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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

A visual novel that tackles a mystery around a kidnapping through the (mis)adventures of several fancy characters. The choices you make on one of the routes impact the others, and the way these interactions affect the outcome of each individual's story is basically the core of the game. The game reminded me a lot of 13 Sentinels, and while the story is somewhat simpler and there are less characters in 428, the way their fates intertwine is certainly a lot more elaborate. There are over 80 outcomes that you might encounter, though most of them are just comical, and it's really fascinating when you try to prevent a certain situation of happening.

The game doesn't have an anime artstyle, instead it's live action with a mostly Japanese cast. I wouldn't say I'm used to that kind of games that emit jDrama vibes, but I didn't mind it at all and even if some of the actors seemed a bit off, others felt perfect on their role. This stylistic choice made it pretty unique in my eyes, over other games of the genre, and it managed to sell the absurdness of some scenes really well.

As far as the story goes, while I feel I wasn't really engrossed with some of the characters at the start, by the end of the story I think I was attached with everyone. Some of the routes start a bit slow, with seemingly irrelevant plot threads, but as you progress through them and the stories start to converge, things become a lot spicier. There are several big twists in it, some are kind of easy to guess, others felt a lot more shocking, the story is certainly very enjoyable though, full of funny or cool moments. Worth mentioning that a lot of side characters are also very amusing, even if they play a small role in the bigger picture. Osawa's route was probably my favorite, and a certain detective contributed to that.

Overall, even if some elements like the live action aren't everyone's cup of tea, I'd still recommend this game in a heartbeat, especially to fans of stuff like the Nonary Games or 13 Sentinels. The mystery and the characters are more than enough to engross you to this story about Shibuya completely.