Root Double -Before Crime * After Days- Xtend Edition (PC) Review

Don't come into this thinking it will be anything like the Zero Escape series. While that was very well received, with an engaging main plot, and a tremendous fulfilling 'overarching' plot, Root Double struggles to find any pacing, and never really catches its feet in any capacity. It leaves a lot to be desired on many levels. This is more like a pure visual novel, with very few choices that really matter, which separates it immediately from its other similar games. The only major choice is at the beginning: whether to first read about the nuclear accident, or a 'slice of life' story beforehand. The nuclear story is by far the better one, but even that is rife with problem the whole story suffers from.

Pacing is horrendous. One might think that being thrust into a fire inside a melting down nuclear reactor might be an interesting plot, yet this successfully manages to keep it boring. The plot revolves around the main character that is an amnesic fire-fighter, carried through the plot by his two fellow fire-fighter women teammates. There are some interesting ideas such as a dwindling supply of anti-rad meds, but the story largely goes nowhere fast. This is the more exciting route, the other being a slice of life, high school story.

Characters meander with their points, huge exposition dumps are common, and plots that don't matter are routine. Hours into the game, and still nothing is really happening. Contrast that with 999 where even from the beginning the story was a tremendous hook, from surviving a flooding room, a sinking ship and so on. In here characters generally don't seem fazed, and there is little tension. It is really striking just how much text serves no purpose. Even contrast this with a different sci-fi-pure visual novel Planetarian, which arguably has a huge slice of life element to it, but the story was carried by a good interaction between the characters and hints at a deeper plot. Here, characters are dim-witted and there is nothing is driving the plot forward. No real mystery, no drama.

One of the worst parts is the 'Sense' system, which is a very rough way to have some minor choices in the plot. It revolves around picking who you trust more in a situation: yourself or others. From here completely random things like rushing into the fire, or staying silent come from it. Ultimately it doesn't matter too much as any plot point is very short lived before it gets back to the main plot. In the end, the game is just disappointing. It takes too long to get anywhere good. The characters are not memorable or fun, and the meandering plot is too painful to really endure for the 20+ hours it takes to get anywhere. Sad, because there might be a good story in there, but it needed to be trimmed out to recommend.