Death end re;Quest

 PlayStation 4
User Score
7.8

Generally favorable reviews- based on 60 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 43 out of 60
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 60
  3. Negative: 9 out of 60
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  1. MiraiMoon
    Mar 16, 2019
    5
    An interesting visual novel RPG that contains a lot of really good ideas that aren't utilized well. While the battle system is fairly interesting and stands out among other action RPGs, it is also fairly unbalanced in that your party can become easily overpowered (on Normal difficulty) and enemies aren't necessarily made more"difficult" but rather just "annoying" as they focus on healingAn interesting visual novel RPG that contains a lot of really good ideas that aren't utilized well. While the battle system is fairly interesting and stands out among other action RPGs, it is also fairly unbalanced in that your party can become easily overpowered (on Normal difficulty) and enemies aren't necessarily made more"difficult" but rather just "annoying" as they focus on healing themselves more over trying to take you out.

    The biggest faults in Death End stems from its lackluster writing and boring dungeon and monster designs. Plot elements are thrown in wildly and many are dropped with zero fanfare to leave players more confused than invested. Additionally, plot elements are just seemed to be forgotten for the sake of forcing the "normal route" down a single story that contradicts established (or rather, hastily shoved-in) elements previously shown. This flawed writing style is only heightened with insufficient use of its concepts, generic and predictable plot twists, and strange B-Plots including one about randomly running around the map to locate specific flags to trigger conversations with a minor character that doesn't actually contribute to the game in any way.

    The game's amazing character designs, cool concepts, interesting battle mechanics, and (sometimes) catchy music can not save a game like this. It one that was bound to either be an A+ role-playing game or a game that completely squandered its potential to become a forgettable mess, and unfortunately Death End falls into the latter.

    As someone who was actually fairly excited and interested in this game before it was released (though only getting to play it a few weeks after launch), it's unfortunate to me that this game was just mediocre at best.    … Expand
  2. tomvs123
    Nov 9, 2020
    6
    A unique take on the "stuck in a video game" genre, and it pulls it off better than similar games I've played.

    You start out as a programmer who receives a strange email from the director of a game you worked on, who has been missing for a year. You quickly find out that this person is stuck in that game, even though it was canceled during development. From there, you switch    A unique take on the "stuck in a video game" genre, and it pulls it off better than similar games I've played.

    You start out as a programmer who receives a strange email from the director of a game you worked on, who has been missing for a year. You quickly find out that this person is stuck in that game, even though it was canceled during development. From there, you switch perspectives between the programmer in the real world and the director in the video game, trying to find out why this is all happening and to get the director out of the game.

    Dumb character actions and plot holes are common in these types of games, but this one is an exception. The characters are smart and make good decisions based on the information they have. Several questionable things come up while you progress through the story, such as programming working more like magic than actual programming, and many conveniently timed and placed clues that lead you to your next objective. Though by the end of the game, most all of this is explained and makes sense (although the explanations are a bit weak).

    Something that seems out of place in the game are the occasional gore/graphic death scenes, which are mostly text based. You experience them rarely and they're normally the result of one of the many bad endings, so you just reload from a point when your characters were in a more optimistic mood. Because of this, the characters don't have to deal with the consequences of these horrific scenes, so they seem disconnected from the main story.

    The game has multiple final endings that are easy to unlock. No weird farming or grinding needed, like in earlier Idea Factory games (such as Omega Quintet). Basically, you get an ending for each female character, that either triggers randomly or based on which character hit the final boss last. I didn't test this since I just watched all of the endings on Youtube after I got one. Most of them are well-written and somewhat vague, but one in particular, for the main character, reaches levels of happiness, friendship, and dimensional-twisting nonsense, that it basically ruined what little dark tone the game had. Don't expect a lot of mature themes and deep thought here. The game is not nearly as profound as I wish it was.

    Combat is okay. It's a variation of the typical Neptunia/Idea Factory position-based combat system. Changes are that you can position yourself anywhere on the battlefield during your turn and many attacks knock enemies around pool-style (doing damage when they hit other things). It was somewhat challenging at first, but quickly became easy after the characters learned resurrection spells and I figured out that certain skills do massive damage to certain enemies. Combat has no major issues, though it's not not very strategic, challenging, or interesting.

    Character power growth isn't great. Your equipment upgrade path is very limited and doesn't matter much as long as you equip the strongest thing you've happen to find. Not once did I need to buy equipment from a shop. The equipment found in the next dungeon would be stronger than it anyway. Each character has a different skill set, and you unlock skills by stringing together your existing skills in different ways (you can use three skills per turn). Through simple trial-and-error, you can easily unlock most skills early-game. Though the high-powered skills went mostly unused, as more economical skills would do almost as much damage, but with far less mana cost. But of course, after you learn a certain summon, mana is no longer an issue as you can easily replenish it all whenever you want by using that summon.

    I wasn't expecting much, but was glad that the game turned out good. The story is by far the best and most interesting part of the game. Thankfully, it is well-done, even though early-on, it seems like its going to be a childish plot-hole filled mess. I'll definitely play the sequel to see if they were able to improve on this formula.    … Expand
  3. pixeldrum
    Jul 3, 2020
    6
    Death End Re; Quest is quite a unique JRPG, and it has a few charm points that seem to make it distinguish itself from the rest. It's got a pretty unique plot. It uses two different perspectives to presenting a story: one inside a VRMMORPG, the other, in the real wold. There are a lot of mysteries surrounding the characters in those two perspectives until the climax of the story, where theDeath End Re; Quest is quite a unique JRPG, and it has a few charm points that seem to make it distinguish itself from the rest. It's got a pretty unique plot. It uses two different perspectives to presenting a story: one inside a VRMMORPG, the other, in the real wold. There are a lot of mysteries surrounding the characters in those two perspectives until the climax of the story, where the plot finally unveils.
    Is it worth the wait? No, not really. The story's pacing is kind of just terrible. It's extremely slow paced, to the point of a snail's crawl for 90% of the story, and then there's this climatic ending part of the story where so much nonsensical and random events keep on happening that barely get explained and push the story forward. Characters adapt quickly to the change of events, and it just seems like the plot is being forcefully pushed forward to finally finish the story, wrap up all the mysteries, and have a good ending. The story's ending was lame, and lacked any finesse. For a JRPG/visualnovel, the story is one of the most essential parts of the game, and yet it seems extremely lackluster. Was the story unique? Yes, but it wasn't really good. It's just not well put together and it meshes poorly with the previous 90% of the game. I wish the story was more well paced so that there isn't such a condensed ending that nobody is satisfied with. And to begin with, the slow paced part of the story is also mediocre. Plot holes are numerous, and if you just thought about all the situations the characters were in, you realize how improbable the possibilities of success they would have, and yet they keep on succeeding and moving on to their next improbable success in order to keep the story going. Different characters that seem important to the plot end up playing absolutely no role in the ending as well. In the end, the mediocre slow paced beginning was only tolerated for the good ending part, yet that was not the respite that we were given.

    Well, what about the gameplay itself? how is that? Yes, the gameplay is pretty decent. I enjoy the combat system since it's not just a turn based JRPG like final fantasy, and it's a unique idea. There's a bit of thinking involved even if it isn't too complex. It's an unpolished gem, but still, pretty good. Poor balancing in attributes and terrible animations, however, make it only an unpolished gem. The gameengine for the actual gameplay is pretty poor. Overused enemy sprites, moves, bad graphics, and lack of fluid animation doesn't keep up with the novelty of the gameplay mechanics.

    Graphics are extremely lacking in the game when we're talking about the overworld, but the hand drawn animations when characters are talking are something I haven't seen before. Characters move their mouths, they have their idle animations, and also different poses and expressions when talking with each other. All of this are done by using 2D animation. I appreciate that, because dialogue is very long, and seeing the characters actually move their mouths and change expressions was very nice.
    Characters themselves are just average. Nothing amazing, and nothing too bad. It doesn't conform to archetypes that much, but yet, the characters are extremely hollow. There are titles that are associated with them the moment you meet them, and they never develop outside that boundary. It's interesting, isn't it? A game focused around dialgoue and story has no character development. I didn't really understand either. There was no effort to flesh out characters once they integrated into the main team, and it shows in everyone's bland dialogue that keeps on getting spewed over and over again. Of course, it's because of the direction extremely boring story that limits them from actually having any personality and ways to grow.
    Overall, this game was pretty unfortunate. It did not meet to my expectations when I put in 25 hours of time into completing the game. It's overambitious with plot and it backfires with bad overall graphics with a mediocre cast of characters that you are uninvested in.    … Expand
  4. ChiChibisu
    Sep 1, 2020
    7
    I want to give this game an 8 but I really can’t. Its a typical JRPG with multiple twists, but even those twists got stale. I really like the idea of switching genres from the usual turn based action, but it kinda fell off from what I thought it would be when I read the description for the game. Battles got kinda quick and boring after like a few chapters in considering I got multipleI want to give this game an 8 but I really can’t. Its a typical JRPG with multiple twists, but even those twists got stale. I really like the idea of switching genres from the usual turn based action, but it kinda fell off from what I thought it would be when I read the description for the game. Battles got kinda quick and boring after like a few chapters in considering I got multiple skills that could one shot enemies. It becomes a flow at some point with easy xp and just a temporary stop to the exploration that got really repetitive. Then, the skill gain system gets extremely tedious at some point, especially with achievements considering that finding combinations of skills to preform the flash drive with gets nigh impossible later in game. Then you have the dungeons, they end up becoming a “find the key to open a door” trope that I don’t like. They can end up being in corners you ran past multiple times but didn’t see it because they blended in so well that even perfect vision can’t spot it. Then you have times where you can’t open a door or get past a barricade until an event (technically a VN section or boss battle) is completed or you switch to reality to solve something in the real world, which you almost never realize until you have to pause for a break. All in all, this game would’ve probably been so much better as a Visual Novel instead.

    Now with the criticisms out of the way, lets get to the praise that earned this 7 in the first place. I never heard of a JRPG that allowed you to make it something else entirely in battle. Then the flash drive system is possibly one of the unique ways I’ve ever seen you could get a skill. The switch between reality and the game function is a great way to tell different perspectives. The soundtrack makes me wonder why people haven’t compared it to NieR Automata and Persona 5. The story makes me wonder why I stream this game because I have to cliffhang so much when the game has me captivated. The death end system can seem repetitive, but not only is it useful for getting items exclusive to that, it makes almost every choice seem so dreadful that you really have anxiety when you can’t save at a choice. The characters are great and when you learn the truth behind multiple characters (whether they are good, evil or aren’t what you thought) it can leave your mouth wide open. PLOT TWISTS ACTUALLY FEEL LIKE PLOT TWISTS! Did I mention the soundtrack? Caligula Syndrome hits different. The death ends can actually disturb you, and thats a good thing. The voice acting, both English and Japanese are absolutely great, but I love how the characters feel so alive in the English dub. All in all, not only is this game one of the best JRPGs I’ve ever played, I was questioning reality by the time I got off, and I haven’t even beaten the game yet.    … Expand
  5. Domino3
    Oct 5, 2020
    7
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The games is fun but it gets annoying as girl run and she like hahaha like jesus and the nG was such a tease the final require 3 face 1 2 3 the most annoying if you didn't have absorbed magic u would be screw on this boss thank god I hat that and i beat multiple times… Expand

Awards & Rankings

99
#99 Most Discussed PS4 Game of 2019
67
#67 Most Shared PS4 Game of 2019

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
71

Mixed or average reviews - based on 29 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 29
  2. Mixed: 18 out of 29
  3. Negative: 1 out of 29
  1. GamingTrend
    May 7, 2019
    45
    Death end re;Quest is not a terrible game, but it certainly doesn’t do much to stand out from a crowded and trope friendly glut of JRPG titles. The battle mode plays like a game of pool and has a lot of interesting features, but the writing is tired, the characters are overly sexualized and mentally deficient as always, and the game is set in a bland world with little detail or points of interest. Death end re;Quest is another game for fans of long dialogues leading nowhere.
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  2. Meristation
    Apr 24, 2019
    72
    Death end re;Quest offers an interesting story and characters that developers through its many chapters until the very end of it and keeping interest on both. Also its combat system with plenty of habilities and the Battle Jack makes it pretty addictive to keep fighting enemies to level up. The main flaw the game has resides on the dungeons which are boring and pretty repetitive.
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  3. Gameblog.fr
    Apr 4, 2019
    70
    Death end Re;Quest is good mix between an original J-RPG and a visual novel, with two different heroes.
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