First off, I think you've done an amazing job at replicating the horror of
Battle Royale; I was doing a no-save-scumming first playthrough, so there were some genuinely tense moments during encounters with other students/the announcements of new Forbidden Zones. (Also a few because I'm an idiot, and somehow failed to notice/remember that I actually had to
equip weapons and armor.) I also liked what I think was some meta-commentary at/near the end, but spoilers, just to be safe:
Was the A.I.'s 'You're here because you want to be here' leaning on the fourth wall? I'm assuming that Shinobu didn't want to be there, but that we-the-players were present because we did indeed want to play the game, despite knowing what would happen. If so, nice. It's been done before, but I thought it was particularly effective here because, as noted, I found the immersion to be surprisingly effective... to the point where I got momentarily stuck when you enter your name in the PC, because I forgot that I was playing an MC with an established name. ORZ
The ending kinda confused me, though:
Shinobu gets knocked out, and wakes up twenty years older with a wife and kid? I'm guessing this is a pretty good ending because I lived, plus it unlocks the Machine Gun, but...
Granted, I was playing at an ungodly level of sleep-deprivation, and maybe I missed something?
I'm also curious about what random weapon/item everyone else got, just to compare notes. I started with the sickle, for example, which obviously had a big effect on my playstyle (lots of fleeing, initially, until I eventually traded up). I just started my second playthrough, and I got the sniper rifle. I suspect a lot more people would be dead by now if I wasn't trying to keep Mari from freaking out and running away.
A couple of inconsistencies, though: During my first playthrough, I had the option to tell Takeshi about the boat before I actually found the boat. More notably, during my current run, I let Mari go across the bridge, then killed Ai when she attacked. Hitomo ran to the bathhouse, but when I went in, it acted as if Hitomo had been escorting me. After the normal conversation, I went straight into interacting with Hitomo, who goes "Ahhh!" When I click Done instead of Attack, the game acts as if I killed her ('Hitomo never stood a chance') and I get the 'Mari runs off' message. The screen still shows all four girls, and no-one does anything, but when I leave, Mari stays. When I go back and try to interact with Mari,
then she screams and runs off, but Hitomo is still there.