Review: Shuten Order (Nintendo Switch)

There’s an awful lot going on in the nation state of Shuten. For starters, the world is going to end in 168 days. Bad news, right? Not to the members of the religious organization called the Shuten Order. They seem to be welcoming it. But then their leader and founder is murdered, apparently by one of his top ministers. You know this because you were that leader and founder.

You’re awakened the next morning by a visit from two angels. They give you a mask and a new name, Rei Shimobi, and explain that you now have to participate in God’s Trial. This basically means you have three days to identify and execute your murderer, or you’re dust. The problem is that you have no memory of your past life. You don’t know who killed you or why. But you do have God’s Power, an ability that allows you to—amongst other things—just know who did it. Whoever you say did, did. Simple, right?

Wrong. Even though you get to decide who did it, you have to get that person to confess to the crime within the time limit. You can’t just kill the person without a confession, after all. So, you make the accusation, then enter into the gameplay.

The gimmick here is that the gameplay changes based on who you accuse. So, let’s meet your ministers, shall we?

Kishiru Inugami – Head of the Ministry of Justice
Accuse this aloof fellow, and Rei enters into a murder mystery not entirely unlike Ace Attorney. She (oh, although Rei is typically assumed to be a man, she actually awakens as a woman, just to explain the pronoun usage) needs to work with Kishiru to discover evidence of the crime and present it at the right time to solve a murder before time runs out.

Yugen Ushitora – Head of the Ministry of Health
After accusing Yugen, Rei finds herself trapped in an escape-room game with him and numerous others. She needs to solve the puzzles and make the right decisions to get out alive, but may have to leave others to their bitter end in order to progress.

Teko Ion – Head of the Ministry of Science
Teko’s route is a full-on visual novel. She and Teko don’t trust each other at all, but they’re forced to work together to repel an invasion of his facility. The wrong decision can take the player to a bad ending, but you can always backtrack to try again. In fact, you’re often required to.

Honoka Kokushikan – Head of the Ministry of Education
This poor woman has never experienced love, and Rei gets to help her find it all otome style. Honoka has disguised herself in a school and tasks Rei with identifying her and confessing her love before time runs out. Will you make the right decision? And if you disappoint the wrong girl, will Rei survive her wrath?

Manji Fushicho – Head of the Ministry of Security
Accuse Manji and you’ll find Rei in a full-on survival-horror game. She’s looking for evidence to pin the crime on Manji. Meanwhile, the legendary killer Niphilim is looking for Rei.

Each game plays differently from the others, although all are rooted in the visual-novel genre. Expect plenty of reading and decision making. Don’t, however, fret too much about your decisions; the game allows you to go back to compensate for mistakes. It also allows you to save nearly everywhere. So, if you’re not sure if a major decision is the right one, you can save just before it and reload if you don’t like the result. Most of the puzzles are quite easy, too. That’s very friendly to the gamer, but it also removes a lot of the tension.

This is worth noting because the game survives on tension. Well, that and creepiness. Shuten Order is often unsettling in both plot and presentation. The Founder wasn’t just murdered, for example, he was dismembered, and we see that often. Granted, the body parts look like mannequin pieces, but still. Narratively, you’re often going to feel bad no matter what you decide. This was especially the case for me in Yugen and Honoka’s routes.

The player’s trepidation is mirrored through Rei as she learns about herself, her ministers, and the society in which they all live. Everything is discovered in fragments, and the order in which you pick up those fragments is determined by the order in which you accuse your ministers. Yes, all of them will be accused over the course of the game, and it’s only after you’ve played through all five that you’ll reach an ending. In other words, elements that are cryptic for one player may be common knowledge for others because they already learned the truth about them in a previous session.

And believe me, there’s a lot to uncover here. I don’t think I’ve ever played a game that had this many twists and turns. Even the most basic elements of the setup can become red herrings, and uncovering the game’s truths is a lot of fun…

…in places. The problem with a game that changes its style so often is that not all of those styles will appeal to all gamers. And if you don’t like a specific route, you’re stuck playing it for a very long time. There’s one in particular that I couldn’t get into, and it seemed to go on forever. I picked it in the middle, and I guess that’s good; if it’d been first, it would’ve soured my early opinion of the game. If it’d been last, it would’ve killed the momentum as I approached the finish. Hopefully you luck out, too. Even better, hopefully you just like this minister’s route more than I did.

Regardless of the path you’re on, Shuten Order’s visual style is vibrant and effective throughout. The music’s fine, too, but more so because it blends nicely into the background than because it’s memorable. The fun bit is that these elements change somewhat to match the genre of the route you’re taking.

Shuten Order is an odd game to recommend, but I’ll recommend it nonetheless. I think it’ll appeal more to adventure/puzzle gamers than to visual novel fans, but there’s certainly plenty of crossover. It’ll also appeal to anyone who just wants something that’ll keep them guessing throughout. “Happy new end…have a good end,” they say throughout the game. Will you?