(Mirrored from Steam)

When I was gifted an 8 GB visual novel all of a sudden, I wasn't sure what to think. I've only played pure visual novels maybe twice or so in the past, those being rather short in comparison to all the well-known titles out there. Seeing the word salad title and an artstyle that I wasn't so keen on at first, in truth I was partially expecting some weird dating sim mechanics despite the descriptions purely since I decided to go in completely blind.
And boy, after going in around half an hour or so, were my first impressions wrong.

What I got was a pretty engaging story with some interesting characters that also continued to fit the mood of danger that Root Double's all about. As the events progressed, I started warming up to the plot, intrigued by whatever was going to happen next and finding the choice selection system a little interesting to say the least.

Usually I see amnesia as a lazy plot device, and lots of things seemed out of place at first, such as the characters (where the poster girl rubbed me the wrong way, being the archetype of the well-dressed, frail girl), but soon I found that the game was genuinely fooling me into suspending my belief non-stop. From moments that are flat-out unexplainable to curiosities the game presents, the first act of the game ends up being a rollercoaster of rising "bad feelings" that raises the stakes and somehow feels like you're getting further and further away to getting any answers, but nonetheless keeps you pushing on with a protagonist that you're desperately rooting for. Perhaps most people remember the story the most for this segment, and it wouldn't be an understatement to say that the mood of the story here is entirely different from the rest, being a series of decisions between life-or-death and trust.

But then, that story suddenly ends. With all the correct decisions you've made, now you have to complete the second point-of-view with the second act that has a completely different tone shift from what you just got out of, being a slice of life with elements that seem far-too-cliche for the genre. While it may be off-putting for some, this story is also integral, and at the very least offers a break from the oppressive action seen before by bringing in characters you've seen before and chasing a mystery that sets the events of the game into motion. Not to mention that the secondary protagonist has his own demons to encounter, and since this part of the game functions as a lead-up to the current point in time, characters re-appear and some holes get filled in as a result. Because of this, the reader starts seeing things differently having obtained new knowledge, and impressions on characters start to change constantly. First you may be wary of a character in the first act, only to warm up to them, but on the other hand, characters that you trust are now testing that bond to you as the reader. When things really pick up, shifting away from the slice-of-life break, the events all converge into the main and final stretch of the story where it all comes together.

When I mentioned that the game fools you, this is where everything is revealed, showing that all along, the seemingly strange events, characters, and so on all have valid reasons to their existence, causing Chekhov's gun, boomerang, and whatever weapon you want to keep becoming a factor that's more apparent when you go back and re-read prior segments of the story. You have several crowning emotional and awesome moments, though unfortunately the final act is a bit of an exposition dump.

It was great to finally unravel the mystery at last, but to interject, this is where the game ends up feeling slightly different and its little flaws are more apparent. In the very first act, you're making near-constant use of the game's choice system, and while choices are in high volume due to how it's a rather tension-ridden, action-packed story, the overall use of this system is used far less in the second (for a fair reason) and only used for major moments in the final. This is due to the second half having less direct mystery and settling loose ends before the proper major issue in the story is tackled by the cast, but it's why the first part of the game feels entirely different now that you've gone everything only to end up learning all the motivations behind the characters. Unfortunately, some may see this as slow, and personally, I admit this feels kind of lazy when a major point of the tension in the story was that it wasn't the nuclear radiation or the fires that were "the danger". I also have general other nitpicks, the biggest one involving the most critical turning point in the story that finally lets the cast members face towards escaping the facility. I was hoping here would be the point that has some real crisis or confrontation, but it was rather smoothed over thanks to a major plot point by the second protagonist, absolving the problem that came up at that moment rather immediately, followed by what was a massive leap in resolving that scene.

Despite all that, I'd say the story came together really well, removing all the burning questions I had in my mind and coming up with some rather amazing twists and more emotional moments (not gonna lie I nearly teared up several times). It's hard to explain when this review is already trying its best to spoil as little as possible, but again, part of Root Double's charm for me was convincing me that the characters would be rather basic, that it wasn't hiding anything behind the curtains, and that I'd be in for a very simple resolution. After you've made all the right choices, and after several climatic points in the final stretch of the story, you earn your true ending and see a rather complete and wonderful conclusion in my eyes.

My only other complaints aside from some story nitpicks, I was rather neutral to one character and ended up never liking another, but I genuinely enjoyed the characterization of the rest of the cast otherwise. Also, to properly enjoy the true ending of the game, 100% completion was practically required in all the previous routes, which wasn't clear to me at first and was kind of annoying to go back and grind to (use those Z and R keyboard buttons!), but even so, once I got them, they provided really good closure and only empowered me to watch the ending one last time again. Otherwise, the visuals and SFX in Root Double were just fine and did their job (albeit with some derpy-looking scenes), though many of the voice actors committed to rather good performances that empowered scenes where it really mattered; I found out that against my expectations that some of the VAs are rather popular as well (Watase's doesn't seem to scream properly though lol). Lastly, some people complain about the BGM being boring, though to me I think many of the tracks were wonderfully done, and many of them fit SO WELL with the setting given a scene. In fact, I swear that some of the music seems reminiscent of 999 (and there's quite a few unused tracks I ripped that are pretty chill too).

Anyway, that's as vague as I decided to write the review without spoiling moments. I genuinely enjoyed Root Double all and all, and the fact that the whole title actually has meaning now is only a testament to how much the game explains all it has going on. It has awesome twists and characters that I may as well remember down the line, though not everyone may be a fan of the final pacing. You could wait for a sale if you're uncertain, but at least to me, even if I got it as a gift, it's worth the price for a pretty good story with loads of content. YMMV, but as someone who's been thirsting for a good tale, I can highly recommend this along with its flaws. 85/100

Really solid. Pretty interesting the whole through way through. Has some pacing issues, mostly flashback related. I liked all the main characters by the end. They all ended up being a lot more interesting than first expected, I actually thought they would keep some relatively undeveloped but the way system worked made it so they did. Best girl was probably Mashiro by the end but it's pretty close with all the girls besides Yuuri.

I liked the choice system in theory but without a walkthrough it can be frustrating to figure out how to do them properly, especially with the bazillion of choices in this VN. If they were to do this style of choices again, I think they should either heavily limit the amount of them, or mix them into regular choices.

While not all of its ambitions are executed with crystal clear success, “Root Double” knew to draw a line somewhere and it is satisfyingly complete tale for its constraint. With a strong, tension filled opening sucking you into the mysteries of its plot and good emotional payoffs at the end for its likable cast, the structural weaknesses are easy to forgive.

The setup of this Adventure title is camped firmly in the framework of the “escape room” subgenre anyone who’s played Danganronpa or the Zero Escape series would be familiar with. A group of people all with very different circumstances one day find themselves stuck in dangerous place with the near impossible task of escaping—all while clashing personalities and growing suspicions complicate their ability to work together.

It’s a genre that balances many elements—tension, mystery, character writing—and it succeeds in delivering on these elements just not consistently.

The tension starts high and well paced, but then it will take too long of a break or interrupt at an odd time around the middle to late parts of the story. Never so badly that it can’t recover, but enough that you’re aware it happened.

The questions the story poses are often fairly small and predictable, but in their sheer number it’s still compelling to see how they all fit together into one whole.

The character writing is not often subtle, but there’s still a kind of gracefulness in its openness. There’s a way in which it plays obvious sleights of hand and yet the challenge isn’t to guess what trick it hid. The challenge is to continue trusting that somewhere behind the curtain is a detail that will make things turn out the way you hope they will.

What this story does do consistently well, is detail. Detail in the setting. Detail in the characters. Detail in the action. Detail in the mystery. By the end of it I couldn’t think of one interesting plot thread that wasn’t resolved in a satisfying way or any plot convenience so contrived it breaks the illusion.

If you comb through with the intent to find them, you likely will. But even history is subject to scrutiny. The point here is that for whatever Root Double lacks in plating and portion size control, the narrative is still a satisfying dish from a competent chef.

Quite unfortunately, the singular interactive element is decidedly the weakest ingredient despite having the most promise. Rather than picking from a set of clear-cut text responses at the games branch points, the act of picking itself is a small puzzle through the “Senses Sympathy System” where you set sliders for each relevant character to the branch to determine… your general positive/negative impression of them? The game is rather vague about it, but your intuition is rarely far off.

The decisions made will generally favor the viewpoint of the characters whose setting is High and disfavor the view of whoever is Low. However, this often results in two problems: one, a lot of the best decisions to make for the Grand Ending is to just put everyone high; two, when this isn’t the case the lack of definition on what it means makes it feel inconsistent.

Additionally, there are 9 possible values for each slider, but in all put a very small handful of MANY decisions made over the game, the game is only checking LOW/MEDIUM/HIGH. And it’s frankly too abstract to reason with it besides trial and error.

I tried the first route of the game without a guide rather excited to figure it out, but by the end of that (which is only a third of the game) the structure of the story and the amount of experimentation needed just felt at odds.

The graduated selections promise a lot of small variations. But, realistically it just doesn’t fit with how long the story is, how many correct decisions need to be made to reach the true end, and how little time a reader can reasonably be expected to spend on any one decision. There are ultimately only really 2-3 story changes possible per decision and most are very minor. Though, to its credit, it does a good job of telling the player how important each one is.

This isn’t really a problem unique to Root Double, however, so while disappointing, I wouldn’t turn away from it for that. I imagine few people would even read through a very popular title like Steins;Gate without a guide for its obscure decision making system.

I very much would recommend Root Double to anyone looking to get an escape room drama fix. It’s more grounded and less pessimistic than many of its peers, which I’m personally a fan of, but there’s also plenty of near-future sci-fi thrills for those who enjoy that. It’s a bit more of a time commitment than it perhaps should have been, so be prepared to do some skimming depending on how well you’re following the plot. But, ultimately, I think its worth it in the end.