Root Letter: Last Answer

 PlayStation 4
Metascore
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No score yet - based on 2 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 2
  3. Negative: 0 out of 2
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  1. Push Square
    Sep 4, 2019
    70
    It's an engaging and compelling narrative with more twists in the tail than we could count, and it's the visual novel side of things which supports that with a set of robust features and mechanics. You'll be able to scan scenes for clues and people to talk to via a cursor, while an inventory allows you to tailor a conversation to a specific piece of evidence. Meanwhile, investigations give you the chance to get to the bottom of a certain point in a case and Max Mode varies your responses to people of interest on an increasingly ludicrous scale.

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User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 3
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 3
  3. Negative: 2 out of 3
  1. gamerz4life
    May 14, 2022
    10
    I stumbled upon this game when seeing an advertisement for its ‘loose sequel’ Root Film. Advertised as a game that would be enjoyed by thoseI stumbled upon this game when seeing an advertisement for its ‘loose sequel’ Root Film. Advertised as a game that would be enjoyed by those who like Ace Attorney and Danganronpa, as it had a similar investigation theme and it was another visual novel type game. The game’s story is really interesting and the mystery of finding your penpal and what happened to them immediately pulled me in.

    The game said that there was different endings. I thought this was based off of things you said, or clicked on, and the answers and questions you gave in your letters. Basically a conglomeration of all these things. However, after receiving my ending which was truly awful and not a single thing was solved, all the loose threads were still loose, I looked into these endings. First these endings are determined solely on the responses and questions chosen in the letters at the beginning of the chapters. Okay fine, so it’s doing this based on different factors in these responses and you can mix and match as you see fit to get different answers, right? Wrong! Each ending requires you select a specific line, meaning one ending requires you selecting the first response and question for each letter, another ending is the second response and answer and so on. But while Crossing Paths apparently follows this line, it is also the game’s go-to and weakest ending if you selected different answers throughout the game as I did. This would be considered the negative ending because as I said after all your searching and investigation nothing gets solved and you receive no answers from anyone. Don’t be deterred if you receive this ending, the others are much more satisfying.

    So not only did I figure this out after my first playthrough but it turned out that you only unlock the true ending ‘Bonds of Marriage’ after receiving your first ending. The positive I have to say in regards to these endings is that you don’t have to replay the entire game to see how each ending turns out! The creators thought ahead and put in a ‘skip’ function that allows you to only have to choose your letter responses and then you go into your phone and hit skip to get to the next chapter and letter. You can do this through the first 8 chapters until you get to chapters 9&10 where the story is completely different for each ending. (You no longer have to play through chapter 8 each time as you apparently did in the original Root Letter.) If you’re only interested in playing it the one time and then seeing the true ending I would recommend ‘The Princess of Himegamori Forest’ ending. You can look up a guide to see how to get each ending, they just tell you which responses to choose and don’t actually tell you what the ending is, so you can avoid spoilers! Though if you play all endings, you unlock further Last Answer epilogues for them all except the bad ‘Crossing Paths’ ending (a new addition).

    I find it interesting that with these five endings, each contains pieces of the whole that when viewed separately leave unanswered questions but when you play all of the endings, you get a clear picture of what was going on in Matsue 15 years ago.

    In the end, I would definitely recommend this game, it’s a well-done visual novel that is set in a real place in Japan (I played one ending with the dramatic setting on aka the real actors and places, which is a new feature for Last Answer) and the game is spot on. I have no doubt that you could actually travel to Matsue and wander through all the places in this game. After playing all five endings, one after another, I would fully recommend playing them all to get the full story. An unexpected gem of a game!    … Full Review »
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