Summary
I’m a big Game Grumps fan, and after playing the first twoDanganronpagames ontheir YouTube channel, they’ll be starting the third and final main series game soon. As such, I’ve had their first two playthroughs up on my second monitor all month, using them to refresh my mind on the story so far before joining them when they jump into the third game. Though I love the Danganronpa series, the Grumps are charmed but objective in their playthroughs. The things they don’t like about the games are sentiments I’ve heard elsewhere throughout the years, too - the premise of the games is interesting, but the gameplay just doesn’t click. Not everyone’s idea of fun isclicking a button to progressto the next static sprite of a hysterical teenager during a zany murder trial.
But at theNintendo Directon June 18, we sawthe reveal of The Hundred Line - Last Defense Academy, and it felt like Danganronpa but without a lot of what made the original games feel clunky. The trailer shows protagonist Takumi Sumino walking with a girl before being attacked during an invasion of unknown monsters. A “school mascot” – a see-through ghost with a red bowtie and transparent brain – appears and brings him to the Academy. Here, he and the other survivors of the event will need to fortify and defend the compound from monsters of all sizes for a full 100 days.
Except, though you’ll be chatting with this cast along the way as well, new pals who feel of the same breed as some of the more iconic Danganronpa characters, there wasn’ta courtroom in sight. Nobody can say for certain this early, with just one trailer out right now, but it seems like you’ll do a lot less clicking through stretch-your-imagination class trials and a whole lot more kicking ass.
Instead of shooting truth bullets or snowboarding through your own mind to remember a critical clue, you’ll hunker down and fend off the monsters that attacked you at the start of the game for 100 days in a top-down turn-based tactics combat title. You’ll still have the iconic group of rainbow-swathed teens, you’ll still be at a locked-down school, and you’ll probably still need to make some friends to power up your skills. Danganronpa offered its trial boosts through befriending your classmates between murders, so how would you level up those friendships in a combat sense instead of a legal one at what feels like the end of life as you know it? Because in The Hundred Line - Last Defense Academy, instead of trying to get back to the outside world, you’re trying to stopitfrom getting back toyou.
How Will The Last Defense Academy Be Different?
It’s not the first time the Danganronpa team has deviated from the original formula since closing the book on what became one of the more iconic games in its genre. Not counting the numerous direct spin-offs over the series’ lifespan, the team behind the games has worked on plenty of titles since the final main series game, Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, in 2017. The most recent offering wasMaster Detective Archives: Rain Code, which was written in part by Kazutaka Kodaka, the original creator of Danganronpa. And though the game was intriguing enough on its own and took plenty of steps to differentiate itself, you were still a character with amnesia made to play detective.
We can see, from brief battle clips in the trailer, that enemies come at you in waves in The Last Defense Academy, asking you to think creatively, plan ahead, and strategize to protect the school for those 100 days. We know next to nothing about these characters yet, but we’ve seen a few of them in the limited battle screens from the trailer.
It showed Sumino using a sword with a one-square range to fend off invaders, just before another character used their motorcycle to sweep in a circle and damage all enemies in the eight-square range around them. There are two characters we didn’t use in our party to the left, and we’ll have more than a dozen other survivors at the Academy. What will their abilities be, and how can we use them tactfully?
The Hundred Line Last Defense Academy isn’t launching until early 2025, so I’m sure we’ll see plenty more teasers and reveals for the game before then. As someone who has always appreciated Danganronpa but takes the series with an enormous grain of salt, I’m hopeful that this new venture from the team will help new players appreciate the series.
