Rebellions Review - just trust me you guys

I am about to attempt to make the most difficult VN shill of my life in this post. Hear me out.

Let me preface this post by saying that enjoying visual novels and trying to find some to read in English is an adventure in and of itself. You start with officially translated games, then popular fan translated games, then explore a couple of obscure games with either fan translations or miraculous official translations... It all eventually spirals into the eventual fate of running out of things to read, culminating in spending hours trying to find a game on dead blogs and getting a 10 part upload from MEGA that’s also in Spanish so god knows if you’re doing anything right.

That last sentence was not a hypothetical. Thank you, Lamento fan translation.

Anyways, for most people, that’s basically the end of the story. When you get to that last step, wading through dead links trying to find a game… That feels like the farthest you can go. But there’s another step in this quest for English VNs which I’m fairly sure not a lot of people think of unless you're really deep in— liveTL!

A liveTL is what it sounds like— someone translates a thing onstream, no script prepared beforehand. You’ve probably seen it in passing, like someone streaming a game in JP before it comes out in America or digital Kpop concerts with live subs. LiveTLs have their ups and downs, with the main downside being that you’re not playing the game yourself. For any other game this might suck, but for a visual novel, this is basically a nonissue, especially if it’s kinetic (no choices made ingame).

With all that intro out of the way, I would like to recommend a special game for you to consider playing (really, watching) through a liveTL— Rebellions Secret Game 2nd Stage.

- What the heck is Rebellions Secret Game 2nd Stage?

Rebellions (I am not typing out that whole name again) is a VN by FLAT, and a sequelprequel to Secret Game Killer Queen. Sequelprequel is my new term to mean something is a followup game, but takes place before the game(s) before it— like Drakengard 3 to Drakengard or MGS3 to MGS2. This means you don’t have to play the game before it to play this one, but if you’re interested in both, there’s also a TL for that. I’ll link it at the end.

Anyways, Rebellions is a game in the death game genre, alongside other IPs like Danganronpa, Your Turn To Die, Squid Games‼️, so on and so forth. The premise is as follows, no spoilers:

14 high schoolers are kidnapped and wake up in a desolate forest littered with rations and weapons. On their persons upon waking are collars around their necks and numbered PDAs equipped with a special function, like “Alert when someone’s within 25 meters of you”, and a clear condition, like “All prime number players have fulfilled their clear conditions”. Each special function and clear condition is different for each of the 14 players.

Fulfill the clear condition and survive until the last day, and the player wins, able to receive any prize they want. Try to leave the game area or invalidate the clear condition (for example, a player stays in an area longer than 10 hours when their clear condition is “Don’t stay in an area longer than 10 hours”), and the collar put onto the player while they were unconscious will detonate, killing them.

…That's the gist of it. If you're expecting a mind-bending mystery, this isn't for you. But if you just want to see people be people in a life or death situation similar to Battle Royale, then this is basically right up your alley. Rebellions is focused on just seeing who survives, while also learning more about the players personally— their backstories, their goals, their desires, and so on.

- What’s so good about this that you want people to watch the liveTL?

I very much enjoyed it and would like more people to experience it so they can enjoy it too. English speaking Rebellions fans do not exist, and goddammit I will MAKE more if I have to. So what exactly did I enjoy about it?

I’ll explain it like this— if a character dies in the beginning of Danganronpa, they do not come back. They are dead and the game only follows one perspective/timeline. You end up having a very shallow understanding of the dead character as a result, and that’s assuming you get anything remotely deep about them if you happen to talk with them in free time mode. Danganronpa chapter 1 spoilers I guess, but like… name one thing about Leon other than that he likes baseball and that he killed Sayaka.

Even if a character in Danganronpa you like lives a long time ingame, they don’t often get character arcs or very deep character moments unless they’re one of the survivors of the game (and can’t get killed off because they had a character arc). This isn’t a problem exclusive to Danganronpa, but it’s just the easiest comparison to make because the two are in the same genre.

With Rebellions, there are routes that vary in both story and character focus. A character you didn’t know much about in one route might become center stage in another. A character you didn’t like in one route might be your favorite by the end of another. And you’re not repeating the same story, because there are different stakes as a result of different characters being in the spotlight. The different stories and character focuses really elevates Rebellions from “Good” to “Oh Hell Yeah” for me. I feel like I have a much better understanding of the cast thanks to this.

At the beginning of the game I really didn't care for the girl on the right, by the end I was throwing things at my screen rooting for her.

Aside from this, the writing is pretty engaging. There’s a really great handling of suspense throughout each route, you’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop and everything to descend into chaos. Often, there are scenes that come out of nowhere to throw you off where you think the story’s going, which is appreciated, as there are some cliches.

This game is also funny sometimes, I don’t know why the jokes here were actually good. I chuckled. I even guffawed, a rarity for VNs to do to me.

TL;DR: An interesting take on the death game genre, better character writing balance than most things I've played, each route shakes things up and the story is never dull.

- Where can I find the liveTL?

Rebellions liveTL playlist here.

And the Secret Game Killer Queen liveTL, if you’re curious about that. Again, SG was released before Rebellions, but you can play Rebellions without playing SG. Please play Rebellions it's straight fire.

And here are some liveTL tips from me:

• If you’re used to reading fast, I would recommend putting the videos on 1.5x - 2x speed. I had it at 1.75x and it was a good sweet spot for me.
• Obviously you can watch along to the video, that’s what it’s there for. But you can also just treat this like a podcast, too. I listened to Rebellions while packing stuff up to move and on my commute to school, so I only glanced at the screen every now and then. It worked great for me this way!
• I think it took me a total of 2 weeks to get through the entire playlist. Your mileage may vary. Taking it slower or faster is all up to how much Rebellions you can eat per day.

Lastly. My final score:

Rebellions Secret Game 2nd Stage: 9/10, just a fun little game. My only critiques are the artstyle isn’t my type and some small complaints about a few plot elements, but it was great. Would recommend it, which is what I’m doin’ right now baby!

If I was a billionaire I would singlehandedly fund the localization of this game.