Silver Falls Gaiden: Deathly Delusion Destroyers (3DS)

Silver Falls Gaiden: Deathly Delusion Destroyers is the latest entry in the Silver Falls series and the last one to release on 3DS before the closure of its eShop.  Envisioned as a swan song for the system, this game was designed specifically to maximize the uniqueness of the 3DS systems and, as such, wouldn't really work well on any other system.  That reason alone makes it a perfect system finale in my opinion as well as being enough by itself to justify giving a game a purchase.  It's also technically a 2-in-1 deal; not only do you get Silver Falls Gaiden: Deathly Delusion Destroyers, but you also get Silver Falls: Ruby River.  I'm not going to say how since it spoils one of the cool narrative reveals in the game, but the games directly connect to one another not only in narrative but also in mechanics.  All screenshots are courtesy of Sungrand Studios.

Deathly Delusion Destroyers tells the story of Gus, a long-time Silver Falls resident, who is looking for someone very important to him who went camping in the woods but hasn't been seen or heard from since  This takes place around two weeks after the events of Silver Falls: 3 Down Stars, so Gus is naturally worried about the mutated and highly aggressive animals that people had reported seeing in the woods around Silver Falls.  Gus is aided in his search by his friend, Dodger, but he's not comfortable asking other townsfolk for help.  Over the course of the game, though, more and more people show up to the campsite to help search, and Gus has to confront some of the misconceptions about the people in town that he had.  The storytelling and character development is really superb here, and it's really the highlight of the game.  My only gripe with the story is that it doesn't conclude definitively; the game intentionally leaves whether the rescue is successful or not up to player interpretation.  There's a lot of artistic merit to that, but for me personally, I just want to know how it ends.

As good as the characters and story are, though, the gameplay for Deathly Delusion Destroys is what makes the game stand out, though.  You hold the 3DS sideways like a book; think BrainAge if you ever played those games.  The gameplay consists of battles between story events.  Your characters - there are three dozen playable characters, but you can only use up to four at once - are on the right side of the bottom/right screen, and enemies make their way towards you steadily from the left side of the top/left screen.  Each character has a specific type of weapon that they use, and each weapon type has its own range.  Some weapons, like the rifle and shotgun, can shoot in a narrow line but have incredible range; some weapons, like the bow, have moderate range but can hit enemies in a wide angle; some weapons, like heavy melee, have almost no range but hit hard and stagger enemies.  Combining the right characters in the right place is the key to victory so that you can hit multiple enemies at once.  You can choose how difficult a battle you want to do from the super-easy-you'll-never-lose Casual missions all the way up to the giga hard I'll-literally-never-beat-one Titan and Multiboss battles.  Regardless of difficulty, you get a new story scene afterwards until you've seen them all at which point you can just play infinitely for fun.

Ruby River is a very different sort of game from Deathly Delusion Destroyers.  Whereas DDD is heavily story focused, there's almost no story in Ruby River.  You're alone along the bank of Ruby River with just a few items in your inventory.  The only real story that you get are the text boxes that appear from repeatedly interacting with those items.  Other than that, it's pretty much a survival game.  Using the real time clock, the game changes depending on the time.  During the day, enemies are fairly infrequent, not nearly as strong, and mainly consist of mutated animals.  This is when you'll want to gather resources and build a shelter.  At night, enemies are much more frequent and are significantly stronger.  They're also grotesque creatures like you'd see in Ghoul Busters.  You'll not want to play much at night until you're sure you're ready.

The cool part about this 2-in-1 is that you can send resources from Ruby River to Deathly Delusion Destroyers to help you improve your weapons in armor in that game, and then you can send weapons and armor from Deathly Delusion Destroyers to Ruby River to help you survive the horrors at night in Ruby River.  I'm not a big fan of builder survival games, personally, but I absolutely love the integration between the two and can definitely see myself playing Ruby River just to farm resources for Deathly Delusion Destroyers.

Silver Falls Gaiden: Deathly Delusion Destroyers is a pretty unique game, and it provides something that gaming often lacks - well written gay characters that don't just pander to folks for the sake of having a gay character.  I love Gus, but Gus isn't the only great character here; Slim gets a ton of great development, and a handful of other Silver Falls denizens get some development to build up their characters.  The gameplay in DDD and the connectivity with Ruby River are great, but honestly, it's the character development that made this game amazing for me.  Add to that the fact that it's an amazing swan song for the 3DS, and I really can't recommend downloading this game highly enough.  Don't miss out on this game.

My Rating - A