Originally of 2025, I totally believed I had grown bored with tales about a number of timelines. In the course of the previous decade, the Marvel Cinematic Universe pushed the basic comedian guide narrative gadget into the mainstream, fueling a movie conglomerate with legally authorised cameos, flashy visuals on the silver display screen, and unfastened plots that, ultimately, got here collectively for one ultimate pay-off.
Whereas 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 alternative. When accomplished proper, the potential is undeniable–works like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Every part, All over the place, All at As soon as are heartwrenching shows of interpersonal relationships, making characters face the fact of what-if situations, reconciling with their selections and what might have been if they’d turned the opposite means as a substitute. However you may solely hear the identical tune so many instances earlier than it begins to lose its unique influence.
It wasn’t till The Hundred Line: Final Protection 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 completely different story construction on the very finish. It makes for a sprawling net of outcomes primarily based in your selections, all whereas showcasing completely 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 began after an eShop sale in July inspired me to lastly meet up with the Danganronpa and AI: Somnium Recordsdata sequence. It was the proper motivation to arrange myself for this behemoth of a recreation, wherein the lead builders of each sequence bought collectively for a joint challenge that options 100 endings.
The idea sounded exhausting–as somebody who’s continuously taking part in video games for work, I figured I would by no means be capable to justify the time for it, particularly since I needed to a minimum of play probably the most outstanding fashionable works from the builders first. To my shock, I ended up adoring the messiness of Danganronpa’s merciless killing video games. Nevertheless it was AI: Somnium Recordsdata and its sequel, Nirvana Initiative, that led me to start to know The Hundred Line’s potential.
Each video games kick off from linear storylines that arrange a detective-style thriller. Ultimately, the plot begins to department out–depending on key choices you make, you find yourself pursuing completely different timelines, all represented in a stream chart that you should use to leap forwards and backwards between them, particularly when routes get locked till you’ve got made progress on a special timeline. There is a true ending that, on paper, symbolizes the meant end result of occasions. But, the method of witnessing what might have occurred if I had made a special determination, experiencing the ramifications on characters and their fates and getting various endings, was instantly arresting.
In a means, taking part in by means of The Hundred Line is just like the expertise of getting by means of each of those franchises as I did. You play as Takumi Sumino, one in all 15 highschool college students who’re despatched to the mysterious Final Protection Academy to guard humanity from invaders. The story is structured in 100 days, which is strictly the time period that the scholars have been commanded to endure. Whereas none of them have as many in-game days, all mainline Danganronpa video games share this construction, splitting the visible novel side 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.
However attending to the ultimate day doesn’t suggest reaching the tip. Whereas there’s little motive to consider that day 100 is not principally the story’s end result, it solely signifies the tip of a prologue. When you get to the tantalizing date, the sport radically modifications and turns into just like AI: The Somnium Recordsdata (in addition to earlier video games led by lead developer Kotaro Uchikoshi, comparable to Zero Escape: Advantage’s Final Reward and Zero Time Dilemma). Your activity, then, is to discover completely different timelines and dive into their very own what-if situations, making choices that result in the aforementioned 100 endings.
Talking to Bloomberg, Danganronpa lead designer Kazutaka Kodaka stated that writers got the liberty to take characters in wild instructions, from a comedy route to at least one the place all of them flip into zombies. The additional you plunge into the stream chart, the extra this turns into obvious, with characters adopting completely different personalities, or the sport itself altering drastically compared to the calendar schedule of the unique 100 days.
Usually, choice-driven tales repair you to sure paths relying on what you choose, and so they have you ever carrying these selections from that second on. Video games like this 12 months’s Dispatch, for instance, introduced again the Telltale Video games system into the zeitgeist, as former builders of the studio led the challenge. There are many “this character will keep in mind that” messages on display screen, and whereas a few of your choices do carry some weight towards the tip, the principle story is structured largely the identical. Regardless of the participant’s enter, the larger outcomes have already been determined.
In The Hundred Line, experiencing completely 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 likelihood of really having the ability to see them manifested. What would have occurred if this character hadn’t died? What ramifications might a seemingly small determination have within the lives of your fellow college students? The solutions to those questions are all laid naked so that you can choose and expertise for your self. There’s a true ending that you may pursue to uncover the overarching mysteries launched through the prologue. However there’s additionally the valuable alternative of witnessing fully completely different tales.
At its core, The Hundred Line makes a singular case of how the interactive nature of video video games matches tales about a number of timelines like a glove. It isn’t usually that we’re capable of witness the builders’ creativity on such a giant scale, both. But, it was that actual show that gave me a reappreciation of this narrative gadget, and left me ruminating about my very own selections in life. 2025 marked the tenth anniversary of my first printed article. It was the results of responding to a name for writers from somebody in a Fb group I barely knew who was beginning her personal weblog. Had I accomplished in a different way, that day would have been as another. I might have continued learning graphic design, maybe. I might have met fully completely different folks within the years that adopted, whereas video video games would have been nothing however a mere passion. It was solely a brief message that, on the time, appeared innocuous. I had no concept how a lot it’d fully change my life.
The extra end-of-the-year discussions I get to be part of, the extra I understand I will merely not be capable to get to every little thing I need to see, do, and play on this lifetime. The time dedication of a narrative with 100 endings is daunting, to place it mildly. However I do not remorse spending months making ready for it, in addition to the handfuls of ongoing hours dissecting its each route. It is a daring showcase of ambition and years of gathered information paying off, time and time once more, in a means 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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