Latest news with #TheHundredLine
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Danganronpa creator would love to port his acclaimed strategy RPG to more consoles, but the studio is "still on the brink of going under"
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Kazutaka Kodaka's new strategy RPG The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy came out just a few weeks ago, but the developer's still on thin ice financially. By most metrics, The Hundred Line seems to have gone down like a treat for players. On Steam, the game has over 1,400 user reviews with 91% of people giving it a thumbs up. And it's also gotten some sweet reactions on Metacritic and such, but it hasn't totally saved its developer Too Kyo Games yet. Over on BlueSky, one fan asked about whether The Hundred Line would ever come out on more platforms after its launch on PC and Nintendo Switch on April 24, 2025. Co-director and Dangonronpa creator Kazutaka Kodaka responded by saying: "If I can pay off my debt early and secure enough operating funds for the company, I'd love to get started right away. But right now, we're still on the brink of going under." Kodaka previously explained how the studio "ended up with a lot of debt" while making the game since funding a fashionable high school visual novel, tactical RPG hybrid with around 100 full-fledged endings is a significant undertaking. For those out of the loop, Too Kyo Games was jointly formed by Kodaka and Zero Escape creator Kotaro Uchikoshi. The visual novel royalty worked on a few other games together, but The Hundred Line is easily the team's biggest, most ambitious production yet. Here's hoping the duo can keep making wild, unpredictable games while finding some financial stability. In the meantime, check out some of the other new games of 2025 to see what's coming next.
Yahoo
3 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 Nier Automata's effortlessly eccentric director Yoko Taro has said he originally made games with multiple endings at a time when short games were out of fashion.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"
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.
