Visual novel fans will likely already know that Tookyo Games is the studio founded in 2017 by Kazutaka Kodaka and Kotaro Uchikoshi. The creators of Danganronpa and the Zero Escape trilogy have long been considered two of the most influential and iconic writers in the genre, though their more recent works have yet to truly break into the mainstream imagination.
We recently covered The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy in a review by our own Ross Locksley, who praised its RPG mechanics and ambitious storytelling. Today, however, we turn our attention to Shuten Order, the latest project from Tookyo Games in collaboration with yet another developer brought in for support work; this time the little-known studio Neilo.
In this game, players step into the role of Rei, a young, androgynous girl who wakes up in a hotel room with no memory of who she is or how she got there. The situation quickly escalates when she encounters two mysterious angelic beings, Himeru and Mikotoru, who explain the truth: Rei has recently been murdered, but God has granted her a miracle. She is brought back to life in a temporary body for three days, tasked with the daunting mission of discovering her killer. There’s just one catch, and it’s a big one! If Rei wants to reclaim her memories and return to life, she must perform a religious ritual: force her murderer to confess, and then end their life.
That would already be difficult enough, especially for a protagonist suffering from an amnesia so severe she can’t even recall her own name. But the task becomes seemingly impossible when Rei becomes aware that she is not in just any place, but in the city-state of Shuten: a theocratic community that prays every day in the hope that humanity will cease to exist, and whose power is concentrated in the hands of an enigmatic founder and his five ministers—these five oligarchs are revealed to be the suspects of the crime.
The powers of Justice, Health, Education, Science, and Security are each represented by a powerful figure Rei must investigate in order to uncover the truth behind her murder—and the future hinted at by the ominous countdown displayed on every building in Shuten, as the story opens with the unsettling line: “168 remaining until the end of the world.”
From its very premise, Shuten Order establishes itself as a compelling adventure game. Not only does it embrace the mystery surrounding Rei’s identity, but it sets the entire narrative in a grotesque utopia.
