what the FUCK

Edit: that interlude was hella cool-creepy

The plot so far be like:
> Humans destroyed Earth's ecolog
> Earth as a life form activated its own immune system to wipeout humanity
> Humans have the technology to leave Earth and thrive in space
> Instead of that, humans opted to kill everything that's alive on Earth instead, somehow believe that will make Earth inhabitable again

Yeah I don't know what metaphor it's trying to make but damn

Ah, pity. I like Eito.

And to be fair, humanity isn't exactly lovable in this series.

And clever move to make the character screen "commanders absorption" number rather than "souls absorption" because, hey if technically speaking the absorbed are not commanders...

Huh so the ending suggestion is:

Because Takumi gets levelled up special power by absorbing Eito with levelled up special power, who in turn got levelled up special power by absorbing ???; AND Takumi can retain all his stats and just jump to a different time line.

So just... Kill every one the moment he meets them, absorb all their powers, then just restart with full god tier powers? Like killing your team don't even matter if they can be re-done from beginning, while keeping your stats

If it's anything like Zero Escape, I'm estimating I'm at 45% of game completion. Tbh at this moment it feels less satisfying than either the first run of Zero Time Dilemma as well as Danganronpa V3, specifically because I hate pseudo choices and Zero Time Dilemma fully embraced throwing a hard WTF at the player right in the first playthrough without pseudo choice that later turned out to be core to the main plot.

I sure hope there's a good inbuilt ending map though, no way I'd be able to remember what ending was caused by what and how what what the f

You know that thing in Zero Time Dilemma where you start the game, flip a coin of life and death at 15 minutes, immediately get a good ending with credit rolling and be like what the actual fuck just happened.

The Hundred Line isn't quite that over the top, but I'm getting sus that the real game is about to start from the point and onwards, as there hasn't been any decision trees other than the infuriating pseudo decision. Ultimately what I liked about Zero Time Dilemma is it's a linear game with many branches that acts as parallel chapters, and it's well communicated accordingly.

What I would really want now, is a clear route path laid out in flowchart. Zero Time Dilemma, Raging Loop, Quantum Suicide, and Ai the Somnium did this well. Gnosia barely gets away without it only because of achieving each ending is fairly straightforward with a guide.

I'm just too old and too tired to keep track on 100 routes otherwise, even super good games like Buried Stars just left me with, nah, I can't force myself through that many repeats and hope something's gonna change.

HOLY SHIT THE TITLE SCREEN'S BACK GROUND VERTICAL RED LINE TURNED INTO A RED 2.

So, upon game completion, it's The Hundred Line 1 -> The Hundred Line 2.

Zero Escape team, please fuck me up. I expect a lot now.

Edit: yes "The Hundred Line 2" is completely expected to be the second half of the branched out game. Look at on the saving file, it stated number of clears is 0 even though we've seen the credit once already.

Roflmao not only continued at where the first playthrough ended, if you go to backlog it has the backlog of the last conversation you had at the end of the last ending. It's basically Day 101 rather than NG+.

Also your entire party kept their stats, and the various rocks, rags and sticks you collected from last game are still here. I don't even want to know what their storage looks like.

I fully admit I have the temptation of wiping my entire team to absorb their powers, then reset to a new game.

Thankfully the actual game play don't reward this. Thinking about how Raging Loop got to the point that the characters were murdering each other for fun because they were so sick of the loops.

Lol finally there are actual options in a game that's all about 100 endings.

Interestingly so far Eito comes across as a lot more in the right than everyone else, considering what's allegedly done by humankind is so demonic that getting rid of humans is doing this world a service.

But also it's one of those games less about playing as me, and more about fuck around and find out. So behaving outrageously is the entire point.

Not a spoiler, things people probably want to know getting into The Hundred Line, QoL wise.

1. There is a good, clear laid out flowchart of choices. I was most worried about not having this and losing track.

2. While it started off screaming Danganronpa, indeed the Zero Escape shines through later on. Seems like you can't fuck up lost forevers in terms of the branching stories, though I can't confirm it at this point.

3. While the battle system isn't quite Nippon Ichi, as far as Too Kyo goes it's competent enough. I was worried it's another replaying skateboard minigame hell, but thankfully I'm wrong.

4. One good decision made that I don't expect to love, is the mandatory flow of time. Given the scope, the game don't want you to be dwindling on one day for 25 hours. Which is wise.

Sometimes I get to a point and think, hmm I should get an achievement/trophy pop up now, except because it's Switch such a thing don't exist, and I feel such relief for the lacking of another silly KPI that I should know better to care about. So I might not 100% the game. I'll play until I had enough then I will stop.

#TheHundredLine

I opted to keep Eito alive mostly to see what shit and giggles he's gonna come up with.

My theory is Hiruko is someone who time travelled a lot more than Takumi, a common trope that's more common than the trope where protagonist is the only time traveller, also her specialty is "torture and murder". I also suspect there will be more core characters because of the weird empty gaps in explore layouts.

Kako had a vision in this timeline that Gaku must live to prevent a disaster so Takumi must protect Gaku.

You'd think it's protect him from the war but no. This little shit is such a sex pest that Takumi is fighting the urge to strangle him now.

This battle is actually infuckingfuriating

1. I can easily kill V'ehxness within two rounds, but no it's a scripted loss that is poorly communicated so, so you waste time for the futility for agea

2. I can easily rescue both Kurara and Gaku in one round, but no scripted one or the other.

Script the fucking fight better then.

Ok I don't know who else can pull this off, the post Kurara death scene rapidly whiplash between absurd hilarity to sadness to absurd hilarity to sadness as the music rapidly alternate between the two, as Sirei encourage substance misuse among the cast.

And it works.

ANOTHER BRANCH I'M SO SICK OF THIS ROUTE OH DEAR GOD

On one hand it gave most context.

On the other hand, this route distinctively have pacing problems.

Entire game up until now per Sirei: this war is just! We are Good! They are Bad! You are doing this so the invaders cannot take your home!

Now Sirei being forced to review we are the genocidal imperialists who tried to burn every creature on this planet to death:

I feel like, can I just have an option and an ending where Takumi commits seppuku for committing genocide against the indigenous people of Futuram, and just let humanity die. Humanity isn't worth it.

But also.

From the V'erxness route, seems like Futuram people are basically humans in their awfulness. Actually I take it back, they looked after their planet.

Tsubasa: wtf yugamu you can't just get that excited about dissecting our allies

Also Tsubasa: WOOHOO I GET TO DISSECT SIREI SO EXCITING NEW MECHANICAL FINDINGS

Here is a new horror for you.

You were a child, who just happened to ran into a test specimen, who you talked to like to a tree.

This specimen just decided to give you a brand new identity, and now in his mind, you are obligated to be his soulmate forever. You must love him back. Marry him. Give birth to his children. Revolve your life around him.

Important plot dump:

- Confirmed Shion is a kidnapped Futuran

- Confirmed the entire cast except Eva and Nozomi were genetically modified via Shion and were given false memories

- Confirmed only purpose for the teens to exist were to be humans' weapons

- Confirmed each backstory were explicitly created to make most numbers of point of view if things got weird. So Darumi's formative abuse were entirely created intentionally.

What I don't get, is then give Eito such dangerous memories that is almost guaranteed to backfire?