I'll be starting the full Cover Game feature on this later this week, but I thought I'd give you fine Patrons some first impressions on Death End re;Quest, since I've been playing it for the past few evenings and am now about 9 hours in, coming to the end of the second main chapter.
Idea Factory's Galapagos studio has always been a bit experimental, as we've seen with games like Fairy Fencer F (which incorporated some interesting fighting game-esque mechanics such as launchers and pursuit moves into the Neptunia combat engine) and Omega Quintet (which had a gloriously batshit battle system emphasising showmanship over all else), and I'm pleased to report that Death End re;Quest very much continues that tradition, in terms of mechanics, structure and overall themes.
I will, of course, discuss the narrative, themes and characterisation in detail in the Cover Game feature, but suffice to say so far that the combination of isekai, techno-horror, urban legends, conspiracy theories and Japanese ghost stories is proving to be an intoxicating blend that I like very much. It's a really interesting melange of genres, and the divide between the "game" and "real" world you can switch between at will allows you to explore various aspects.
I'm early in the game so far so I suspect the structure will open up somewhat later on, but I'm also finding it interesting to play a Compile Heart RPG that isn't hub-based; instead, Death End re;Quest has an interconnected world divided into zones, and each of the main chapters so far (remember, I'm only just at the end of the second main chapter) seems to revolve around clearing one main, large dungeon. This involves a combination of navigating through the environment in the game world, finding key items (that are, at times, literally keys; at others, event triggers) and, when you run into a seemingly impassable obstacle, switching over to the "real world" for the protagonist not in the game to do some investigation.
It's interesting to play an RPG that has immediate visual novel-style "bad ends", but that's what you get in this game. Thankfully you can save during dialogue sequences as well as at save points, so it's a very good idea to do that just before you make one of the choices that come up over the course of the game! That said, there's actually some incentive to seek out the bad endings, since an "episode list" in the game rewards you with money and items for seeing the various events, including the bad endings.
So far I'm really enjoying it. It's both pleasingly familiar as a Compile Heart game and something a bit different from their usual fare, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing how it develops over time. I'd been looking forward to this for a while now, and I'm glad that it hasn't been a disappointment!
Watch out for the first part of the Cover Game feature later this week on MoeGamer.
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