I have always been opened (or close-minded) as a gamer to odd and quirky genres. It is always interesting to see a fresh or unique take on familiar formula on the different game genre. So when I first came upon this strange 'Sound Novel' of a game, it was not surprising to see myself drawn on such a unique visual presentation.
428 ~Fuusa Sareta Shibuya de~ (note: 428 - In a Blockaded Shibuya, aka 428 - The World Does Not Change Even So) is a game that takes the typical visual novel formula that Japanese developers often produce and takes that idea for a unique spin.
Normally, visual novels tend to make for very bland products. Apart from a nice picture backdrop and heaps of heaps of Japanese to go through, they are not particularly very interactive. Some of these kind of games give you certain decisions and in essence provides a bit of a Choose Your Own Adventure style of play. That is not a bad idea as Choose Your Own Adventure books tend to be pretty cool assuming the narrative is right. Unfortunately, once you translate it into video game format, you are expected to have that little extra. Granted that my Japanese is severely limited, the visual/audio presentation as well as the content I come away with has been particularly boring.
If you are expecting 428 to miraculously make reading Japanese on backdrop stills to be exciting, you are definitely on the wrong mindset. 428 takes that format and instead provides the player with something that other visual novels seem to miss, total control.
In 428, you take the role of five character perspectives in a timeline that spans ten hours of a single day in city of Shibuya, a business district of Japan. Multiple characters are nothing new in this genre nor in regular adventure games. 428 also employs decision making for each character to progress the story. That also is nothing new either. But two distinct differences sets this game apart. The first is that the character decisions do have subtle changes on other characters. This allows one character to inadvertently assist or interfere with the progress of another character. The second feature, which I think is the real key to making this entire project work so well is that you can view a time chart of events that have transpired and change the decisions for all of the characters. Hence, while you may arrive at a poor decision causing the demise of another character, you have every chance to go back and rectify it.
Does that make for an easy game? Not necessarily either. Logic plays a huge part in this title, and we are not talking about the 'challenged' logic adventure game developers try to peddle into their products. When you start playing other characters, you will notice details and realize when and how something may have altered the events of another character. And managing five characters while remember key details is not always a straightforward affair. Of course, for non-Japanese players, the language barrier plays another role in adding to that difficulty. Having limited Japanese takes me longer to figure out how events are and sometimes even how the events are supposed to transpire, but it has gotten me pretty far yet. You will inevitably stumble on bad endings, but the game encourages you to take a step back in time and rectify these issues. It is the point of the entire game.
Couple this very neat idea with a very striking presentation style and you have a very engaging adventure title in your hands. Real actors are used in filming and screenshot backdrops of the story and they are adequate to deliver the events of the game. The soundtrack of this title is also amazingly solid. It really does give you a cinematic sense of the entire game.
If there is one complaint over this title, it would be that I would have preferred Chunsoft go a little extra and provide more in terms of visual delivery. For a genre that hinges on story for suspense and substance, it would not hurt to provide video cutscenes alongside the textual narrative to aid in delivering the atmosphere and story.
Albeit, this genre is for a niche audience, 428 manages to deliver a unique experience in spades. It can be slow at times, but it never takes too long to get back to the action and the time chart feature really makes up for it.
Adventure game developers should take some time and look at what other developers in other regions are doing. Sometimes, coming from two different regions provides two different perspectives on how something is done. 428 deserves a look for Western developers. It is a fresh take on a genre that no developer seems to be interested in pushing forward beyond the 1990s formula.
