World's End Club Deluxe Edition - Nintendo Switch

tl;dr get it on sale for 10% - 25% off (Or play it on Apple Arcade with a $5 subscription) it's not worth the retail price, especially the deluxe edition as it's a extra $10 and all you get is a small artbook and a digital sampler soundtrack, it's not helping it's case here. Story is decent but platform / puzzle sections are hilariously stale and basic, only get it if you enjoy visual novels which should go without saying ig knowing the creator's fanbase. It's a decent animated visual novel with fine characters and a story that can hold itself. I genuinely hated the marketing behind this game because it's incredibly misleading to focus on something that only happens for the first 5% of the game. Even if it's for the sake to surprise the viewer, it wasn't the right call. I like the story even if some of the twists were out of no where and doesn't fit in. The characters were good too, thought they were generic at first until you learn about them throughout the game, not all characters got their fair amount of development since there's so many characters at once. With around 10 hours of a story with fully voiced dialogues. It was good, but I can't say it's worth the $40 ( or $50 for physical) price, would wait when it's on sale.

I write this review as a huge fan of everything Uchikoshi has released across Tookyo Games and elsewhere. This game has a decently interesting story, great music and voice acting. The main drawback is the actual gameplay. It is tedious, alternatingly oversensitive and unresponsive, and downright unfun. Puzzles are so simple that they are an insult to the player's intelligence. "Wow, a character just gained a fire power! There is ice all around us! Maybe your fire power can melt the ice!" and so on, with every possible opportunity to figure something out on your own spelled out for you. If you have an Apple device I'd highly recommend using the Apple Arcade free trial to play this as it's pretty short (around 10 hours to get through assuming you don't get stuck on a puzzle and have to redo it several dozen times). The story and characters are great and I would recommend experiencing it in some capacity, just not at the $50 special edition price point (extras are the soundtrack and an extremely small booklet).

Coming from the creator's of the captivating and groundbreaking video game experiences of Danganronpa, Zero Escape, and AI: Somnium Files, World's End Club had extremely high expectations from fans of the escape room, visual novel, and detective genres. Regrettably it did not deliver on any front that made it seem like a true next step from the mind's of gaming's most exciting stories of the last 10+ years. The story is, alright, yet requires a late game lore dump to make it seem satisfactory which might rub players the wrong way since they won't access that until 10+ hours of gameplay. The characters are very flawed which is probably the most upsetting part of World's End Club to me. Fans of the previous games by these creators are familiar with some witty, layered, all around interesting characters (Date in AI, Sigma/Junpei/Luna in Zero Escape, Kyoko from Danganronpa to name a few,) and there is not an inkling of that here. There are some characters that do have depth (Pochi, Vanilla, and Nyoro,) yet most of the cast comes off as either way too one dimensional or too entrenched in a character archetype. Now they are grade school kids so you can't expect them to be the next Arthur Morgan, but as a gamer who has played some challenging narratives, this felt rough. Another con of the game is the abhorrent controls in action sequences, which resulted in tons of tons of game over screens that I felt were due in no part to my own skill. While there are some negatives, I didn't hate the game, it just felt like it could have been much better. Art, music, and pacing otherwise is pretty good.

As mentioned by others, this is from the developers behind the Danganronpa and Zero Escape series of games. Aimed at early teens it didn’t appeal to me, but my daughter played the demo and loved it. It has a cuter chibi art style, and the puzzles seem to be a bit more basic than in those earlier games. It’s a visual novel type game so it doesn’t require any real fast twitch type of gameplay so it would appeal to those who prefer mysteries and stories to first person shooter or action/adventure games.

Hyper cute teen gang meets dark cults apocalypse and cults. Gameplay switches up between Mystery visual novel and then platform ring sections, where each of the members of the club discover a special power. The story is told thru a mix of dialog, action cut scenes and player performed platforming. Roughly 19 hour play through. I recommend it; I was almost out off by the hyper cuteness - but it’s got a cool balance to it that makes it it’s own thing. Pretty unique little hybrid VN.

Hyper cute teen gang meets dark cults apocalypse and cults. Gameplay switches up between Mystery visual novel and then platform ring sections, where each of the members of the club discover a special power. The story is told thru a mix of dialog, action cut scenes and player performed platforming. Roughly 19 hour play through. I recommend it; I was almost out off by the hyper cuteness - but it’s got a cool balance to it that makes it it’s own thing. Pretty unique little hybrid VN.

This game has alot going for it. The characters and plot are the strong point, though it carries a great soundtrack and user interface as well. This is an expiramental title and is worth a look to anyone who is looking for something new! You won't find another game just like it; a thing rarely accomplished recently. One star taken away simply for some weak platforming sections and slippery controls. It's not a main focus and doesn't detract from the experience.

Early in the game, the characters were getting on my nerves because they were overly cheerful/adorable, but as the story went on, I got to like them better and even stopped rolling my eyes at the singing. The story was excellent! I did a full playthrough, and after some time passes, will do another to explore the branching paths not taken. There is not much actual gameplay and what little there is, is very simplistic/easy and did not spark much thrill or sense of accomplishment. If you go into this with a "visual novel" mindset rather than expecting a platformer it will temper your expectations. $50 was definitely overpriced. This is more of a $30 game.