The Hundred Line – Last Defence Academy is the brand new game from the Danganronpa team

thesixthaxis.com:

Things are going very badly at the start of this trailer. Our protagonist, Takumi Sumino looks like he’s enjoying an idyllic anime walk with a friend, when suddenly, monsters attack. Admittedly, he’s decrying the fact that every day is exactly the same, and while I applaud his Nine Inch Nails references, he’s kind of asking for it.

A mysterious school mascot – he looks like a cross between Colonel Sanders and a ghost jelly bean – helps them to escape, but he’s then forced to enrol at the Last Defence Academy alongside fifteen other recruits. Their mission is to defend the school against massive, vicious and extremely ugly monsters, in seemingly turn-based tactical combat. The trailer briefly shows us a snapshot of what looks to be a grid-based system, and large enemy forces grouped together into units. We see one of the characters then performing a cool motorbike drift that certainly looks good, but seems to do little damage.

As well as that, we can expect a heap of school-based melodrama, with the anime cutscenes presenting lots of shouting and stern faces, as they prepare to face the oncoming hordes. The enemies are surprisingly bright and colourful – greens, blues and yellows – but during at least one cutscene they also appear to be corrupted, with gross black growths escaping from their many-eyed bodies. It’s certainly a cool and intriguing setup, and given that it’s coming from the team behind Daganronpa, it’s definitely one to keep an eye on.

The Danganronpa series is similarly themed around a group of teenagers who are drawn into catastrophic shenanigans, though they’re being forced to murder each other there, so this seems almost tame in comparison. Whether there’s also going to be elements of visual novels or dating simulators remains to be seen.

The Hundred Line – Last Defence Academy will launch in early 2025