Shuten Order Review – Five Visual Novels in One

Shuten Order Review

Shuten Order is the newest game written by Kazutaka Kodaka, the creator and writer of Danganronpa. He’s also written and directed several other story-driven mystery games, like Death Come True and Master Detective Archives: Rain Code. The original idea behind Shuten Order was that Kodaka wanted to make a visual novel that contained gameplay of several different visual novel series. Read-on to find out if Shuten Order succeeds in its ambitions!

Shuten Order takes place in a small nation called Shuten, which is ruled by the Shuten Order. Every citizen of Shuten is a member of The Order. They’re a cult that prays for the end of the world. But they’re a peaceful cult. Despite this, there are many that oppose their beliefs. The day before the game begins, The Founder of the Shuten Order is found dead by one of the five Ministers who help run the Shuten Order.

A Gripping Mystery

On January 1^st, our protagonist, Rei, wakes up in an unfamiliar apartment. They have no memory, and are quickly greeted by two angels. The angels tell Rei that they died the day before, but they weren’t supposed to. Not even God foresaw their death. But God granted them a temporary body, and they have to overcome “God’s Trial”, which involves learning the truth behind their own death. Rei is told they have “The Power of God”. This means that they can pray, and God will grant them miracles appropriate to their situation.

The angels take Rei to a meeting of the five Shuten Ministers, and we discover Rei was The Founder of the Shuten Order. They tell Rei that one of the Ministers is The Founder’s killer, and that Rei has to use The Power of God to investigate who the killer is. At the end of this first day, Rei dies, and is discovered by the same Minister who discovered The Founder’s dead body. Rei is reincarnated with only their memories of the prior day, and 167 days remain until the end of the world.

A Bizarre Setting

This is a fantastic story set up, and one that had me excited for all the narrative events and twists. Shuten is such a strange setting. There’s a gigantic (larger than any skyscraper) headless statue in the middle of the city. There are flags with the symbol of The Shuten Order everywhere. Confetti falls from the sky. The architecture, and decoration is hyper-stylized. All of these components drove my interest.

Unfortunately, Shuten Order’s excellent narrative concept is plagued by some bad writing. For example, Rei is given a mask to hide their face, but it only covers one eye and one cheek. So it’s useless. The Power of God can grant miracles that do anything, but it can’t stop five security guards chasing Rei. There’s no reason to think one of the Ministers is The Founder’s killer beyond the game just telling us we should assume so. The angels are always withholding information from Rei without justification (other than it serving the narrative to be revealed later). These examples are all lazy, and could have been solved with a little more thought.

Visual Novel Writing Tropes

Another issue with Shuten Order’s writing is a classic Japanese visual novel problem. The dialogue can get really long-winded. It’s a long game, and about 20% of it is bloat created by repetitive dialogue. Shuten Order also has some really bad anime tropes. There are lots of exposition dumps. The player is told a lot that they should be shown. Or that they should play. There are also aspects that the player just has to take for granted, like how an entire nation is run by teenagers. Some of these elements are going to be dealbreakers for players who are turned-off by visual novels.

The base gameplay for Shuten Order is a mix of first and third-person perspectives. Most of the game is dialogue sequences the player just has to read and click through. There are rooms that require the player to move the camera and click on objects to examine, or click on people to talk to. When the perspective switches to third-person, the player can move their character around the environment. Most of the game is static 2D art, with very little animation. The 3D player model in the third-person section looks very out of place.

Five Gameplay Scenarios

The unique hook of the gameplay is that every Minister that needs to be investigated has a different gameplay style. They’re all different types of visual novels, which use the core gameplay of the framing narrative. One chapter has an Ace Attorney-style investigation. Another has a Zero Escape-style escape room scenario. One has multiple perspectives, and a flow chart. The fourth one is a dating sim. And the final one has the player being stalked by a killer in a stalker horror stealth scenario.

All of these investigations can be played in any order. They have very similar core mechanics, but keep the gameplay fresh. I was always wondering how the next chapter would be different. The problem with this set up is that the differences are quite shallow. There’s no depth to any of the systems, because each chapter is a piece of a greater whole. I enjoyed the variety, but I could see some players seeing the variety as a thin veil over similar gameplay.

Gorgeous Aesthetics

Shuten Order is aesthetically gorgeous, aside from the 3D character models. All of the manga-style character art is gorgeous. Every character is detailed and wacky. The color palette is extremely vibrant, with neon pinks and blues for shadows. The backgrounds are painted beautifully, and showcase the unique environment that is the Shuten Nation. The music is equally gorgeous. There are lots of kinetic jazzy sounds mixed in with modern pop. Sometimes the score slows down, and has somber low-fi piano. The soundtrack really reminded me of the Castlevania: Symphony of the Night score, which is one of the all-time greats. The audio is Japanese-only, which was fine for me, but is still worth noting.

I really enjoyed Shuten Order. The narrative kept me excited to find out the identity of The Founder’s killer. I really enjoyed the structure of every investigation being a different style of visual novel. But the game suffers from many of the issues that plague the visual novel genre. The writing is long-winded, and can be lazy at times. There are lots of bad anime tropes that are going to turn away anyone who isn’t already a visual novel fan. But if you love the genre, Shuten Order is one of my favorite new visual novels in quite a while.

***Switch code provided by the publisher***