Hey everyone. Today I’m going to be reviewing the visual novel horror game called “BAD END”. It’s a bit of a spooky game, but nothing too scary in my opinion. Click below to read more but beware of spoilers!
This game I am about to review, “BAD END”, is a horror game in visual novel format with multiple endings. I believe there may be up to thirteen or fourteen endings. I haven’t gotten all the endings, but I have gotten quite a few, including the True End which is what the canon ending of the game is. With that in mind, let’s get started.
“BAD END” starts off with a person, a young woman, who is hit by a car and, seemingly, killed. Suddenly, and a bit jarringly, it switches to a school scene. Three male students are talking to each other. Two of them are excited about a video game from Japan, while the other is telling them that they should focus more on school work.
One of those boys that is excited about the video game happens to be our player character. He and the other boy happen to be best friends who hang out quite a bit after school. It’s at one of those meetings after school, at one of their houses, that the friend mentions a game called “BAD END”. This game is said to have multiple endings, most of which are bad endings where the character dies. Similar to Sword Art Online, if you die in the game, you die in real life.
Anyway, the two try to get the game going and they can’t. At least, they can’t do it together. When the friend goes home, he finally manages to play the game. When the main character gets home the next day, he discovers that his friend is not there in class like usual. The teacher asks for everyone’s attention and… surprise. The friend died from a heart attack after playing the game.
Now, the game itself manages to get into the hands of the player character. It’s essentially a game within a game with every option other than one causing a bad end. However – It turns out that if you get one “Bad End”, or bad ending, you’re fine. It’s if you get TWO bad endings that your character dies. The creature in the game turns out to kill players who reach the point of two bad endings in the game.
This leads you to an odd situation. Do you tell others about the game? Do you risk others falling into the same trap? And do you seek out more information about the game or quit playing? That’s the whole concept behind the game. Your character is motivated by the death of their friend to try to keep going in the game and to beat it.
There are at least two endings to the real version of BAD END if you beat the virtual version of the game. There are far more versions that are BAD ENDs themselves, which you get upon gaining one of these bad endings twice in one go. Without going into spoilers saying why, it’s a somewhat interesting plot while a bit obvious at times. Read on if you want more information, but beware of spoilers.
Well, it turns out that the game has a basis in reality. The entire game is based in a town nearby where you live, in fact. And the two girls in the game? They actually exist. Both were hospitalized and in comas for traffic accidents. They are both polar opposites game-within-a-game, is very shy and polite in the game’s ‘real world’ but the virtual version of her is quite arrogant, clueless, and uses guys to get what she wants. The reason for this is explained in the true end, however I will not go into that.
I have to finish up pretty soon, so here’s my review.
Music: I didn’t really notice much music except for a few moments. One of these was that, after getting one BAD END screen, the music changed to a stuttery mess and finally stopped altogether. It was quite eerie at the time.
Gameplay: Typical visual novel gameplay – you get to an ending by choosing options on screen in little boxes. The gameplay itself isn’t very clear at first as to what options to pick. Even after a while, when the story has unfolded, it’s not as clear as it probably should be.
There is a rating system which was… interesting. It judges how well you did on your first run when you finish getting the true ending. I got an F, because… well, I messed up on the first try.
Rating: I’d say it’s a 7.5/10. It was fun, but not excellent. It was slightly predictable at times and the randomness of the rating at the ending left an odd feeling of failure despite having just gotten the true ending.
Anyway, I’d suggest the game but don’t expect it to be super long or to get it all right in one go. It’s very odd and sometimes frustrating, but worth it if you like these sorts of games.
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