Just in time for Halloween, Raging Loop is out on the Nintendo Switch! The psychological thriller meets visual novel is quite a ride. From the get-go, the game contains elements of great mystery narratives you may be familiar with and has a lot to love, especially for those who like visual novels. That being said, if the medium isn’t your cup of tea or you don’t know how much you enjoy excessive reading in gaming, this one might not be for you.

Lost and Looking for…Werwolves?

Raging Loop kicks off with no sign of anything familiar as you ride your motorcycle through rural Japan. Looking for help and a way home, your character Haruaki Fusaishi, stumbles upon something known as The Feast. The small, remote village of Yasumizu is under attack by werewolves who once guarded its people but now want revenge. As one of the five animal guardians of the area, the werwolves are pretty ticked that they were betrayed by the Yasumizu people some time ago, and now want to literally eat them. Your character tries to piece together some sort of solution but then gets killed. Or does he?

Welcome Back, Haruaki

After dying, you awake to find yourself alive. Strangely, you remember what you learned, talking to the characters the previous night. Because of this knowledge, you go back through the sequence of events again to find out more. This is a process you do over, and over, again and again. The first few lives you burn through are slow, and you kinda just feel like you’re playing an NPC-conversation simulator.

When the pieces start falling in place, however, the story gets good. As you put together what’s going on, the mystery and plot thicken. The other guardian animals are involved thanks to some choice villagers, and some people might actually be working with the werewolves to destroy the town. It’s your job to figure out why.

Gameplay and Presentation in Raging Loop

The game is a visual novel that plays out with a series of choices you can make about dialogue and actions for your character. As you learn more each life you live, you gain more choices down different roads. The growth in terms of options feels natural and quite consistent with some of the better narrative-based games I’ve played. Unfortunately, it’s heavy on looking back on conversations, and even rehashing things you’ve already done. For that reason, lukewarm fans of visual novel games should steer clear, because this one is heavy on the tropes and styles of the genre.

In terms of presentation, the art for each drawn character, setting, and overall look of the game is wonderful. Also, the music and voice acting are quite good. The static images in visual novels can sometimes seem a bit too dull for people, but when done right, I don’t see an issue with non-moving animation.

The only concern with this game in my eyes is the lack of actual illustrations of any action scenes or dramatic moments. A lot of artistic angles of dead bodies, murders, and other important moments of the game take the place of actually seeing any of it happen. While it might allow for the game to be rated something a bit more PG-13, the game is still M. So I’m not sure why they chose to avoid scenes of violence or otherwise important moments.

Final Thoughts

I’m not someone who loves playing numerous visual novel-based games. That being said, Raging Loop ranks up there with some of the best I’ve played. While I find the game’s choice to avoid illustrating some important scenes strange, the entire experience was wonderful. I also recommend that you know ahead of time how much reading and rehashing you’ll be doing over this experience. It’s a great little horror experience for this spooky time of year!

A review code of Raging Loop was provided by PQube for this review.

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Raging Loop

8.5

Score

8.5/10

Pros

• Great Visual Novel with Mixed-in Mystery and Horror
• Compelling Story
• Great Art Style and Voice Acting

Cons

• Very Heavy on Reading and Revisiting Clues
• Some Key Moments are Shown, Which Hurts the Experience