428: Shibuya Scramble

The unique presentation and excellent storytelling of 428: Shibuya Scramble make it a great visual novel experience.

428: Shibuya Scramble may be a ten-year-old game, but it's such a unique experience that it feels like a slightly flawed, modern classic even today. If you have any love for the genre, don't skip this one.

428: Shibuya Scramble is a fun addition to the PS4's growing visual novel stable. Solve a kidnapping, thwart a viral conspiracy, and assist a hapless salesperson in taking off her giant cat costume: Spike Chunsoft's zany story has charm to spare and is both funny and thrilling while it lasts.

Inventive, thrilling and brilliantly executed, 428: Shibuya Scramble is a masterpiece of the visual novel genre.

428: Shibuya Scramble's Western release is a miracle. Don't sleep on it.

Never before have I played an interactive novel that kept me so compelled to the very end, and once it was wrapped up all neatly, 428: Shibuya Scramble continued to surprise me with more and more story than I could've ever asked for.

428: Shibuya Scramble is clearly the child of Spike Chunsoft as it brings together some of the best features from Zero Escape and Danganronpa into a new title.

Overall, I really enjoyed 428: Shibuya Scramble. The story is excellent; incredibly engaging, getting my very emotionally invested in all the characters especially as things ramped up in the later hours. The writing style perfectly combines seriousness and occasional lighthearted jokes when appropriate, making it enjoyable even during relative downtime. None of the main characters stand out as particularly weaker than the others, and each of their stories carries the same weight and quality all the way throughout the game. That’s a long way, too; completing everything took me just shy of 50 hours, with just playing through until the end of the epilogue taking just over 40 hours. Even though it’s on the longer side, it still kept me fully engaged through all of it, and is definitely worth the $49.99 USD, having easily earned the respect it has among visual novels. If you’re at all interested in visual novels, mystery and detective stories, or you just want something exciting and different (there’s even a demo on PS4 if you don’t want to take the full plunge right away), I can’t recommend 428: Shibuya Scramble highly enough.

In the end, 428: Shibuya Scramble is yet another top notch Visual Novel, a genre that has exploded onto the console scene seemingly overnight and shows no signs of slowing down.

428: Shibuya Scramble is a classic nonlinear visual novel that requires you to be attentive. More than 50 hours of delight are guaranteed to the fans of good detective stories.