Shuten Order

Shuten Order is a phenomenal Visual Novel experience that has a lot of different routes to take. The multiple visual novel types make it an experience that never dulls.

In a strange society awaiting the end of the world, investigate your own death by navigating five different routes, each with its own genre of gameplay.

When The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy launched, Kazutaka Kodaka joked that his studio Tookyo Games might go bankrupt if the game didn’t do well. Thankfully, the massive visual novel experience ended up doing so well he later clarified that the team no longer felt that bankruptcy was a possibility. Despite that, it felt like it might take a miracle for the team to be able to put out another game if they were so close to shuttering after completing this one. As it turns out, Kazutaka Kodaka treated us like the victims in his own infamous twist-filled mystery thriller games. He quickly anno...

Shuten Order is a great-looking game with a compelling story that you can’t wait to finish. I couldn’t wait to solve the mystery behind my character’s death!

Reader warning: this amount of content will make your head explode.

Shuten Order is a fantastic, incredibly unique game that stands out from the crowd. The narrative and world-building are captivating, the characters are endearing and entertaining, and the gameplay is engaging due to its variety. While not without flaws, the experience it provides is genuinely unforgettable.

Shuten Order is a well-written game that incorporates gameplay elements from multiple genres, including visual novels and adventure games, across multiple routes. The narrative, led by Danganronpa creator and writer Kazutaka Kodaka, is engaging from the very start. Shuten Order's immersive art style and Japanese voice-overs also make it a game that will be hard to put down once you get started.

Only 168 left until the end of the world. You are the only one who can put a stop to it, but before you can, you must figure out who killed you. Hot off the heels of The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, DMM Games has teamed up with Too Kyo Games to bring us Shuten Order, a frankly ambitious visual novel.

Shuten Order demands full completion and it is exhausting, but it does a good job keeping things fresh.

Despite some missed potential and a frustratingly poor localization, Shuten Order lands with such a tremendous note that it's worth experiencing. What it lacks in cohesion, it makes up for in spirit.

Too Kyo Games and its partners have been pumping games out at an impressive clip, with new stories from Danganronpa creator Kazutaka Kodaka taking that original over the top, “death game” framework and finding new ways to apply that energy. Earlier this year, Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- made waves with its ambitious sense of scale. Shuten Order is almost the opposite, using an anthological approach to tell several smaller stories that unfold into something bigger.

Shuten Order is an ambitious visual novel that tells an intriguing story with consistently engaging characters and more than a few twists and turns. Unfortunately, with the inclusion of five distinct forms of gameplay driving the story, it ultimately feels bloated and directionless, and not one of the sub-genre sections is polished enough to stand on its own two feet. I wholeheartedly commend the audacious, multi-genre effort, but Shuten Order would have benefited from a lot more focus.