The long awaited spiritual collab between Zero Escape and Danganronpa!!! Wowee!

For those who don't know, years ago the creators of the Zero Escape and Danganronpa series left Spike Chunsoft, the studio they worked for, and formed their own: Tookyo Games. Much was said about a crossover game between both of their styles, two of the most popular visual novel mystery games of the last 20 years.
It took a while, but that game is finally here! ...And apparently it almost bankrupted them.
And if we don't buy it they actually become bankrupt.
And it has A HUNDRED ENDINGS?!?

That last part was what actually sold me on the game. At first Hundred Line didn't attract much of my attention: while it was made by both the creators of ZE and Danganronpa, the actual director and main scenario writer is Kazutaka Kodaka, who comprised the Danganronpa half of the equation.

Two fun facts about me that are relevant to this: I absolutely love Zero Escape (even ZTD, in its own way), it's a profoundly important series for me; and I really really hate Danganronpa V3.

So... It can't be surprising that while I was intrigued at first I was also slightly put off by how Danganronpa the game seemed. The story's premise is not the same, but very similar, featuring extremely "quirky" students isolated in an academy surrounded by mysterious circumstances where death is expected. It doesn't help that the chacarter designer is the same as the Danganronpa games, so the game looks quite a bit like Danganronpa too.
It was only when I heard about there being a hundred different endings to the story that I actually felt compelled to play, as that showed that yes there was some good Zero Escape timeline shennanigans to be found.

..............150 hours and 4 months later I got all of those endings!! What a journey hehehe.

Having completed the game I can definitely say that it's a one of a kind experience. The way this game opens up when you eventually reach past the "prologue" is immense, and it genuinely made me rethink a bit how I think about flowcharts in games like this.
The best comparison I can make is that I figured out this game is a sort of narrative open world. Just like how in breath of the wild you might think "well I want to do x for now, so let's go in that direction", in this Hundred Line you might think "well this route's heavy, I want something lighter. Let's explore more of x branch, that seemed fun".
Sometimes you get exactly what you expect in a route, other times you get sucker punched by new details in the main mysteries of the plot. It's just as much a good story as it is a fun narrative to explore the corners of, and the massive amount of branches and choices you make help you do so.

That's not to say that ALL the routes are good. Not at all. Some I'll go so far as to say are... trash. Rushed, repetitive, and aimless. But at least those are in the minority!
All this variety does also introduce the possibility of you not getting any answers to the main mysteries of the game when you go down certain paths. And, while that can certainly be frustrating, I wouldn't say it's an actual problem. After clearing all of the routes I can definitely say that some of my favorite routes, for instance, left most of whatever's going on behind the scenes in this game still shrouded in mystery! And they still left me satisfied, because they focused on the specific plot setup of their own route.
Plus, if the main mysteries are all you're concerned about, it's quite easy to go into the game's "main" route. In interviews the creators said that this game doesn't have a main canon ending, and, sure, canonicity is debatable, but there's for damn sure a route that served to go through the main focus of the narrative, revealing mysteries and exploring the main questions you get from the setup.\
I'd still vote against just rushing that one route though. Part of the pleasure of this game fell in exploring, I think, something so rare to see implemented with so much depth in a narrative game like this.

And that's all without even mentioning the combat system! Because yeah, this game finds the time to have tactical fire-emblem-like combat on top of the massive narrative. And it's quite fun!
I was skeptical about it at first but not gonna lie, I left feeling quite satisfied with this aspect of the game too. It's not hard, but it's not braindead easy either, striking a nice balance of leaving you just overpowered enough to have loads of fun breaking fights wide open.
Even calling it fire emblem like is a bit of a disservice, cause, sure, it's the same from an outside view. But Hundred Line gives you much more incentive to be reckless with resources and units, leading to a much more aggressive style that was a joy to break.

Oh!!! And the voice acting!!
Absolutely phenomenal throughout!! Not perfect 100% of the time sure, but I gotta say, if NONE of the VAs for this game are nominated for a game award I'll riot.

I could go on and on about this game. Talk specifically about routes and characters, what I thought about some of the twists... but this is getting long, and you should definitely go and experience this amazing behemoth for yourself.
Luckily the game has now sold well enough that Tookyo Games seems to be out of danger of bankrupcy, but the devs have confirmed they'd love to make DLC adding more endings and routes, and, honestly, I'd love to get some DLC for this game as well.
Perhaps in a decate we can end up with Thousand Line?