pretty crazy!! tonally its a bit like a yakuza game (goofy substories and all) but with the timeline fuckery and wild plot twists of a zero escape game. definitely some really really good moments in here, 100% check this out if you're a fan of other chunsoft mystery vns. it's got too many flaws[1] for me to give it a 9 but know that it's pretty damn close! should be way more popular than it is, pretty much the only acclaim i hear about this game is within vn circles, and this definitely deserves to have a lot more outside reach than it does. certainly a much more accessible vn for people who don't play vns than i surmise the grasshopper manufacture ones are (at least judging from the first half of the silver case i played a while back lmao)

the weakest bit is around the middle when the game goes from having a comedy focus with mystery undertones to a mystery focus with comedic undertones. both of these sections are good alone of one another (and sometimes in concert with one another--you'll see) but the transitional period was a bit rough since I had to readjust how seriously i was taking things lol. shouldn't be as much of a problem if you know it's coming, but once you power through that its really solid for the last several in-universe hours. really gripping stuff

[1] main ones that pop up in my mind are:
- at points some really bizarre tone shifts that are hard to keep up with (what with all of the jumping in and out of stories in the middle of them that you end up doing)
- the mystery bits being weak in the first half and the comedy bits being weak in the second half
- being a little too trial and error-y in the last timeblock specifically, but it is a much more minor lingering issue throughout the whole game (mitigated by the fact that many of the bad endings are interesting/funny enough so that you don't really mind)
- too many flashbacks near the end in general, not a huge issue but the game just starts having a ton of them out of nowhere lol
- a pretty cumbersome port (no mouse support or skip button? wtf)
- a couple side plotlines fizzle out near the end and dont really get any sort of real conclusion as the main mystery takes center stage, predominantly thinking about 2 characters here, won't say which 2 as thatd probably fall under spoilers but ppl who have played can probably deduce who im talking about

The English translation is infuriatingly unpolished, but that barely hinders the otherwise magnificent Visual Novel that this game is; heartfelt, with a daunting amount of twists and turns, funny even to me who usually stays away from comedy in media, and with certain mechanics that enhance the experience even more, 428: Shibuya Scramble is nothing short of a safe bet even for the most experienced Visual Novel enjoyers.

A proper alternative review for this game would be,
"I am simply cheesed to meet you."

A very very fun journey from start to end. 428 handles the constant switching between the main characters excellently and it makes for a very dynamic and enjoyable story with frequent tone shifts and twists. The story doesn't end up being particularly impactful or anything but it's a ton of fun with a lot of likable characters and surprisingly good presentation. Osawa's sympathetic parental plights, Tama's scam hi-jinks with Yanagishi and Chiri, Kano's buddy-cop action with Stanley, and Minorikawa's overflowing charisma mesh better than I could've hoped and made for a large variety of quality scenes. At first I was perplexed by the lack of proper mouse support and manual saves but I quickly realized it doesn't really hurt the experience at all. The lack of text speed options did get pretty grating though and honestly the game probably would've been about 2 or 3 hours shorter if I could properly skip through text I've finished reading or scenes I've already viewed. The music is pretty good, particularly when it's bombastic like in Tama's scenes with Yanagishita though the somber tunes in Osawa's story fit very well too. Each story brought something to the table and was enjoyable in its own right, though Achi's could be pretty weak at times with his shonen-ish personality and typical romance scenes. I was very happy with how each character played a significant role in ultimately saving Shibuya, including best boy Minorikawa. I also appreciate how the Keep Outs and bad ends forced me to go through each story together instead of just going through one story at a time in its entirety which helped me get engrossed in the bigger picture and how everyone's actions tied together.

A really charming and interesting interconnecting story game. The game has some great writing and balances it's humor with it's dective mystery story that has many layers going on all around it. Multiple protaginists that once they get going shift to another person's persecptive in another place and time and told in a non linear fashion. There will be times when you can't progress with one persons story until you reach another persons story to a certain point. It's a really innovative way to tell a story like this and can really only be done with video games. Their are a ton of bad ends and funny ends and it can be a real puzzle to figure out what you have to do in one scenario to fix a problem in another scenario. It's just such a wonderful story. The cast is great and it kept me guessing to the end. The music fits the game exceptionally well too. It's got some bangers in there. Plus even after the game there is still a ton of stuff to do with a bunch of post game stories and content. Overall is a huge package and quality for a title of this nature. This is one I could recomment to anyone.

Platinum #93

The intertwining stories of each character mesh really well, but the game-y elements considerably drags them down.

Analyzing the plot or trying to critique it would take length, yeah some plot twists are very cliché but overall the writing does a great job weaving the stories to cross and overlap.

428 tries to balance your experience by barring the continuation of one story too far unless you catch up with other characters, choices here affect characters there and so on, but it gets tedious through the third quarter, requiring you to pick specific combinations to progress, I honestly needed to google a few points to be able to continue.

428 is a LONG visual novel, taking over 30 hrs with me to wrap it up, unless you suffer from a short attention span I'd recommend you try it.

It's so fucked up that something with storytelling and visual presentation as phenomenal as this gets bogged down by whatever the fuck they were cooking with the entire Cannan plotline. I adore literally EVERYTHING else about this but man I cannot get behind most things pertaining to that, which is so fucked up with how hard literally everything else here goes. That isn't to say the entirety of this is ruined because of that tho, it's still incredibly good even with that and one of my favorite visual novels. Also the bad endings go insane, they're so fun.