The UFO 50 of visual novels. To see the credits for this first time in this game, you need to spend around 30-35 hours. To do everything in this game, you need to spend 200+. I have now done everything. This game is a collaboration between the teams that did the Danganronpa Trilogy and the Nonary Games(999/Zero Escape) trilogy. I love both trilogies, but I definitely prefer the Zero Escape trilogy.
This game definitely feels like a mixture of both, and is the final boss of mainstream visual novels. While there is gameplay, that side of things ranges from meh to good, but the story and characters are the stars of the show.
Spoiler-free I'll say if you like visual novels, even mainstream visual novels, this one comes highly recommended to do at least a few "runs" and recommended to do everything if you have the patience, with some caveats.. The first 30-35 hours are some of the best, but they do get outdone in a few ways if you choose to complete it(Spoilers incoming)
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Some routes may be as short as a few minutes or hours, while others will be 30-50 hours. 100 endings. 23 routes. Some people say it's such a selling point of the game its not even a spoiler, but I'm being careful here. Of the 23 routes, I'd say about half of them are good to great, with the best routes being the second scenario(my number one), and SF route(my number two). Some routes are more controversial, but I still loved, like the cult of takumi route. Unfortunately some routes waste way too much of your time, like the serial battles route, the romance route, or the comedy route(best of the three but holy crap did it overstay its welcome and then some)
When asked about if beating all the endings, they stated you could go do a random playthrough and pick that as your ending. There is definitely a meta route, I won't say which one, but basically, the developers said that to not intimidate people but you definitely should not do that. Unfortunately, the meta route does require you to do a large amount of other content to access, and does come highly recommended. That being said, if you are going to refuse the commitment of 100 endings, I would much rather you do 2nd secnario(the route that answers the most) and then stop, as anything else will pale in comparison, or worse, sour you on the game.
The game's biggest flaw is that it does not respect your time. A 200 hour experience, no matter how enjoyable, should not have nearly half of it be anything less than great. This game could very well be a masterpiece if it cut down on the filler and did tighter editing on some of the routes. That being said, I still don't regret my time with last defense academy and it does mostly fulfill a lot of its grandiose promises. The game offers a lot of compelling questions and, while it doesn't answer everything, it does answer most things with compelling answers. Overall a great game and an even better visual novel.
8.5/10
