The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- Review

There’s something to be said for taking a known art style in a new direction, and that’s precisely what The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- aims to do. However, the question is if this is a hundred days that you really want to experience, or if it’s one you can probably forget your calendar for. 

The game places you in the shoes of Takumi Sumino, a generally average teenager (albeit with a severe case of protagonist hair) who lives in the Tokyo Residential Complex. In this world, a mysterious disaster destroyed much of the planet, leading to humans living in this massive complex.

Unfortunately, a huge attack from a horde of monsters leads Takumi to agree to take strange powers from an odd little mascot creature called Sirei. While the powers might help him save his loved ones, they come with a cost. He has to spend a hundred days at the mysterious Last Defense Academy with fifteen other students and defend it from constant attacks from the mysterious attackers that live in the wastes.

As plots go, The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- is ambitious, there’s a lot to learn, a fair few mysteries to discover, and friendships to build. This is helped by your fellow pupils being a pretty… colourful bunch. Honestly, it’s a great set-up, and even the slow start helps to build the sense of mystery. The characters are also great: they’re all unique, but they can be a bit stereotypical at times.  

Unfortunately, the same can’t really be said for Takumi himself, who’s a bit of a straight man-esque character and seems to spend most of his time deciding to go to sleep when things get difficult. The issue is that you rarely have a choice of how you’ll respond to certain events; instead, the choices only come into play at critical junctures. This means that The Hundred Line’s more social aspects feel more like a kinetic visual novel. 

The gameplay is set into three distinct sections, with the first being the Defense missions. These happen periodically and are really the only fights you have to do. Next, you have Free Time, where you can explore the school or talk to the other pupils. Finally, you can choose to spend your day exploring the ruins around the school and gathering materials.

The combat sections are designed around an SRPG system, meaning a strategy role-playing game. It works by placing your characters on a large grid-like map, each with a set amount of action and movement points. It’s your job to figure out where to send each pupil, plus plot where they’re going to attack. Thankfully, you have some pretty powerful means of putting down the monsters. 

Your classmates come with a unique weapon, plus a special ability with several different means of attack. For instance, there’s a kid with a giant mech that forces enemies to attack him, and another who drives a car. As you attack, you’ll build up voltage, which can be used to unleash a massive attack, but you can also do it if your characters are just about to perish (although they’ll die in the process).

The battle system is honestly pretty great, but it takes a while to get going as you unlock more fighters. However, once you have a good number, then the Defense battles can get hectic as you run around to shore up weaker areas while considering sacrificing characters. Thankfully, the fight outside the school takes the form of waves, and dead characters will return after each wave. 

The thing to note here is that your friends are not the toughest heroes in the world, so a bad run of getting hit can lead to them dying very fast. So, you have to be careful to plan your moves not to leave them open. This is never more evident than when you have to fight the commanders that appear at the end of each Defense Mission. These things are tough, with no two being the same. Each of the commanders comes with their own set of tricks, like being able to hypnotise your friends, so you’ll need to make a plan to beat them. However, once you beat them, you can have one character drain them and increase their voltage gain. 

When you’re not defending the school, you have free days, which is similar to the system we saw in the Persona 5 series. Essentially, your day is split into morning and afternoon, with there being several different options for what you can do. You can either train, hang out with your classmates, or build gifts. The training is pretty self-explanatory, although I should point out that there isn’t levelling up as you might expect it. Instead, you have to upgrade your abilities using specific items, including battle points that you gain from fighting. 

However, you’ll need more than just items, as you’ll have to build up your grades to unlock more powerful upgrades, which is where talking to your classmates comes in. Each of your friends offers different rewards for different subjects, and you can build up the rewards you get by finding the right gifts for them, which you can discover by talking to them. Unfortunately, choosing to hang out with them often just fades to a black screen, so you rarely get the chance to learn more about them in these instances. Overall, I never really felt like I was building a relationship; it was more like I was going through the motions. However, you are frequently forced to make decisions about events and your friends, which can have a major effect later. 

Sometimes you’ll have to convince your teammates to do something, which usually involves learning about them from other people to find out their reasons for doing something. Once you have all the details and a necessary gift, you’ll enter a small mini-game where you need to pick the right options. However, it’s pretty difficult to actually fail as you get multiple chances, so it’s more of a gimmick than anything. 

The final section has you explore the ruins around the school, which you can choose to do during your free day. This is one of the oddest parts of The Hundred Line, as it essentially takes the form of a board game. You get a set of cards that denote how many squares you can move, with there being rewards or fights for landing in certain places. Honestly, it’s a little odd, but it’s also kind of charming. Sadly, you can only bring four of your companions with you for the fights, but they’re usually against much smaller groups of enemies as it is.

Now, if you remember, at the beginning of this review, I mentioned this game taking a known art style? Well, that wasn’t hyperbole, as if you’ve ever played a Danganronpa 1•2 Reload title, then this is all going to look very similar. There’s a reason for that, as The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- was created by the same team. As such, each of the characters is very unique to look at, the monsters are both endearing and threatening, while the world you inhabit is suitably weird. It all comes together really well, with some of the animations being both unsettling and amazing at the same time. 

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the audio, especially the voice acting. Now, to be clear, the voice acting there isn’t bad by any means, the problem is that it’s sporadic. More often than not, you’ll have to deal with the voice actors just grunting instead… and some of those sounds pretty odd.

So, with all that said, should you be playing The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- or is it one to miss? Honestly, if you’re a fan of small-scale strategy games or just being the MC in your own anime, then this is one to try out. The number of possible endings and decisions means there’s always time for a playthrough, meanwhile, the combat is the perfect mix of complicated and simple. However, if you like to be more involved in your RPG, or want your relationship with characters to grow, then this might be one to miss.