Only a few months in the past I performed Mages’ influential 2009 visible novel Steins;Gate, the second title of their Science Journey sequence, for the primary time. This seems to have been fairly good timing, as I discovered simply weeks later that the sixth and newest entry in that sequence, Nameless;Code, was making its western debut later that 12 months after its 2022 launch in Japan. I wasn’t actually positive what to anticipate from Nameless;Code, largely I wasn’t positive whether or not it was going to be extra grounded like Steins;Gate or if it was going to be one thing extra fantastical and wild. It was, for that purpose, a shock that the reply was the latter state of affairs. Whereas I used to be sort of skeptical of this course at first, Nameless;Code rapidly grabbed my consideration and satisfied me to affix it for the experience it was promising to be.
Most of Nameless;Code is seen from the angle of Pollon Takaoka, a younger hacker residing within the Nakano ward of Tokyo within the 12 months 2037. Pollon is a member of a two particular person hacker group often called Nakano Symphonies together with his greatest buddy Cross Yumikawa. Whereas most of Symphonies’ work is prohibited in nature, Pollon sees himself as totally different from different hackers who’re usually simply in it for the cash and fame. Pollon believes in serving to these in want, it doesn’t matter what. He’s sadly nonetheless a silly teen boy, although, and at some point he proves this indubitably when he screws up and lies about being on his method to elope together with his girlfriend, who doesn’t exist. This imaginary woman’s title is Momo Aizawa, and simply when he thinks the jig may be up a woman all of the sudden approaches him as if she had been planning to satisfy him. The 2 begin strolling away, and Pollon is shocked when the woman introduces herself as Momo Aizawa. This will get much more shocking when the pair are all of the sudden surrounded by the military, who’s seemingly after Momo, and the 2 should make a run for it.
This escape fails, and Momo is taken away. Pollon manages to get away with the assistance of two strangers named Oz and Nonno, however their try and get Momo again can also be a failure. Simply when issues appear to be at their most hopeless, Pollon is all of the sudden made conscious of an app that has been secretly put in to his AR PC, an app which provides him the power to save lots of and cargo the actual world as if it have been a online game. Utilizing this app he goes again to earlier than they have been caught and makes use of his information from the primary time to efficiently escape with Momo in tow. From right here, Momo reveals that she has come to Japan so as to discover a legendary hacker who she believes can save the world from an upcoming apocalypse. Making the most of his newfound Loading means, Pollon vows to assist Momo in her quest it doesn’t matter what it takes, and what follows is an exhilarating and motion packed rollercoaster experience about worldwide conspiracies and the prevention of varied disasters that’s positive to maintain gamers engaged the entire means via.
The primary factor that separates Nameless;Code from different video games in its style is its use of the Save/Load system. At sure factors within the story the participant can press L2 to convey up the app on Pollon’s show, at which level Pollon will take the reins and cargo one of many “save recordsdata” he’s made all through the story. These present a well beyond sure unhealthy endings as Pollon will return with the information of his earlier run via the state of affairs. It must be famous that these saves and this loading menu are each totally different from the sport’s precise saving, although after awhile I didn’t discover myself saving manually fairly often as the sport options an autosave that’s comparatively frequent and nearly all the time offers you the power to return earlier than a doable Load level within the story. For those who fail to load earlier than catastrophe strikes, or should you load on the mistaken second, you’ll be greeted with a nasty finish display screen that provides you a touch about what you need to do, adopted by being spit again to the sport’s title display screen. I truly discovered this half a bit annoying, as I’d have personally most well-liked it if it had simply taken me to the autosave menu to load instantly, however that is one thing I think about a minor criticism. The one different downside with this technique is that there are a couple of moments within the later components of the story the place determining when to have Pollon Load looks like sort of a crapshoot, these components led me to easily hammer L2 within the hopes I’d ultimately discover the suitable second. These are few and much between, however they’re fairly annoying after they happen.
Total Nameless;Code is likely one of the extra attention-grabbing visible novels I’ve performed. The animated 3D fashions used instead of the standard static 2D character portraits do a unbelievable job of giving every character character by making them really feel extra alive and expressive. The soundtrack can also be nice, composed by sequence common Takeshi Abo, and it particularly shines throughout significantly motion heavy scenes. The localization is general strong although there have been a couple of typos right here and there in addition to a line or two that felt somewhat stilted or awkward, however once more these don’t happen fairly often. I’m not positive if I’d put it on the identical degree as its most profitable predecessor (Steins;Gate), however Nameless;Code is a really worthy addition to the Science Journey sequence and a sport that anyone taken with visible novels ought to positively check out.
