Too Kyo Games has had a packed year, starting with The Hundred Line earlier in the year and closing out with their newest title, Shuten Order. Much in line with their other releases, Shuten Order takes on a mystery/dystopian setting, where you must piece together the mystery of what exactly is happening around you before time runs out. But Shuten Order isn’t just your regular visual novel, incorporating gaming elements from other genres across the medium. In doing so, will this game fumble in its pursuit to give the player a unique experience?
You wake up in a strange hotel room, with no memory of who you are, where you’re at, or how you got there. Not long after waking, there is a knock at your door. Two strange people, who reveal themselves to be angels sent from Heaven, tell you that you have been killed. However, you weren’t meant to die so suddenly, and thus have been given a second chance at life. Placed in a temporary body, you must uncover your murderer and make them confess within three days, or else you will remain dead.
Along with the strange circumstance of your murder, the world that you find yourself in is just as weird. You live in a small nation known as the Shuten Order. The people of the order wish for the end of humanity, counting down the time when they’ll achieve their wish once and for all. As you explore this nation, you’ll eventually come into contact with the five ministers of Shuten, who are revealed to be the main suspects of your murder. And who was the person who was murdered? It was none other than the Founder of the Shuten Order.
After a certain point in the game, you will be given the chance to choose one of the five ministers to investigate. With each of these routes, you’ll get the minister’s backstory, both in terms of seeing these characters in a deeper light and also learning their motivations for being a minister, their relationship with the Founder, and the mysteries surrounding the world in general and the Shuten Order. In order to get the full story, you’ll have to play through all five routes, although some routes will give you more information than others. You can play the routes in any order, and once you’ve completed a route, it will be marked off as one you’ve finished.
At times, it can feel as though the focus of the main objective (finding your murderer and their motive) is lost when going into the individual routes. If you’re someone who prefers a visual novel to remain focused on that objective rather than the worldbuilding/character building, you may find yourself frustrated. Shuten Order is definitely a game where the journey is a major component of delivering the story. While things meander, it all comes together and wraps up pretty succinctly.
Shuten Order, in general, is a visual novel that incorporates other gaming genres to tell its story. Each of the gaming genres that it makes use of (mystery point-and-click, dungeon crawler/puzzle, adventure visual novel, dating sim, and survival horror) takes place in its individual routes. All five ministers have their own dedicated game genre that their route consists of. There are still visual novel elements in all five routes (past the fact that three of the five routes are already visual novel genres). While it’s a cute quirk that makes Shuten Order stand out among other visual novels, the actual gameplay elements fall a bit flat as they feel surface-level. The game is a case of “jack of all trades, master of none”, where there isn’t really a lot of time to invest in what really makes a good game in any of the specific genres.
Ushitora’s route is a mixture of dungeon crawling and puzzle gameplay, with you and a group of individuals dropped into a death game where you must navigate through a labyrinth while avoiding death. The dungeon-crawling aspect is very one-note, with you walking through hallways while occasionally coming across puzzles to solve or people to talk to. It’s impossible to get lost, as the game will not let you accidentally backtrack, redirecting you back. The puzzles, outside of a couple of exceptions, are very easy to get through. Along with the limited types of puzzles you see, the gameplay ends up being a let-down.
In Inugami’s route, you’ll take on the guise of a detective, helping to solve a string of murders kick-started by the death of a family’s patriarch. You’ll interview family members and examine crime scenes to put together the strange murders. While gathering evidence, you can choose to add certain items to your notes by snapping your fingers. However, you have to be decisive with your choices, because if you select an item that isn’t relevant to the case, you can lose a part of your trust meter. You can also lose trust by presenting incorrect evidence during the daily meetings. If you lose all of your trust meter, you get a game over. Most of the evidence that you need to collect is common sense, and interviewing witnesses tends to be a breeze. When actually presenting evidence, at times it’s easy to fall into the pit of knowing the actual steps of the murder, but mistaking what the game expects you to present at a specific point.
Another route that is a letdown when it comes to gameplay is Fushicho’s. Her route is survival horror-based, with you trying to escape from a murderous creature in a blocked-off area. In terms of setting the tone, this route does very well, with grungy, depressing set pieces and creepy music. You can navigate around the map as you try to figure out how to move on to the next area. Occasionally, the monster will spawn, with your only indicator of how close the monster is to you being the strange noise that it makes if it’s nearby, along with its bright red light showing its line of sight. If you happen to catch the monster’s attention, there are gates that you can pull down to slow it down, and closets that you can hide in. But of course, it wouldn’t be a survival horror if there wasn’t also the fact that the monster can just teleport near you if you end up advancing your progress in terms of escaping. The monster moves in a predictable pattern that is easy to avoid, which takes a lot of the tension away from the game.
In Ion’s route, the story plays out as a multi-perspective adventure novel. You’ll play through multiple characters’ stories as they try to stop heretics from invading the underground research facility. You’ll get to make choices along the way, which can affect other characters’ stories. For instance, if you choose to pick up a weapon as one character, that character can end up saving another character when an ambush happens to occur later on. But on the flip side, say you don’t pick up that weapon. That can mean that another character ends up getting a game over because the group has no way to fight back. The branching paths are simplistic, and if you happen upon a bad end, the game will give you a hint as to where you need to go back to in order to fix the timeline.
And finally, with Kokushikan’s route, the minister will admit to you that she wishes to experience love. So, without getting your opinion on the matter, she invites you to a school to track her down and woo her. But things aren’t that simple, as she has taken on a disguise. Along with that, three sisters all named Kokushikan appear to be students at the school, leaving you to wonder who exactly you have to romance. Despite being a dating sim, though, this route is completely linear. While understandable, it would have been nice if there were more choices for the player to explore between which characters to pursue first. As you get close to the girls, you’ll make choices to bond with them. Eventually, you’ll have the chance to play through a confession scene, but you’ll have to make sure not to make the girls too mad, or it’s game over.
Much like other games from Too Kyo’s portfolio (Dangan Ronpa, Rain Code, and The Hundred Line), Shuten Order is flashy, stylish, and heavily leans into its design aspects. There is a lot of experimentation with the color palette, with a lot of neon colors making an appearance to make things pop. Most of the game is in 2D, given that it’s a visual novel, but there are 3D models in the game as well, mainly when it comes to some environments and the main character. The overall styling of the game, from the character designs to the UI and the transition screens in between, is satisfying to take in.
There is only Japanese voice acting available, and the performance is great. With heavy hitters from the Legend of Zelda, Trails, and even Final Fantasy games, the cast is amazing on all fronts. As for the music, the soundtrack is filled with funky, weird tracks. You can definitely hear the influence from past games, given that the composer has worked on past Too Kyo games. But where the music really shines is in the songs that sound almost religious in nature, really leaning into Shuten Order’s theme of religion and how humanity views those in higher power. While chimes, pianos, and string instruments are ripe for the picking, there are strange notes thrown in to give the songs almost a haunting tone that makes things feel off.
While there are some aspects of the gameplay where Shuten Order stumbles, it is an interesting game to play through. After the humongous undertaking that was The Hundred Line, Shuten Order has much shorter experience. It’s satisfying to try to piece together what’s going on in the story as you play through all of the routes, and even once you have all of the pieces, the game continues to swing all the way until the end. It’s a satisfying visual novel that is definitely worth checking out.
Shuten Order gets an 8/10.
