I Played 428 Shibuya Scramble

428 Shibuya Scramble is another visual novel I’ll be talking about here on the site! Originally released in 2008 exclusively in Japan for the Wii and later in 2009 for the PlayStation 3, it wasn’t until 2018 that it finally got an English version for Steam.

And it was the Steam version that I played! You can check out all the achievements I unlocked in the game here. But now it’s time to recommend this gem!

What is 428 Shibuya Scramble About?

Just like Ever17, 428 Shibuya Scramble is also a visual novel, but what really caught my attention is that instead of using anime-style characters, it features real-life actors!

And I absolutely love games like that (another example is Death Come True, which I enjoyed and also stars real actors). So, the gameplay works by watching the scenes, reading the text, and making choices along the way.

The game features five protagonists in total, and you have to keep switching between them. Another highlight is that the story progresses in “hour blocks.” For example, in the image below showing the 11:00 to 12:00 block, you need to switch between characters and see their side of the story in order to move forward.

The game has a ton of bad endings that simply result in a game over—there’s even an achievement for collecting all the bad endings! And there’s more: oftentimes, you’ll find yourself stuck when playing as one character. The story won’t advance, so you’ll have to switch to another character and take certain actions with them to unlock progress for the other.

You see, 428 Shibuya Scramble tells one single story from the perspective of five different people, so what you do with one character will affect what happens to the others, even if they never actually meet!

What’s the Story of 428 Shibuya Scramble Like?

An incident occurs in Shibuya, and five people have ten hours to solve a mystery that starts out as a simple kidnapping case. A detective, a reporter, a girl with amnesia trapped in a mascot costume, a scientist, and a former gang leader all get wrapped up in the mystery.

The story starts off simple but gradually adds more and more layers, making you super eager to find out why certain characters do what they do, and who the mysterious woman in the costume really is.

Plus, this whole system where what one character does directly influences another’s story is really cool. Take the screenshot above, for example: when you control Minorikawa, you end up unlocking more story with Tama, and you can jump from one to the other.

If you’re familiar with the Canaan anime, 428 Shibuya Scramble is actually set in the same universe. In fact, Canaan is a sequel to 428 Shibuya Scramble, though personally, I much prefer the visual novel’s story.

My Thoughts on 428 Shibuya Scramble

Another REALLY GOOD visual novel! If you check my achievements, you’ll see that it took me a while to finish the game. That’s because when I first started playing back in 2019, I wasn’t that into visual novels yet, so I dropped it. But when I came back to it later, I realized just how great it is.

I absolutely loved the story’s twists. It’s not as mind-blowing as Zero Escape or Ever17, but it’s still a solid and entertaining story. As I mentioned earlier, there are lots of bad endings (and even an achievement for collecting them), and many of the bad endings are actually pure comedy.

I also want to take this chance to share some of my favorite tracks from the game. Give them a listen below:

428 Shibuya Scramble is available now on Steam!