Death end re;Quest is another game developed by Compile Heart, and as such, the game contains at least a little of fanservice. This is my third time reviewing a game with an M rating, and of course, Death end re;Quest deserves its M rating. I'm going to be clear: The fanservice probably was a factor for the M rating (the game has ''Suggestive Themes'' as one of its content descriptors), but it definitely wasn't one of the main factors or reasons for the rating, I mean, yes, several female characters wear revealing outfits and there are frequent jiggle physics, even Shina Ninomiya, whose breasts are, perhaps, below average, has breasts that clearly move (for some reason) when she does her victory pose, for example, there are a few questionable or suggestive CG images in the game (of course) and also, it's very, very easy to see Shina's underwear during the game, with every step that she takes...the default camera angle lets you see her underwear very clearly, and you really have to move the camera up in order to not see anything. The Glitch Mode, is another aspect...it leaves very little to the imagination, and that applies for every playable character. The game definitely has fanservice (and suggestive dialogue), but more than anything else, Death end re;Quest is a dark and violent game with strong language, there are many f-bombs in the game (more than 10 f-bombs throughout the game), and if you are playing with English voices, some f-bombs are spoken out loud, one of the characters, Arata Mizunashi, has a penchant for swearing. There are other things that I'll mention later, but...the game has received an M rating, and to be honest, even if Death end re;Quest did not have f-bombs, the content of the game would still merit an M rating, I am very convinced about that...

Story: The story of Death end re;Quest is amazing, sadly, it's too dark for my taste and I can't give it the highest rating although I would like to do it. Arata Mizunashi, a video game programmer, receives an email sent to him by Shina Ninomiya, a colleague who used to work with him developing World's Odyssey (W.O.D.), shina went missing nearly one year ago, and her sudden disappearance halted the development of the game, Arata soon discovers that Shina Ninomiya was stuck inside of World's Odyssey the whole time, and she is the only active player. World's Odyssey is infested with bugs, and Shina Ninomiya only has one way out: She must complete the game to unlock the perfect ending. The game has a lot of twists, several moments and aspects about the story as a whole can be unexpected and I admit I didn't saw a lot of things coming, perhaps it must be mentioned that I have only seen the normal ending of the game (too bad, considering that the normal ending isn't very...satisfying), but still, I must give credit where credit is due, I haven't seen everything about the game, sure, and as I said, the story is too dark for my taste and I can't give a 10 because of that (unlike Blue Reflection with the story I absolutely love), but...I can't deny that the game has an amazing story, and it's very well written, the game is very different from other games developed by Compile Heart in the story department, and there's nothing wrong with that, just be warned...''This game contains graphic depictions of violence and grotesque scenes.'' Being a game written by Makoto Kedouin (Corpse Party), it shouldn't be surprising that the game contains violent scenes, and the game is actually scary at times, the fact that the game contains detailed descriptions of violence, as unpleasant as that might be, are par for the course (''Thick droplets of her blood were splattered onto the dirt. Gashes on her abdomen exposed her spinal cord and vital organs.''), this is definitely a game best played with knowing as little as possible.

Graphics: It's a game that looks great, the use of Mizuchi and Orochi 4 are exactly the reasons why this game has great graphics, Death end re;Quest is one of the best looking games developed by Compile Heart, and graphically, it can be compared with Megadimension Neptunia VIIR and Dragon Star Varnir, unfortunately, I think that the game isn't the most impressive or beautiful game of all time, even when it comes to anime style games, I still think that Gust has better art direction, and Blue Reflection is still my favorite game of all time when it comes to graphics, at least if we only consider anime style games, and it's not just Blue Reflection, Persona 5, Ni No Kuni II, Atelier Lydie & Suelle, Xenoblade Chronicles 2...those games have graphics that are as good if not better. Don't get me wrong, I really like how the game looks and perhaps I would give this category a 9, at best, it's just that the game might not be as beautiful as other games, also, the art style...it's fitting for the game, I can't deny that, but that doesn't mean I have to love it, Kei Nanameda's art style is absolutely fitting for anime style games that deal with darker and more mature themes than other games, the style is fitting for games like Death end re;Quest and Mary Skelter: Nightmares, but still, it's not my favorite art style, even Kosuke Fujishima does an art style I like better.

Sound: Obviously, not every song has to be pleasant to listen to considering that Death end re;Quest is a dark game, and sure, there are 3 or 4 scary songs in the game, the sound effects are also graphic at times, fitting for the game of course. The soundtrack, for the most part, is great, but not amazing, in my opinion, previous games developed by Compile Heart have music that is even better at times (Omega Quintet, MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death...), still, I really like the battle theme ''Lose the battle, win the war'', and ''Odyssia, forsaken'' is probably my most listened song of the soundtrack, overall, it's a great soundtrack. The voice acting is amazing, very convincing and real, the violent scenes/scenes where one or more characters die wouldn't be the same if it wasn't for the phenomenal voice acting, Al Astra is voiced by Erica Mendez, Lily Hopes is voiced by Kira Buckland...it's a great cast. It's true that Shina Ninomiya is voiced by a (more or less) new actress (Kayli Mills) but...she did a phenomenal job as Shina.

Addictiveness: The battle system is unique, it's a turn-based system where you can pick three consecutive actions during a turn and, if you attack and enemy or boss, you can knock your opponent for a short distance, if the enemy hits the ''wall'' of the circular arena, it counts as additional damage, if an enemy makes contact with one of the playable characters, the character will attack the enemy once more and cause even more damage, it's a battle system that stands out, and there's a lot, the field bugs are something that adds a little of risk and reward to the game, the ''Install Genre'' feature is kind of fun to use...in a way, the game is more fun than other turn-based RPGs at times, the problem is that Death end re;Quest is very story-driven, perhaps even more so than Blue Reflection, if you are looking for an RPG that combines visual novel gameplay and has a great story, this game is a great choice, but for those looking for an experience with more gameplay or interaction, this isn't the game you are looking for, there is a huge amount of text throughout the game, it's obvious that Death end re;Quest is more a visual novel than an RPG, and some people will like the fact that this game is more interested in telling a story than being an RPG, others will dislike exactly that...

Depth: The game can be shorter than other RPGs, including other games developed by Compile Heart, considering the amount of text however, it can feel like a longer game than it really is.

Difficulty: The battles are easy for the most part, even on Normal difficulty, the main reason why you'll see the ''game over'' screen of Death end re;Quest is the fact that the game has many bad endings. An incorrect choice means death many times throughout the game, a bad ending can also be triggered by entering a room you shouldn't go in...I haven't seen every bad ending (there are so many...), so, I don't know if there are other ways of seeing bad endings. The game is difficult, but it's not the most difficult game of all time, you'll lose in Death end re;Quest...mainly for the bad endings...

It's kind of difficult for me to decide the exact rating for this game, I've said before that I'm not the biggest fan of using a number or letter to grade a game, perhaps a 7.2 for this game is fine, that's the same rating I gave Blue Reflection, but it's difficult to decide, in the case of Death end re;Quest, the RPG side of the game is perhaps slightly more fun than Blue Reflection, but at the same time, the game might be even more text-heavy than Blue Reflection, which is something I do not like that much, especially considering the dark story, it's easier to recommend this game if you are a fan of visual novels. For me, this game might be as good as Blue Reflection, and in some ways...it's better...and also worse...