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Review: The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy Is a Masterpiece
With intriguing mysteries, a colorful cast, and fun strategic stages, The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy is a gem of a game that never wears out its welcome in spite of its staggering length. As the perfect split between the styles and humor of Danganronpa creator Kazutaka Kotaka and Zero Escape creator Kotaro Uchikoshi, it will more than satisfy anyone who enjoys bombastic sci-fi stories with a resonating emotional core. The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy follows Takumi, a boy living in the dome-shaped Tokyo Residential Complex. He’s an ordinary student living an ordinary life with his mom and childhood best friend Karua and doesn’t expect that to change. However, an invasion from otherworldly creatures flips his life upside down. He finds himself, along with a smattering of other high schoolers, conscripted in a war against the relentless army of invaders. They must defend the Last Defense Academy for a hundred days, while also figuring out who brought them there in the first place and why they were chosen for this task. Screenshot by Siliconera I really enjoyed the story and cast! Unlike in Danganronpa, where losing characters is a given and leads to some with less development or screen time, it feels like everyone gets an even share of the spotlight. Even characters with off-putting quirks, like Ima and Kurara, became endearing. Conversely, it can make bonding events feel weak, since they’re more of a monologue that provides trivia rather than anything meaningful. With how much we learn about them throughout routes in the game, though, the bonding events never left me wanting for more. The writing is hilarious too. This was the most physically hazardous review for me, because I had to put down the game at several points after laughing way too hard. The localization was successful at taking specific memes or references that would fly over the head of an English-only audience and turning them into jokes that are in-character and true to the original context. Minor inconsistencies and punctuation errors exist, but it's hard to fault minor mistakes when one considers the scope of the project. As a whole, the localization team did an amazing job! Screenshot by Siliconera The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy is a very long game. Even with over a hundred hours of playtime—excluding idling and retries—I haven’t explored every route or seen every ending. Sometimes, the routes can read like an episode of The Simpsons. You think the story is going in one direction, only for it to be about something completely different. Because of the sheer number of options, the story can feel like a smorgasbord of genres. Not every route is a winner and it can suck when the game traps you in a boring story for hours, but I never tired of the game. Aside from being a visual novel, The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy is a combination of a Fire Emblem-like SRPG and a tower defense game. Some levels can be surprisingly difficult, especially when you haven’t upgraded your characters. A major reason for this is that you can’t choose where to place them. I remember one level that had two characters I would’ve never put together to hold down the fort. Since you only have a set number of AP to share with your entire army and characters can’t move too far after an action (unless you expend Voltage or an item), I had no way of sending more mobile units over to help. Finding the optimal strategy can feel more akin to a puzzle, rather than pure tactics or strategy. Screenshot by Siliconera Usually in these games, you don’t want to lose your units. The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy goes against this notion. It encourages you to let them die or kill them off. Aside from providing you with bonus points after the battle, you gain 100% Voltage. Voltage is one of the most important resources, since you can use it to power up characters via hemoanima boosts. This includes increasing their attack strength or granting them a counterattack. So kamikaze your characters or don’t bother with healing them. Who cares if you win a battle with only one person standing? Death is glory! I recommend first focusing on characters like Takumi and Kako (star AP farmers) or Shouma (a literal godsend). As he’s the protagonist, you always have Takumi. He’s the safest option to pour resources into until you’re at a more comfortable spot with BP and materials. My major gripe about the game is the UI choice for the chapter select screen, which is where you can see all the story branches and routes. You can’t zoom out to see the entire chart and every path looks the same, which can make it hard to tell what you’re looking at without hovering over a node. It’s just genuinely a difficult flowchart to look at or use. The lines linking all the nodes together and the line dividing up the timeline into days look the same as well, which adds another layer of frustration. Maybe a future patch can introduce colors to make the routes stand
With intriguing mysteries, a colorful cast, and fun strategic stages, The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy is a gem of a game that never wears out its welcome in spite of its staggering length. As the perfect split between the styles and humor of Danganronpa creator Kazutaka Kotaka and Zero Escape creator Kotaro Uchikoshi, it will more than satisfy anyone who enjoys bombastic sci-fi stories with a resonating emotional core.
The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy follows Takumi, a boy living in the dome-shaped Tokyo Residential Complex. He’s an ordinary student living an ordinary life with his mom and childhood best friend Karua and doesn’t expect that to change. However, an invasion from otherworldly creatures flips his life upside down. He finds himself, along with a smattering of other high schoolers, conscripted in a war against the relentless army of invaders. They must defend the Last Defense Academy for a hundred days, while also figuring out who brought them there in the first place and why they were chosen for this task.
I really enjoyed the story and cast! Unlike in Danganronpa, where losing characters is a given and leads to some with less development or screen time, it feels like everyone gets an even share of the spotlight. Even characters with off-putting quirks, like Ima and Kurara, became endearing. Conversely, it can make bonding events feel weak, since they’re more of a monologue that provides trivia rather than anything meaningful. With how much we learn about them throughout routes in the game, though, the bonding events never left me wanting for more.
The writing is hilarious too. This was the most physically hazardous review for me, because I had to put down the game at several points after laughing way too hard. The localization was successful at taking specific memes or references that would fly over the head of an English-only audience and turning them into jokes that are in-character and true to the original context. Minor inconsistencies and punctuation errors exist, but it's hard to fault minor mistakes when one considers the scope of the project. As a whole, the localization team did an amazing job!
The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy is a very long game. Even with over a hundred hours of playtime—excluding idling and retries—I haven’t explored every route or seen every ending. Sometimes, the routes can read like an episode of The Simpsons. You think the story is going in one direction, only for it to be about something completely different. Because of the sheer number of options, the story can feel like a smorgasbord of genres. Not every route is a winner and it can suck when the game traps you in a boring story for hours, but I never tired of the game.
Aside from being a visual novel, The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy is a combination of a Fire Emblem-like SRPG and a tower defense game. Some levels can be surprisingly difficult, especially when you haven’t upgraded your characters. A major reason for this is that you can’t choose where to place them. I remember one level that had two characters I would’ve never put together to hold down the fort. Since you only have a set number of AP to share with your entire army and characters can’t move too far after an action (unless you expend Voltage or an item), I had no way of sending more mobile units over to help. Finding the optimal strategy can feel more akin to a puzzle, rather than pure tactics or strategy.
Usually in these games, you don’t want to lose your units. The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy goes against this notion. It encourages you to let them die or kill them off. Aside from providing you with bonus points after the battle, you gain 100% Voltage. Voltage is one of the most important resources, since you can use it to power up characters via hemoanima boosts. This includes increasing their attack strength or granting them a counterattack. So kamikaze your characters or don’t bother with healing them. Who cares if you win a battle with only one person standing? Death is glory!
I recommend first focusing on characters like Takumi and Kako (star AP farmers) or Shouma (a literal godsend). As he’s the protagonist, you always have Takumi. He’s the safest option to pour resources into until you’re at a more comfortable spot with BP and materials.
My major gripe about the game is the UI choice for the chapter select screen, which is where you can see all the story branches and routes. You can’t zoom out to see the entire chart and every path looks the same, which can make it hard to tell what you’re looking at without hovering over a node. It’s just genuinely a difficult flowchart to look at or use. The lines linking all the nodes together and the line dividing up the timeline into days look the same as well, which adds another layer of frustration. Maybe a future patch can introduce colors to make the routes stand out more, or make it easier to look at the whole thing.
Kodaka said while promoting the game that he considers The Hundred Line his “best work” and a game that’s close to his ideal. After experiencing it for myself, I have to agree. It’s unique and unforgettable, and a magnum opus that Too Kyo Games will be hard-pressed to top in the future.
The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- will come out for the Nintendo Switch and Windows PC via Steam on April 24, 2025.
The post Review: The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy Is a Masterpiece appeared first on Siliconera.
