#game-review # The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy ![]() [Console:: PC] [Status:: Playing] [Approximate Start Date:: 2025-04-24] [Finish Date:: ] [Clear Time:: ] [Total Play Time:: 30.1h] [nReplays:: 0] ## [Rating:: 80] # Playthrough Notes - Playing on the futon with our Steam Deck, playing with Erin. - We are being *fiends* # My Thoughts ## General Thoughts - I really like the top corner I in this game. The fact that the arm increments at exactly 1 Hz is so great. - Nothing like a good corner user interface ## "What if Danganronpa Played Completely Differently, but had the same Story Structure?" - I mean it's just "not-Danganronpa", down to the fact that there's a fanservice scene at the same "time" as the one that shows up in chapter 2 of [[Super Danganronpa 2 - Goodbye Despair]]. - The story beats are so similar - When on Day 15 Hiruko says "My goal is for everyone to survive", Erin and I both immediately said "she's totally dying", then remembered that this isn't Danganronpa. Still, she disappeared the next day and we were not surprised. - We were also thinking that Ima's plan would play into this, but then the game subverted our expectation when we find out that Ima's plan was to "seduce her". lol ## This One's For the Fans - Kazutaka Kodaka really said "What if I put an [[Undertale]] reference in a [[9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors|999]] reference, huh? What then huh?", and we love him for that. We *appreciate* his mind. - Darumi Amemiya is like, the most annoying Danganronpa fan you've ever met before, and we love her for that. - She may make us cringe, but she also reminds of us who we are. ## Day 69 - Day 69 is pretty spectacular. It's like a little holiday in the game! - I won't lie, I was thinking to myself "I wonder if they'll do anything interesting for the funny number", when I saw that it was gong to be a game about lasting 100 days in a space. Sure enough! - I mean, it's a Kazutaka Kodaka and a Kotaro Uchikoshi game. the juvenile sense of humor their games embrace is what makes them so fun. They understand that you can have a dark and twisted and fucked up game and still laugh at the "haha 69 funny number" joke. - In Japanese, you can read 69 as "ro-ku", which explains why that day Sirei says that "today will have a rock 'n' roll theme" - And of course, the school theme gets to have its own little rock 'n' roll remix for that day and that day only. What a tremendous way to commit to the bit. - Day 69 isn't that notable otherwise. - Kind of like when on your birthday you still have to go into work, and do chores, take an airplane flight, or otherwise just keep on keeping on. ## Gameplay-Specific Thoughts - hate fog of war. glad that's not a long-standing thing so far. ### Let Your Units Die! It's a GOOD THING - Dude, do you know how stressful other tactical RPGs can be with units dying, and how much I try to avoid this happening? Do you know how refreshing it is to have a tactical strategy game that now not only encourages you to sacrifice units but to do so as often as possible? - You let your units get to under 5 HP, they can pull off a desperation attack that does a ton of damage, and then kills off the unit. In their death you get a 100 point voltage boost which can then be used to build up a different unit. - The best analogue I have for this is using like Memento or Healing Wish in competitive Pokemon. You basically sacrifice one near-death unit to bolster another so that you can eventually sweep through the remaining foes. - Units do no have individual experience bars. This means that there is no downside to focusing entirely on one particularly well-positioned unit, and there is no upside to spreading the love across a lot of units. Granted, you SHOULD be using most of your units to their highest potential if you can, but sometimes, you just gotta use Eito like mad and spam an attack boosted "Jury". ### Thoughts on Class Weapons #### From a Tactical Gameplay Perspective - the class weapons as extensions of people's personalities is really great, because there's a lot of different kinds of ways of attacking from a tactics perspective to explore. - The fact that the units DON'T have any kind of experience bar means I'm far more willing to sacrifice units. Never mind the fact that there isn't any kind of permadeath, I don't feel bad sending units to take a boatload of damage because I'm encouraged to use desperation attacks. - Health as a currency almost here. - Is a near-dead unit more useful than a living one? If not, let's ditch 'em and boost the other one to much higher degrees! Therefore these near-death units don't seem like they're essentially useless. - I think about how when in Fire Emblem, I don't want my low HP units to do *ANYTHING* and here they're like the people I'm thinking about *FIRST*. ##### Shouma's Class Weapon is the best way to show off how Unique Hundred Line's Combat Is. - I think Shouma's class weapon is a fantastic example of how Hundred Line's combat is so radically different from so many other tactical strategy games. His whole gimmick is that he pilots a gundam with a TON of HP and only has skills that attract enemies and then put him into defense mode where he can reflect attacks. Then when he gets low HP, you just sacrifice him and do a load of huge damage to every enemy around him, and that allows you to then get a boost to your Voltage. That's coooooooool as helllll dude. - Where else are you actively encouraged to have a unit NOT ONLY take damage, but to then kill off the unit to support the remaining units on the field? I love it. #### The Aesthetics of Class Weapons are cool as fuck - I love that Hiruko turns into a Tsukeban girl with a GIANT axe - Takemaru gets a skeleton motorbike, that's sick. - Darumi just has a bunch of flaoting knives, and attacks akin to Dio in Part 3. I DIG IT. - Gaku with a gattling gun is realy funny to me because of how small he is relative to his weapon. - Tsubasa getting a car is great, so she can hide how much she vomits. That's great. - Shouma gets a motherfucking gundam. - Erin said it reminded her f one from a different media franchise, I'll have to ask her about it. ## Character-Specific Thoughts ### Takemaru - What if Mondo Owada and Kaito Momota had a baby and he was a good dude ### Darumi Amemiya - Kodaka wrote a Danganronpa-obsessed maniac into the game and we love him for it. - At some point you have to wonder if he's just getting all of his frustration about the fandom he helped popularize here with Darumi. - Kodaka's like "this is what you all look like to me btw" - We may sigh with disappointment and cringe at things she says and does, but deep down we know that there's a little bit of Darumi Amemiya in all of us. - We would not be as excited about Hundred Line without having being a little like her ourselves. - She may be cringe, but BOY is she FREE - The fucking puppy girl panting sprite and sound effect, Jesus Christ. - Jesus Christ those are real eroge. Not made up names. Just straight up real eroge. Erin and I looked them up as we played the game and they were REAL. - Saya no Uta - Sayonara O Oshiete - Carnival - ChronoBox <blockquote class="bluesky-embed" data-bluesky-uri="at://did:plc:k6kg5ccozcphfcmp4zyx3s64/app.bsky.feed.post/3lpb6jv6wd22j" data-bluesky-cid="bafyreibmgommxlrfcu5wwuggytsnzdwdcqzuygnqfsjm2bpmycn2eb5owi" data-bluesky-embed-color-mode="system"><p lang="en">Every time they maker her do the puppy girl emote I feel like someone hit me in the head with a brick. A thousand embarrassing middle school memories rushing back all at once. I feel like Salieri in awe at a master at work.<br><br><a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:k6kg5ccozcphfcmp4zyx3s64/post/3lpb6jv6wd22j?ref_src=embed">[image or embed]</a></p>&mdash; Chris Person (<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:k6kg5ccozcphfcmp4zyx3s64?ref_src=embed">@papapishu.bsky.social</a>) <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:k6kg5ccozcphfcmp4zyx3s64/post/3lpb6jv6wd22j?ref_src=embed">May 16, 2025 at 12:22 AM</a></blockquote><script async src="https://embed.bsky.app/static/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script> ### Nozomi Kirifuji - Wow she looks like my High School girlfriend. - Wow she's actually a busted unit when you use her with Takumi - Takumi uses specials, Nozomi heals stun. Rinse and Repeat. ### Ima and Kako - "You and your sister sure are close huh", Kodaka you motherfucker. You actual motherfucker. - I hate Ima so much dude. I know that's the point too, so good job. Good freaking job. - Kako is a cutie-patootie - I think Kako's story arc over the 100 days is the most compelling. She's constantly growing throuhgout the story, compared to some of the other characters who have their designated arc and then remain stagnant ## Eito Aotsuki - My beautiful white haired sickly boy - KOMAEDA TWO - ## Notes On The English Voice Dub - A lot of the voice cast in the English dub is relatively new to me! That's cool. - Voice Director, Thomas Mitchells is also a new Lead Voice Director. Supposedly he has worked on Baldur's Gate III and [[Metaphor ReFantazio]] - I recognize Minh Ton from social media and my days on VA Twitter - Elsie Lovelock is there too. I can't recall if I've actually been in a project with her or not lol. - Dubbing done through [OM London](https://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/voice-productions/OM-London/), with most of the VAs involved also being from Europe. - No doubt this is partially in-part because of the SAG-AFTRA Video game strike that started July 26th, 2024. - I think that this invites a lot of interesting discussion, given that it's a different actor pool from those seen in LA and Dallas. You attain similar yet new voices which helps expand the canon of these characters. - Compare that with [[Master Detective Archives Rain Code]], where you had Yuma Kokohead voiced by Lucian Dodge, the same VA who voiced K1-B0 in [[Danganronpa V3]] and Hifumi Yamada in [[Danganronpa Trigger Happy Havoc]]. - Maybe this wasn't distracting to a lot of people, but as someone who frequents the anime voice acting spheres and has some friends in the process of getting into the business themselves, I *notice* these things. - Also likely due to the fact that the budget on this game was pretty tight and using an England-based studio and non-American (and thus non-Union) Voice Actors is generally less expensive. - Less-experienced Video Game voice actors who aren't in SAG-AFTRA will be more inexpensive. - Still some of these actors have strong theater and on-screen experience ### Sirei's Dub - the fact that they had Joseph May, the english dub VA, say every single "Today is you Nth Day of Active Service here at Last Defense Academy" Line, is so impressive - I love that they kept in his attempts to stifle laughter on Day 69. # Favorite Moments / Memories - **DAY 69** # What were you doing when not playing this? - # Relevant Links -