The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy is the game I've put the most hours into this year at (appropriately) 100 hours. And for good reason. This isn't just a story-heavy strategy RPG – which plays not unlike XCOM – from some of the most renowned writers in the Japanese gaming industry (Too Kyo Ganmes, formed in 2017, is made up of developers who have worked across Danganronpa, Zero Escape, and more), but one that packs 100 endings across 22 routes. It takes a lot of time to see them all, and I'm only just beginning to zero in on mopping up the last few.
It'd be easy to see this description of The Hundred Line and write-off its sheer size as something of a gimmick, but it's anything but – each route is radically different to each other, all while expanding on world building and propping up the other storylines. With one lengthy main route to get through that's more story and battle centric without branching paths, the first 'ending' then gives way to a tantalizing opening up of the width of the narrative in a way that's almost impossible to refuse.
Warning: Spoilers for some endings, particularly the first, are present in the discussion with Kazutaka Kodaka and Kotaro Uchikoshi are in the below interview. Join me beneath the crosshead, fellow sickos
First up to bat
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80 hours in you might meet new characters for the first time or encounter revelations that completely upturn the nature of what you thought was going on – all while you try to help a group of misfit teenagers survive 100 days in an apocalyptic defense mission they never signed up for. Its bleak and often disturbing world comes across through both its story of survival and its arcadey mechanics where dying itself becomes a skill to utilize in battle (though characters are revived). The Hundred Line is also able to work in lighter moments of humor and plenty of in-depth character work as you learn more about each party member. It's an easy game to become obsessed with. I certainly have. And I'm not the only one.
"Since it's a game that has 100 endings, I figured that the players would end up playing until they got an ending that they personally enjoyed and then ended up stopping," says The Hundred Line creator Kazutaka Kodaka (who also created and wrote Danganronpa) on fan reaction to the launch earlier in the year.
"But, surprisingly enough, many of the players ended up getting all 100 endings." It's an ambitious undertaking for Too Kyo Games, and even for fans to play all the way through, and "is intended to be kind of like the culmination of all of the works that they had previously worked on, to kind of put it all together into one project."
Though The Hundred Line is massive, having that initial route to lay the foundations for the routes that come after was an important way to onboard players. It's what Kodaka calls the "initial one-two", and is even reflected on the game's title screen, changing from 'The Hundred Line' to 'The Hundred Line 2' once you make it past the first credits – within which multiple character acting credits are redacted to charmingly showcase just how much is left to see.
"Once the player is able to get to those 100 endings – because you have gone through an initial 100 day route in which you're introduced to the different characters and different main concepts of the story –- once you start playing through the 100 endings themselves, there's a little bit more of a connection to the characters, to the story," says Kodaka.
While Kodaka reiterates that "of course, there would be some players that would end up playing through the first 100 days and then maybe a couple endings, and they would be satisfied." But, the goal of The Hundred Line isn't just to offer the option of taking that further, but to revel in how deep the rabbit hole can go, "to create something that was not a light experience that you would be able to finish in a couple 10s of hours, but rather to create something that you would really have to dig your teeth into and to play for quite a long time."
Ending up at the start
I wanted them to put their individual interests and their individual stories into the game.
Essentially, at the end of the first route, the protagonist gains the ability to sort of reverse time – the nature of the multiple routes becoming a core part of literally what is occurring during The Hundred Line's story. But, the nature of making this change, and the small decisions you can make, can radically alter not just time, but seemingly the fabric of reality itself. All in all, it's a perfect excuse to double down on Tookyo Studio's staff being able to do what they do well, without having to worry about messing anything up, giving each story path its own unique flavor.
"Because we have a number of illustrious writers that are on this project, like Uchikoshi-san specifically, I wanted them to put their individual interests and their individual stories into the game, regardless of how that might change the endings or how that might change how the characters interact or develop within those different endings," explains Kodaka. Platforming each writer, and enabling them to do with The Hundred Line set-up what they will is partially the point unto itself.
"What you end up with is a kind of Spiderverse version of there's different versions of how these characters interact, or different interactions that come up based on how those endings develop or how those different groups develop. It's definitely a combination of all of the different experiences and skills of all of the writers together, not just [my] one vision that you see the first time around," says Kodaka.
"The origin of all of these different routes comes from looking at all different kinds of fiction genres and so romance, mystery, science fiction, drama, action and so on," explains Kotaro Uchikoshi when we ask about tackling so many different directions – though each route is credited to individual writers, he's served as director for that portion of the game, helping to bring them all together and how they interweave. And, at many points, they marvelously do. You may be following one story thread, only to ominously come upon an almost creepily-placed glimpse at another, which then doesn't come up again until a completely other story route. You can't help but stumble on so many more questions just as you think you're finally getting some answers, and The Hundred Line feels like it manages to justify all of them.
"In starting off with picking a particular genre and then using that as the core of the story for a particular route or a particular ending, we then were able to find connections between those different genres as we progressed through the creation of those scenarios to say we could place a particular seed of this story here that then appears later on. It's just something that happened kind of naturally as the scenario writing process progressed," says Uchikoshi.
Hundred for more?
So far, The Hundred Line has been a big success, sparking plenty of fandom – from a deluge of excellent fan art to those hungry to scoop up whatever merch they can find. While Kodaka "hopes that all the characters get their time in the spotlight", the studio isn't surprised that Eito Aotsuki has become particularly popular. Seemingly a soft and friendly character, you quickly realize he's aloof and prickly to say the least. Each party member uses sci-fi blood powers to transform, and Eito's is a massive scythe that's much bigger than he is. He's a character fans love to hate, and hate to love.
With backgrounds in series like Danganronpa, these are developers that know their way around fandom. "[We] did think he would become popular, but specifically that if this particular character became popular, then there was a chance that the game itself would be able to take off as well," says Kodaka, calling Eito not just a "key character" but a "bellweather". Throughout the year, fan interest hasn't slowed down. "We were expecting that at least one character was going to pop off like that."
You'll end up with quite a Frankenstein's monster of a game in the end – but I absolutely have the ambition to make that!
For some, 100 endings might be too many. For others, it might not be enough, and Kodaka has mentioned on social media more than a few times he's in that latter camp, wanting to add more storylines to The Hundred Line if it's a success.
"There haven't been any public announcements towards it yet, and so there haven't been any public steps taken towards adding the new routes," says Kodaka when I ask how serious he is about doing so. "But, given the branching nature of the game, adding DLC content that does add additional routes to the game is certainly something that is possible within the construction of it, and so the more positive response and the more sales of the game has, the higher the probability that they'll be able to do something like that in the future!"
Perhaps one day, it could be renamed to The Two Hundred Line, I joke. "If it's possible to go that far with it, to be able to continue to add more and more content and more and more endings to it, you'll end up with quite a Frankenstein's monster of a game in the end – but I absolutely have the ambition to make that!" says Kodaka.
For now, there's plenty of The Hundred Line to explore already, and Kodaka and Uchikoshi are keen to reiterate that rather than having to search for a textual 'perfect ending', they're happy for fans to find their own that they consider to be so. "We're glad that there was meaning behind creating 100 endings to it, that 100 people would have 100 different opinions on their 100 endings," says Kodaka. "To be able to find your own perfect route or your own favorite ending to the game, was the intent of creating the 100 endings."
Still, I have to ask about The Hundred Line's small handful of story locks that require certain information to be obtained before you can progress, eventually culminating in the SF route, which feels as close to a 'golden route' as the game gets. "It does look like that, doesn't it?" says Uchikoshi. The team are happy to have provided a route that fits into those expectations for fans looking for one, but "there's not one ending in particular that is canon, or one ending in particular that the creators feel 'this is the the ending we wanted to show you'."
The story lock routes come from Uchikoshi himself. "Kodaka-san probably originally didn't want to put any locks into the story, and rather wanted the players to be able to unlock any ending from any route," says Uchikoshi. But, Uchikoshi couldn't help but craft connections between his own routes that benefit from the accumulation of knowledge in a certain order. "In the end, [I] ended up putting in the locks anyway. And then that ended up being what was in the final product of the game."
While I await news of more The Hundred Line storylines coming as DLC (fingers crossed), the team, led by Kodaka, are hard at work on more visual novel-adjacent adventure game action. "[We're] working on Danganronpa 2x2, which is a game that is not a remake of Danganronpa 2, but rather uses the characters in a new story and a new scenario in a new setting," says Kodaka. I have to ask what it's like to return to the series after so much time away. "To sum it up in one word: nostalgic. To be able to work with the characters from 10 years ago and to bring them back into the new setting that they'll be able to be used in [...], it brings back memories when I'm able to continue working on it."
Take a look at our big ol' best games of 2025 ranking to see how PlayStation fared in the line-up this year!
