Short Peace: Ranko Tsukigime's Longest Day

The story is nonsense, but it's just a vector to dump the art down your throat. Longest Day alone isn't worth the $40 asking price though, so if you're buying it, pick it up for the entire Short Peace package.

The animation and art direction of the entire Short Peace box is superb. [Issue#148, p.128]

Tsukigime Ranko's Longest Day does not reach the sufficiency, but the package comes with four short movies that reach a real peak of excellence. However, given the quality and the quantity of the release, the launch price seems to be way too expensive.

This collection of several short films and a game is quite irregular, and it seems to be aimed at a very particular audience. If you are part of that particular audience then you know what you're buying. If you're not, make sure you it find out before purchasing it.

Short Peace: Ranko Tsukigime's Longest Day is an action game and short film collection in one. This PlayStation 3 oddity tells a baffling story that features a seventeen year old girl with an eye patch and a violin-themed sniper rifle on the hunt to kill her father.

A very innovative and in many ways interesting mix of videogames and anime. A new way to unite both concepts.

You'll finish Ranko in about an hour. [July 2014, p.79]

On its own, Ranko Tsukigime's Longest Day is lightweight runner with scant traces of inspiration. As integral part of the dynamic, multimedia Short Peace project, its relative value becomes a bit more manageable. That it's all being packaged and sold as a videogame leaves it feeling heavy on good natured intent, but thin on actual content.

Come to Short Peace for the variety of content, stay for the imaginative and masterful animation, but leave Ranko Tsukigime's Longest Day at the door unless you're in desperate need of something to pass the time.

Short Peace leans towards its visually appealing aspects instead of its story and gameplay features. It’s a nice anime and video game hybrid to mindlessly keep you busy for about two hours, but if you’re looking for a serious game to invest your time in and explore this might not be what you’re looking for. Your eyes will be thanking you, but your brain might say otherwise.

Lasting only around two and a half hours, Short Peace is not really much of a game. The game itself being maybe an hour and a half and the collection of movies lasting an hour, this entire thing can be seen in an evening’s time.

It’s not Suda’s best, but it’s ambitious, and there’s a lot to be said for that. If you’re looking for your next unique and obscure experience, you’ve found it.

Short Peace: Ranko Tsukigime’s Longest Day is a strange collection created for a very small audience. If you love good anime and crazy ideas, you'll like this interesting experiment. The Italian version of this game, sadly, is far too expensive.

Four animes and one game "filled with japan's spirit", as Suda 51 said. A must-watch, but not a must-play, outside of Suda's fanbase.

Whatever your preconceptions, Short Peace: Ranko Tsukigime's Longest Day will surprise you, and continue to surprise you even after the credits begin to roll. However, while often humorous and delightful, the game portion of this package is a very short experience, consisting of only nine stages and taking roughly just over an hour to complete.

If you’re a real Japanophile, then you’ll no doubt enjoy everything on offer here. However, if you only have interest in the game itself, then you absolutely will be disappointed.

A simple game that anyone can enjoy thanks to its straightforward controls and engaging mechanics, not to speak of its iconic representation of the Japanese culture. Sadly though, its brief duration, long cinematic pauses and poor replay value, make it feel unfinished, and it's pretty clear that the developers created it with one small and specific demographic in mind.

Unfortunately, even the really good shorts film contained in the disc can't save a production dragged down by a mediocre side-scrolling platform game, probably one of the worst of this year.

Longest Day is a vibrant, scatterbrained thing that seems far more intent on creating a spectacle than a compelling story or gameplay experience.

Ranko is pure absurdity and represents the style of current Japanese pop culture very well. Unfortunately it’s also a rather weak game that you will be done with after 1,5 hours. It might look great and burst with crazy ideas but there is simply no reason to come back to it or honestly recommend it. [08/2014, p.62]

It's an odd game, this. [June 2014, p.92]

The best parts are the short films, the game ends up being a kind of bonus, although it has received much of the attention in the package.

How hard it is to judge this cross-media experience. It's an unbalanced mix between four amazing short animation films, whom half have been made by Japanese masters, and one of the worst games of this year. Ranko Tsukigime’s Longest Day is a visual failure with a more than simple and unpleasant gameplay. Even with an hour of game, travel across ten levels without any satisfaction or any feeling that you're moving forward is a huge frustration. The short films save its fate.

One of the worst games of the year combined with four excellent animated movies, Short Peace: Ranko Tsukigime's Longest Day is no doubt a mixed bag.

The anime films may be critically acclaimed but their video game counterpart is nowhere near as interesting – although there is a couple of hours of mindless fun to be had.

A poorly made, weird game. It's best asset is the creativity of the director, and the music of the playable part. A 35 minutes game can't ever be good at such an expensive price.

Looks good with some decent boss battles, but lack of content and replay value disappoints.

It targets the hardcore Japanese game fans and asks them how much. How much do they love Japan? How much are they willing to pay? The answer, inevitably, is not enough.

The interesting and well-animated short films on the disc don't do enough to repair the damage the poor game has done or make this package as a whole a worthwhile investment.

Stylistically Suda 51 proves with Short Peace once more that he is a visionary. But in terms of gameplay and technically this short runner leaves a lot to be desired.