games popping out without delay, hailing The Hundred Line as “one other nice turn-based RPG made with love by an superior crew”.
The Hundred Line is nearly too formidable for its personal good. I am going to attempt to keep away from too many specific spoilers, though some dialogue of the final construction is inevitable right here. It begins as a linear narrative of you defending a college from enemy attackers over the course of 100 days, studying about your fellow troopers alongside the way in which in a fashion paying homage to its two co-creators’ previous works. Should you’ve performed Kazutaka Kodaka’s Danganronpa video games or Kotaro Uchikoshi’s Zero Escape collection, you will discover loads of familiarity right here.
However then all of it adjustments. You are provided the possibility to return to the very begin, and play issues out otherwise. By making decisions at key inflection factors, you may alter the timeline and alter what occurs. The Hundred Line wastes no time in emphasizing the ramifications right here. By performing to avoid wasting a personality that died in my preliminary playthrough, I can have them round for the remainder of the marketing campaign. Whereas doing so, nevertheless, one other member of the crew is killed (one in all my favorites, because it occurs), and I am pressured to just accept this grim trade-off.
Merely recreating the identical narrative with one character changing one other is not sufficient to be exceptional, nevertheless. Mass Impact pulled that one off by way of a whole trilogy almost 20 years in the past. The Hundred Line does not simply swap out its forged; every branching alternative can result in completely totally different playthroughs. Occasions play out that by no means occurred beforehand. Bosses you battled individually now assault collectively, and even merge into completely new threats. Generally, this ends in a wholly totally different final result to the conflict; in others, it cuts your journey brief, both in jest or with a totally straight face.
In a single attainable path, you are captured by the enemy commander, a determine who you hardly ever get to listen to quite a lot of phrases from at every other level, and end up locked in an prolonged collection of one-on-one debates along with her concerning the philosophy and morality of the conflict effort. In one other, a very reluctant member of your crew turns into your most ardent ally. Elsewhere, you and a confidant recurrently slip away from the group to nurture a mysterious, alien being in secret. A foe you’re taking prisoner can be part of the crew, opening up new details about their background. In one of many much less critical routes, you all depart the varsity you are defending and find yourself turning towards one another in a battle royale-style ‘killing recreation’.
Extra importantly, each path builds on the character work that each Kodaka and Uchikoshi like to deal in. Your companions’ conduct could be dramatically totally different down every of the attainable strains, however in each case it looks like a pure evolution of their character based mostly on what’s occurred to them on this timeline. Some ship main revelations concerning the state of the world; others are largely comedian aid. Not each route is a winner (I have never even seen the complete complement but), however a number of them are – excess of I might anticipated given the sheer scale of the undertaking. The result’s a forged I now get pleasure from greater than nearly every other. Solely Closing Fantasy 14’s Scions may need it beat, and I’ve spent over a decade of my life with them.
The Hundred Line should not work in addition to it does. It brings collectively two creators whose work I’ve loved previously, and elevates their concepts to new heights. It is formidable to the purpose the place developer TooKyo Video games wasn’t positive it’d make its a reimbursement. Thankfully, it is step by step grown into the success it deserves, with Kodaka lately suggesting in an interview with ‘Weeby Newz’ that he’d prefer to “hold increasing it into 200 strains, 300 strains, and even 400 strains”, constructing “a recreation folks have by no means seen earlier than” that would final for so long as ten years. Whether or not he really follows by way of on that or not, I am going to always remember my time with The Hundred Line.
The Hundred Line: Final Protection Academy is offered on Steam, priced at $59.99 / £49.99. There’s additionally a demo you may obtain to get a really feel for its characters and fight, though you will not attain the purpose the place it springs to life in fairly the way in which I’ve described right here. I do not assume everybody will get on with The Hundred Line’s grand-scale method to storytelling, nevertheless it’s modified the way in which I’ll take into consideration multiverse narratives and branching decisions endlessly.
