Review Our World Is Ended (Nintendo Switch )

Review code kindly provided by PQube

Our World Is Ended is a visual novel developed by Red Entertainment and published by PQube. It released on the 23rd of April on Nintendo Switch and PS4, and is coming to PC on the 28th May.

Forewarning For The Part Time Student

Before I get into this review I want to mention that this game has adult themes and prevalent innuendo. I want to mention this partly because this is a site for all, but you mightn’t get that impression of the game before you buy it. The story itself has little to do with these jokes, but the characters and comments they make do continue through the whole game. Visually, characters in swimwear is as far as it goes.

This story is set in Asakusa, Tokyo where you play as Reiji a college student. Who is also a part time games director at Judgement 7. Along with six other members. The perverted programmer and boss, Owari, the long winded story planner Iruka No 2., air headed and happy go lucky Yuno, the sharp tongued artist Natsumi and the “saddening” musician Asano. Shortly into the story the other programmer genius Tatiana also comes to town.

After starting work on their Virtual Reality game something goes wrong and they find themselves trapped in a small section of Asakusa. From there they make more discoveries about this “New World”.

Everybody’s Got Choices

The game follows a set path in the story. However you make dialogue choices that affect your ranking in other character’s preferences. There are also a few instances where you can choose who to hang out with. The Selection of Soul system seems to happen whenever Reiji gets a bit flustered, where different thoughts fly across the screen and you can choose them. Looking a bit like a Niconico video stream. It took me about four hours to realise I could choose them, if you don’t, something will still be said. There are also large sections of the story where you don’t choose anything to say.

You can see in the pause menu the top three people happiest with you. If you make one happy enough (their background in menu will change colour) then you will unlock the true ending. The true ending being an additional chapter, after which you will get an epilogue focused on that character. As well as a couple of extras, such as with Owari having a “bloopers” type thing where the wrong dialogue is said in certain pieces of the story.

I was originally going for Asano despite her violent tendencies, but due to certain revelations about her I changed to Natsumi. It seems that I didn’t do it enough for I only got the normal ending. So I had to make use of the skip function and pick one person to get their ending. It seems a precarious balance of not being too nice to the others. Especially since saying something I feel isn’t that nice, sometimes still comes across the same way as the nice prompt. Personally I think Owari is the best or at least easiest option.

New World Experience

For some reason I got the impression that the story had something else to it which never came to fruition. The story itself is a little silly, if you couldn’t tell from the dialogue. I do feel like after the first or second experience, they might’ve thought to have somebody outside to look after them. There wasn’t too many twists or surprises, although I didn’t expect a couple of things.

I would say it’s quite emotionally involved, as long as you like the characters. As the main cast is quite large the slower sections of the plot seem to drag on even longer as almost everyone has to have their piece. Just as I was starting to like everyone’s antics, I grew even more tired of the slow progression. Of course due to the humor, and plot picking up I came to like them more. Many things made me laugh or at least put a smile on my face. The story is truly about getting to know the characters and some development for them.

Asides from the constant suggestive dialogue, the game clearly has an intended audience of those particularly into Japan’s smaller pop cultures. If you don’t like the sounds of a game that uses terms like normie or light novel protagonist, the game probably isn’t for you. Whereas if you do, and you are interested in a story focused on the characters you probably will like it.

Natsumi and Asano

Visually it looks very nice. All the main characters have a sort of sparkly look to them which is pretty. There are also a few side characters outside of the main seven that are represented as well. They have a small selection of different poses but there are some blinking animations. There could have been a few more poses or animations for them, as sometimes it looks a bit off. Some things aren’t visually represented at all, then other times a scene will be shown.

At first it seems like there aren’t too many backdrops but eventually you come across more, and they sometimes change.

Our World Is Ended has a decent amount of music tracks. Often swapping between them to match the tone.

There is no English dub, however the Japanese voice is over every single text except internal narration. The Japanese voices seem very good, I didn’t find any annoying and they convey the emotion very well. That said, I generally prefer an English option, because otherwise I’m still having to read the words and thus go faster.

Judgement Time!

One issue many Switch players will notice is that the confirm button is the B button. Meaning you are likely to cancel actions. I got used to it, though coming from the Switch menu into the game can be confusing. Some people might have an issue with the pricing. Although I’ve bought $30 (AUS) visual novels that only lasted four hours and this one is sixteen if you read fast.

The game has just a few technical issues. Sometimes, it will be stuck for a couple seconds before resuming the sentence. I encountered only three spelling errors, which for a sixteen hour read, is pretty good. I did feel that the don’t skip unread option (when I was trying to get a true end) didn’t work well sometimes. As I had to rush through large sections I already read because it wouldn’t skip it.