This was a game I went into not having a clue how I was going to react to it. Idea Factory is one of those publishers that can be a bit all over the place in terms of the quality of their releases, but there is no denying the games they release have a lot of unique flair to them even when they end up a bit on the bad side. So the question is where does Death End fall in all of this?
Well to start, the story takes place on two different fronts. You have the core of the game which happens in an abandoned MMO called 'Worlds Odyssey'. The servers were abandoned a year prior when the lead developer went missing, and the game was shut down. The developer, Shina, wakes up as an avatar in the game, and another developer, Arata, discovers the servers back online and finds Shina there.
Unable to access the Admin or Player Log Out screens, they are forced to play through the buggy game and try to trigger the 'Ending Engage' which will cause a logout and wake Shina up. From here the story becomes a mix of Occult Magic and Technology as you progress through the game in a Turn Based Combat system and come across NPC's that act identical to humans. Even aside from that, objects from the real world begin to appear in the game, even though they were never coded into the software.
Combat in this game is a mix of two other games, and bear with me here because this is not an insult, Maiden Heaven and Quest 64. Those were two games that had good ideas, but horrible execution. Death End Re;Quest manages to use ideas of both of those games and create a pretty fun battle system. You have a simple Rock, Paper, Scissors type mechanic for enemy and player weaknesses, a good variety of attacks, and the ability to knock enemies back with a string of physical attacks.
Knocking them back can destroy bugs on the field (panels that cause effects when stepping on them, both positive and negative things happen), bouncing off map edges or allies cause additional damage, and even knocking them into other enemies can hurt. The game does a good job at keeping you on your toes when deciding how to make use of your attacks considering you get three actions a turn, and only three physical attacks will cause a knockback. The option to Guard is also there. The game does a good job at making you factor in a lot of different things without being overwhelming.
The big thing with clearing bugs off the field is it allows Arata to act in combat by messing with the game code. Group-wide effects can be activated, previously beaten bosses can be summoned to aid you, and he can 'change genre'. This is basically akin to a quick minigame that activates allowing you to do different attacks and what not, and really isn't changing the genre of the game proper. All in all the combat, while it gets pretty repetitive about halfway through, is well thought out and executed.
Back in the real world, the game is basically a visual novel, and this is a bit frustrating. The visual novel portions overall do a pretty poor job of painting the scenes you are seeing, and considering how few still images are in the background it's largely a pretty unsatisfying read. There are acceptations to this, especially a scene later on, but overall it makes this portion of the game feel like a bit of a slog.
Throughout it, Arata is discovering lines of code that appear in places related to the real world objects in the game. While tracking down these bits of code, Arata and the rest of the team of developers who work at Enigma are under investigation by police for a global cyber attack they are connected too, as well as being chased down by strange cultists in rabbit masks.
One of the problems with the game is the 'Death Ends'. See, there are many times you are given the option to do one thing or another, one of which results in a bad ending. The first issue here is the bad endings are rather uninteresting, and you can see what the ending will be and they are entirely skip-able. The problem is they also give you rewards for viewing the bad endings. I say this is a problem because it's encouraging you to fail on purpose and reload just to view a something that is likely going to be uninteresting for rewards that end up not being worth all that much, it's nothing engaging it's just a waste of time.
Where the game is largely carried from a narrative point is having a fun and engaging cast of characters. Al being the exception, I seriously hate annoying child characters, they all play wonderfully off of each other. It's a bit frustrating as the nature of the 'Buggies' that fight by the characters side is a bit of a secret, and the best character moments would all involve me having to spoil this, so I will just say this. After a while, it becomes apparent that each party member you have is missing something, and the best moments tend to be when they find out what that is. The absolute best one being Clea Glaive.
Aside from that, there is a theme in this game that is very strong, and that is the goal the developers have of using this game to give insight into the love and passion they have for making games through the two lead characters, Arata and Shina. See, both lead characters of this game are Game developers, and Worlds Odyssey is kind of painted as the ideal for what the real developers of this game strive for, a fully realized and lively world that their players can escape into. One of the best scenes you get in the game is a flashback of both Arata and Shina talking about issues with their clients wanting them to cut things from the game they are making. Even small details, like a characters panties, are a huge issue for Shina as she doesn't want them cut from the game due to a visual cue to the characters past (Nothing perverted. :p) and is pissed off that she may not be able to leave them in the game.
As small a detail as it is, it's clear she has a lot of passion for it, and it starts to feel the developers of Death End Re;Quest wanted their own passion to come through in these characters. That really is where I think the game is at it's best, and despite the overall plot kind of getting a bit overblown by games end, this aspect does a lot to make up for it.
The other issue I take with this game is the actual dungeon exploration. It's pretty straight forward and uninteresting, with the most pointless field explorations, kills I have seen in some time. See, certain characters can access certain areas others can't. The problem is all characters are with you at all times, and all you are doing is pressing square to move forward. It's only a minor annoyance, but it adds nothing to the gameplay and feels entirely pointless to include of you aren't actually going to do anything with it.
Death End is a hard game to recommend. As I mentioned the gameplay becomes a bit repetitive by the halfway point, a good chunk of the Visual Novel Segments are boring, and the ending is unsatisfying. But at the same time, the gameplay is still well done, for the most part, there are some great characters, and it's really hard not to get caught up in the passion expressed through Shina and Arata. I think if you go into this game knowing what to expect, you'll come out enjoying it if you like the anime-styled JRPG's. But if this was never your kind of game, to begin with, this isn't going to be the one to win you over.