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Punch Line
Released On: Oct 9, 2018
66
4.9
Where to Buy
Where to Buy
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 9 Critic Reviews
66
33% Positive
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
44% Mixed
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
22% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 9 Critic Reviews
66
33% Positive
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
44% Mixed
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
22% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
The game was a joy to experience and I cannot wait to see how the world is saved. Visual novel fan or not, the characters, writing, and unique gameplay are all easily appreciated and enjoyed. And while the fan service is definitely there, it’s not the focus of the game. In fact, in a perfect, non-destroyed world, you’ll see as few panties as possible.
Punch Line tells a fantastic story amidst all the chaos that takes place. It may seem pervy from its advertisements but there is a charming experience here that you will surely remember.
User Score
Generally Unfavorable
Based on 22 User Ratings
4.9
36% Positive
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
9% Mixed
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
55% Negative
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
User Score
Generally Unfavorable
Based on 22 User Ratings
4.9
36% Positive
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
9% Mixed
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
55% Negative
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
I'm in two minds about this game. On the one hand, there's the story, which can basically be summed up in two words: Kotaro Uchikoshi. It's got all his classic strengths: creative use of time travel and metafiction, mysteries and bangs that keep the plot driving forward, and distinct characters - and unlike many of his games, it has an actual proper ending. Unfortunately, it also has many of his classic weaknesses: too many conveniently outlandish characters in too small a physical and narrative space and a massively confused scale, characters not acting their age, some moments with very awkward pacing, and some tremendous contrivances (such as a major military battle in which apparently no-one was badly hurt). It's the kind of story that's great to go through once, but it's probably not going to be that memorable.
And let's be clear - this is all about the story. This is a visual novel, not a puzzle game. Yes, there's sections where you try to manipulate objects in order to play "tricks" to get events you want to happen, but the number of choices of object is quite small and inconsistent and the consequences are too unpredictable to really be tactical. Yes, it can be hilarious to see how your actions domino through to affect the characters, but that's a double edged sword - in order to be hilarious, it has to be unpredictable, which means you're just guessing at what to do in most of the scenarios. It's also weirdly stop/start - when you click on an item to manipulate, you have to wait while the screen fades to black and white, the object moves, it pauses, the screen fades back in, you see the reaction, and then the screen whites out completely with a "cleanup in progress" sign because they couldn't be bothered to animate the character recovering from being tricked. It's irritating and breaks any immersion the game was going for.
In fact, about three-quarters of the way through the game it drops the "trick" part entirely and becomes a traditional VN with binary choices, most of which lead have one option to continue and one that is instant death. What's worse, they often don't make sense. For example, the very first choice you get is when a character asks you to do something that makes perfect sense at the time, but if you say you'll do it, you get an instant ending saying that you ultimately failed to achieve a key goal as a result of being too dependent on them. Which is ridiculous because a) you've been depending on them the whole game up to that point, and b) when you make the correct choice, you find that all they were going to do is tell you they aren't going to give you orders and leave!
And then there is the elephant in the room. Panties. The weird thing is that they aren't needed in the game, or plot, at all. There's never like a critical moment when they matter, and the only influence they have on the game is that if they come into view during the trick segments the controls go wobbly and you have to pan away from them before a timer runs out (or just press a single button to change the camera position to a different one, which makes it trivial, and also makes you notice that there are camera positions which exist only to upskirt the female characters). You might be looking at panties (on a cartoon 3D model) like 3-4 seconds, if you play badly - so if you actually want to do that, it won't be satisfying, and if you just find the whole thing a bit creepy like I did, it's just unnecessarily so. Yet the game mentions them all the time, the loading screen shows a girl with her skirt riding up, there's a "gallery" of viewed panty shots, one of the chapters is called "panty party" (which does not contain any panties nor even mention them) etc.. It just comes across as unnecessarily creepy, and has the feeling of having been glued onto the game because of the popularity of salacious VNs in some markets and/or because of the tie-in with an existing anime (although the anime just treated it as an occasionally-mentioned joke).
There's also some QoL problems. The game doesn't tell you a whole bunch of useful things, such as that you can skip videos by holding down X (which you will want to do, because the game plays an identical anime opening and closing sequence for every one of the 20 chapters) or that you can save at any time (which you will also want to do, because the instant deaths in part 2 otherwise require you to play the entire chapter from the beginning, and one of them is right at the end of a chapter!)
So if you can get this as a sale price and you don't mind the visual novel gameplay and narrative style, and can tolerate the unnecessary creepage, it's probably worth a punt, especially if you're an Uchikoshi fan and are frustrated by his endings (since this has one of the most satisfactory endings of any Uchikoshi game). But it's generally too weak to be a global recommendation, and certainly not worth full price.
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PlayStation 4
A pretty big waste of my time. If there wasn't so much potential I'd give it a 1 or a 0, but instead I got tricked with a few actually compelling plot points that never end up being reasonably explained or end up having any real importance in the conclusion.
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PlayStation 4
It's best to think of Punch Line the visual nove/puzzler as a sort of addendum and guidebook to the anime. Fans of the show get to revisit their favourite characters and scenes in a different format, but everyone else might have a little trouble understanding the appeal. The dirty jokes and fan-service are never in short supply. Still, as long as they have the tolerance for it, viewers might happen upon something special. It definitely helps that the characters and voice-work are fantastic. Both work in unison to make every scene work. Oh, and the puzzle elements are nice too. While not deep, they add just enough of a twist to maintain one's interest.
Punch Line is a well paced visual novel with light interactive elements. The subject matter may offend some but it doesn't take itself seriously and is more enjoyable for it.
Punch Line has a completely bonkers but utterly engrossing storyline. Its quirky cast of characters are incredibly captivating and it’s easy to fall in love with all of them. The puzzles are a bit too easy but that just makes it quicker to get back to the thrilling story.
Hardcore fans of the original show, if they exist, may find something to like in Punch Line’s exploration of alternate possibilities. Other folks just looking for a decent adventure game with a nice look had best project their spirits to more promising prospects.
PUNCH LINE fails to engage the player in any way, its play and story lifeless.
Punch Line is a strange one and might be worth your time if:
1. You like typical harem/sci-fi Anime.
2. You like looking at panties (briefly).
3. You don't mind spending 90% of your time pressing X to advance the story.
Overall, the story is average. The characters are the main focus here, but there's not a lot interesting about most of them. How they interact with the world is flimsy story-wise, but at least there's no gaping plot holes or silly twists that makes the story completely unbelievable.
You basically start out as a ghost that has been kicked out of your body for reasons you'll find out later. You spend the first half of the game leveling up your astral powers by playing tricks on the girls in the house, while trying to avoid their panties. Panties are bad for you, since that ends humanity. Thankfully, the reason for panties ending humanity is based in some reason, so it's not completely nonsensical.
Then the story twist happens and things take on a whole different light. It's not the most amazing twist ever, but it was able to keep me interested enough to not get bored (I stopped watching harem Anime roughly 15 years ago).
I'm disappointed with the panties. Except for a few loading screens, they're all 3D. The actual modeling of panties and butts is good, but not anywhere near the limits of what the PS4 could handle. Panty texture quality is low and there are obvious sharp angles in the butt polygons. And because looking at panties ends humanity, you can't look at them in-game for more than about 15 seconds at a time. Your camera is also fixed onto a single point, so you can only pivot it around. So no viewing the character models in their full glory.
The panty-related extras are very disappointing. They unlock after you complete the game and consist only of pictures of the 3d models (lower half only). There's no viewer for the loading screen pictures and there's no 3d model viewer. A 3d model viewer is a necessity for any self-respecting panty game, and this one doesn't have it..
As for the gameplay, it's very limited. Besides pressing X to advance the story, you'll occasionally get to move objects in the girls' rooms to scare them (revealing their panties) or to advance the story. Choosing the wrong option or doing the wrong thing ends humanity and you'll immediately be able to retry.
So yeah, I don't like it that much. Average story, limited panties/extras, and almost no gameplay makes this one not so good. Though I suppose it's a valid alternative to actually watching the Punch Line anime.
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PlayStation 4
A priori, c’est juste un autre jeu un brin débile -pour ne pas dire complètement con- pour otaculs voyeurs (pléonasme) puisqu’il faut jouer au ‘poltergeist’ et faire peur à des cocottes plus ou moins tarées (et/ou excentriques) afin de récupérer indirectement… son propre corps, puisqu’on est devenu à l’insu de son plein gré un fantôme !
En déplaçant des objets, on peut aussi faire en sorte d’obtenir ce que l’on cherche… à obtenir, via un effet papillon provoqué… que l’on provoque cela dit tout à fait au pifomètre ou presque. Cela ne satisfera ni les amateurs de jeu d’aventure (ce n’en est pas un) ni les voyeurs d’ailleurs, car si l’on voit deux fois de suite une culotte, c’est… la fin du monde !
Et il faut recommencer le ‘niveau’ , à savoir la séquence d’évènements depuis le début… autant dire que le principe amusant quelques minutes, devient vite très barbant… et que les sauvegardes rapides ne fonctionnent pas si l’on quitte le jeu ! à quoi servent-elles alors ? en outre, ce jeu de merde ne fait pas de sauvegardes automatiques et ne demande à faire la vraie sauvegarde qu’à la fin de chaque ‘niveau’…
Or, un fond orange ou un fond noir, on ne sait pas lequel sélectionne l’autre dans la boîte de dialogue, on appuie au pif et en fait, on se retrouve gros Jean comme devant et faut tout recommencer du tout début, putain de merde ! et se retaper toutes les explications oiseuses du chat qui parle… (oui, un matou qui n’arrête pas de jacter, il nous gave à vitesse grand V !).
Les voix sont uniquement en japonais et le texte en anglais. En plus, les cinématiques ne sont pas zappables ! les graphismes sont assez simplets et ça ne tourne qu’à 30 im/s (aucune excuse, donc !). Alors, on a plus vite fait de désinstaller ce paquet de merde et de passer à autre chose parce que cette daube, c’est de toute façon n’importe quoi de A à Z !
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PlayStation 4
Summary Punch Line is the newest visual novel adventure from the creators of Zero Escape and the Science Adventure series.
Rated M
for Mature
Platforms:
- PlayStation 4
- PlayStation Vita
- PC
- PlayStation 3
Initial Release Date: Oct 9, 2018
Developer:
- 5pb
Publisher: PQube
Genres:
