At the start of 2025, I totally believed I had grown uninterested in tales about a number of timelines. During the previous decade, the Marvel Cinematic Universe pushed the traditional comedian guide narrative machine into the mainstream, fueling a movie conglomerate with legally permitted cameos, flashy visuals on the silver display, and free plots that, finally, got here collectively for one closing pay-off.While the idea of the multiverse has been explored in movie and TV even earlier than Marvel’s takeover, it shortly turned the narrative basis of selection. When achieved proper, the potential is undeniable–works like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Everything, Everywhere, All at Once are heartwrenching shows of interpersonal relationships, making characters face the fact of what-if situations, reconciling with their decisions and what may have been if that they had turned the opposite manner as a substitute. But you possibly can solely hear the identical tune so many instances earlier than it begins to lose its unique affect.It wasn’t till The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy that my curiosity was reanimated. The visible novel and strategy-RPG hybrid presents itself as deceivingly linear, solely to push you into a very totally different story construction on the very finish. It makes for a sprawling net of outcomes primarily based in your decisions, all whereas showcasing totally different views on occasions and characters that weave absurdity and sentimentality in equal measure in a showcase of inventive prowess from the event crew.It all began after an eShop sale in July inspired me to lastly meet up with the Danganronpa and AI: Somnium Files collection. It was the proper motivation to arrange myself for this behemoth of a sport, by which the lead builders of each collection bought collectively for a joint venture that options 100 endings.The idea sounded exhausting–as somebody who’s consistently enjoying video games for work, I figured I’d by no means be capable of justify the time for it, particularly since I needed to at the least play probably the most outstanding trendy works from the builders first. To my shock, I ended up adoring the messiness of Danganronpa’s merciless killing video games. But it was AI: Somnium Files and its sequel, Nirvana Initiative, that led me to start to grasp The Hundred Line’s potential.Both video games kick off from linear storylines that arrange a detective-style thriller. Eventually, the plot begins to department out–depending on key choices you make, you find yourself pursuing totally different timelines, all represented in a movement chart that you should utilize to leap backwards and forwards between them, particularly when routes get locked till you have made progress on a distinct timeline. There’s a real ending that, on paper, symbolizes the supposed fruits of occasions. Yet, the method of witnessing what may have occurred if I had made a distinct choice, experiencing the ramifications on characters and their fates and getting various endings, was instantly arresting.In a manner, enjoying by way of The Hundred Line is just like the expertise of getting by way of each of those franchises as I did. You play as Takumi Sumino, one in every of 15 highschool college students who’re despatched to the mysterious Last Defense Academy to guard humanity from invaders. The story is structured in 100 days, which is precisely the time frame that the scholars have been commanded to endure. While none of them have as many in-game days, all mainline Danganronpa video games share this construction, splitting the visible novel facet of the story with exploration and trials–in The Hundred Line, the latter takes the form of technique RPG battles, in addition to free time to extend bonds with characters.But attending to the ultimate day does not imply reaching the top. While there’s little cause to consider that day 100 is not principally the story’s fruits, it solely signifies the top of a prologue. Once you get to the tantalizing date, the sport radically modifications and turns into just like AI: The Somnium Files (in addition to earlier video games led by lead developer Kotaro Uchikoshi, reminiscent of Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward and Zero Time Dilemma). Your activity, then, is to discover totally different timelines and dive into their very own what-if situations, making choices that result in the aforementioned 100 endings.As per ordinary, there is no scarcity of meta textual content.Speaking to Bloomberg, Danganronpa lead designer Kazutaka Kodaka stated that writers got the liberty to take characters in wild instructions, from a comedy route to 1 the place all of them flip into zombies. The additional you plunge into the movement chart, the extra this turns into obvious, with characters adopting totally different personalities, or the sport itself altering drastically compared to the calendar schedule of the unique 100 days.Normally, choice-driven tales repair you to sure paths relying on what you decide, and so they have you ever carrying these decisions from that second on. Games like this yr’s Dispatch, for instance, introduced again the Telltale Games components into the zeitgeist, as former builders of the studio led the venture. There are loads of “this character will remember that” messages on display, and whereas a few of your choices do carry some weight towards the top, the principle story is structured largely the identical. Despite the participant’s enter, the larger outcomes have already been determined.In The Hundred Line, experiencing totally different outcomes is akin to opening a treasure trove that may seemingly by no means run out of surprises. It embodies the curiosity of a whiteboard crammed with concepts that the builders had, and the uncommon probability of truly having the ability to see them manifested. What would have occurred if this character hadn’t died? What ramifications may a seemingly small choice have within the lives of your fellow college students? The solutions to those questions are all laid naked so that you can decide and expertise for your self. There is a real ending that you may pursue to uncover the overarching mysteries launched throughout the prologue. But there’s additionally the valuable alternative of witnessing utterly totally different tales.At its core, The Hundred Line makes a singular case of how the interactive nature of video video games suits tales about a number of timelines like a glove. It’s not typically that we’re in a position to witness the builders’ creativity on such an enormous scale, both. Yet, it was that actual show that gave me a reappreciation of this narrative machine, and left me ruminating about my very own decisions in life. 2025 marked the tenth anniversary of my first revealed article. It was the results of responding to a name for writers from somebody in a Facebook group I barely knew who was beginning her personal weblog. Had I achieved in a different way, that day would have been as every other. I might have continued finding out graphic design, maybe. I might have met utterly totally different individuals within the years that adopted, whereas video video games would have been nothing however a mere pastime. It was solely a brief message that, on the time, appeared innocuous. I had no concept how a lot it’d utterly change my life.The extra end-of-the-year discussions I get to be part of, the extra I understand I’ll merely not be capable of get to every part I wish to see, do, and play on this lifetime. The time dedication of a narrative with 100 endings is daunting, to place it mildly. But I do not remorse spending months getting ready for it, in addition to the handfuls of ongoing hours dissecting its each route. It’s a daring showcase of ambition and years of collected information paying off, time and time once more, in a manner that solely video video games can muster. And it is also a relentless showcase of how a lot our lives can change on a whim with out us realizing.
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