The story gets really convoluted and hard to follow at times but I still think the overall writing can be pretty compelling in this game. Top heavy character cast (Chiemi especially is great) but not too bad otherwise. A werewolf/mafia VN where your choices matter is just kind of a brilliant concept so that lead to a lot of fun and interesting scenarios. Unfortunately I think that's far and away the best part of the game and that the attempts at deeper lore with giant info dumps just hurt the experience more than anything.

Minor-medium spoilers ahead.

The game kind of goes back and forth between ridiculously supernatural and this idea of "Wait but nothing is supernatural after all!!!" which leads to some contradictory situations. I would've rather they took it easy a bit on the attempts at 300 IQ genius writing and focused more on what the game did well: the elements surrounding the feast, and Haruaki's relationship dynamic with the different characters. The first loop was by far my favorite part of the game, which means to me the game went downhill after that, although I thought the other 2 main loops were also interesting in their own right. I frankly don't think the game concluded well (although the last scene with Chiemi was admittedly cute and satisfying) but I can say that I generally enjoyed the ride along the way.

Raging Loop has been on my radar for a long time but always got pushed back for one reason or another. Following a bad storm and a long power outage with nothing to do, I saw a good opportunity and went ahead and jumped on it. A very comfortable ~25 hour experience split into a few nice binging sessions. Anything “999-coded” (murder mystery with a flowchart and remembering things that you shouldn’t be able to remember!!!) is always going to speak to me on a deeply personal level because it is simply the greatest of all time every time it’s implemented, but in all honesty I really wasn’t feeling Raging Loop during its first route. I was considering dropping the game after the conclusion of the first route, in fact, but I’m glad I persevered because the middle stretch of the game was much more consistently engaging and well-paced.

Raging Loop is interesting because I think it really shines in this middle section, where the player is just familiar enough with the setting, its cast, and the “ruleset” of the game to feel like an active participant in the deduction-making while still leaving plenty of room for the inevitable “you haven’t seen anything yet” reveals. The ending suffers from some pacing issues and lack of satisfying buildup and closure for certain characters/plot points but there are some undeniably great scenes so it isn’t anything too egregious. I was especially impressed with how much I came around on the main character who went from actively taking away my enjoyment in the first route to a surprisingly endearing lead in the game’s final hours. At no point did I ever really care about the “romance” aspect the game seemed so hell-bent on trying to spoon-feed to me. I was definitely not buying what Raging Loop was selling on that front, sadly.

It’s not perfect but it was a very fun read, I’m glad I finally got around to it.

⏰ In a rush? Don't worry, I gotchu'! ⏰

What Works:
✅ Intriguing Plot: Raging Loop offers a compelling narrative centered around a murder mystery with psychological horror elements, reminiscent of Danganronpa and Zero Escape.
✅ Engaging Gameplay Mechanic: The game utilizes an intuitive flowchart for navigating story decisions, allowing players to explore multiple endings and easily backtrack to make better choices. The looping mechanic is integrated into the story, adding depth and justification to the gameplay.
✅ Accessibility: The game is newcomer-friendly, with a charming tutorial explaining the basics and a Hint Corner that helps players when they reach undesired endings.
✅ Characterization: Both main and secondary characters are well-developed and memorable, adding to the story's richness.
✅ New Game Plus: The Revelation Mode offers additional insights into character thoughts, increasing replay value and depth for players who wish to delve deeper into the narrative.

What Doesn't Work:
❌ Slow Start: The plot takes time to kick into gear, which may deter some players initially.
❌ Inconsequential Choices: Many decisions lead to quick deaths that do not progress the story, potentially frustrating players.
❌ Artistic Simplicity: Backgrounds are too simple and repetitive, which detracts from the overall immersive experience.
❌ Audio Issues: Sound effects such as bird songs and running water end abruptly, breaking immersion.

🎭 A Macabre Exploration of Persistence: Raging Loop

One of life’s lessons is that persistence leads to success. However, how well does this advice hold up when the context is death? Raging Loop is a macabre exploration of this question and a high-profile venture from KEMCO, published by PQube. This visual novel, rich with psychological horror elements, centres on a murder mystery theme, reminiscent of titles like Danganronpa or Zero Escape, thanks to its overall strong execution.

🌌 An Intriguing Murder Mystery

The story begins with Haruaki Fusaishi, a 24-year-old Japanese man fleeing Tokyo after a falling out with his girlfriend. He then stumbles upon the village of Yasumizu seemingly by chance. In this seemingly peaceful place, full of curious and distinct villagers, the main character becomes embroiled in a variant of the social deduction game Werewolf (or Mafia). For further context within the Raging Loop universe, the experience always features two groups: a minority of informed individuals (werewolves) and a majority of uninformed individuals (humans). The goal is always to crown the surviving group as the winner. On one hand, the werewolves must achieve numerical advantage. On the other hand, humans rely on guardian spirits to help deduce who among them is different, choosing each night through voting and dialogue, one participant to kill in the hope that they are a werewolf.

🌀 A Looping Narrative with Multiple Endings

Although it takes a while to really kickstart it, the plot is quite fun to unravel, with multiple endings to discover. To reach them, decisions must be made throughout the story, which are easily accessible via an intuitive and simple-to-navigate flowchart. Unfortunately, many outcomes are inconsequential, detailing how Haruaki dies from making a wrong decision that doesn't progress the story. Despite many choices being relevant to the story’s context, their sole purpose is to push the narrative forward, as each time the main character witnesses his death, he returns to square one (hence the Loop in the title) and carries with him fragmented knowledge to make a better decision next time. This is particularly interesting as this feature is backed into the game's narrative, justifying its presence, unlike other visual novels where going back in the story (via flowchart, for example) is merely a player mechanic.

💡 Helpful Hints and Engaging Tutorials

Raging Loop is also very accessible to newcomers to the genre. At the beginning of the adventure, there is an optional, charming tutorial narrated by a chibi version of one of the characters, which provides the player with all the important aspects for an enjoyable experience. It even goes further by advising occasional breaks and discouraging sharing spoilers at a certain point in the story. Additionally, each time Haruaki reaches an undesired ending, a Hint Corner option appears, featuring a rude sheep that explains the obtained ending and offers a suggestion on how to progress.

🎨 Artistic Strengths and Weaknesses

However, Raging Loop has some weaker areas. Artistically speaking, the player is treated to well-characterised main and secondary characters, each sufficiently memorable. However, the background areas are too simple and unimpressive. At a certain point, it’s possible to have seen most of what this department has to offer. Additionally, some sounds, such as birds singing or water running, end abruptly (ironic in a game where half the title is Loop), breaking any existing immersion with the game.

🖥️ Text Legibility and New Game Plus Mode

Nevertheless, the text is always legible and comprehensible, even on a Switch Lite. Another noteworthy point is that there is a New Game Plus mode called Revelation Mode which provides more information and context about each character's thoughts, increasing the title’s longevity for those interested in learning more about its overall story..

🌟 A Solid Choice for Fans and Newcomers Alike

With an interesting and mysterious plot, despite the initial time it takes to become more engaging, and notwithstanding its minor flaws, Raging Loop is a solid choice not only for fans but also for newcomers to the genre.

🌟 M I S C 🌟

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◻️ ⚠️ Review originally written for FNintendo (defunct website) and published on November 16th, 2019.
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◻️ 📜 Review Number 008

✨ F I N ✨

Fuck me for playing this one, I guess. The bulk of the game is better than my two star rating would imply, but the combination of a momentum halting, seemingly endless exposition dump at the climax of the story combined with sudden-onset-stupid-Japanese-wordplay made this one a chore to finish. I was just happy by the time it was finally over.

There's various plot twists, all of them dumb, but if taken at face value and contained to just the first three routes, Raging Loop is not the worst game in the world.

Put that on the box, please.

Very fun VN based on mixing battle of wits and Higurashi-style howdunit mystery designed to be "solvable" by the reader before the solution is presented. Almost all events are possible to foresee on some level by following hints, which I really appreciate. The battle of wits was fantastic, piecing the various puzzles and whodunits was satisfying, the MC is fun and doesn't fall for usual problems of his trope. There are some weaknesses (below average voice acting, insistence on adding romance everywhere, + some spoilery issues) but I will still jump on anything sequely or similar from the devs if it comes.

The game has plenty of good points in its favor. The core premise of a Werewolf-style mystery game is good and the setting and characters both contribute to it. I generally enjoyed the first two thirds or so and was interested to see how it would all be tied together.

But there are two main issues that really bring the game down for me.

First is that the game's central premise never felt fleshed out enough in terms of actual gameplay and writing. You are stuck in a time loop, keeping your memories each time you experience the game. Yet, apart from a handful of choices scattered about, nothing ever actually changes to reflect the knowledge you've acquired. Start a loop from the beginning knowing exactly who the werewolves are? Well your thoughts never actually change to reflect that. You are just as clueless and helpless as the first time unless you are reacting to a very specific choice. Ultimately, I can at least understand this flaw but it does still bring the game down. One of the interesting aspects of a game like Werewolf is just all the different ways things can go depending on how people act. Different choices for the wolves' target and investigations and accusations can all go a lot of different ways normally. But in Raging Loop, the choices are limited (and almost always just lead to an immediate bad end if you choose incorrectly) so the game actually ends up being completely linear with few deviations.

Maybe that's just an issue with expectations, but given the inspiration they're working with and the opportunities it presents, Raging Loop takes what makes the original Werewolf such an interesting experience and diminishes it into a structure for telling a very linear and unchanging experience. I can understand why they did this, but it does leave a poor taste in my mouth.

Second, and the issue most other reviews point to, is that the ending is atrocious. I honestly don't even know how to express the sheer nosedive the story takes once you approach the ending, but rest assured that I am not exaggerating when I say it is one of the stupidest and most out-there resolutions I have ever seen to a mystery. Ever seen the resolution to a Professor Layton game? Well think of something along similar levels of bullshit to that.

So good fundamentals, but brought down by some structural issues that underdeliver on the game's potential and an atrocious resolution. The early stuff can still be interesting to play and I enjoyed my time with it enough that I don't feel cheated of my time and money, but its hard to recommend the game given its pretty significant flaws.

Maybe play it if this seems like something up your alley. There is still good content to be found, just know ahead of time that the buildup is a much greater experience than the payoff. And don't touch any of the postgame content. Its not worth your time and retroactively makes the ending even worse.

I was quite surprised by how fun this VN was, despite being a bit disappointed by how static it was. Having just played Gnosia, I read the setup of Raging Loop and expected something similar but RL is firmly within a classic VN structure. With that expectation, however, it excels as one.

The highlight here, and what you would hope for a hidden role type setup, is the characters. I don't think there's one poorly written character in the bunch and even the ones you might not like at least add to the narrative, engaging in the proceedings in a way that feels reasonable and yet dramatic. The main character being my favorite as his quips are roguishly entertaining and he's sometimes even more mysterious than the people he finds himself involved with. They don't keep his motivations locked away, though, so you still can more or less understand why he's acting the way he does.

The pacing of the plot is overall pretty snappy as well. It drags for me a little bit once it explains the rules of the "game" (likely because of my recent plays, again) but there's enough important differences here that you'll still want to pay attention to it all. As a mystery story there's a lot of subtlety in the moment to moment proceedings and I think they strike a good balance of "keeping things happening" and "explaining why it happened."

If there's anything I was disappointed by in the story, though, it was the ending. It was well executed and interesting, but not as surprising or revelatory as it might be for most readers. If you've read Higurashi and seen Owarimonogatari, you'll probably see what I mean when you play. And I still suggest you do, because the journey is still quite enjoyable off the writing alone.

As for the bells and whistles, this a pretty full featured VN experience and the navigation options are more than sufficient for the kind of branching it uses. Good enough even that I wished they had actually made the route traversal a little more complex near the end to push the mystery element a bit more.

In any case, while not the most mind blowing story out there, it really is a solid one. Do recommend.

A game that I deeply enjoyed but can't truly recommend.

It has... problems. It fumbles it's ending so so bad. It's really weird about teenagers and romance. It doesn't make good on the promises of what it's choice and flow chart system should mean.

And yet. And yet.

I still had a blast playing it. I think this game is really carried by it's protagonist - I'd say he's a mix of Sigma Klim and Battler Ushiromiya, with some of his own insanity bundled in. His charisma really carries the game, even in its weakest moments. えっと...

Also, this game goes above and beyond with its new game +. Literally so much fun getting to go back through with revelations mode on and seeing the inner dialogue of other characters.

never before in my life was i presented with a cast as dislikable as this, but you keep at it, you think it will improve, and then when the story finally gets to rolling they hit you with another shitty joke, and another, and OH we were being serious? nah, HERE'S YET A N O T H E R. and then the endgame is building up to be this GIANT THING, and you think, YES FINALLY, HERE IT COMES - BUT THEN THEY INFODUMP FOR 5 HOURS STRAIGHT AND THEN YOU SEE THE CREDITS ROLL BUT THEY KEEP INFODUMPING, AND THEN YOU GO READ THE EXTRA SCENES BECAUSE IT'S A VISUAL NOVEL AND YOU WANT ALL THE CONTENT BECAUSE IT WAS OKAY-ISH OVERALL AND IT'S JUST MORE INFODUMPING ON SIDECHARACTERS IN A SETTING YOU WILL /NEVER/ REVISIT AGAIN BECAUSE IT JUST DOESN'T STOP.

what initially drew me to this game was the artstyle, and the story held great promise. in the end i feel like i could have spent those 50+ hours with like 3 other games, because after it was all said and done i was just so tired. so so tired of the writing in this. it could have been great, it had its great moments, but the overall package was such a letdown, i felt myself legitimately get angry for even spending yet another minute suffering through it.