The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy – Should Have Been a Pure Visual Novel
- ⚡Xe⚡
- Sep 4
- 3 min read
In The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, a sudden attack forces students to join the academy’s defense team, using rare blood-type abilities to fight waves of enemies for one hundred days. As the story goes on, hidden connections between allies and enemies show up, and the reasons behind the war get less clear. Every choice, in combat and in daily life, can change the story and lead to multiple endings.
I really struggled to enjoy this game and had a hard time finishing it the first time. The first playthrough doesn’t even give you a true ending, so you have to replay it multiple times. After three routes and several endings, I finally called it done. Each route takes forever, and the repeated battles and “free time” got more and more frustrating when trying to see everything. It did get a little better after updates, but still annoying.
I honestly wish it had just stayed a pure visual novel. Being forced to repeat choices until the “right” one showed up in the first run was super annoying, and the twists and reveals just didn’t hit. I couldn’t connect with most of the characters, maybe one or two at most. And not answering a big question that basically keeps you going through the story? That’s a big no-go for me.
If you’re not into tactical RPGs, the battles are boring and make it tough to stay motivated. Story mode makes them easier, but they’re still reallyyyy tedious, and not having auto-battle is just frustrating.
Overall, despite the hype and good feedback from other VN fans, the pacing and gameplay left me disappointed. The few parts I liked just couldn’t make up for all the frustrations.
The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy
Platform: SW/PC
Developer: Too Kyo Games
Publisher: Aniplex
Genre: Visual Novel / TRPG
Release Year: 2025
About The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy:
The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy is a visual novel and tactical role-playing video game developed by Too Kyo Games and Media.Vision and published by Aniplex. It was one of the first games announced by Too Kyo Games in 2018 and was released on April 24, 2025 for the Nintendo Switch and Windows.
The player controls a high school student named Takumi Sumino, who lives in the underground Tokyo Residential Complex. When the complex is attacked by invaders, Sumino fights back and finds himself at the Last Defense Academy, a school in a destroyed city continuously under attack by alien invaders and their leader, V'ehxness. After defending the school for 100 days, the player can re-do previous events in the game, altering the course of the narrative.
The game was a collaboration between directors Kazutaka Kodaka and Kotaro Uchikoshi. Kodaka's initial pitch of the game that had 100 potential narrative routes for the player to traverse. By September 2023, the writing team was not complete, leading Uchikoshi and Kodaka to hire more writing staff. Too Kyo Games went into debt while developing the game, leading the studio to take out a loan to fund development.
The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy was the highest selling new release in Japan for the Nintendo Switch from April 21 to May 4, 2025. It garnered "generally favorable reviews", according to review aggregator site Metacritic.
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-⚡Xe⚡
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