Fight students or jab janitors with a stick in this straightforward game focused on brief objectives and a heavy dose of cutscenes.
The story begins with the retirement of a popular principal. As his successor, the students are introduced to a small, nasty woman who can only be described as a hag. To make matters worse, she brings along her own staff, each one more unpleasant than the last. It does not take long for changes to be introduced at the school. From now on, bullies rule the halls, but your character decides to do something about it.
Before the game begins, you choose one of five available classes. Each class comes with a positive and a negative perk that fits its theme in a fun way. For example, if you choose algebra, you start with a pencil and an eraser, but bullies will beat you up more quickly. If you choose carpentry, you begin with a baseball bat but have limited ammo capacity. However, these choices do not change much overall, as the core gameplay remains the same.
After a short tutorial that explains the simple controls, which will feel familiar to anyone who has played a first person shooter before, you are placed in the school hallways and free to explore. There is no map, but the school is small, with only two floors and mostly identical corridors and reused assets. Once you learn where the doors are, you’ll have no trouble finding your way around.
While the main objective must be followed, it does not come with a waypoint and is only marked by a red exclamation mark when it comes into view. You can also earn money by beating up other students, looting lockers, or returning lost items to the lost and found. However, fighting and stealing will alert janitors and floor supervisors, who will come after you. Before obtaining stronger weapons, you will not be able to handle all of them.
This is not a major issue, since you respawn after losing all your health while keeping all your money. This makes grinding very easy, but there is little to spend that money on. There is a soda machine that restores health, which is not very useful, and a student who sells weapons. You also keep all your weapons after dying.
You start out using only your fists, but you can acquire pencils, sticks, slingshots, and other weapons from defeated supervisors and bullies. Once you obtain a decent weapon, you can clear an entire floor of enemies, earning even more money that becomes largely useless at that point.
The game is divided into short chapters, each with its own objective. Saving occurs at the start of every chapter, and while there are no checkpoints, this is not a major problem since each chapter only takes a few minutes to complete. The beginning of a chapter also serves as your respawn point when you lose all health.
The downside is that although objectives are clear, you often wander around with little idea of where to go. Some objectives require you to run away from an invincible enemy that spawns nearby and drains your health at an alarming rate, or you fail immediately. This can be very frustrating, especially since each chapter includes several cutscenes, which you can fortunately skip. On the other hand, because the gameplay sections are so short, the cutscenes could be considered the game’s main feature. There are plenty of them, and they tell an entertaining story, so watching them at least once is recommended.
