Bad End is a Visual Novel revolving around a popular video game rumored to take the life of the player should they fail. We play as Kyuuhei Inui, who after a day at school decides to download the cursed game with his best friend. To their luck they were not able to download it to find out if those rumors were true. Soon after his best friend calls him excitedly telling Inui that he was finally able to play the game. Shocking to no one but our protagonist, he soon dies and it is up to us to also download the game to find out what killed him.
Returning home, full of determination Inui is finally able to download the game and is quickly made aware that the rumors are in fact true. The death game is called “Bad End” and is a Visual Novel so you will be playing a VN inside of a VN. Inside of the game we play as a young schoolgirl called Kouko, living a normal life until a man shaped shadow starts stalking her. The intents of this entity are very clear and whenever it’s around we are usually given three options as to how to handle the situation. Only one is correct however, the rest will result in death for Kouko and possibly for your main character Inui.
You can save at any time, including the choice scenes so you can easily ham through the game if you are just here for the story. And what a story it is. Going in I had no idea what to expect from this title but I was pleasantly surprised that the story, art and characters are pretty darn good. It’s a clever “Matrix” like plot with its own worthwhile twists, not just your cliché horror setting. It tries to invoke a sense of unease and dread but with its monster being so underwhelming, it never accomplishes it. This is not the type of game to have jump scares or any other easy shock factors instead it mostly plays in a matter where it feels like a mystery title that just so happens to have a horror theme.
I’m not trying to knock the game here as what it does, it does extremely well. It is anything but predictable and is the type of story that keeps you hooked from start to finish. The characters themselves are just regular people caught in an unfortunate situation. There are not a ton of characters other than a few of Inui’s friends and a few others. None of them have voice acting, it is a strictly text based game. Environments are nicely drawn and are all of regular locations, nothing creepy about any. Music is what really makes the atmosphere and are all enjoyable tracks to listen to it. All art and music is unlocked after you beat the game as an added bonus.
For a single dollar all this content is an absolute steal. Experiencing the clever story is definitely worth the price of admission, the good music and artstyle are icing on the cake. Bad End is also available on the PC via Steam if you would rather experience it there. There are multiple endings to discover based on the choices you make, adding replay value to the nearly 3-hour long adventure. All in all, Bad End is game whose story can compete with other games of the genre worth many times it’s price and is one you should definitely experience.
Link to buy Android version of: Bad End
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