Developer: Regista
Publisher: Sekai Games
Release Date: 26/11/2020
Price: £35.99
A review code was kindly provided by the Publisher
Introduction
Visual Novels can be a bit hit and miss. They’re either incredibly immersive, or completely over-sexualized and focused on anime girls with mahoosive busts. Admittedly, I’m not a Visual Novel fan. However, more recently I have been drawn towards their simple gameplay when I’ve wanted something simple to play. Visual Novel games are also a bit of a curious thing. Handheld wise, the genre has mainly stuck to the PS Vita, but in more recent years more and more have appeared on the Nintendo Switch. When it comes to Root Double -Before Crime * After Days- Xtend Edition the title may not instantly draw you towards it being a Visual Novel. So how does this Visual Novel compare to others that are available on the Nintendo Switch? Come with me as I find out…
Story
Root Double -Before Crime * After Days- Xtend Edition opens with an unknown facility currently undergoing a catastrophic nuclear meltdown. To avoid a nuclear disaster similar to Chernobyl, a special disaster rescue team is called into action. You experience the events from the point of view of the Captain of this rescue squad. As events unfold, Captain Watase Kasasagi and the other survivors find themselves trapped within the facility with no means of escape. Further complicating matters, fires rage around every corner and radiation is leaking into the facility. With nowhere safe, the survivors have to band together and overcome these impossible odds to survive.
As Visual Novels go, the story is often paramount. It obviously has to be to keep you engaged and interested in whats going on. With this in mind, I found Root Double -Before Crime * After Days- Xtend Edition to be incredibly hard to be invested in. The writing is passable but it often glosses over plot point and leaves many things in the dark. Whilst writing this way can been seen as a way to build tension, its just way too slow on the build up. The characters are also a little too thin on the ground and all just seem to be mixed up in this unnecessary drama for the hell of it. Its a real shame as Root Double -Before Crime * After Days- Xtend Edition is a game that intends to take up a fair few hours of your time.
Gameplay
As I mentioned above, Root Double -Before Crime * After Days- Xtend Edition is a Visual Novel and as such you don’t really have much input – infact the game tells us at the start that we’re pretty much there for the ride. This is more annoying when you look at the eShop listing and Root Double is there as an ‘Adventure Game’. Granted it is an adventure for its cast but it isn’t one for us – the player (or should that be Reader?)
However there is a slight impact that you have over key scenes. These sporadic moments have a signal that pops up which allows you to alter the senses of certain characters. There’s little guidance with how to use this and we’re not given any indication to what the outcome could be. When you alter someone’s emotion, you’re given a slider where you can move it to minimum or maximum. It’s a convoluted system and more often than not it results in the protagonist being killed, followed by the Game Over screen.
Graphics & Audio
Root Double isn’t all bad. It runs smoothly on the Nintendo Switch without any technical problems or hiccups. The images look great wether playing on the big screen or in handheld mode. With the extended edition, there’s a tonne of content. It took me roughly 18 hours to reach the first ending but there’s a lot more outcomes to uncover. Additionally, there’s another route where you play through from a different perspective days before the main story. This I enjoyed as it aims to flesh out the main situation and adds yet more content to an already massive novel.
Summary
The story in a Visual Novel is the whole point of the experience. If the story falters, then the rest of the game falters with it. The narrative in Root Double is well written but it doesn’t do anything to keep you gripped. There’s a lot of scenes to get through and only a few of these captured my full attention. The art assets are often reused over and over with a soundtrack thats less than memorable. Visual Novel fans will appreciate the wealth of content and story, but Root Double doesn’t cater anything for Visual Novel newbies like myself.
Pros:
+ Character design
+ Hours of story content
Cons:
– Narrative does not hold up
– Little to no interaction
Rating: 4/10
Rob Lake
