Root Letter Last Answer Reviews

It gets tedious navigating through like 20 different locations, only to find out I need to be somewhere else after I arrive. Definitely feels like a tourism promo content when they drill in Matsue local everything, as the regional specialty they mention are not that special and can get too much. The characters are okay, and since it is difficult to care about them, I am not motivated to replay for the other endings. I read about them and the dark endings are more interesting. Overall the game is too simple to enjoy. I will not play any other Root franchise after this, since I didn't really like Root Film either. The MC Max is alright. At least he is better than the rest of the cast.

Well, if this is travelling game, it should be fine. You can enjoy some calming and beautiful sites around Shimane prefecture, Japan. But - mystery is shit. - The investigation is boring and not interesting at all. [spoiler] - Multiple endings where most of them are nonsense and inconsistent with each other. [/spoiler] Btw, I've played its sequel, Root film. It's much better than this one. I would say it's real mystery game unlike its prequel.

Great story, well written characters, and top notch voice work. Loved the approach to multiple endings with a lot of variety - scary, wacky, thoughtful, happy - and how they handled the tonal shift for each of them.

Root Letter: Last Answer is an enhanced version of Root Letter which is an investigative visual novel originally released in 2016. The enhancement is mainly replacing the original anime characters with real actors and actresses as stand ins.  Plot: You are searching for your long lost pen-pal friend, Aya Fumino, who mysteriously disappeared 15 years ago. You read a letter that she wrote, where she said she killed someone and must atone for her sins. You go to visit her hometown of Matsue to investigate what happened to her, and question her classmates about her.  Gameplay: Besides reading text like other visual novels, Root Letter has investigative gameplay elements. That means you can go to different locations in Matsue, use inventory items to help investigate, interrogate people using a technique called MAX mode where you have to time your key press in order to get the best information out of the character. So there’s significantly more gameplay at work here compared to most visual novels. Fumino Aya – A senior at high school who loves history and mythology. She’s also your pen pal from 15 years ago. Back then, she came across as kind and compassionate – but as you investigate her disappearance, you begin to question everything you thought you knew about her. Ishihara Yukari – The daughter of an advertising exec and a waitress at a diner – Yukari grew up to be curator at the Shimane Art Museum. Always in the shadow of her older sister who had the privilege of going to a prestigious university, she developed something of an inferiority complex. Omori Jun – Dedicated to the art of making exquisite pastries and sweets, Omori owns one of the best patisseries in Shimane. He has a kind and gentle demeanour, but does this hide a dark secret?  Tanaka Kousuke – Mild mannered and suffering from lack of confidence, Tanaka has a mild speech impediment. As a kid he was always the smartest boy in school and was destined for great things. Then all of a sudden his grades started to crash. What was it that happened 15 years ago that ruined his once-perfect academic record? Watanabe Masaya – One minute he was high school’s star athlete dreaming of becoming a professional baseball player. The next minute he’s injured and consigned to the side-lines. The tragedy was too much to take and so he fell in with the wrong crowd and was destined for a life of petty crime. Now, as an adult, he’s turned himself around, teaching PE at the local school.  Murakami Misaki – A television presenter for a local channel, Misaki’s family runs a sake brewery. She is sometimes a little blunt and rude and craves the life of a serious news reporter. She believes that she must be impartial and report the truth – but isn’t that just a little hypocritical given the events of the past? Nozu Shota – Shota was a spoilt kid who had a life of wealth and privilege. When his father’s company brought shame on itself or being involved in fraud, Shota went from having it all to being on the brink of poverty. He now works as a bartender, which is hardly where thought his future would be.  Sasaki Riko – Riko is just an average housewife married to an average guy – which is a long way from where she wanted to be. Pretty and talented, she always wanted to be an actress, so that she could become rich and famous and look after her parents Graphics: Root Letter: Last Answer, compared to the original Root Letter, uses photos of actors/actresses as stand ins for the original anime visuals, which adds more realism to the game. Music: The music is nice and ambient, not too distracting, which is suitable for an investigate visual novel like this. Conclusion: 6/10. People who are interested in investigate thrillers might like it, but to me it’s a little bit bland, the story doesn’t pull me in that much compared to other investigate thrillers, and the gameplay elements are a bit shallow. Compared to something like the Danganronpa series or even the Famicom Detective Club remakes, Root Letter / Last Answer doesn’t interest me as much. The protagonist has a fairly bland personality and each of Aya’s classmates are essentially based on stereotypes. For the ‘murder mystery in a small japanese town’ thing, World End Syndrome did it better and was more interesting for me. Furthermore I don’t really think the real life visuals are an enhancement at all. It adds realism to the game sure, but personally I didn’t have an issue with the original’s anime characters and I don’t find the photos to be an upgrade. So it’s just a very average visual novel overall for me. Not bad, not great.

The new drama version that included real-life photos truly captivated me! (The actors & actress are all good-looking) While the game is already pretty straight-forward, there are a lot of hints and tutorial given. Hence, the game was in fact a 'relaxing' visual novel rather than a challenging thriller game. The story is rich and engaging enough for someone who hasn't been to Shimane (wants to go there) like me. While the interface could have been better, the game's investigation mechanics are fine. Overall, the story line is great. If you are into Japanese urban legends and anime mysteries, I would recommend this title.

Root Letter is a mystery AVG game with terrible plot. As a tourism promotional material, this game misses the chance to highlight the attractions, For example, the game didn't show the wonderful river view, no pictures/videos. and the epic castle is a plain background photo. No one is explaining the back story of this spectacular fortress...No one knows the structure of it. It's like: "hey guys, come to Shimane, we have a castle!!" kinda weak promotion. There's no way to browse around and take a close look to it. If you want some information??? check out on Google. Moreover, detective element is insignificant, you're required to hit all tourist spots rather than tracking the villain... nor there's any critical thinking... There're too many plot twists, the reasons why the 7 characters conceal the truth are insanely weak. "You promised that we were going to the same Uni, and you went to Havard!!! You're a bxtch!!" Come on, you're freaking adults, stop these non sense already!!!!!! There're too many WTF moments you just don't care. The inter person relationship among the 8 classmates are supposed to be complicated, they're about friendship, betrayal ,rivalry and so on. But the presentation is like kids' bullying. That's all. Few characters are terribly disgusting. (4-eyes and bartender) Their behavior could be naive, some of them almost commit/ had committed crime. And they have no ground to complain about others. Thus, no way the player could agree with their acts. Why should I listen to a sex criminal??? fuxk off!! Some endings are ridiculously unacceptable. The mechanism is also a disaster, first of all, the path you walk on is determined by how you reply the letters. It means everything is settled at the beginning of each chapter, Why should I care about the progress when they're settled already? My acts won't change anything. And the max system is basically interrogating your opponents aggressively or politely. Multiple choices but only one correct answer. If you pick the wrong one, the story won't progress and have no impact on endings, so there is no reason to care about them, you get it wrong and repeat until you get it right. Even for promoting tourism, this is a bad pick, you should look for Go Go Nippon! which is 10X more informative and 10X more relaxing. The only thing that kept me playing is the casts and voice acting. I don't hate Root series, and I still have hope on Root film. But it's unlike anything you should purchase at full price. Below $15 might be a deal.

Worst detective story ever. Can't imagine a detective story has multiple truths.

If you want to play Root Letter, play the original one(Recommended) and skip "Last Letter". Root Letter's original story is actually told quite well, and there are no story changes(thankfully) in "Last Letter", so you're not missing out on anything. Most of my issues are directed at "Last Answer"'s extra content, which are not worth paying more money for. Live-Action Mode is worthless, as most of Live-Action facial expression are comically inappropriate due to being overly acted(Most of them make me laugh instead). The extra "Epilogue" are too short, lazily done, and kinda ruined the original endings abit. Sure, the MC is "voiced" in these epilogue, but only partially so what's the point.

This game... I kind of hate everything about it, but I still enjoyed it? It's poorly written, poorly designed, frustratingly linear, tries too hard... but still somehow intriguing and begrudgingly endearing? The base premise of the story is interesting. It's just a shame that the game then tries to cheapen itself and the story at every possible opportunity. The arrogant, narcissistic, sociopathic protagonist, "Max," has all the charm and personality of a sack of wet potatoes. At one point, he has a respectable opinion. Can't remember what it was now, but it was memorable that he had one. The story is bizarre and often doesn't make much sense, but there's a base intrigue that carries throughout the game. For the most part, you're touring the Japanese city of Matsue and arguing with people, always in the exact same format: they deny being the person you're looking for, you say/think/show things in the order the devs want, and then they admit that they're the person you're looking for. These conversations punish you for "wrong moves," which is annoying and unnecessary gameplay because this game is really just a visual novel but you have to replay the entire conversation if you get it wrong too many times. "Max Mode," which is basically a timed dialogue pop-up minigame, is annoying and serves no purpose other than, arguably, as a further demonstration of Max's inflated ego. It feels like the devs don't think the story is good enough on its own and have therefore tried to jam the game full of unnecessary "gameplay." The real-life pictures of Matsue are cool, and you can "look around" in them, but the devs missed this opportunity to deepen the setting of the story and dive into cool details about Matsue by forgetting to hire a writer. Max only provides such enlightening insights as "This looks like a painting" or "There are a lot of trees." In general, the game provides the illusion of free choice, but in reality, it's extremely linear and you have to do everything in the exact order the devs were thinking, except for exactly one part that requires you to aimlessly wander to a few random locations before the game will progress. When talking to people, you're typically given two dialogue options, but one of them is just the "wrong" thing to say, often obviously so, and serves absolutely no purpose other than making Max look stupid or insane. You control the ending you get by choosing Max's responses to the letters. Generally, the options range from boring and unremarkable to bizarrely vapid (e.g., "Do you like black hair?") to sexual harassment (e.g., "Tell me your (body) measurements.") The first eight chapters will proceed the same no matter what, but then the last two diverge hard. The different endings are completely unrelated and fundamentally change the personalities of characters like Aya and her father, which makes it hard to keep things straight. Also, there are lots of plot issues because each of these very different endings have to stem from the same first eight chapters. All characters are fully voiced except for Max. Max has a few generic "half-lines" that sometimes play when he talks and that I guess are supposed to indicate his emotional state, but they do a terrible job of it, especially the over-the-top "NANDATTE" that he screams whenever mildly surprised. The real-life pictures are cool for scenery and I guess somewhat for the characters, but what I found really stupid is that the actors apparently tried to exactly replicate the anime characters from the original game. I mean... the anime characters are meant to resemble real humans. Humans don't need to turn around and try to resemble the anime characters. I guess this is subjective, so if you like that style, that's fine. In my case, I found it tacky and thought it cheapened the entire story. It's especially a problem with "Four-Eyes," who's the first character you argue with, which makes the issue immediately prominent. If you play the game in Japanese, you can learn the Shimane dialect, which is interesting. Also, fyi, from what I've seen of the English translation in guides etc., this game was definitely translated by a Japanese native speaker with a weak understanding of English nuances. Not sure if that makes it better or worse. The bonus chapters... well, two of them are fine, I guess. They bizarrely [spoiler]change Aya's cause of death randomly and for absolutely no reason[/spoiler], as if the writers just forgot what was in the original story. The UFO one... I had literally no idea what was going on at any point. I mean, nothing seemed to even remotely connect to the original story and it was just running off in five directions at once. The marriage one is sweet, I guess, but it almost seems deliberately written to not make sense. But for some reason I enjoyed this trainwreck. I 100%ed the game and felt some sort of weird, begrudging bittersweet feeling at the end of the true ending bonus chapter. All the characters except Max [spoiler]and Shorty, who's an attempted rapist but no one seems to care about that for some reason,[/spoiler] grew on me. If you get the game on sale and go in with low expectations, I think it's fine.

Absolutely worth your time if you enjoy reading mysteries or creepy stories. This is a remake so I'm guessing there's more content (I haven't quite finished all the endings yet) and, instead of the anime-style art of the original game, this features real actors and backdrops of photos of real places. (I believe you can also play with the original art, if you prefer). Many of the places you visit in Root Letter Last Answer are lovely and all the actors have great facial expressions. This has been a pure delight to play. When I played the original, I got stuck so never finished it but NOW there are guides to both games by lylat - wonderfully detailed guides that lead you to each ending and cover all achievements as well. If you don't enjoy visual novels, this probably has too much text for you. But if you enjoy a good mystery story, don't let this game pass you by.