Root Double – Before Crime * After Days- Xtend Edition | Switch Review

December 13, 2020 Alyssa White

I’m a huge fan of visual novels, especially of ones that have an artl style reminiscent of anime. Add in a heavy science fiction narrative and you’ve just crafted an irresistible love potion for me. Regista’s Root Double: Before Crime * After Days Xtend Edition is a fascinating, complex, and somewhat frustrating entry in the genre. I adored the majority of my time with the story, but a couple of the gameplay mechanics dragged my experience down a little. Let’s delve deeper to see if you should sink your teeth into this visual novel.

It’s All in the Mind

As soon as you boot up the game, you’re given the option to play one of two storylines: After, centered on a character named Watase Kasasagi, or Before, where you stand in the shoes of Natsuhiko Tenkawa. Each storyline is set either before or after (hence the titles) the explosion at The 6th Laboratory of Atomic and Biological Organization (LABO). Depending on which route you choose first, your experience will be a different viewpoint on why this explosion has occurred, and your character will have a differing opinion on the use of Beyond Communication (BC).

Natsuhiko is a high school student who is attending Rokumei Academy, a school dedicated to helping students with BC (basically a form of ESP) learn how to utilize telepathy and empathy in a healthy manner. Watase is a rescue squad member who suffers from amnesia and has no idea why he’s suddenly at the scene of the LABO explosion. Characters do cross over, and playing both routes is essential to wrapping your head around the plot and tying up loose ends from the other storyline.

With Great Power…

As mentioned before, this is a visual novel and is mostly comprised of reading text on the screen, but there is a mechanic that affects the outcome of your story and encourages replaying each route to see all of the different endings. At key moments, Root Double uses the Senses Sympathy System (SSS) to gauge your feelings toward a certain character or characters. This was a pretty big letdown, and I wish this hadn’t been a part of the experience.

On paper, SSS sounds intriguing. It’s based on the Enneagram of Personality, but it falls flat when it comes to executing this aspect. Your only option is to interact with a slider to minimize or maximize your feelings towards the character(s) you’re speaking to, and it can be confusing to know how to react to the individual(s) in a few seconds’ time. This led me to make decisions I wasn’t sure about, and left me yearning for the tried and true multiple dialogue choices other games use.

Beauty in Everything

Root Double is a stunning game, with incredibly gorgeous animation and fantastic voice acting. I felt like I was playing through an enthralling anime. The story is consistently fascinating, with only occasional moments of feeling like there was a tad too much padding in the narrative. I was impressed with how heavy the science fiction was, and appreciated that the characters were all intelligent and relatable in their own ways. The way both storylines intertwine is also a wonderful achievement that doesn’t feel half-baked or like an addition that is just there to extend the time spent with the game. I did have one other grievance with this game, though. The menu was tied to the LB button, and it was a tad inconvenient to have to hold it down just to save my game. It’s a small issue, but one that could have been simplified.

The Final Mind Trick

Root Double: Before Crime * After Days Xtend Edition is a visual novel that is highly worth your time if you’re a fan of sci-fi and anime. The gorgeous visuals, wonderful voice acting, and compelling storylines and characters kept me hooked and wanting to unravel more of the mysteries contained within this hefty narrative. The SSS mechanic was frustrating, though, and mapping the menu to the LB button was an odd decision. Don’t let these deter you from diving into this wonderful head trip though.

This review is based on a Switch copy of Root Double – Before Crime * After Days- Xtend Edition provided by PR Hound for coverage purposes.