Crash Station
Member
This is kind of an LTTP thread, but not really since there was no party to begin with. After the popularity of Uchikoshi's more recent games (999 and Virtue's Last Reward), I think one of his other well-received games deserves a thread.
Anyway I finished this last night, and my god was that a crazy ending. I thought I knew what to expect after 999 and VLR, and in a way, I was right. Still, despite having some similar twists, the way it was all handled was still able to blow my mind. Never before have I thought 20-30 hours of pure boredom was worth 5-6 hours of mindfucks.
So the premise is kind of similar to both 999 and VLR in the sense the characters are trapped in a place with a time limit. The difference is instead of being forced to play a potential game of death, they just have to wait, hoping for someone to rescue them.
The setting is an underwater theme park known as LeMU. Something goes wrong and the place starts to flood and/or get crushed under the pressure. A group of people miss the evacuation for whatever reason (trapped in an elevator, stuff like that) and so they have to survive until someone hopefully rescues them before the whole place collapses in roughly a week's time.
Unlike 999/VLR, this is a straight-up visual novel with the only interactivity being dialogue choices. No puzzles or anything like that, though there are some choices that you need to think about before just picking anything.
Not gonna lie, it starts out VERY slow and remains that way until later portions of certain routes and the true ending. It's not like 999 with an immediate hook, but there's a very intriguing sense of mystery scattered throughout the mundane that keeps you read/playing. Just like the Zero Escape series, you can tell something is off, but you can't quite put your finger on it. Even a simple game of kick the can brings its own questions.
Betraying expectations and Uchikoshi's writing goes hand in hand, but it impressed me quite a bit here in how it played with the typical romantic aspect of many VNs. Some routes really make you question just what it was you were expecting, as if telling you outright these tropes do not imply what you think they do.
There are a lot of info dumps, which did get tiring. Way too many scientific explanations that make 999/VLR look tame in comparison. Unlike in those two, there are a few that could have been excised completely, just like a few sections of the story itself. But still, some of it was necessary for the true end, which was incredibly well done even if I had to stop reading quite a few times just to try and wrap my head around the insanity being explained to me.
So yeah, if you liked the Zero Escape games, want something to hold you over until the third game and have the means to play this, I would say do it. It's very much Uchikoshi while still feeling fresh. I definitely like 999/VLR more as both had less filler, but this was really something else too.
Anyway I finished this last night, and my god was that a crazy ending. I thought I knew what to expect after 999 and VLR, and in a way, I was right. Still, despite having some similar twists, the way it was all handled was still able to blow my mind. Never before have I thought 20-30 hours of pure boredom was worth 5-6 hours of mindfucks.
So the premise is kind of similar to both 999 and VLR in the sense the characters are trapped in a place with a time limit. The difference is instead of being forced to play a potential game of death, they just have to wait, hoping for someone to rescue them.
The setting is an underwater theme park known as LeMU. Something goes wrong and the place starts to flood and/or get crushed under the pressure. A group of people miss the evacuation for whatever reason (trapped in an elevator, stuff like that) and so they have to survive until someone hopefully rescues them before the whole place collapses in roughly a week's time.
Unlike 999/VLR, this is a straight-up visual novel with the only interactivity being dialogue choices. No puzzles or anything like that, though there are some choices that you need to think about before just picking anything.
Not gonna lie, it starts out VERY slow and remains that way until later portions of certain routes and the true ending. It's not like 999 with an immediate hook, but there's a very intriguing sense of mystery scattered throughout the mundane that keeps you read/playing. Just like the Zero Escape series, you can tell something is off, but you can't quite put your finger on it. Even a simple game of kick the can brings its own questions.
Betraying expectations and Uchikoshi's writing goes hand in hand, but it impressed me quite a bit here in how it played with the typical romantic aspect of many VNs. Some routes really make you question just what it was you were expecting, as if telling you outright these tropes do not imply what you think they do.
There are a lot of info dumps, which did get tiring. Way too many scientific explanations that make 999/VLR look tame in comparison. Unlike in those two, there are a few that could have been excised completely, just like a few sections of the story itself. But still, some of it was necessary for the true end, which was incredibly well done even if I had to stop reading quite a few times just to try and wrap my head around the insanity being explained to me.
So yeah, if you liked the Zero Escape games, want something to hold you over until the third game and have the means to play this, I would say do it. It's very much Uchikoshi while still feeling fresh. I definitely like 999/VLR more as both had less filler, but this was really something else too.
