The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy Is Good on Nintendo Switch and Great on Steam Deck

The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- from Too Kyo Games is finally releasing worldwide this week on Nintendo Switch and PC Steam. In addition to Cullen's thoughts on the game after 55 hours which you can read here, I've been playing it on both Nintendo Switch and PC for this feature going over the game on both platforms. There will be no spoilers and all the screenshots used will be only from the opening hours of the game. I'm going to cover The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- Steam Deck recommended settings, Switch version, thoughts on the PC port, ROG Ally impressions, and more here.

The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy Nintendo Switch impressions

Over the years, I've played every single Danganronpa game on PS Vita, PS4, PC, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and iOS. It was interesting seeing how those games were ported across consoles and PC platforms with some ports being less than ideal ways to experience the series like the Nintendo Switch versions that had either performance issues (Danganronpa and Danganronpa 2) or both performance and stability issues (in Danganronpa V3). With Rain Code, it was Nintendo Switch-exclusive at launch, and wasn't a great experience in handheld mode. It played a lot better on PC and PS5. I bring up the Danganronpa games and Rain Code for some context with Nintendo Switch ports for Kazutaka Kodaka's projects. The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- is a much better experience on Nintendo Switch than those releases, but there are a few issues.

Having spent nearly 40 hours with the Nintendo Switch and Steam versions of The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy-, the Switch version is a good way to experience the game. When looking at the Switch port and the PC version on handhelds, some of the game's UI elements or text aren't as big as they should be when viewed on smaller screens. This may or may not be an issue for you, and while it isn't unreadable, I hope things can be improved for portable play considering the screen real estate available. Barring that, some of the pre-rendered cut-scenes on Nintendo Switch appear more compressed than the PC version. 

The other visual issue is that the game doesn't handle scaling well when it comes to how it zooms in and out of scenes. You will notice this early on when you have to interact with the cast for the first time. The models and portraits don't look as crisp as they should. This is something that also affects the PC release, but there's an easy fix there. 

When it comes to performance, the Switch version targets 30fps in both docked and handheld modes. I noticed more performance issues like hitching during camera movement or 2D movement when playing in handheld mode than docked. Given the UI issues and the additional performance issues when playing handheld, I'd recommend playing The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- docked on Nintendo Switch right now. The load times aren't bad, but they are noticeably longer than the PC version right now. Note that I've tested the Switch version with its newest 1.0.2 update.

While this isn't something many will care about, I feel like adding touchscreen support for the cursor during exploration would've helped. I used the touchscreen a lot when playing the first two Danganronpa games on PS Vita. I also used it when playing The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- on PC handhelds for the cursor and to tap and progress dialogue. I recommend increasing the cursor speed in the game's options menu for both battles and exploration. The default is too sluggish. Tweak it as per your liking here.

In its current state, The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- is a good experience on Nintendo Switch, but one that can easily be elevated to fantastic with some performance improvements and UI adjustments. The performance issues aren't remotely as bad as the Danganronpa games, but they were noticeable enough throughout, especially in handheld mode. Since the game is launching worldwide simultaneously, I imagine it will see some updates at least and I hope some of the issues can be addressed.

The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy PC port features

The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- on PC has support for both controllers and keyboard and mouse input with appropriate button prompts. In fact, you can even force The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- to display Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, or Xbox button prompts through the System menu under Options. When it comes to graphics and display options, The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- has a single Graphics menu under Options that lets you adjust window settings (windowed, borderless, and fullscreen), resolution (720p to 4K), toggle v-sync, adjust brightness, adjust contrast, adjust gamma, select frame rate target (30fps or 60fps), select a graphics preset (high, mid, low, custom), adjust texture quality (high or low), adjust shadow quality (high, mid, low), toggle anti-aliasing, adjust texture filtering (trilinear, 2x AF, 4x AF, 8x AF, and 16x AF), adjust bloom (high, mid, low), and finally toggle ambient occlusion.

While the game's frame rate target setting might make you think it is capped at 60fps, it can run above that and match your monitor refresh rate (tested up to 144hz). Basically if you disable v-sync or play with the window mode set to fullscreen, the game runs at either 30 or 60fps. If you enable v-sync and play borderless (not fullscreen), it matches your monitor's refresh rate.

The PC version also lets you rebind most controls when using either controller or keyboard and mouse input options. Some actions cannot be changed though. Both input options let you adjust the other bindings across Menu, Battle, Field, and Exploration. The mouse control rebind options let you adjust left click, right click, and middle click. Beyond graphics and control options, The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- has Steam Cloud support and it works perfectly across devices in my testing.

The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy Steam Deck impressions

The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- on Steam Deck is fine out of the box (on the LCD model), but it is easy to dramatically improve the experience as I go over in my recommended settings. I want to make a special note here that the The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- demo save data is correctly detected in the full game. I've had the full game for a while now, but I didn't test out the demo until I remembered how many games don't handle save data transfer on Steam Deck correctly or at all. Thankfully, when starting a new save in the demo, The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- correctly detected it and let me continue as shown in the images below with the achievement also correctly unlocking.

I tried out The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- at various resolution and performance targets on my Steam Deck LCD and OLED models. These range from 720p 60fps to 1440p and also 720p 144hz. When playing with a 60fps cap, I ran into scrolling issues on the Steam Deck OLED out of the box since the screen is set to 90hz. This has happened quite a bit lately in games with 60fps caps, so remember to set your display to 60hz using the quick access menu if you play The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- on your Steam Deck OLED at 60fps.

Since I wanted to test performance above 60fps, I disabled v-sync and ran in the bordlerless window mode. Downsampling from 1080p results in some drops below 90fps in in-engine cut-scenes, but otherwise holds up well even in battles. This has a lot of power draw though if you care about maximizing your battery life.

I was curious to see how The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- felt when playing docked on my 1440p display. If you play at 60fps, 1080p is the best resolution for no drops. Moving to 1440p will result in dipping below 60fps in some situations. Just to see how much I could push the frame rate, I set it to 720p and enabled v-sync. Battles seemed to run at 144hz properly.  

The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy Steam Deck recommended settings

Aside from capping your screen to 60hz if you play on a Steam Deck OLED and want to play at 60fps, you can vastly improve how The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- looks by selecting 1080p when playing on the Steam Deck screen in handheld mode. This will downsample from 1080p to 720p and everything just looks better. It runs perfectly at 60fps even at 1080p so there's no worry there. The only setting changes I made were setting shadow quality to mid and using 16x AF for texture filtering. Everything else at the high settings resulted in a game that looked cleaner than on Switch and one that ran at a solid 60fps. 

If you want to play The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- on your Steam Deck connected to an external monitor, I recommend sticking to 1080p if you want a locked 60fps. You could play at 1440p, but expect drops to the mid to high 50s depending on what is happening on screen. Don't expect to run at 4K 60 without drops below 30fps on Steam Deck though.

For the comparison above, I've used screenshots of the game running at 720p and 1080p downsampled on Steam Deck. Both images have been zoomed and cropped to show how the characters and backgrounds look with the two different resolutions.

If you want a locked 90fps experience on your Steam Deck OLED, I recommend playing at 720p on the Steam Deck itself with v-sync enabled and using the other setting changes I recommend above. Aiming for 1080p and 90fps will see drops below to the 80s in some situations though.

Beyond the cursor settings and refresh rate change if you're on a Steam Deck OLED, there is one more thing you can do to improve your experience. This involves setting the right trackpad on the Steam Deck to be a mouse cursor. It isn't essential, but I found it very good to have in some situations. Just like the Steam Deck's touchscreen to progress dialogue or selecting specific things on the screen, this is more of a feature that is good to have and not one that is essential. To do this, go into the Controller Settings for The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- and select the right trackpad and set it to be used "As Mouse". 

The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy Nintendo Switch vs Steam Deck PC

The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- is a lot better on Steam Deck compared to Nintendo Switch, but the latter is actually good aside from some hitching during camera and player movement in handheld mode. Both systems suffer from some of the UI elements being smaller than they should on the handheld screen. While the ports were not done by the same developers, I expected much worse for Switch given how Rain Code and the Danganronpa games ended up on Nintendo's hybrid system. Overall, the Switch delivers a good experience when playing The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- with some hitching that I ended up getting used to for handheld play. This is actually one game I recommend playing docked on Nintendo Switch if you are able to. The performance isn't perfect, but it has a lot less hitching than in handheld mode.

If you have both a Switch and a Steam Deck, the latter delivers a much better experience with greatly improved image quality and performance. The gallery above shows one of the cut-scenes that looks more compressed on Switch compared to Steam Deck. I also included a screenshot of the cafeteria on the Switch version compared to the PC version on Steam Deck. The latter looks better thanks to downsampling. While it may not look as obvious in screenshots thanks to compression, you can try it out yourself in the free demo and see how much crisper the 3D elements and characters look at 1080p downsampled compared to just 720p.

The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy ROG Ally impressions

With Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch covered, I also tested The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- on my ROG Ally. While I usually test demanding games with the 25W turbo mode, I decided to see how the ROG Ally handles The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- on its 10W and 15W modes as well. When playing at 1080p, the 10W silent mode saw regular drops below 60fps. If you want to play in the 10W silent mode, you will need to cap the game at 30fps. The 15W mode held up perfectly though at 60fps. If you don't care about battery life and want to have the best possible visual experience in The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- on ROG Ally, I recommend actually playing at 1440p downsampled with the 30W (when plugged in) or 25W mode with v-sync enabled for a 60fps target. The VRR display will smooth out any dips below and it looks crisp throughout. Some screenshots of the game on ROG Ally at 60fps and one at 120fps are in the gallery above.

While I haven't even come close to finishing the game itself, what I have played of The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- is amazing. I adore the aesthetic, music, voice acting (in both languages), and also the gameplay loop. Stay tuned for my thoughts as I get through more of the game and talk about it on the Tetracast. 

The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- launches on April 24 worldwide for Nintendo Switch and PC (Steam).