Shuten Order reminds me why I rarely, if ever, go to buffet restaurants anymore. Though I love to act nostalgic about the Golden Corral or Sizzler, the presentation rarely matches the experience. You often find one thing that you really like and end up filling up on that. Sure, you might dabble and try the beef cheeks or the herb mashed potatoes, and the lukewarm macaroni and cheese is tempting, but you’re going to circle around the stuff you know and like best, because restaurants do certain things well. It’s not that the pepperoncini is bad, it’s just not what the restaurant does best, and it doesn’t get better by sitting in a tray under heat lamps for several hours. When you’ve got too many options, you can potentially ruin your experience. And that, in a food allegory, is Shuten Order.

I can already see that I’ll end up butting heads with fans of this game, and I think their pushback against my criticisms will be valid. After all, this incredibly ambitious title is helmed by Danganronpa creator Kazutaka Kodaka, who just brought us the amazing Last Defense Academy that captured my heart. The concept and world building are surreal and complex in a way that I cannot discount. The main character is neither dead nor alive, having recently been assassinated and butchered, but now surviving in a temporary body that was generated by two angels. Rei, the androgynous protagonist,  has just 168 days until the end of the world, and it’s imperative that she discover who her killer is, get them to confess and then kill the murderer herself. The existence of angels and somehow coming back to life is wild enough, but it becomes even weirder.

Unlike many titles, you WANT the end of the world to come, and if you can’t figure out who killed you, it won’t come to pass! Rei is the founder of the Shuten Order, a death cult that’s managed to create and fortify the last surviving city in the world. God has chosen Rei to lead the meager remains of the human race into annihilation, but someone in Rei’s inner circle has betrayed her. While that’s already a tall enough order, the five suspects are all leaders of the different ministries inside the Shuten Order, who all claim to love and worship the (supposedly deceased) Rei. Oh, and they each have one of Rei’s body parts, though no one can find the torso. And these body parts all fell from the sky against the backdrop of a massive, headless statue that’s part of the cult’s ideology. Confused yet? Perfect.

Rei will go forward to confront her potential murderers with a solid case of amnesia, two fairweather angels at her side and an inexplicable connection with God. These elements are constants throughout the game, so get used to them. The amnesia will gradually depart as you find trigger moments to bring back spotty snapshots of her previous life, and it unveils itself differently depending on how you approach the investigation into your death. The two angels, Himeru and Mikotoru, could have had a buddy cop game all their own, but they play second fiddle and light desu ex machina aspects to Rei’s quest. And the fact that, when in doubt, Rei can pray to God and something actually happens is…it feels tongue-in-cheek, especially the further along you get in the game, but it’s still an interesting quicktime event that constantly happens.

Shuten Order could have taken this convoluted plot and ran with it all the way to the finish line within the confines of a visual novel, and it would have been perfect, no question. The art styling is unbelievably gorgeous in stills and portraits, with a massive level of detail given to the characters in various poses and facial expressions. Despite being a cult compound, the city of Shuten is vibrant with different locations and tons of people, with even the NPCs being crazy detailed in terms of personality and quirks. Across what I estimate to be an easy eighty hours, you’ll see government buildings, schools, hospitals, homes and so many different and unique locations. Because it matched my own favorite arc of the game, I especially liked the Academy, home of every anime trope in the book and some wild plot twists.

Yet, this year especially, game development out of Japan is all about the supergroup approach. While it can be successful, it can also lead to experimental ideas that don’t necessarily land as well as we’d like. Shuten Order wants to be everything to everyone, and the result isn’t as palatable as they’d like it to be. Since there are five potential murderers, Rei has to go down five storylines to reach the truth, which is fair enough when it comes to solving your own murder and ending existence for everyone. In order to do so, you need to play five different game genres to reach the truth, and this is where the game becomes messy and uneven in terms of enjoyment.

On the one hand, the wild swing approach of Shuten Order works on some levels, and the well landed elements are pitch perfect. Inugami’s route is a traditional detective style visual novel, which is specifically in the wheelhouse of Too Kyo Games and fits best with the overall aesthetic of the game’s “neutral” moments.

Being able to talk to and investigate an entire rogue’s gallery of characters, hearing a lot of little details that add up to a major revelation, and then examining the finer details of objects and clues in order to discover exactly what is needed to be discovered works exceedingly well. Even when the story flags a little, Inugami himself is a charming and smarmy character who keeps the player invested from the drop. Inugami’s route also has the added benefit of having the most areas to explore and see, which adds to the overall atmosphere.

However, not being able to use touchscreen controls for examination and interaction is a massive bummer. Yes, I realize that Shuten Order is developed for PC and Nintendo Switch, but the touchscreen approach is present for many Switch titles, so the absence is noticeable when you’re trying to parse through multiple points of interest at once. For a majority of players who’ve been playing Switch since day one, your JoyCons are shot and targeting isn’t the best. If I had been able to use a finger or stylus to indicate WHERE on the leg I thought was the most important point, it could have made the interaction all the smoother. It’s a minor complaint, and one that doesn’t change the trajectory of the game overall, but I’m going to point out flaws where they exist.

In a completely different but equally excellent segment, Kokushikan’s route is a “generic” romance dating experience where you’re trying to woo the Minister of Education in order to find out if she’s the killer. While a bit confusing, this route leans into tropes and concepts so hard you expect the game to fall over, but it never does.

It takes place in Shuten Academy, letting you really taste those well trodden ideas of high school romance and all the stereotypes that leak out of those games, and the voice cast has an absolute BALL with delivering melodramatic, positively manic lines. It’s only made better by the fact that Rei seems to be the only one to keep her head on straight for the duration. The fact that she’s a girl either doesn’t register or doesn’t bother any of the women throwing themselves in her direction, to great comedic (but not homophobic) effect.

Plus, the route is done so well that you forget why you’re there for a good chunk of time. The atmosphere is completely different, so you get to lose yourself in some very poppy and upbeat music, wild admissions of affection and a range of characters who are all very cute but, refreshingly, not sexualized (this is in a school, after all). If you’ve had any experience with Tokimeki Memorial or similar titles, you’re get the beats and know that you have limited time to explore the school, try to interact with specific characters and build up a better romance in order to get a confession…of any kind. Plus, it’s done with a real wink and a nod, so the danger here, surprisingly, is far less than the other routes.

Once you turn a certain corner in the storyline, though, you remember that a murder has happened, this is a death cult country, and, oh yeah, the yandere trope ALSO exists in romantic games, and now you might be in serious danger. Everything about Kokushikan’s path is bananas, even in comparison to the other paths, and makes me wonder if Uchikoshi had a little influence behind the scenes to craft this particular scenario. While It’s absolutely my favorite, I also recognize this is one that might alienate other players just because it’s done in such a deadpan satire that the fun of it all might go over some player’s heads. Then again, if you’re already invested in this massive experience, I’m guessing you’re ready for Shuten Order to throw anything and everything at you.

Ion’s route is straight down the center in terms of delivery and enjoyment. A multiple-perspective adventure, you’ll start as Rei and then keep changing hats and personalities as the story progresses, letting you move forward and backwards in time to make better choices and decisions to move the tale along. The entire dynamic of the game changes in an instant: the text and display are more disconnected, like you’re omniscient throughout the play, and the tone is more matter-of-fact while still insightful. Instead of hearing from the characters, it’s almost like their thoughts and feelings have been cataloged and now are being put on display in an expositional play instead of a visual novel game. It’s…well, frankly, it’s a bit alien compared to the other Minister’s pathways, and it makes it almost unlikable.

I say almost because Shuten Order makes sure that everything is delivered with a full commitment behind it. So, while the experience feels odd, it still compels you with important information that makes Ion one of the more compelling and believable suspects for who and why Rei got assassinated. Instead of being overt like Kokushikan’s madness, this one is more subtle and cool, which matches the disconnect of the route itself. Even though Inugami is the detective, you feel more analytical in the midst of Ion’s pathway, putting pieces together to not only progress but also to better reach the logical conclusion for the end result. It doesn’t hurt that the soundtrack is the most unique of the routes, intersplicing industrial electronics with deliberate silence and sparse, spatial audio. It brought me back to the feeling of Ever 17, which gives it a leg up in my books every time.

As a last note, Ion’s route is also the easiest one to brute force to get to the ending. Since everything is literally set up on a branching map, you can quickly go back to the previous moment and choose a different decision to move forward and try again if you get a bad ending. This is another moment where I sing the praises of visual novel developers opting to have skip/fast forward options so you can succinctly retrace your steps, do something different and try again. I also want to take this moment and complain that you cannot fast forward through Rei’s prayers when they happen. After you push the buttons to connect with God and manipulate the fabric of reality, you’d think you could quickly skip the exaltation moment that happens every time, but no, please enjoy this bizarre animation with no other choice.

Ushitora’s route is overstimulating, and I say that as someone who grew up in the MTV generation. Shuten Order really decided to cook with this one, starting out as a simple interview/investigation and then quickly taking a right turn off the map and smashing through a guard rail. The change ends up bringing you into a first person perspective dungeon crawler-adjacent experience with no map, a time limit and NPCs who are ready to kill you. Locked in a live streaming deathmatch, Rei has to figure out which doors will bring her to safety, which of the other characters trapped down here with her will kill her (and who she has to kill) and also finish puzzles that appear as door locks in order to survive. Oh, and you’re still trying to figure out if Ushitora himself is the assassin, which just further complicates things.

This part of the game really straddles the line on “too much” and steps over it several times. For one, the shift to first person dungeon exploration is handled well, but it takes away all the beautiful backgrounds and landscapes you’ve been seeing in the other areas. Now you purposely have repetitive walls and doorways, with only floating numbers to guide you. If you don’t have a good sense of direction, you will absolutely walk around in circles and feel like you’re wasting time, which was a good amount of my experience. Additionally, there’s no visual difference between doors that you can and can’t open until you approach them, which wasted a little bit of my time as well. The puzzles are also fairly simple logic puzzles, which just give a moment’s pause instead of really being a life-or-death struggle. 

And the game is too forgiving on the puzzles! Shuten Order wants you to do well, even if you suck, and that doesn’t feel great for the supposed stakes that you’re playing for. I failed the slide puzzle that I first encountered because I’m very bad at sliding picture puzzles. After I “died,” I got to restart and found the puzzle had now been reset so I just had to move three pieces and I was done. What was even the point? I don’t want a game to lock me in a stalemate forever, but if the developer wants to hold your hand the second things get too tough, then the anxiety of success dies on the vine. For the remainder of the dungeon, I simply waltzed about, knowing that I could fail and still get a gold star on my homework.

Having said that, the NPCs introduced here are fun, and it’s only compounded by the almost comical amount of death that unfolds. I spend a good five, maybe ten minutes talking with a character that I was pretty sure would be my guide for the dungeon, and then the dungeon master/live streamer (who floats in the corner of your screen for the route’s duration) shot her in the head from some remote location. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has the potential to be killed, and the juxtaposition of the game’s traditional animation with the CGI of the streamer really creates an otherworldly feel. It’s like if The Running Man was being brought to you by the moments of Hololive. It’s unsettling, but also so much more engaging than it has any right to be.

Lastly, sadly, is Fushicho’s route, which turns the game into a top down survival horror game. Shuten Order really wanted to get a bit of everything in here, and this one just doesn’t work. Set against this lore of a murderous mascot that keeps getting loose everywhere Rei happens to be, you have an isometric map where you can run, create temporary barriers and hide in specific spots to avoid death while trying to unlock the next section of the map. The baddie, called Niphilim, will follow a wandering pattern, trying to detect you in a cone of red light before giving chase. If he catches you, you get a short but bloodless scene of Rei being murdered and then you can restart from the beginning of that particular section.

This was unfortunate because I really enjoy Fushicho as a character and as a concept. Easily the most zealous of the Ministry leaders, she’s got personality, she’s got a fanatical devotion, and she’s the one I most doubted would have killed Rei, which is why I wanted to investigate her so badly. The exposition you get about her character, her feelings regarding the Shuten Order and heretics and the Founder (what Rei was called before her death) are truly exciting. This is a great moment to reiterate that the voice work is incredible, and all the scenes where characters have a chance to talk are fulfilling and aurally delicious. You get some raw moments from Fushicho throughout the downtime periods where you get to talk, and you even hear a bit from her closest…companion. It’s a talking motorcycle. Fushicho is now one of my favorite characters of the year.

But the actual gameplay – the whole wander around, don’t die and lightly puzzle things out – is so tedious in comparison to the other routes. You don’t feel excited or tense when you get dropped into it because it always feels the same. After you survive in the basement of the Ministry, every other location where Niphilim shows up is just a sigh and a begrudging undertaking of the task. Even when I switched from Joycons to a stable and secure 3rd party controller, Rei doesn’t feel like she was designed to move about in this way. You end up clipping into corners and slowing down, or getting disoriented in an effort to get to a safe area. I appreciate you can maneuver the camera with the right stick (which is rare for isometric games), but it did nothing to make the experience smoother.

That’s the crux of my minor displeasure of Shuten Order: it’s got so much that the stuff that isn’t bombastic is a dud. The storyline is so wild, so unbelievable that you’re here for it even if you need to carry a notebook to understand everything that’s happening. When something works, it works SO WELL, and you get locked into the moment, the tone and the vibe of it all. I could do another five hours in Kokushikan’s romantic trist exploration, and I would absolutely dive back in with Ushitora if the puzzles were more difficult. On paper, it’s a shoot-for-the-stars masterpiece, but the time investment of players in order to see and do everything is massive. While visual novel fans are used to taking weeks of their lives to play a game, it’s not usually to play five games back-to-back. 

Shuten Order is the most ambitious title that Kodaka has ever created. It’s got hallmarks of brilliance and longevity, and will be examined by game developers for years to come as a blueprint for what the future of gaming may look like. I won’t call it perfect, and I was severely disappointed with what didn’t work, but the vibrant and explosive sections resonate deep within me. It’s the only game where I would 100% pick it back up just to play parts of it, not the whole thing. Still, if you can, come discover the astonishing truth behind Rei’s death and the Shuten Order itself: the journey is long, but it’s well worth it for both what you find and what you do along the way.

Graphics: 10 Stunning, memorable and gorgeous characters with a massive variety in detail, appearance and personality. Not a single NPC felt the same as another, and each setting was memorable and unique. The sheer amount of effort here is beyond anything I could have anticipated.	Gameplay: 7.0 Five different game types in a single title leads to highs and lows across the board. Good aspects sparkle like diamonds, whereas weaker elements are like Legos on the floor of a dark room. Ambition means not everything works, but that doesn’t destroy the game overall.
Sound: 10 Distinct and delicious scores for each of the different routes, and hundreds of hours of voice recording from some of the hardest working V.A.s in the world. Mitsuki Saiga, Rei’s voice actress, needs to get nominated and awarded for her phenomenal creation.	Fun Factor: 8.5 Two of the five routes are unbelievable and stellar, two are acceptable and enjoyable, and one is such a slog in comparison to the other four. When it all comes together, it makes a messy but exciting package that you don’t mind getting dirty to enjoy.
Final Verdict: 8.5

Shuten Order is available now on Steam and Nintendo Switch.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

A copy of Shuten Order was provided by the publisher.