Explosions at a nuclear research facility trap an elite rescue squad and several other survivors inside in a thrilling visual novel about trust, paranoia, and survival.
Root Double -Before Crime * After Days- Xtend Edition
Developer: Regista
Price: $46
Platforms: Nintendo Switch (reviewed), PC, PlayStation Vita
MonsterVine was provided with a Switch code for review.
The science fiction visual novel Root Double -Before Crime * After Days- Xtend Edition is now available on the Nintendo Switch, and if you haven’t played one of its previous incarnations, it’s well worth taking a look at here. Set in the year 2030, Root Double deals with a disaster at a nuclear research facility and the people who are trapped inside after a meltdown is detected. With danger all around, they must find a way to survive and learn the truth about what happened there.
Two routes are available at the start of Root Double, the “After” route and the “Before” route. Although you can technically play them in either order, I strongly recommend starting with the “After” route. Not only does it have a more exciting start to the story, but it also presents many mysteries that are explained in the “Before” route. They’re essentially Route A and Route B, with subsequent pieces of the story unlocked in a linear fashion once you complete them, so this seems to be the intended order.
The “After” route follows Watase, a rescue worker whose terrifying encounter early on leaves him with no memory of who he is or what’s going on. Despite his amnesia, Watase joins his fellow rescue workers in their attempts to secure an escape route, find the other people trapped inside, and survive the rising radiation levels. Soon they discover that someone has been murdered–and the killer might still be in the facility with them. The story builds up a brilliant atmosphere of paranoia and tension as you try to figure out who and what can be trusted.
Meanwhile, the “Before” route follows a teenage boy named Natsuhiko who was trapped in the facility with his friends. Frequent flashbacks show the days that led up to the disaster, leading to more of a slice-of-life presentation until the story catches up with the current events. The slower pace makes it feel quite different from the frantic danger of the first route, but the payoff is worth it when all the pieces start to come together and realize what really happened. Both in this route and the subsequent ones as their stories converge, Root Double is filled with emotional moments that make its story feel all the more impactful.
There are no traditional choices in Root Double. Instead, it makes use of a gameplay mechanic it calls the “Senses Sympathy System.” At key points, you have the option to bring up a chart and set different values for how you feel about characters in the scene. This determines the protagonist’s actions. Depending on how critical the decision is, this can cause only minor changes, more significant branches, or even lead to one of the game’s many, many bad endings. While it’s a neat idea, it can be a bit frustrating. It’s not always clear how your values will change things. For example, if Watase is faced with a dangerous situation, setting his view of himself to the maximum level might make him brave the danger because he has confidence in his abilities, or it might make him retreat because he prioritizes his own life. Instead of making choices feel natural based on your feelings, it ends up more like experimentation. Fortunately, there are optional hints whenever you get a bad ending that outright tell you how to avoid it. Once you finish a route’s good ending, you also unlock the ability to simply choose the path you want at decision points, making it much less frustrating if you intend to replay it to see all the other possible scenes.
While the Senses Sympathy System is an important part of Root Double, the vast majority of your time with this visual novel will be spent reading. The story is exciting and compelling, although not without flaws. It has a tendency to repeat things–not only to remind the player of information revealed previously, but also to show the same events from different perspectives. Don’t get me wrong, this often works in the story’s favor. Some moments are impactful because you see them from a new character’s point of view and finally have the full context to understand them. However, it happens often enough that there were points where I found myself wondering how many times I would need to rewatch previous scenes when a summary would have sufficed. The writing also has some lengthy exposition sections, with characters explaining scientific concepts (both real and fictional) in great detail.
These issues do tend to make the story drag on at times, but overall the writing is enjoyable enough to be worth it. Root Double is a slow burn to reach its conclusion, but the story is one that definitely left an impression on me.
The Final Word
Despite its occasional repetition and odd design choices, Root Double kept me invested from start to finish, and as the story developed, my interest only grew. With a compelling cast, intriguing mysteries, and emotional storytelling, Root Double is a visual novel fans of the genre do not want to miss.
MonsterVine Rating: 4.5 out of 5 – Great
