The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy review for Nintendo Switch

System: Switch
Release date: April 24, 2025
Developer: Too Kyo Games / Media Vision
Publisher: XSEED

Visual novel fans have been abuzz about The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy.- An impressive list of genre veterans head up the game, with it being written and directed by the creator of Danganronpa, Kazutaka Kodaka, and the creator of Zero Escape, Kotaro Uchikoshi. Originally teased in 2018 as Limit X Despair, it’s been a long seven year wait, but for once, I will not make you wait until the end of this review to tell you what you’ve already been waiting long enough to know: this game is good. Here’s the ‘too long’ part:

Takumi Sumino was just your average teenage boy. He attended school, he hung out with his friends. Maybe he did his homework like a good lad would, I also suppose. Seeing himself as completely average in every single way, living out his also completely average days, Takumi never really dreamed of anything more than mediocrity. With his own death and that of his childhood friend looming before him, he draws from an intense inner strength he didn’t knew he had, and what better way to use that than to protect the people he cares about the most?

At first glance, The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy presents itself like many tactical RPGs before it: a group of varied teenagers is thrust into a life or death situation, each emerging from the initial threat with mysterious powers, and an ever-looming threat doing its level best to wipe them out of existence. But what quickly becomes clear is that this isn’t just a mashup of visual novel and tactical RPG – it’s a story about humanity, fear, connection, and the kind of decisions one makes that keeps them up at night.

The core concept is a bit grim, I must say: survive for 100 days while fending off all of the colorful and downright murderous entities that come knocking at your school’s door. It’s a classic pressure cooker scenario, and each of the characters adds their own ambience to the blend. What we aren’t getting is the same old, same old, but a more introspective approach. Now of course, as the player and tactician you’ll be managing turn order and action points – but in the visual novel side you’re managing trust, grief, stress, and the dawning realization that maybe this school isn’t quite the safe haven it appears to be.

Combat is where most of that emotional weight manifests. Battle starts with the player character literally impaling themself in the chest. Bizarre as the start may be, the turn-based system feels familiar at first – move your units on a grid, maximize range, and burn Ability Points to launch attacks – but there’s a unique tension that creeps in every few battles. Characters can fall. They will fall. And if you’re too careless, they’ll make use of their “Last Defense” technique: a powerful, life-draining final move that is as narratively heavy as it is mechanically potent. You don’t just lose a unit – you watch a student make a deliberate choice to give everything for their friends. It hits hard. Sacrifice in the moment, strong, raw. But that’s okay! They come back!

Saving or sacrificing your classmates is going to involve getting used to this combat system. As a tactical RPG, this game is one that demands careful unit positioning, party synergy, and a large amount of investment from the player in keeping the rest of these kids alive. This is sometimes frustrating, but this will involve getting to truly know and utilize your teammates. Each character brings a distinct skillset to the battlefield. There’s no “one-size-fits-all” party here. Some students excel at long-range elemental barrages, others tank hits and hold chokepoints, and a few offer support abilities that can shift the momentum of a desperate skirmish in a single turn. It’s not just about stats – it’s about roles, personalities, and how you’ve chosen to develop them during your limited time together.

The AP (Ability Point) system is central to combat rhythm. Skills aren’t free – they draw from a finite pool that refreshes slowly, meaning each turn becomes a delicate balance of spending, conserving, and predicting. You’ll often find yourself holding your breath, weighing whether to go all-in with a flashy Ultimate-style attack or hold back, knowing the next wave of enemies might require a cooler head.

Those one hundred days you have ahead of you are weighty (I mean, they’re referenced in the game title for crying out loud!) They aren’t just a happy little story of friendship and camaraderie. They represent a tightly wound gameplay loop where you’re constantly weighing risk and reward. Between battles, you enter a mode called Free Time. These are visual novel sequences that let you connect with your classmates, train, or unlock special skills. But there is one thing in particular to both know and remember: Every day is precious.

Each relationship is another thread in the game’s tapestry. Want to deepen your bond with a particular character? You’ll get a story scene that might make you laugh, cry, or understand why they’re willing to fight beside you. Want to grind instead? That’s most definitely a route you can choose! Another thing one might wish to know, though, is that ignoring someone for too long might mean missing out on a powerful ability or even a crucial narrative point. Players of the recent Digimon Survive will more than understand the stakes, and Danganronpa veterans will understand the value in subsequent replays, but here, I want you to understand that replayability isn’t just an option, it’s darn-near a requirement.

The way story and gameplay weave together set you up to love these kids, not just because the writing is heartfelt and sometimes might hit you personally, but because you actually rely on them. That’s you losing your best damage dealer – and okay, maybe its about losing someone you’ve spent the last 60 or so days training with, talking to, watching slowly open up as the world around them rapidly falls apart. Harsh!

The writing never forgets the genre it belongs to, either. There’s humor. There’s warmth. There are moments of completely absurd anime-style shenanigans that hit just right  – usually when you need a break from the heavier stuff. This game gives a special window into what it is to be youthful, but forced into a battleground that requires wisdom, growth, and adaptability.

There are branching paths, multiple endings, and a shocking number of narrative changes based on how you’ve spent your time and who you’ve connected with. Replaying through gives you other ways to approach things to perhaps prevent a death, uncover new clues, or progress in a different way than you did previously. In truth, the gameplay loop becomes rather addictive. It encourages replayability without feeling like it punishes you for making the “wrong” choices. Instead, it just reminds you: time is a resource and you can and will run out of it. Use it wisely.

It’s impossible to talk about this experience without pausing to appreciate just how confidently it wears its anime-inspired heart on its sleeve. From the moment you boot up the game, the presentation itself makes it clear: this is a visual novel-infused tactical RPG that knows exactly where it came from. Even the enemy designs catch the eye with wild high contrast designs full of color. Every student at the academy feels distinct – not just in their dialogue or abilities, but in the way their personalities are communicated through posture, costume, and expression. You don’t just read who they are – you get to see it in every aspect of them. While this isn’t fluid animation all the time, there are full cutscenes as well as storyboard-like sequences that show off the incredible skills of the artist team. This is a game that draws on the strengths of anime-styled visual storytelling – exaggerated expressions, perfectly timed frame holds, and expertly lit character portraits – to create a world where emotion lives in the artwork as much as it does in the writing.

One standout example comes during an early confrontation with the School Invaders. The battlefield gives way to close-ups of character portraits, their expressions twisted in panicked fear, radical defiance, or barely restrained panic. The color palette grows darker, colder, with deep blues and greys swallowing the screen. You feel the tension mount not just because the writing tells you what’s happening – but because the visual language screams it.

And then there are the flourishes and explosions of color. The interface is stylish without being overbearing, full of sharp angles and slick transitions that match the game’s sci-fi feel. The contrast between the harsher, more metallic edges of the battlefield UI and the soft, warm tones of the Free Time sequences mirrors the duality of the game itself – war and youth, duty and humanity, death and growth.

The anime aesthetic here isn’t just a coat of paint slapped onto a strategy game; it’s the canvas on which the entire experience is painted. This is a game that understands how to use visual storytelling to its fullest and leverages that knowledge masterfully in every scene. For longtime anime fans, it feels like a love letter. For newcomers, it’s a gateway into the emotional resonance this genre can so effortlessly wield when in the right hands. As a person that has not played a single Danganronpa game, I feel like I’ve been spoiled by the pinnacle of experiences.

There’s a tenderness to this game that elevates it far beyond the bounds of my personal expectations. It’s in the way the characters grow – not just in power, but as individuals. There were several side quests and endeavors I pushed myself through simply because I felt compelled to follow the threads of story. The Hundred Line sets itself apart not just by how it plays, but by how confidently it looks you in the eye and dares you to feel something real – to keep pushing forward, even if that means you regret the time that your alarm is set to go off in the morning a little bit more.

If you’ve ignored visual novels before, this is probably the biggest chance to jump on the train that we are going to get for a while. With multiple endings making for an insane level of replayability and a battle system that feels a lot like puzzle solving with RPG mechanics, The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy is a wonderful pickup that is beautiful in every way.

The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy copy provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review.