Last Defense Academy

is a tactical role-playing game developed by Too Kyo Games and Media.Vision and published by Aniplex. It was released on April 24, 2025, for the Nintendo Switch and Windows.

Gameplay

''The Hundred Line'' takes place over 100 in-game days and alternates between visual novel story progression and tactical role playing game combat gameplay. During combat, the player character Takumi Sumino, along with 14 other students in Last Defense Academy, must face off against enemies known as School Invaders while protecting a defense target, such as a barrier generator or an injured person. During their turn, the player can use a limited amount of Ability Points (AP) to move the students around a grid and utilise their unique abilities, after which the enemy takes their turn. Successful attacks build up a Voltage meter which, once full, can be spent to either give a student an additional move or let them perform a special technique. Additionally, students can perform a sacrificial "Last Defense" technique when they are low on health. While within range of the school, any students who are killed in battle can be revived inbetween waves. Clearing battles earns Battle Points (BP) depending on how the player performs. When not engaged in battles, the player can enjoy Free Time, during which they can spend time with other students to increase their skills, take part in training battles to earn more BP, or explore outside of the school to obtain materials. By raising skills and gaining materials, players can enhance the students' weapons to make them more powerful in battle.https://steamdeckhq.com/news/the-hundred-line-last-defense-academy-preview/ At various points in the games, the player will be forced to make decisions which will branch the story, with the game reported to contain 100 endings.

Synopsis

Premise

Takumi Sumino's ordinary life is disrupted when mysterious creatures attack him and his friends. He is able to fight back against these creatures after an entity called Sirei, who is described as a "mysterious school mascot", appears and gives him the ability "Hemoanima". Afterwards, Sirei forces Takumi and fourteen other students to enroll in Last Defense Academy and they join the Special Defense Unit to defend the school against the creatures, which are known as "School Invaders", for one hundred days.

Plot

One day, Takumi Sukimo and his childhood friend Karua Kashimiya are caught up in an apparent alien invasion, and he is rescued by a robot named Sirei. However, Takumi finds himself separated from Karua and taken to the Last Defense Academy, where he is conscripted into the school's Special Defense Unit due to him being compatible with cryptoglobin, special blood that unlocks a power called "Hemoanima" that grants him special powers to fight the aliens, dubbed "Invaders". Sirei explains that the Last Defense Academy contains a weapon critical to humanity's survival in the war, and Takumi and his fellow students must defend the school for one hundred days. While reluctant at first, Takumi is forced to fight off waves of Invaders with his fellow classmates. They are eventually joined by surviving students from the Second-to-Last Defense Academy, who are led by Nozomi Kirifuji, who looks identical to Karua, much to Takumi's confusion.

After several battles, the students learn that the Invader Commanders seem to resemble humans, and also have Hemoanima. In addition, the students' efforts to defend the school are met with major setbacks such as Sirei being mysteriously murdered, leading Takumi to suspect that there is a traitor within the SDU. Eventually, after many victories and some losses among the SDU, including Nozomi, they manage to defeat Supreme Commander V'ehxness of the Invaders. However, they learn that humanity has already evacuated to a massive space station called the Artificial Satellite, and come to believe that they have been left behind as sacrificial pawns. Determined to find answers, the students break into the school's fortified Defense Room, where they discover a young infant named Shion is being used to fill numerous missiles with highly volatile Undying Flames, which humanity plants to bombard the entire planet with to exterminate the Invaders once and for all. Suddenly, fellow SDU member Eito Aotsuki kills Shion and absorbs his cryptoglobin, revealing himself to be the traitor who views humanity as monsters due to a cognitive disorder and wishes to eradicate the human race. Takumi and the other students are forced to battle and kill him.

With the missiles disabled and apparently no help coming from the Artificial Satellite, the students prepare to meet their end at the hands of the Invaders. However, when the 100th day arrives, an escape pod activates, ready to evacuate the students to the Artificial Satellite. Realizing that they had a method of escape all along and regretting the mistakes he made that caused the loss of Nozomi and many other students, Takumi wishes he could change the past. Shion's spirit then contacts Takumi, informing him that having absorbed his and the Commanders' cryptoglobin, Takumi's Hemoanima power has evolved to allow him to travel back in time to Day 1. Determined to change the past to save everyone, Takumi uses his power to return to the past.

From this point, Takumi can make various choices that can alter the timeline in significant ways, such as choosing whether or not to kill Eito right away, carrying out the mission they were assigned, rebelling against humanity and joining forces with the Invaders, deserting the war, and more.

In the game's True Ending, which exposes the full truth of the war, the students learn that they are not actually on Earth, but a terraformed alien planet called Futurum. The humans in the Artificial Satellite fled Earth's destruction and started the Exodus Project to colonize Futurum. However, upon arriving, they were shocked to discover the planet is already inhabited by an intelligent species called the Futurans. Unwilling to share the planet with another race, Project Exodus waged war against the Futurans and created Takumi and the SDU by cloning them from Shion's cells and implanting false memories, and tasked them with defending Shion until the Undying Flame missiles were ready. Nozomi is the only human among the group, having secretly joined them so she could fight by their side. However, when the students confront V'ehxness this time, she destroys the Artificial Satellite with her own Undying Flames missile, wiping out humanity. V'ehxness's victory is short lived though as she is quickly killed by the SDU.

With humanity gone, the students feel that there is not more reason to go through the plan to exterminate the Futurans, who were only defending themselves against the invading humans. However, Sirei's programming glitches and he decides to continue with the plan, forcing Nozomi to destroy him. The students then head to the Defense Room to disable the missiles, but Shion is forced to fight them. All of the students sacrifice themselves to transfer their power to Takumi, who is able to destroy the missiles at the cost of his life and leaving Nozomi the only survivor of the SDU. Now alone, Nozomi wanders the ruins of Futurum until she comes across a trio of Futuran children and befriends them, showing there is hope for human and Futuran coexistence.

Development and release

''The Hundred Line'' was scenario written & directed by Kazutaka Kodaka and Kotaro Uchikoshi, with character designs by Rui Komatsuzaki & Shimadoriru and music composed by Masafumi Takada. Too Kyo Games went into debt while developing the game, with the studio taking out a loan to fund development. The game's Japanese and English releases were scheduled for a simultaneous same day release. The game was announced during a Nintendo Direct presentation on June 18, 2024, and was released for the Nintendo Switch and Windows on April 24, 2025. The game's physical release is set to be distributed in North America by Xseed Games.

Reception

''The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy'' was the highest selling new release in Japan from April 21 to May 4, 2025, moving 26,732 retail units. Alana Hagues of ''NintendoLife'' wrote that these sales numbers were "fairly low" while being standard sales amounts for the Nintendo Switch for the past few weeks.

''The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy'' garnered "generally favorable reviews", according to review aggregator site Metacritic.

Notes

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, The
Media.Vision games
Nintendo Switch games
Single-player video games
Social simulation video games
Tactical role-playing video games
Too Kyo Games games
2025 video games
Video games developed in Japan
Video games scored by Masafumi Takada
Video games set in schools
Video games written by Kotaro Uchikoshi
Windows games