With approximately 100 endings in The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy and a ton of knowledge to gather as you and your team protect the school from vibrant invaders, it can be beneficial to keep a few key points in mind to help you experience them all.
From combat shortcuts to tips for maximizing your Free Time segments and expert advice after reaching the first of many endings, here are some insights that could enhance your gameplay.
Don’t Hesitate to Sacrifice Teammates
They Gain Major Advantages in Last Resort Attacks
In many scenarios common to games like this, the goal is often to keep your teammates alive as much as possible. However, if you find yourself starting a turn with a teammate on the brink of defeat, consider using near-death teammates for Last Resort attacks.
Last Resort moves vary among teammates, similar to their special abilities and passives, but in general, these moves deal more damage than standard attacks and have a wider attack range. The trade-off, of course, is that the teammate will die after performing a Last Resort move.
Considering that students at the Last Defense Academy can be revived between combat waves, it’s important to monitor everyone’s health when taking your turn. If any teammate is at risk, don’t let the invaders gain an advantage from taking them down—sacrifice the teammate, unleash significant damage, and they’ll be back by the next wave.
Maximize Your Expeditions
Explore Thoroughly Before Concluding Adventures
When you need to convince new teammates to join the fight against invaders, you typically have to head out on an expedition beyond the Undying Flames to seek supplies, extra Battle Points, and other essential resources.
On these expeditions, you can take a few teammates to explore or hunt for specific items and treasures for the Gift-o-Matic. Each teammate has a special perk for expeditions, enabling you to find certain types of materials more easily.
Regular expeditions conclude when Takumi’s HP runs out whenever you decide to venture out on your own. You can select three other teammates to accompany you. If you’re exploring for a Persuasion Mission, these expeditions conclude when you locate the missing item needed for the Gift-o-Matic.
You can keep exploring as long as Takumi’s HP allows during persuasion expeditions, enabling you to gather extra materials along the way.
With the expedition map divided into zones, each offering more of specific resources than others, be prepared to explore extensively. As time and HP are limited, it can be helpful to have a general idea of your route when navigating the expedition map—make sure to check the map overview frequently to ensure you’re on track.
Upgrade Your Class Weapons Quickly
Unlock New Skills and Enhancements After Major Battles
Once you gain access to the Training Room, you can start upgrading Class Weapons for any teammates you’ve unlocked, allowing you to not only improve the stats of their default abilities but also teach them new attacks and skills over time.
Before unlocking the Garage on Day 019, upgrades are limited to the machine in the Training Room, which can increase the power of offensive attacks and enhance defensive capabilities. After gaining access to the garage, you’ll also be able to teach classmates new moves, building a comprehensive skill set for each member of your team.
Every teammate can learn multiple new abilities provided you have the Battle Points (BP), adequate grades in necessary subjects, and the required materials. These abilities become available the next time that teammate enters combat, so check back frequently and upgrade when possible. Upgrading doesn’t take away from your Free Time slot, so feel free to stop by and make the enhancements.
Versatility is Key to Survival
Understand Each Teammate’s Role in Combat
While the visual novel sections of The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy might make it easy to favor certain characters based on their personalities, it’s wise to understand how each character can operate on the battlefield since there’s no guarantee about which teammates will be available to you.
As the story unfolds, you’ll be tasked to fight using various combinations of teammates, mixing characters who excel in melee attacks on nearby grids, long-range fighters who maintain their distance, and support characters who can contribute to combat while enhancing their teammates’ performance.
A great way to familiarize yourself with each teammate is to utilize the Training Room’s VR machine. You can practice combat any time you want, helping you hone your skills.
Improving Takumi’s Class Weapons is always a good move. While he’s not as specialized as some fighters, he’s regularly in battle, making him a reliable choice.
New scenarios appear consistently as more teammates join your ranks, so if you find it challenging to use a particular character effectively, consider spending some Free Time on practice missions. They not only offer BP but also allow you to work on your skills.
Even if you have favorites, it’s wise to assign roles early in battles so that your teammates can specialize effectively based on the Attack Points you have available. Though offense is critical, don’t overlook support characters like Tsubasa, as they can influence outcomes by enhancing your team’s offensive capabilities.
Explorations Can Be Rewarding and Risky
Stay Ready for Fights, Even Outside Designated Battle Areas
No matter how careful you are during expeditions beyond the Undying Flames, you’ll encounter school invaders that you can choose to fight. While this is a great way to earn Battle Points and familiarize yourself with your teammates, you need to stay alert and be ready for combat at any time.
Just like in the Academy, battles can spring up at almost any moment when you land on an action space on the game board. Naturally, certain spaces will trigger battles, but even non-battle spaces can lead to fights if you aren’t cautious!
This is particularly common on mysterious spaces, which lack a clear outcome, but higher-level resource spaces may also trigger battles if the desired resources are protected by invaders. Stay vigilant and keep an eye on Takumi’s HP—the expedition ends if he falls in battle beyond the Flames.
Takumi Can Restart Fights
Avoid Spending Time on Fights You’re Unlikely to Win
Since The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy is a tactical survival game, you’ll find yourself in various fights throughout. Whether it’s small battles encountered while exploring or larger narrative-driven encounters, battles will be frequent!
Even veteran fighters can be caught off guard and face defeat if they aren’t attentive. Perhaps you focused too heavily on offense while neglecting your defense or took too much damage to feel secure in your next moves—whatever the situation, don’t hesitate to restart waves or even entire battles if you sense things aren’t going your way.
The school invaders are formidable, consistently targeting your teammates and your school’s defenses alike, trying to breach into what you’re protecting. Takumi’s Special skill allows you to retry any fight regardless of where you restart from.
If you’ve made a few errors, trying a wave again could be beneficial, but retrying the fight from the beginning might be wiser if your defenses are too low. It’s easy to fall into an offensive mindset, but remember you are at a Defense Academy, so if your school’s shield is looking dangerously low, consider restarting the battle to incorporate the lessons you’ve learned.
Fatigue Affects Movement, Not Attack
Fatigued Teammates Can Still Attack Again After Exhaustion
Unless you are using an Attack Point on a teammate who isn’t affected by fatigue, any move that consumes AP will typically leave a teammate feeling fatigued after they finish. Regardless of how much ground they could have covered, fatigue significantly restricts movement after a battle turn.
While there are limited ways to alleviate fatigue and restore mobility—like support from a teammate or using Voltage to move again—just because a teammate is fatigued doesn’t mean they can’t take a second turn.
This can be especially advantageous if they find themselves surrounded. They might not have dealt enough damage to eliminate enemies but could have an attack to finish them off from their final grid position. If you have AP to spare, you can still use that teammate, and they can deal the same damage, albeit within a more restricted range than their earlier turn.
You can also end your turn without using up all your AP—leftover points will carry over into your next turn.
