Punch Line
Release Date: August 31, 2018
Adventure, fantasy, puzzle elements, manga and anime, visual novel, singleplayer
OpenCritic
Steam
A visual novel, in which the player embodies the spirit of a high school student. The hero of Punch Line must find a way to return to his body while being careful not to look at the underwear of his female friends and high school teens. Otherwise, he will bring an apocalypse to Earth.
Videos and Screens
Chalgyr's Game Room: 7 / 10 by Richard York
All in all, I came away pleased with the experience. While I did know all the plot twists from the anime, the game was still fun and short enough to pick up a chapter here and there. While Punch Line really feels more like a handheld or mobile experience, it’s still a lot of gags, fun, and good music. If you haven’t seen the anime, now you can play it, so get out there and don’t stare at the panties!
cublikefoot: 2 / 10 by Claire Ferrin
Punch Line does actually try to tell a decent story, it just has so many problems in doing so that it simply isn’t worth it. The PC port is bad, the art quality fluctuates throughout, the gameplay feels like filler, and the storytelling is just lazy and relies far too much on its anime counterpart.
Digitally Downloaded: 4 / 5 by Matt Sainsbury
Punch Line is a effective as a satire and parody. It's obviously only going to appeal to people that are that immersed in Japanese culture that their sense of hyperbole comes across as amusing and surreal, rather than just silly, but then this is very much an insider's parody of a type of anime that only the most dedicated (and therefore, likely aware) fans of anime in the first place. For that niche Punch Line is pitch-perfect.
Punch Line Description
Punch Line is an adventure game with visual novel elements. The game was developed by Studio 5pb and is based on anime series under the same title. The production process was supervised by Kotaro Uchikoshi, whose portfolio includes the popular Zero Escape trilogy.
Plot
The plot of Punch Line is.... original. The main character is Yuuta Iridatsu, a high school student obsessed with women's underwear. His life takes an unexpected turn when he is transformed into a spirit as a result of an accident. Although this form can be used without any consequences to watch the world, he quickly discovers that the more excited he gets about seeing women's panties, the closer an asteroid gets to Earth; a collision would undoubtedly lead to the extinction of the entire population. The matter is further complicated by the fact that Yuuta is stuck in a house inhabited by his female friends, which means that he has to be constantly be on guard.
Mechanics
In Punch Line your task is to conduct an investigation, as a result of which Yuuta could not only return to his body, but also discover the reasons why his tastes can bring an apocalypse into the world. You have to solve environmental riddles and develop the skills of main protagonist who is a kind of poltergeist. Although initially the hero can only move or drop objects, over time he acquires the ability to take control of other people and even turn back time in order to prevent tragic events. An important role is also played by other talking NPC's and heroes, such as a male cat which helps your cause.
Technical aspects
The Punch Line graphical design has been maintained in manga style. The whole combines two-dimensional elements (like sprites of characters we talk to), with a three-dimensional environment in which puzzles are embedded.
Punch Line Summary
Platforms:
PC / Windows May 23, 2019
PlayStation 4 August 31, 2018
PlayStation Vita August 31, 2018
Punch Line System Requirements
PC / Windows
Minimum: Intel Core i5-4670 3.4 GHz / AMD FX-8350 4.0 GHz, 4 GB RAM, graphic card 4 GB GeForce GTX 970 / Radeon RX 570 or better, 11 GB HDD, Windows 7/8.1/10
Recommended: Intel Core i5-4670 3.4 GHz / AMD FX-8350 4.0 GHz, 8 GB RAM, graphic card 8 GB GeForce GTX 1080 / Radeon RX 480 or better, 11 GB HDD, Windows 7/8.1/10 64-bit