So how *is* Hundred Line anyway? I never really gave it much thought at first but now that half the people I follow are playing it I was wondering what it's about and if it's any good.
It's pretty good and outrageously ambitious, the premise of which I would normally say "oh this game is going to be halfbaked, ok" except Uchikoshi is involved so I believe anything can happen whenever that madlad is involved.
It's mainly a visual novel with SRPG elements. It plays less like a traditional SRPG and more like a puzzle game with resource management: Your economy of action per turn is very limited, via AP, but can be extended by killing stronger enemies in the map, which grants +1 AP. AP carries over from turn to turn, so basically, any AP obtained is an action even if you don't use in that turn, you can use it the next, and it's key to actually being able to fight the huge numbers of enemies. There's no terrain whatsoever to consider and it all amounts to enemy type, formation, and your own counterparts. It's done well, it's fun.
The VN aspect is the main meat of the game, and, mm, I can't really talk about the game much without spoiling, but basically, you have what basically is a 40 hour 'prologue' before the game really opens up in the Select What Happens And See The Consequences Of Your Decisions department; That 40 hour prologue is basically an entire game in and of itself, which is very very fun, because it doesn't skimp or try to rush itself, the pacing is exactly right: There's always something happening, but it doesn't overwhelm you, either.
Imagine if Persona 3 was less of a simulator and more of a story-driven experience and that's a pretty accurate way to describe Hundred Line, in my opinion.
Mind you, I've mainly played Uchikoshi games, and I'm a big fan, of the other guy, the Danganronpa guy, I've only played Danganronpa 1, which I liked very much, so I don't really KNOW much about his writing, but it is very much his DNA in the writing as well as Uchikoshi's, and in the presentation: The entire setting is presented as a subversion of the way the first Danganronpa opened, and it was very cool to experience: Buncha high schoolers wake up in a classroom, a mascot tells them they have bombs in them, and the windows are closed.
Then, the mascot tells them that they gotta work together and become tight as hell, and then he opens the windows: There's a huge wall of fire that surrounds the school... But it's not to keep them in, they can freely leave whenever they want. It's to keep something out. The high schoolers are functionally immortal as long as they are in school grounds, but can die for real if they go out. The mascot initially withholds information for one day, but then fully agrees to divulge everything, and had been withholding information not because he wanted -- he did want to reveal everything -- but rather because he couldn't if not all the characters were on board with fighting.
It's a very knowing subversion of everything that made Danganronpa, Danganronpa. Add to that deeper character writing that can count of not having to thin the headcount by necessity due to the very nature of a Killing Game setting, and you got some robust writing for some bigger than life characters that feel surprisingly organic and like someone you could possibly know in real life, with their fun quirks that, depending on the character, might define them or not, but even those defined by their quirk, are not just their quirk. In this regard, I can tell you that's a signature move of Uchikoshi, but there's enough that I patently can tell isn't Uchikoshi to know the other guy is also writing his pussy out and having a good one, I assume because he finally gets to write a cast that doesn't need to get 80% Killed for the purposes of the genre.
All in all, Fun. I am having a blast with it.
