Writing about The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy has been a long time coming. Released earlier this year, it’s a game that caught my eye close to its release, when all the previews started flying about all over the web. Granted, it was its approach to storytelling that got me the most interested in, not so much its anime-soaked presentation. Touted as a tactics game with interspersed visual novel elements, I was really curious to see how it would turn out, even more so after hearing its ties to some famous names in anime and manga, like Kazutaka Kodaka and Kotaro Uchikoshi.
As a huge fan of Radiata Historia, an often overlooked Nintendo 3DS RPG from Atlus that featured a unique way of telling its story by having you travel through time in order to relive and change the course of history by influencing key points in the timeline, the idea of having something like that mixed in with plenty of character development seemed like a winning formula. And after playing quite a few hours of The Hundred Line, I can safely say that it is indeed successful in its attempt to marry otherwise seemingly incompatible elements such as those.
After all, on paper, it sounds like a herculean task keeping track of changes in events throughout the story all the while influencing the way that those jumps would affect the relationship between the protagonist and his many companions. Against all odds, the game manages to keep that up, and while not nearly as involved as Persona’s Social Links for obvious reasons, the bonds that are built all throughout this one feel strong enough to keep coming back for more.
And admittedly, I did want to return constantly whenever I hit a crossroad or even an ending, which there are many, MANY of in this game (literally a hundred in total), but the more that I did, the more I realized I was just getting in deeper into what could easily suck up dozens if not hundreds more hours I’m willing to spend further in this one. That’s not to say that it’s a bad experience in any way, it’s just that there’s an excess of content overall, which might sound wonderful to anyone looking for that one game to play for an entire year, to me, as someone who has continuously lost interest in gaming as a whole lately, is a very hard sell.
Then again, much of what I’ve played of The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy was very enjoyable; its combat is tactical enough to keep things interesting, even though the variety of enemies is overall slim, leaning to the side of repetition and exhaustion, and with plenty of support options at my disposal, it helped keep me engaged with it. The same could be said about the comings and goings in between these engagements, interacting with other team members, getting to see their backstories revealed and their flourishing as deeper than your average companions in games of this ilk was definitely surprising.
The best part of it all, however, is the story. Yeah, it’s hella anime, having a group of kids be whisked away from the cocoon they’ve been living in only to discover the terrible reality of the outside world is nothing new to anyone with even the slightest interest in Japanese media, but it worked well enough here thanks to the sheer insanity of some of the characters that you meet along the way. The protagonist, Takumi, in particular, starts out as your usual teen in search of a meaning for life and develops into a leader of an otherwise motley crew of punks who at first aren’t at all likeable.
It’s a good thing that these aspects of play worked so well for me, as someone who has very little experience playing visual novels outside of Phoenix Wright, The Last Defense Academy helped grow my outlook for other works in the genre, enough to prompt me to buy Stein’s;Gate over the last sale that Steam held a while back. I fear this is a one-way trip, but if this game is any indication, it’ll be one definitely worth taking.
As for The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy itself, it’s played its purpose and I can safely say that I’m done with it. Did I see all there is to be seen in it? Not in the slightest. Does that mean I missed anything huge? Frankly, I feel that I got what I wanted out of it and more, something that I can’t say for most games I play these days. In that, I’m positively delighted to recommend it to those who are keeping something real juicy to sink their teeth into, just be careful about weird daggers given to you by creepy see-through teddy bears. They’ll take you for a ride.
