Latest news with #Danganronpa
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Even Yoko Taro says it was "more dangerous," and other devs tried to stop him, but Danganronpa's creator insisted on having 100 endings in his absurd new RPG
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Nier Automata's effortlessly eccentric director Yoko Taro has said he originally made games with multiple endings at a time when short games were out of fashion. Now? He reckons making games with 100 endings, like Danganronpa creator's new game, is a risky move. In the latest issue of Famitsu Magazine, the Nier mastermind sat down for a chat with Danganronpa's Kazutaka Kodaka and 999 director Koutarou Uchikoshi, who recently teamed up to release strategy RPG The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, a dangerous high school-set game that has seemingly countless routes to complete. Nier Automata's 26 routes were a major deal when the game first released – even though most of them were joke endings. But Taro explains in quotes translated by Redditor ComunCoutinho and Google Translate that he only added multiple routes to his Drakengard series for the extra replayability. You see, for most of the 2000s, a game's length was somewhat used to measure whether it was worth the price. In 2025, with dozens of games competing for our time every single month, a 500-hour epic doesn't seem as appealing. "In the current year, making something with 100 different routes and endings is the more dangerous play," Taro tells the developers of The Hundred Line, which has roughly 100 routes and endings. That's not an idea that put the developers off, though. Uchikoshi apparently created a flowchart containing all 100 routes to show Kodaka how rash his initial idea was, but seeing everything physically laid out apparently got the famed visual novel maestro more motivated to do it. Kodaka is at least aware of the gamble he took. He recently said that he'd love to port The Hundred Line to more consoles, but the studio is still "on the brink of going under," which isn't a surprise considering the team ended up with a lot of debt trying to create the ambitious genre-bending hybrid in the first place. Yoko Taro says Nier: Automata has so many endings because "Square Enix told us" to "add more content"
Business Mayor
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Mayor
Last Defense Academy makes confusion part of the fun
The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy starts off by asking a simple question: what happens when you pluck a handful of colorful teenagers from their homes, plop them in a state-of-the-art school filled with every convenience, then force them to fight for their lives? Your guide as you navigate this question is an unsettling and creepy-cute mascot that knows more than it's let on, and there's an overarching mystery to the world that you can't quite put your finger on. If you, like I, answered ' Danganronpa !' — as this premise sounds very much like the plot of the quirky and irreverent murder-mystery series from Spike Chunsoft — then congratulations! We're both totally wrong! And after 45 in-game days with LDA, I still have no idea what's going on, and I love it. I'm going to be gentle with myself and you for thinking LDA is another entry in the genre of high school-themed killing games. After all, it was developed by Kazutaka Kodaka, creator and writer of the Danganronpa franchise, in collaboration with Kotaro Uchikoshi, known for his work on the adventure-puzzle game series Zero Escape . And though LDA oozes with the DNA from both series, it stands so completely apart mechanically and narratively that while I can get a grasp on the former, I'm lost with the latter. The cast of this game is full of great characters. Image: Too Kyo Games The premise is simple enough. You play as Takumi Sumino, who gets whisked away to the Last Defense Academy, where he and a group of others use their newly awakened powers to defend the school from monster attacks for 100 days. Should they fail, the invaders will destroy the school and thereby… because of plot… all of humanity. Usually past a certain point, I can figure out a game's core gameplay loop and rough narrative thrust. When the first body dropped in Danganronpa , I immediately understood that I'd be spending the rest of the game solving my classmates' murders. But I haven't been able to figure out LDA . I understand the gameplay loop easily enough: it's a tactical RPG with visual novel-like relationship-building elements. Combat takes place on a gridded battlefield with each combatant able to attack in a different configuration, similar to chess. One of Takumi's abilities attacks enemies in a straight line. My ally, Gaku, attacks in a rectangular pattern. Each of my allies' attacks contributes to a voltage meter that allows us to use our special abilities when full. And if one of my allies should fall, they'll be revived before the next wave of enemies. I like how the tactical combat isn't like Fire Emblem or Triangle Strategy . LDA is unique, as you're not trying to manage the complex rock-paper-scissors formula of what weapons are strong or weak against each other. Instead, life is the engine that drives combat. Actions you take are determined by how many action points, or AP, you have, and killing certain enemies grants you more AP. On the flip side, allies who are near death can unleash big special attacks that can clear entire battlefields at the cost of losing them for the rest of the wave. Combat is grid-based, and allies can attack in varying configurations. Images: Too Kyo Games Combat then becomes a function of playing with life totals — my enemies and mine. I'll arrange my attacks in such a way that every time I act, I kill an enemy and gain more AP so I can just keep going, denying my enemies the chance to fight back. Then, when I'm out of AP, I can unleash a killing blow that ends the round. My allies get revived the next round, and I can start the process all over again. I've been left so unsatisfied by the crop of tactical RPGs lately, and LDA fills the gaping hole Fire Emblem Engage created and the Advance Wars remakes could not fix. But while I've got a handle on the combat, I still haven't the faintest clue of the story it's trying to tell. My confusion is so thorough that as I go through each new day, my experiences start sounding like wartime letters from the front lines. It's day 33. Our self-proclaimed leader, Hiruko, is still missing. We're starting to suspect she'll never return. Meanwhile, the enemy keeps hurling themselves at our defenses. So far, we've been able to hold them off. Gaku recently developed his power, revealing himself to be a peerless ranged fighter. But our forces are nowhere near full strength, since Ima, Kako, and Shouma refuse to fight. And alas! Our foodstores have burnt up and I fear we'll starve soon. War is grim, but I fight knowing the closer I get to the 100th day is a day I am closer to returning home… or so I hope. LDA 's narrative is so unlike anything I've ever experienced that not knowing what's happening next is part of the fun. I like getting dragged along for the ride, discovering new developments alongside the characters, who are themselves a delight. As other outlets have pointed out, Darumi Amemiya is the physical manifestation of the irony-poisoned and terminally online dirtbag edgel(ady), and I adore her even if her characterization gets uncomfortably familiar sometimes. I am thou, thou art I… unfortunately. Image: Too Kyo Games I also really enjoy how the characters are over-the-top caricatures themselves — Darumi's the creepy murder-obsessed emo girl, Takemaru's the typical fighting-obsessed delinquent — but make decisions like normal people. I often struggle to get into 'transported to another world' stories because none of the decisions made in them have ever made sense to me, a woman who can't turn off her overly logical and reason-obsessed brain in order to just go with the flow. So it's incredibly refreshing to see these characters push back on the circumstances they've been dropped in. Instead of just accepting that they've been taken from everything they've ever known and forced to fight and die (even if that death is temporary), some of my allies maintain a healthy level of skepticism, question everything, and refuse to fight. I know I would! And even better, other characters in the game understand and acknowledge that as a reasonable position. There's no rah-rah speech of 'You must fight!' that convinces them to take up arms. The reluctant characters are given the space to come around on their own time and for their own reasons. That may sound boring. After all, in an isekai-like narrative, the characters are usually forced to get on board quickly otherwise there wouldn't be a plot. So seeing a game take its time with the reluctant characters, letting them work through their hangups in a natural and unforced way, was pleasing to my brain. In the almost 50 days I've spent with LDA , I do have some working theories as to where the overall story will go. How it gets there, though, I have no clue, but I'm excited to see what twists the game will take along the way. The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy is out now on Switch and PC.
The Verge
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Last Defense Academy makes confusion part of the fun
The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy starts off by asking a simple question: what happens when you pluck a handful of colorful teenagers from their homes, plop them in a state-of-the-art school filled with every convenience, then force them to fight for their lives? Your guide as you navigate this question is an unsettling and creepy-cute mascot that knows more than it's let on, and there's an overarching mystery to the world that you can't quite put your finger on. If you, like I, answered ' Danganronpa!' — as this premise sounds very much like the plot of the quirky and irreverent murder-mystery series from Spike Chunsoft — then congratulations! We're both totally wrong! And after 45 in-game days with LDA, I still have no idea what's going on, and I love it. I'm going to be gentle with myself and you for thinking LDA is another entry in the genre of high school-themed killing games. After all, it was developed by Kazutaka Kodaka, creator and writer of the Danganronpa franchise, in collaboration with Kotaro Uchikoshi, known for his work on the adventure-puzzle game series Zero Escape. And though LDA oozes with the DNA from both series, it stands so completely apart mechanically and narratively that while I can get a grasp on the former, I'm lost with the latter. The premise is simple enough. You play as Takumi Sumino, who gets whisked away to the Last Defense Academy, where he and a group of others use their newly awakened powers to defend the school from monster attacks for 100 days. Should they fail, the invaders will destroy the school and thereby… because of plot… all of humanity. Usually past a certain point, I can figure out a game's core gameplay loop and rough narrative thrust. When the first body dropped in Danganronpa, I immediately understood that I'd be spending the rest of the game solving my classmates' murders. But I haven't been able to figure out LDA. I understand the gameplay loop easily enough: it's a tactical RPG with visual novel-like relationship-building elements. Combat takes place on a gridded battlefield with each combatant able to attack in a different configuration, similar to chess. One of Takumi's abilities attacks enemies in a straight line. My ally, Gaku, attacks in a rectangular pattern. Each of my allies' attacks contributes to a voltage meter that allows us to use our special abilities when full. And if one of my allies should fall, they'll be revived before the next wave of enemies. I like how the tactical combat isn't like Fire Emblem or Triangle Strategy. LDA is unique, as you're not trying to manage the complex rock-paper-scissors formula of what weapons are strong or weak against each other. Instead, life is the engine that drives combat. Actions you take are determined by how many action points, or AP, you have, and killing certain enemies grants you more AP. On the flip side, allies who are near death can unleash big special attacks that can clear entire battlefields at the cost of losing them for the rest of the wave. Combat then becomes a function of playing with life totals — my enemies and mine. I'll arrange my attacks in such a way that every time I act, I kill an enemy and gain more AP so I can just keep going, denying my enemies the chance to fight back. Then, when I'm out of AP, I can unleash a killing blow that ends the round. My allies get revived the next round, and I can start the process all over again. I've been left so unsatisfied by the crop of tactical RPGs lately, and LDA fills the gaping hole Fire Emblem Engage created and the Advance Wars remakes could not fix. But while I've got a handle on the combat, I still haven't the faintest clue of the story it's trying to tell. My confusion is so thorough that as I go through each new day, my experiences start sounding like wartime letters from the front lines. It's day 33. Our self-proclaimed leader, Hiruko, is still missing. We're starting to suspect she'll never return. Meanwhile, the enemy keeps hurling themselves at our defenses. So far, we've been able to hold them off. Gaku recently developed his power, revealing himself to be a peerless ranged fighter. But our forces are nowhere near full strength, since Ima, Kako, and Shouma refuse to fight. And alas! Our foodstores have burnt up and I fear we'll starve soon. War is grim, but I fight knowing the closer I get to the 100th day is a day I am closer to returning home… or so I hope. LDA 's narrative is so unlike anything I've ever experienced that not knowing what's happening next is part of the fun. I like getting dragged along for the ride, discovering new developments alongside the characters, who are themselves a delight. As other outlets have pointed out, Darumi Amemiya is the physical manifestation of the irony-poisoned and terminally online dirtbag edgel(ady), and I adore her even if her characterization gets uncomfortably familiar sometimes. I also really enjoy how the characters are over-the-top caricatures themselves — Darumi's the creepy murder-obsessed emo girl, Takemaru's the typical fighting-obsessed delinquent — but make decisions like normal people. I often struggle to get into 'transported to another world' stories because none of the decisions made in them have ever made sense to me, a woman who can't turn off her overly logical and reason-obsessed brain in order to just go with the flow. So it's incredibly refreshing to see these characters push back on the circumstances they've been dropped in. Instead of just accepting that they've been taken from everything they've ever known and forced to fight and die (even if that death is temporary), some of my allies maintain a healthy level of skepticism, question everything, and refuse to fight. I know I would! And even better, other characters in the game understand and acknowledge that as a reasonable position. There's no rah-rah speech of 'You must fight!' that convinces them to take up arms. The reluctant characters are given the space to come around on their own time and for their own reasons. That may sound boring. After all, in an isekai-like narrative, the characters are usually forced to get on board quickly otherwise there wouldn't be a plot. So seeing a game take its time with the reluctant characters, letting them work through their hangups in a natural and unforced way, was pleasing to my brain. In the almost 50 days I've spent with LDA, I do have some working theories as to where the overall story will go. How it gets there, though, I have no clue, but I'm excited to see what twists the game will take along the way.
Digital Trends
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy are a perfect pair
Ever since its release on April 24, the gaming world has been buzzing non-stop about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. The French RPG was instantly hailed as a generational masterpiece upon release, winning players over with its stylish visuals and impressive combat. It's most striking quality, though, is its emotional storytelling. Clair Obscur tells a moving tale about collective grief as an expedition sets out to save humanity from an annual plague that threats to wipe out every last person on Earth. It's a loaded story about moving forward in the face of pain that has drawn out gallons of tears from players, no doubt. But that wasn't the only game to launch on April 24 — nor was it even the only RPG about fighting for a better future released that day. It shared a release date with The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, the latest game from the team behind Danganronpa. One part visual novel, one part tactics game, The Hundred Line is incredibly ambitious in its own right thanks to its 100 endings across a gargantuan runtime. It's not only one of the year's best, but it's also a perfect compliment to Clair Obscur. Both RPGs cover similar thematic territory in very different ways that are both indebted to video game history. If your Clair Obscur playthrough is starting to wind down, The Hundred Line is the perfect chaser. I'd even go as far as to argue that it's the real main course. Recommended Videos Fighting for the future The two games may not sound similar on paper, but they're more connected than they seem at a glance. Both are about humanity's impending death as a timer ticks down and one group's fight to save the world. In Clair Obscur, the conflict comes from the Paintress, a mystical being who appears once a year to paint a number in the sky. When she does, it triggers an event called the Gommage, where everyone whose age is above the current number dies. The number ticks down with each year, so an expedition is sent out to try and put an end to the Paintress each year before everyone is inevitably killed. The Hundred Line's impending disaster is more shrouded in mystery. When the story begins, we learn that a group of students has been assembled at a school and chosen to defend a weapon housed within it from alien invaders. The group is told that the weapon will destroy the world if it gets into the wrong hands and they must protect it for a full 100 days. That only scratches the surface of what's really going on, as the story plays out like multiple seasons of a TV show filled with twists and cliffhangers. Think of it like an anime version of Lost. Without getting too in the weeds, humanity is on a similar path to destruction and the students only have so much time to change that. Though both premises are incredibly bleak, each RPG is hopeful in its own way. They aren't about succumbing to despair as inevitability approaches, but finding the will to continue the fight for a better future. And both do that by wielding the language of games in clever ways. For Clair Obscur, that idea comes through in its ode to classic RPGs. By drawing on a history of party-driven games about assembling a crew of misfit heroes, Sandfall Interactive speaks to the importance of collective action to push forward in times of pain. The crew members aren't just battle companions, but a functional support system that's stronger together. Successfully parrying a big enemy attack as a party triggers a devastating counter. When the active party falls in battle, the remaining ones come in for backup rather than sitting on their thumbs like so many other RPGs. And when a battle is won, a button on screen proclaims, 'We continue,' driving home the idea that the team is one singular unit. The Hundred Line is comparatively high concept in its approach. Its grand trick is that it doesn't just take place across 100 days as it initially claims to. That initial run almost acts as an elongated introduction to the actual hook. Let's just say that things go a little south by the end of the first 100 days which sends the once peppy group into despair. Failure seems imminent as the students anticipate their own Gommage of sorts. When things are their bleakest, players are hit with a tantalizing question: What if you could change it all? What would you do differently if you had another 100 days? That opens up the true game, in which players go back through the story and look for divergent points in the timeline that could change that ending. What's so smart here is that The Hundred Line leans into video game language to give players the possibility of hope. The fateful 100th day is framed as an 'ending' and the one you get after your first run may just be the 'bad' one. For seasoned gamers, that's immediately tangible. I know how multiple endings function in games and know that getting a good one is entirely within my power. I just have to be willing to keep at it and figure out what I can do to get the ending that I want. We don't get a redo in real life, but games can fulfill that fantasy. The Hundred Line gives players the power to turn back the clock and see exactly how their actions can shape the inevitable. I don't feel down when I hit a bad ending: There are literally 100 ways that this thing can go. As different as these two games are, that idea unites them. They are both about people facing down hopelessness as mass extinction looms and being determined enough to fight as many times as it takes. Sacrifice is central to both stories, too. In Clair Obscur, players discover logs left behind from every previous party that has died to get Expedition 33 where it is today. The Hundred Line is even more explicit about that theme, as characters can sacrifice their lives in its tactical battles to pull off a devastating attack and supercharge the team's energy meter so everyone else can hit their own big moves. Death is framed a steppingstone in both games, a noble sacrifice that the living can use to their advantage. It's not an ending, but rather one important action in a collective effort that's built on courage. Though Clair Obscur has been applauded for its emotionally gripping story, I find just as much power — if not more — in The Hundred Line. Through all of its silly one-liners and tomato-headed heroes, there's a strong message to be found about our power to stop the inevitable. It is achievable through countless decisions that can change history even when we don't realize they are leaving a mark in the moment. It only makes sense to explore that through a digital choose your own adventure novel where any outcome feels possible. So, once you're done with Clair Obscur, consider jumping right into The Hundred Line. You'll find a rich continuation of its themes that play with the language of games even more. Neither game will save our own world, but they might make you feel a little less hopeless in this dire moment.
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
It Looks Like Sabrina Carpenter Is Coming To Fortnite
Whenever Fortnite adds a playable character from one of my various hyperfixations, my friends say, 'Ken finally has to start playing Fortnite.' Dashing their hopes time and again, Epic has yet to put out a character that has actually compelled me to download its pop culture mash-up battle royale. I may be about to face my greatest test yet, however, because it seems like pop star Sabrina Carpenter is coming to the game, and as someone who listened to her smash hit 'Espresso' 1500 times last year, am I not duty-bound to show up for my queen? Rumors have been circulating since last week that Carpenter could be the latest skin added to the game's 'Icon' series, a collection of real-life figures that includes everyone from Naomi Osaka to Eminem. On March 21, Fortnite leaker HYPEX posted that she might be the next Icon skin, and now another leaker, Shiina, has revealed that what appears to be Carpenter's silver microphone, complete with a sequined red heart on the side, has shown up in the game's files. All signs point to Carpenter being the artist featured in the rhythm game Fortnite Festival next month, with a set including music, emotes, and, of course, a skin based on the singer herself. Fortnite has still never successfully pulled me in, and I don't think even adding Ms. Short n' Sweet will break me, though the thought of dancing over some fool's corpse to the summery sounds of 'Espresso' is one of the most appealing possibilities Epic has offered up. Even if I won't be playing myself, however, I will be looking forward to people recreating the cartoonish violence of the 'Taste' music video in-game. Put Junko Enoshima from Danganronpa in there, then we'll talk. Anyway, stream Short n' Sweet Deluxe Edition on your favorite music streaming service. Or, at the very least, blast it in Fortnite when you're standing over your enemies' bodies in my the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
