Good evening, my lovely little slaves of fate
Story
Shishimai Rinka is a normal High School student enjoying her life until one unfortunate day she died in a fire on a subway. However, twelve other people died with her at the same time which prompted an event known as Divine Selection. These twelve people have the ability to undo the death they have been struck with, by taking part in a battle royale death game to determine their fate, however, only one can emerge victorious. For someone to eliminate another they must find their name, cause of death, and their regret.
Rinka has lost some of her memories and does not know how she died or her regret and must find a way to uncover them. She is not just going against twelve other people, but her best friend Mishima Miharu is one of them.
With 12 people's fates tied to a death game, only time will tell what happens and who will be eliminated.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Great story with mystery and suspense,
- Multiple endings with choices that matter
- Characters are interesting, unique, and fully voiced.
- Beautiful art style
- Nice soundtrack
Cons
- Certain characters make some odd decisions
- There are a few grammar errors when it comes to wording
- Routes require specific choices to be made or the player will receive the bad ending
- Sometimes a song would play at the wrong moments
Characters/Story
Fatal Twelve has quite an interesting story as there is a lot of mystery and suspense to go around. However, Fatal Twelve’s biggest element has to be its characters, each of which have something unique. Though some characters took some time to get used to; by chapter six, however, is where the story really starts to get interesting and when the characters really start to shine.
A character whose opinion I changed on was Numeral XI. She initially came off as a character that was cold and unlikeable but later grew on me. She showed a side of herself where she had a dream, yet she could not achieve it. However, the two characters that really shined on me the most were Numeral III and Numeral IX.
After chapter two, we get to view Numeral III’s perspective for a bit and this I loved as he is one of the antagonists. It was nice to see the side of things on the antagonist’s side, as he and Numeral XI were working together in Divine Selection. However, my favorite character has to be Numeral IX, he had so much mystery surrounding him and the build-up with the character was just amazing. The characters are also fully voiced and the voice acting sounded amazing, each character sounded very unique and they were generally well performed.
Now Fatal Twelve may have a good story with wonderful characters, however, it does have a few issues that should be mentioned. Despite a battle royale death game, some characters like Rinka and Miharu go and hang out with friends and risk their lives. They are putting themselves in danger of someone finding them and trying to get answers for Divine Selection. There are also some grammar issues and some lines that have stuff like “despite our being alone” or “your meeting her was as much as a miracle”. They are not huge issues as they don’t affect the story overall but at times some of the words just felt out of place.
How The Routes Work
There are a total of seven endings in the game. To get certain endings, you will have to select corresponding choices to proceed throughout the game. Your choices do matter, so it’s best to pick accordingly as you may get an ending you don’t want to get. Some of the endings are predictable, and some do offer unique twists but they are interesting nonetheless.
Now there is an issue with one of the endings that did make me a little upset and that was with the first one. For the first six chapters of the game you will have a total of ten scenarios, where you will have some choices but you will have to pick the right one. If you choose just one wrong answer, you will be led to the first bad ending of the game. However, if you choose all the answers correctly you will get to continue through the story. The main issue here is that you will be playing through six hours of the visual novel and the game will not give you any indication that your choice is right or wrong. Now that is not the issue but when you are given choices like “Might as well sell it” or “Let’s take a look inside”, one of those answers right there will lead to a bad ending.
Now Fatal Twelve may have a good story with wonderful characters, however, it does have a few issues that should be mentioned. Despite a battle royale death game, some characters like Rinka and Miharu go and hang out with friends and risk their lives. They are putting themselves in danger of someone finding them and trying to get answers for Divine Selection. There are also some grammar issues and some lines that have stuff like “despite our being alone” or “your meeting her was as much as a miracle”. They are not huge issues as they don’t affect the story overall but at times some of the words just felt out of place.
Graphics and Performance
The graphics for Fatal Twelve are absolutely beautiful, every scene is beautifully detailed and I could look at them for hours. I tested the game on an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB, AMD Ryzen 5 1500X Quad-Core Processor 3.50, and 16 GB of RAM, I experienced no issues while I was playing.
Final Verdict
Fatal Twelve is a fantastic visual novel that has surprised me with some of its twists and turns, especially with the cast of characters that we are given. Each chapter brought increasing mysteries to the table and the battle royale death game spiced things up each week. If you are a fan of Danganronpa, then you may like what Fatal Twelve has to offer with its story.
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