Dark Gate Academy – Review by Anon

By: Anon
Originally posted: 09.08.2016
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This ended up a bit long-winded.

Dark Gate Academy Review
7 threads read out of 25, mild spoilers ahead

>Synopsis
You are a delinquent transferred to a school that fights off evil magical monsters at night while living on campus. Oh, and you live in an anime.

>”Darkword” [sic]
Slice-of-life shenanigans litter the day while terrifying, short-lived nightmares are sprinkled at night. In the seven threads I’ve read, the events during the day are by far the most entertaining, which is a damn shame because I think you could do a lot with being transported to constantly differing settings.

There was a moment where the main character and some irrelevant character is split off from the rest of the students in a humongous maze. Everything was shaping up to be something interesting. Tension is continually built, danger layering with every step. Then suddenly, it proceeds to run its head straight into a wall. All that needed to be removed was what amounted to “we sat there and waited while staring at the floor.” Risk and danger needs work, especially with what was built.

>Danger
In a dangerously unforgiving world where students die at the drop of a hat, you are given the apparent boon of nigh invincibility. It is a good juxtaposition; in your first trip, you meet the kid who is the top of your class, and then you watch as he’s promptly emptied like a tube of Go-gurt. It’s a cheap trope that works, but the person being set up to fail actually has to do something before he dies. Besides that, I’ve never felt that the significant threat was at that perilous. Most people seem to get out unscathed. Part of this has to do with quest mechanics, which will be discussed later.

>Descriptions
Most of the quest consists of decent writing, but the action could use some work.

“She stands high, and swings her sword down and across, removing the head. More of that green slime bursts from the body, some of it getting on your arm, burning like lava…You and Rei move to a good distance as the bullet pierces into the Spider's abdomen, which then explodes into a horrible, gooey mess.”

“Bursts” is a wonderful, exciting word. “Burning like lava” is fantastic. “Removing” is not. How is she removing the head? Did she just pop it off like a bottle cap? Did the blade sink into the flesh, producing a sickening sound as it cuts clean through? Are we just moving, or are we hauling ass? Why is the mess horrible? Does it reek of death and rot? Senses are powerful, and they’re also something missing from your descriptions of new Darkworld environments. Back it up with intense verbs and there’s a gripping action scene.


>Characters
Despite cast bloat, the character interactions are great. Fantastic moments are frequent and well varied; they can be laced with wit, hysterically funny, or gut-wrenchingly depressing. With the waifu-bait cranked up to 11, there’s bound to be someone in the cast you would care for.

[Ryoji]
This is you. You’re supposed to be a delinquent, but you dropped that act real quick. The prompts in the beginning were fantastic. They were full of flair and packed a punch, but like the delinquent history, it was placed in the backburner.

[Saki]
The generic tsundere waifu that gets fleshed out to a decent degree. I think that she warmed up too fast to the arrogant, thieving, PoS Ryoiji that goes through dead kids’ lockers, but I guess you can chalk that up to “it’s her personality.”

[Rei]
A girl who’s way too willing to kiss someone she only just met, especially someone with smoker’s breath. Her relationship with Akira is interesting, giving her a much needed characterization that balances out “eager to jump on MC’s monster cock.”

[Kosuke]
Clever character, in terms of design. He’s there to tag along with your shit for one reason or another, his excuses already set up from the foundation up.

Voices for each character were established nicely considering the bloat, Sayeka’s especially. The pictures included are a godsend too. Visual aid is a great help, a point made very evident when Ken talked again and I had absolutely no idea who he was. With all this, the cast ends up having numerous distinct characters whose names are actually memorable. But unsurprisingly, there inevitably are flat characters resulting from the lack of time.

“We were surrounded and scared, but you kept a level head and pulled us all out.”

This particular line of dialogue stood out, and thankfully, this dip in quality is uncommon. From one character to another, this line of dialogue was spoken within a group that experienced an event, and its sole purpose is to inform the reader of what had transpired. I would wonder if Booker Man was wrist deep in a pig when this was written.


>Mechanics
Booker Man is an excellent QM. With a relatively consistent update time of around 30 minutes, he often manages to provide prompts whose roads divert far enough that you would think you’re not on a railroad. But sometimes, it should’ve continued rather than give an option at all.

“’Psst Ryoji, over here!’ she whispers to you.”

“>Uhh... sure.”
“>Why are you whispering? Are we spies now?”

The ultimatum, however, was fantastic. Giving the players the option to end the quest or continue, Booker Man has successfully pulled off the only way to maintain player agency all the while keeping the main character’s personality; he had greased up the players with a waifu and rich exposition so they’d be invested. Smooth.

When it comes to rolling, there’s never a DC given. Despite that, you can get a good feel that 50 is average. Keep in mind that outside of Best of 1, 50 is not average in probability. At some point it was switched from a Bo3 to a Bo5 1d100. The possibility of rolling at least a 70 with the latter is around 90%, which is shockingly high. There are no critfails, which leads back to the difficulty of creating tension and danger. Would someone’s face get dissolved with a low enough roll? Perhaps, but I don’t think it would fit with the mood given so far. Permanent incapacitation is an easy solution, and it should have either happened with Daisuke or someone close down the line. Maybe it did happen later on, but right now the mood is wishy-washy.

As for writing, there is the occasionally the odd it’s/its, where/were, or typo. There are also commas being kidnapped in the dead of night to be placed where they don’t belong. However, these are all non-noticeable bumps in the road, meaning they’re completely excusable.

But the OP. The OP for 25 threads has remained unchanged.

“However, the Dark Gate Academy is home to students of truly extraordinary abilities. The ability to sense the presence of these evil Darkword creatures, and defeat them in combat, sending them back through the gate.”

Abilities to ability, the strange little comma treating “defeat them in combat” as an independent clause, “Darkword” for god’s sake! This was the very first post, meaning there was all the time in the world to get this right. This is only 2 sentences. At this point I’m convinced this is some gag.

>Final Thoughts
Dark Gate Academy is an entertaining read, given that you understand what you are getting yourself into; it’s surprisingly consistent so far. Everything appears to be well thought out and well executed too. With seven threads down, I can give this with sound confidence a score of…

IT’S FUCKING ANIME/10

If you like that kind of thing, then this might just be right up your alley. With the conclusion of this far-too-long review, I’ll leave you with this brilliant line:

“I want to sit at the breakfast table and smile and laugh with oniichan again.”