Game Review #283: Our World is Ended (Nintendo Switch)
Developer: Red Entertainment
Publisher: PQube
Category: Visual Novel/Adventure
Release Date: 04.18.2019
Price (At Time of Review): $59.99 (digital & physical)
Buy Our World Is Ended from the Nintendo eShop here.
Buy Our World is Ended from Amazon here.
An Augmented Adventure
Reiji, our main character, is one of the newest members and resident guinea pig of game development group Judgment Seven. While testing out a new AR device designed by one of the head developers of the company, Reiji finds himself in a sort of horrible alternate reality in the Asakura district of Tokyo where everything has been destroyed and his friends are being horribly brutalized. After receiving a weird and cryptic message from an unknown girl from within the system, you return to the group to tell them what happened. You and the rest of the group soon find this is a problem which involves not only all of you, but perhaps the entire world.
Our World Is Ended was originally released in 2017 on PlayStation Vita and is now finding a new home on Nintendo Switch. This game was developed by Red Entertainment and is published by British company PQube, who also published one of my personal favorite games called Rabi-Ribi (yo, PQube, where is that Switch port at? Who doesn't want a bunny girl with a hammer?). Anyways, one thing I immediately noticed about this game is unlike almost every other Switch game, your button for OK is B and your button for pressing back is A, which is set up much more like a PlayStation game (which I guess makes sense since it was originally for Vita, duh.) I got too weirded out by it and finally changed it under the controller settings.
The game plays out as many of your visual novels often do, allowing you to scroll through dialogue and occasionally making a decision. One interesting thing The World is Ended does is offer a "Selection of Soul" mechanic. This will offer you a scrolling wall of dialogue choices to choose from which will affect how a conversation plays out. Some options scrolled too fast to read, while others took a long time to scroll to the end of the line, making it hard to really choose which decision I wanted to make. I guess that the point of the mechanic is to simulate a high-pressure situation where you have to make a snap decision, but in terms of gameplay it just felt like I was being rushed into a choice without knowing my options.
One thing I give this game major props for is its character design. Each character is very different from the next and look really nice. Each character is also memorable in their own way. The different backgrounds throughout the Asakura district, the J7 offices, etc. are very detailed and the game offers a wide variety of locations especially around the Asakura district. The soundtrack isn't bad, but isn't something as far as I'm concerned that was particularly memorable or really jumped out at me.
Allow Me To Service You
One thing I have to talk about for a little bit in this game is the fan service. By this point, I have reviewed several mature themed games as well as several visual novel games, most of which offer their own levels of perverted or adult humor, etc. Having said that, there are moments in this game I just didn't think were really that funny. The boob jokes are constant. There are moments where the storyline is almost completely destroyed by out-of-place, raunchy humor. I am all for a tasteless comment or joke in a game but there is a time and place for everything. A lot of the timing of these comments just left me feeling confused, and the targets of some of these comments were just unsettling. It’s just gross to overtly sexualize kids the way this game does. Period. Let me just say, the level of sexual harassment runs high at Judgment Seven Studios. This is a little bit of a disappointment because at the end of the day, Our World is Ended has a pretty great main storyline.
Our Review Is Ended
There are several moments where I was honestly left unsure how I felt about this game. I think there were a lot of things about this game that, if done differently, could have made this an entirely different experience. When the story was good it was REALLY good. However, there are scenes that to me seemed to drag on for way too long and were filled with just a lot of crude jokes which to me at times took away from the overall story. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely things about the game I liked. The members of development team Judgment Seven are each unique and well thought-out. The artwork in this game is vibrant and top notch.
The way you make decisions in the game with the Selection of Soul mechanic was something refreshingly different to me that I haven't really seen much before anyway as a way of presenting different dialogue options, but did go a little too fast for my liking. Sixty dollars for a visual novel to me is a little steep. Honestly I'm not just saying that about this game but really feel that way about the genre overall. If you are looking for a mature rated game on the Switch which offers fan service and the like, then this may be a game for you. I, personally, would wait to grab it on sale.
Rating: 7/10
Buy Our World Is Ended from the Nintendo eShop here.
Buy Our World is Ended from Amazon here.
Red Entertainment
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