As much as I love visual novels like Sakura no Toki, I would never recommend them to someone unfamiliar with the genre, or even someone who has played vn-adjacent titles such as planescape torment, 13 sentinels, library of ruina, kentucky route zero, or disco elysium. Many visual novels nowadays try to exclusively appeal to heavy visual novel readers, using tropes and references that people in the community can understand and enjoy, but often causes people outside the community to be alienated by.

Not 428. In fact, it's probably the single most mainstream-accessible visual novel I've ever seen, even more than visual novels that have actually found mainstream success such as ace attorney or DDLC. And unlike those two, it never sacrifices its writing quality or charm to do so.

Koichiro Ito could write Her Story, but Sam Barlow could never write 428: Shibuya Scramble.

A wonderful combination of heartfelt warmth and rolling tension amid a dark mystery, this game manages to constantly one-up itself with every move. My only complaints are that the bad endings are mostly bland and the trial-and-error nature of the game makes things way more tedious than they probably need to be. This is a game I can't really talk about much to those who don't know about it since so much of the fun is discovering the mystery, so just go play this already.

Side Note: The bonus anime preview included after the game ends made me die laughing because the TYPE-MOON art style clashes with the photorealism of literally everything else so hard. If only it were, y'know, actually good to circumvent that problem.

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.

Genuinely took some kind of possession of me for the past week until I beat it, could not stop thinking about it even while doing literally anything else.

It doesn't even feel particularly like this has been my "gateway drug" to visual novels or anything since I have gone through a couple other acclaimed ones, something about this one just really struck a chord somewhere.
I think a lot of it really just comes down to how well it maintains its tone, every protagonist ostensibly gets their own genre determined by their situation until they all merge in one way or another, it's a very Yakuza/Like a Dragon balance of themes and tones though mostly carried by the crime drama nature of the main mystery.

And again like Yakuza it's not satisfied letting minor characters go without getting some proper development, joke characters and villains do get legit really moving moments and it all drives home how much this game truly does believe in humanity despite their irrevocably chaotic nature.

Most of the issues really just come to the fundamental problems that come with the multiple potential timelines, it was never really a problem for me until the last chapter when it stops giving you hints and my reason getting stuck was just that one of the characters just assumed the wrong thing about someone's intentions lol. It felt pretty silly and didn't make a lot of sense but with a game that's scattered with this many potential bad endings, it kind of comes with the territory.

Feels unfortunate this seems to be one of a very scant few live-action VNs, playing this on a daily basis really did feel like I was just tuning into another episode of a really good J-drama book, thing. Maybe I do really 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 like VNs more than I thought...

Pure, unfiltered, unadulterated fun. Full motion video games and Visual Novels have fused together to unleash their full potential. Absolute clusterfuck of a story coupled with unrivaled cheese and unforgettable characters, everyone really looked like they were having the time of their lives behind the scenes.

It loses a few points for how cryptic and tedious it might be to progress the story if you get one of the very funny bad endings and don't know which character caused it and the whole thing about the true ending having you spare a bioterrorist because killing people is wrong somewhat irks me but aside from that, it's a must read for sure.

I wish this was more talked about in the VN circle but VN nerds are too busy praising anime tits mcgee spouting high-school tier philosophy lessons while getting fucked by dogs or something.

Achi Endo is the most based character in all of fiction. Don't forget to recycle.

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."

HumveeRuin's Must-play

I'm usually not a fan of visual novels, or reading...
However, 428 Shibuya Scramble created a lovely story with multiple moments of suspense.
Plot points unraveled in tiny drops throughout multiple playthroughs of the same scenarios, but even small choices in one character's plot can have a large impact on another's.