Not gonna lie, I bought this game because people said it's actually a good game, but I ALSO bought it because it had both a sexual content and nudity tag.
There isn't really much for you if you're buying this game mainly because of those tags. No one really seems to mention that in the reviews and so I thought I would. There are no sex scenes that I know of, no adult patches, no actual nudity that I've seen so far in game or in any screenshots. Keep that in mind if that's what you're looking for.
As far as actual gameplay goes, it's pretty fun but I was slightly disappointed because I was expecting more in a different department.

i was enjoying it but then all these small little bugs started to add up really quick. Id pay $5 or max $7. or untill they fix it better. Till then. Not gonna bother.
P.S. Sexual content and nudity is not what you think and is almost non existent. Almost felt like click bait.

Largely a solid game, with just a couple of let downs.

Buyer warning:
* Lots of big chested anime girls; and the game somewhat implies that the zombies are threatening them sexually rather than carnivorously. Up to you whether you consider this Bad or Good.
* If you want a metroidvania, this isn't exactly that. It's maybe more like Strider where the game is linear with side exploration and heavy combat.

Good:
* Fairly tight design. It does borrow from a number of games but it has it's own setting and it executes well.
* Somewhat challenging. You respawn on death and you can farm enemies; so it overall doesn't seem tough. But at 8 hours of pushing through the game without farming, the game seems very well balanced in terms of being challenging but yielding on a second attempt when you pay attention to the challenge.
* Very competent skill tree and loot systems. I'm only 8 hours in so I'm not sure it doesn't fall apart towards the end of the game; but it certainly seems solid at 8 hours in.

Bad:
* There's some very noticeable bugs in the game. The main area for bugs seems to be slopes on the ground - the game will tilt your fire angle on slopes when firing dead horizontal would be more natural. Your character might also stop suddenly while walking against an indiscernible change of gradient, and you need to jump to cross what appears to be flat ground.
* The controls aren't super tight. Sometimes inputs seem to get eaten when trying to quickly change weapon; and switching between your weapons is a strongpoint in the game's combat design.
* Sometimes when fighting on a hill, enemies standing uphill can't be seen due to the UI panels. the game actually has a button for toggling the UI that works around this. It's not a huge deal but it's a good example of how the game's design isn't watertight.

(review written as of version 1.14)

Came for the long-haired twintail redhead, stayed for the gameplay.

But in all seriousness, even the heroine wouldn't be enough for me to buy this right on the first day of Early Access. I've always been a fan of RPG, hack'n'slash, and platformer games, and the trailer videos successfully enticed me to buy the game and play it right away.

This game is by no means mindblowing, but it was definitely a fun ride for the first three areas that I cleared in update 1.x.

Talking about the battle system, you (Hisako, the heroine) will be deployed to an area with three types of weapons (a melee weapon—with light (saber, rapier, estoc, etc) and heavy (ax, great sword, etc) variants that differ in damage, attack speed, and attacking mechanics—, a "machine gun"—though, if I may nitpick on semantics, it's simply your main ranged weapon, which may include an assault rifle and the likes—, and a launcher, which is a "secondary" heavy ranged weapon with a far bigger firepower than your main weapon, but with very limited ammo/capacity—stuff like grenade or rocket launchers and the like). You will have to do quests after quests while rescuing refugees that are scattered throughout the area, and get the souvenirs (items marked with a yellow coin bag in the minimap).

Your enemies are mostly mutants of various types with their own specialty (melee mutants, gunners, grenade throwers, elementals and so on), though there will be occasional non-mutants as well, even including a tank, as you can see in one of the preview images. Each type of monster has enough uniqueness by themselves; at least I don't feel that there is a carbon copy between them. The boss battles at the end of every area are pretty challenging but still in the range of fairness, and I had a good time with them.

This isn't a completely mindless hack'n'slash & shooter, though, as if you want to earn the souvenirs, or occasionally, rescuing the refugees, you will have to solve puzzles that usually involve moving or destroying certain objects, and playing around with levers. These are mostly optional (especially the souvenirs), but you will earn rewards for doing them that improves Hisako's stats, and notes about the refugees and souvenirs which can be read in the record book, which is basically a logbook/record/database in other games.

More importantly, your weapons have a durability value (for melee weapons) and a limited ammo capacity (for ranged weapons), and once they drop to 0, your melee damage takes a massive cut, and your ranged weapons are unusable. You can only restock at save points that are scrambled across the area, and, in my experience of playing the Normal difficulty, you actually have to be rather careful with your weapon usage. It isn't strict to the level where you're finished for good if you used just one or two more bullets than necessary, but you can't casually spray and pray either.

There is also a stamina system, represented by a regenerating stamina bar, that limits Hisako's actions such as using her weapons or performing jumps and dodge rolls. It means you can't continuously and frantically attack and do special actions, as depleting your stamina bar will interrupt them and you'll have to wait for it to fill for a moment, which can be troublesome if you're, say, trapped in the middle of a swarm of enemies.

When it comes to weapons, as what I've said above, there is quite a variety across all three weapon types. These weapons may come with a special effect or stat increase, such as boosts on health or attack power, stamina usage reduction, the ability to heal for every kill you make, spawning a drone that will accompany Hisako and deal damage to enemies, and much more. These effects aren't bound to weapons, as they are also available in items called attachments which you can use, two at a time for each weapon type, to further improve your weapons.

Remember that there is also a weight limit, and each weapon & attachment has their own weight value (though I personally never had a problem with this). In addition, there is also a weapon upgrading/modifying system (Reinforcement/Modification), which can increase your weapon's attack power and change its effect, respectively, and costs money plus reinforcement & modification gears, which you can loot from enemies or item boxes along the way.

I find this whole weapon thing to be slightly complicated in a good way, though I got somewhat overwhelmed by the management for attachments when I started playing (and still is, sorta). It's fun to play around and choose what kind of weapon and attachments can complement my playstyle well.

Hisako herself can also level up once she earns enough XP. Each level up improves her health & weight limit, and also gives her a skill point, which you can spend in the skill trees to unlock the special abilities for each weapon and various other benefits, such as an increase in critical hit chance, maximum health points, weapon durability & magazine capacity, and much more. I'd say the skill tree being split into three based from weapon types is kinda jarring, considering you have to unlock each weapon's specials before you can proceed further into the more general skills, but I guess it's acceptable enough. Admittedly the aforementioned specials only cost one point per weapon type, so it might just be a slight personal annoyance.

Moving on to the story... Basically, the society collapsed and was forced to refuge underground after the mutants attacked, Hisako was told about school by her grandma, grandma gave her a school uniform, then she settled for a journey to the surface to build a school with the help of fellow refugees while doing stuff. I think that sums up the whole plot enough. Story is not exactly the strength of this game, but it's there and I guess it works. Nothing to write home about the music, either; don't expect to find any epic stuff here, though at least the game is not horrible in that department.

Character interactions are there, and they're okay. No further comments about the characters (especially their personality and development) because the game isn't even halfway there and I'm bad at describing people, but I'm not going to expect a lot. I hope I'll be proven wrong, though.

As what you might assume from its Early Access status, the game is riddled with a ton of bugs. There are a few that are gamebreaking (the most obvious one being crashes when trying to enter an area, though I think it's already fixed as of now), followed by a lot of minor ones that can be seen in the bug report thread, that can be an annoyance if you encounter all of them through a single sitting. I can assure you that they are not bad enough to make this game unplayable, though, as I did manage to finish everything currently available without feeling particularly displeased.

The English translation itself is, honestly, only acceptable when it comes to the English script. I can't comment about the actual translation quality since I'm not fluent in Japanese, but there are numerous typos and glaring grammatical errors, especially in the dialogues and cutscenes. I don't think I've encountered anything that is outright misleading (though some are confusing and/or ambiguous, like the description for the HardBlade effect and the Train option in the save point menu), but they accumulate enough to become a little headache at times. It's enough for the game to be playable from start to finish in English, but it can definitely be much better.

All in all, to end this review, I really enjoyed how the combat system and weaponry works, but everything else feels average at best. Not that they are horrible, though, but there are definitely rooms for more improvements, especially since this is still in the Early Access phase. Maybe give this a try if you're a fan of games with a similar battle system, and if you like cute anime girls doing badass things.

Dead or School is side scrolling hack-n-slash game with RPG and looter shooter elements, developed by Studio Nanafushi of 3 people. It was 2016 kickstarter project that shifted and changed due to budget and manpower. I bought it day one as early access title in July 2018 and I’m happy to see a final release in April 2019.

Dead or School sets in post-apocalyptic future of Tokyo. The surface was infested by mutants, forced human to live desperately in underground shelters. You play as Hisako, a young girl who grew up in underground. She once notices an old uniform and heard the story about school as place of paradise from her grandmother. Hisako is overwhelmed by her strong will to seek the school and bring all people to happiness regardless of awaiting danger.

The story reminds me of old manga; protagonist with eternal optimistic and eager. Yet, she shows her innocent when approaches to new sided characters and her drawings. As you progress through the story, things get complicated and more terrified. She still fights for her ultimate goal and learning old world from survivors. The concept of never give up might not for everyone, but it feels fresh and motivated to keep story going along with likeable sidekicks and funny moments.

The world is based on real-life locations and subway of Tokyo, rendering in 3D Unity. It doesn’t have best polished quality and some are just slapped together. But I’m appreciated the work they try their best to present especially surface areas. From well-known Akihabara to famous Asakusa where I used to visit Japan. Although, you will spend most time in underground areas, each station keep introducing different themes, gimmicks, puzzles, and backstory to player.

The core concept of Dead or School remains unchanged; it consists of fast-paced combat, tons of customization, and challenging platform. Let’s discuss one by one.

You start from Shinjuku station as your homeland and advance to other stations by storyline. Each station has main quests and sub quests with bunch of collectables and secrets to explore. You basically fight against mutants and keep your health to next save point (vending machine) that serve as customize station (skills, weapons, shops). You also obtain random drop (money, mods, weapon, and upgrading gears) and gain experience point from killing mutants. Those items will play major part of weapon customization which brings variety of combat.

The game doesn’t have consumable item to recover health and ammo, only save point will fully recover everything and some weapon mods (minor recover based on specific condition). Even melee weapon has limited durability that can drop to 0 and dramatically decrease damage output.

So, the main challenge of game is how to setup and prepare your weapons and skills to survive from point A to B especially on hard difficulty where all enemies become stronger and required more bullets to take down. Fortunately, difficulty is not forced and can be freely switch in game option as you can enjoy game casually or seek challenge by your own preference. Boss fights are well-telegraphed and some requires tactical move to accomplish. The more you advance, the higher-level enemy and traps you face that encourage to you learn pattern and position yourself in some area more than just hold a trigger.

Speaking of weapons, Hisako can carry total 3 weapon categories (sword, machinegun, and launcher) at a time. Each category has its character skill tree to support where you level up and spend point on lovely UI design. Moreover, each category has bunch of weapon types to choose. For example, machinegun category consists of SMG, Shotgun, Sniper-Rifle, Laser gun, and more futuristic arsenal (I could count more than 10 types for each category). It doesn’t sound make sense, but every weapon has different attributes and hidden effect that could help against some enemies. You never know until you experiment and find your best combination or suit your playstyle. Death is part of learning as the only penalty is 10% of player money and start over from latest checkpoint.

Aside from upgrading weapon, mods add another layer to support combat. There and modification system allows player to generate main attribute for each weapon. Weapon mods or in-game called “Attachment” is a drop with random attribute. Each attachment has two type of attributes, one affects character and another affects the weapon you install. I’m impressed with amount of stats variation; some are oddly creative and fun to use like dropping grenade for every successful hit, or dodging will damage enemies. Oh yes, perfect dodge will reward you short slow motion to counter or land free hits.

New player might be overwhelmed with information on customization UI and some translation issues, but once you get used to it. You will enjoy the flow of game. Every time you equip or try new weapon, the attachments will automatically install to new one in category. I personally found it convenient to access unless you want to keep attachment separately. You can also lock specific attachment or mark as trash to sell out for money with detail comparison. They are basic quality of life UI that lack in most RPG indies.

The mutants are not only threat. Sometimes, you have to proceed carefully for traps and dead pit. The game offers from decent platforming to tricky one that test your memorization and precise movement especially if you intend to collect all survivors and souvenirs (they reward you will stats, items, and backstory). Some are bit tricky or frustrating, but they are worth to collect.

I also have to mention puzzles; they cooperate with physics, memorization, and self-awareness like match music tone or read environment clue to escape street maze. Some fights you require to dodge or protect objective while fighting enemies. These elements keep engaging player and make sure the gameplay doesn’t become stale at certain point.

Dead or School oddly blends 2D and 3D well. While levels and some enemies are rendered in 3D Unity, the rest of CGs, common mutants, and Hisako herself are hand-drawn by two people of 3. One is manga artist that share his mange universe (Mechanical Doll Nanami) to his game. There are some partially nudity in CG or Hisako in critical condition, but it’s just ecchi level as fan service which I’m appreciated in direction of art.

The game contains variation of sound design. Most of them are heavy and strong to give a weight and feedback during battle. Although, some are hard mix or too similar to each other especially most sounds of melee attack and mutants. Hisako battle cries become repetitive at a time. Battle tracks are very great if you are into rock, heavy metal, electro stuffs. Some tracks also do decent job to build up emotional scenes.

As I experience a lot of Unity games, this game is well optimized and run flawlessly without a hard crash. Unscalable Hisako and map UI can obscure the visual. At least, it can turn on/off by pressing M. There are also translation/grammar issues and some bugs still remains such as character bugged in level geometry or script bug, but they can be fixed by reloading checkpoint and developers are active to patch constantly. There is not much replayability aside achievement and boss rush mode, but based game is lengthy depending on difficulty.

Dead or School proves that sometimes you don’t to stick to one mechanic/concept. Combine various elements can create fun factor that engaging players to experiment and enjoy their own style. It holds depth more than just high school girl slashing stuffs and I’m glad to support. Highly Recommend!

DEAD OR SCHOOL is a action RPG with some metroidvania and platforming elements sprinkled in. The story is about a distopian society where a mutant outbreak has led humans to seek shelter deep beneath the ground in order to survive. You play as a girl named Hisako, who after learning about school from her grandmother and acquiring her grandmother's uniform, wants to reclaim the Earth's surface from the mutants and machines that plague it.

Hisako uses 3 different types of weapons to battle. The first weapon is a melee weapon (swords,hammers,axes), second is your primary gun and the third is a secondary gun, which is usually a RPG or grenade launcher with very limited ammo. The game uses a dodge & roll mechanic which is used to avoid enemy attacks. Successful dodges slow down enemies giving you an opportunity to strike back or reload your gun. Hisako also uses a stamina bar which is drained when shooting,dodging, doing special attacks or jumping. Stamina can be recharged by simply crouching down or playing more passive/slowly. The stamina system is mostly there to balance out the player's firepower, but it never really becomes detrimental to the combat system. Overall, the combat system is responsive and Hisako's movement and jumping is pretty fluid.
The game also features a weapon upgrading system. This system allows weapons to be leveled and equipped two different add-ons which enable different types of playstyles and various perks. The game also has a rather adorable skill tree for each of the 3 weapon types (The skill tree is Hisako doodling on a blackboard).

The story and writting are pretty generic for your usual anime/manga style game. Nothing new or groundbreaking, but still fun. However, the writting can become really corny and predictable at times. Hisako is probably the most interesting character. She has a rather carefree personality for someone stuck in a distopian world. Her main motive is to reclaim the surface in order to go to school, where she can learn and make lots of friends. A bit odd, but it kinda fits her character. She is a cute badass. As you progress through the game you will meet more characters, but most are pretty forgetable, as they fall under one of the generic anime character archetypes. The one thing that really brings the story down is the poor English translation. From my experience, this poor English has been there since the game's early access days, and now that the game is fully released, I think it is, unfortunately, here to stay.

Besides the poor English translation, the game has some problems with platforming. Hisako may randomly get stuck (can be freed by jumping) on some terrain. One very annoying problem I had with platforming, especially vertical platforming, was the HUD. The HUD can sometimes cover parts of the screen making precise jumps difficult and pretty annoying. Getting stuck within platforms/terrain is not exclusive to the player character, as this can happen to enemies aswell. While these problems are annoying, they are not gamebreaking.

Overall, Dead or School is pretty fun.
8.5/10.

Janky! Is what this metroidvania like hack and slash RPG can best be described as. But it’s the good kind of Jank.

Overview
As you help the slightly dense but loveable idiot MC Hisako making her way from station to station in underground Tokyo, you explore sprawling underground levels with enough variety thrown in to keep them fresh.

As you progress you read a lighthearted story, solve minigames to get some of the collectibles and rescue survivors. You let Hisako dodge, slash, shoot and explode enemies on the way and pick up the dropped weapons, crafting materials and enhancements.

RPG Elements
The three weapon types: melee, gun, explosives drop with varying bonuses and can be upgraded.

In addition you equip up to 2 enhancements to each of the weapon types. Some enhancements enhance a guns performance and/or Hisako’s abilities herself no matter which weapon they are equipped on. Each type comes with its own skill tree to further upgrade its effectiveness.

Switching between loadout/enhancements is deemed essential and the developers probably want you to switch between certain setups. But I rather quickly settled down on a specific loadout and used that throughout the whole game. Only upgrading to the next higher version.

Conclusion
Dead or School is Jank! The camera is zoomed out too much, the physics detection is wonky at best. Some of the puzzles and jumping puzzles can be frustrating. But critical hitting a flying mutant from hundreds of meters away with your sniper rifle or finally making that stupid on-rails challenge is super satisfying. So is the loveable story and the weird but stereotypical anime characters.

Studio Nanafushi absolutely loved making this game together with their fans for years and it shows. It features enough variety in almost everything that there is a good time to be had.
I would love to see more, please!

Dead or School is a great game with some glaring issues, but if you can overlook them, you’ll find one of the most interesting games of its genre. The screenshots on the store page are a little misleading, and make it look a lot more like a pornographic cash grab than an action platformer, but it’s really the other way around. There’s honestly barely anything more risque than some erotically torn clothing, and even the torn clothing mechanic for the player mostly just indicates when you’re in critical damage mode [which is where a lot of buffs start applying]. The cutscene and splash art seems like it was done by someone who probably draws a lot of porn, but it’s not in and of itself particularly pornographic, and the style is actually pretty cool and interesting. I even really like the huge video-in-video of Hisako holding your current weapon in the corner [she does a little animation and a cheer when you reload] and you can even hit a button to hide both it and your huge minimap if you need more screen real estate to aim or platform.

The structure of the game is pretty interesting and probably was heavily influenced by its time in Early Access. Basically the game is split up into 8 or so individual metroidvania style maps with plenty of loot, puzzles, and secrets in each, but instead of being completely interconnected you access all of the ones you’ve unlocked from the train that serves as your base. Each map has a final boss that is fought in its own arena, and beating them unlocks the next map. The maps are mostly tours of famous spots in Tokyo with some diversions into sewers or underground caves. A lot of what keeps you from just running through is the combat encounter system, which mixes up pre-placed enemies with the occasional forced encounter, where you’re locked in a portion of the current screen and have to eliminate waves. There are a few spots where it’s really not handled well [too little room to stand or enemies that block your view] but in general it’s a really clever way to split the difference between having enemies you just ignore or snipe and being forced to kill everything in the room.

The combat system is interesting too, you have three weapon slots, and each slot can only hold one type of weapon, going melee, guns, and launchers. Each weapon is limited in how much you can use them before returning to a save point and therefore respawning most of the enemies [some forced encounters are one-time but others respawn too], melee weapons by durability and ranged weapons by ammo count, which encourages you to really mix up your melee and ranged attacks more than most games of this type without having a more typical weapon degradation system that tends to be annoying. All your equipment can be pumped up by dumping currency into it, you get a few slots for major mods which are kind of like Diablo style prefix/suffix combos that you can freely move around, and a decent skill tree that allows you to focus slightly on certain builds without forcing you to specialize too heavily.

There is definitely some balance problems in the version I played [late Early Access, mostly feature-complete and beatable in full but not released yet] especially with regards to one particular weapon that just blows everything else out of the water starting at about mid-game and is extremely hard to give up, but despite that I still had a blast throughout. I’d like a little bit more enemy variety, especially as you get into the last few chapters and still see basic zombies [sorry, mutants] crop up in encounters and just wonder what challenge they’re supposed to pose. The main character’s fixation on her idea of school lends some color to the item flavor text and survivor interactions that you don’t often get from post-apocalyptic settings, and despite the English localization being pretty slipshod it was never completely incomprehensible and was extremely entertaining. Give Dead or School an honest chance and let it surprise you.

For $10 this is a great game. $25 is a bit much but probably still worth it if you play to completion. It's a a surprisingly long game at over 20 hours.

If you are playing this looking for a hentai like game you are going too be disappointed. The majority of the revealing CGs are on the store page and that is the extent of how far they go. The art is really good though. To bad the MC's mom doesn't show up more or even be the MC. Milf status.

The basic premise of the story is very stupid. Humans have been pushed to underground from losing a war with mutated humans. The mutants are physically superior to humans and there isn't much a normal person can do. Here comes teenage MC with no training that slaughters legions of them for the sole purpose of going to the surface so she can go to school. You read that right. Going to school is not only the main goal but it is brought up all the time. The dialog makes me laugh at how dumb it is.

The core gameplay is fun with a good mix of weapons to choose from. But once I found what I liked I never switched off it. The balance is messed up in some spots but nothing ridiculous. You can lower the difficulty if you want to. Some of the side missions are annoyingly difficult with a controller with the jumping and having to aim while on a moving platform.

I did have some glitches. The main one was the second boss just stopped moving completely so I got an easy win.

Sideways thumb. Purchase only if on a 75% or greater sale!!

This game is a LOT of fun. But! It has a handful of shortcomings(giggity) that keep me from recommending it at full price.

* The game is pretty tiny and basic with very little depth. While the artwork is decent, the story is meh and I didn't feel like I cared much about the characters.

*The hentai/sexual content is basically non-existent. That's kind of a huge problem for a game that advertises itself as an H-game. There were some 'lewds' but I wouldn't even call them lewd. They were just suggestive. :(

* Combat/Game mechanics can be a little confusing and janky.

All of those negatives aside, I still liked the game. I just wouldn't pay full price for it. Especially when it's falsely advertising an experience with sexual content, hentai, and nudity. I was really let down by the lack of lewds and monster sex.

What else can I say? The heart wants what the heart wants. :P

Purchase on a BIG sale my salacious friends <3