Death end re;Quest

Death end re;Quest (デス エンド リクエスト) is a role-playing game developed by Compile Heart and Idea Factory. It is the fourth game of their "Galapagos RPG" line of games, being preceded by Fairy Fencer F, Omega Quintet, and Fairy Fencer F: Advent Dark Force.

The game follows Shina Ninomiya, who finds herself trapped in the Virtual Reality MMORPG "World's Odyssey", and Arata Mizunashi, Shina's colleague and lead programmer at Enigma Games.

Gameplay
Segments involving Shina feature the mix of RPG gameplay and light visual-novel presentation that is familiar to Compile Heart games. Players navigate World's Odyssey, occasionally running into enemies on the field. Battles take place in a circular arena, where up to three characters from Shina's party take on enemy creatures known as Martyrs. Players are allowed to freely move around the arena and take up to three battle actions per turn. Depending on the actions that the player takes, the target enemy might be sent flying, where they will receive additional damage by colliding with the field boundaries, other combatants, and "Field Bugs."

Segments involving Arata are closer to fully-fledged visual novel gameplay. They follow Arata as he searches for clues in Sagami City to help advance Shina's quest to escape World's Odyssey, and feature no combat.

Death Ends
Both Shina and Arata encounter several situations where taking an incorrect action will result in the death of Shina, Arata, or someone close to them, resulting in an instant Game Over. These are called "Death Ends" in-universe. To reduce the possibility of the player losing significant progress due to a Death End, the game allows the player to save during most conversations; furthermore, encountering one of the many instant Game Overs will unlock an item that can be collected by checking the Episode Chart.

Prologue
Arata Mizunashi can only watch in horror as Shina Ninomiya is brutally murdered by a massive monster, pierced through her torso before having her head bitten off.

Shina awakes in a remote village without any memories. Growing frustrated at her inability to remember anything except her name, she steps outside. Seeing the meadow causes her to remember that she is an adventurer journeying to the mystical sky capital Odyssia. Shina leaves the House of Beginnings to begin her journey, and shortly after saves Rook from monsters. As thanks, Rook explains the "Entoma Scourge" to the amnesiac Shina: one year prior, a terrifying beast known as Heaven's Messenger razed the world, until its body spontaneously shattered. The survivors deemed it a miracle from the heavens and continued with their lives until the "Mass Consternation" several months later. Inexplicable events, such as people evaporating and mass suicides, plagued the land thanks to mysterious objects called the Entoma; Rook points out that Shina's spider legs are one such object. Rook refers to the casualties as martyrs, "suffering for the sake of avoiding retribution"; since they are believed to be possessing monsters, those monsters are also called Martyrs.

At Rook's suggestion, Shina journeys to Heartis Palace to enlist as a guard, in hopes of making money for her journey. However, Shina is freaked out by the lack of reaction from the castle's denizens and briefly retreats. Gathering her resolve once again, she re-enters and requests an audience with the King of Heartis. Suddenly, the King accuses Shina of having killed his wife and calls for her head, with the King's Entoma-infected guard moving in to kill Shina. Suddenly, a mysterious voice attempts to guide Shina, seemingly knowing details about Shina that contradict the few memories that she retains. The two have a disagreement over the fate of Shina's mother that allow the Martyrs to catch up. After taking down the King's guard, a mysterious creature emerges from Shina and eats one of Shina's assailants. Having escaped Heartis Castle, the mysterious voice introduces themselves as Arata Mizunashi, and reveals that Shina's real name is Shina Ninomiya. She finally recognizes Arata and becomes emotional.

Arata Mizunashi is a 27-year-old programmer at Enigma Games. He was on a team with Shina developing a Virtual Reality MMORPG named "World's Odyssey". Shina, serving as the director of this project, disappeared roughly a year ago; between this and extremely difficult glitches emerging, Aggle Inc. froze their funding for the project, causing it to be cancelled. Shina's disappearance has weighted on Arata's mind since, something pointed out by Arata's coworkers Sumika Tokiwa and Lydia Nolan. Tired of being teased, he goes home and looks through his email only to discover an unread message from "World's Odyssey MGMT". Arata notes an attachment that he figures he shouldn't open before noticing that the email address is "shina[at]wod.com". Piquing Arata's interest, he attempted to open the attachment, but nothing he has will work on the file. His next course of action is accessing World's Odyssey itself. He noticed that one active player, Shina Ninomiya, is playing the game, leading to the aforementioned events at Heartis Palace.

Chapter 1
Shina wakes up, having fainted from exhaustion. Arata soon rejoins her, using a model of Enigma Games' mascot Mr. Enigma to take form in World's Odyssey. Arata reveals that the game's admin panel has been removed, preventing him from logging Shina out of the game. Shina reveals that she cannot log herself out, either. This leaves the "Ending Engage" routine as the only option to get Shina out of the game, which requires reaching Odyssia. Shina and Arata plot the journey: Shina will attempt to reach Odyssia by way of Sturfil, with an estimated gameplay time of fifty hours. Arata notes that Shina will need to complete all of the neccesary sidequests in order to access the True Ending.

Arata logs out and Shina steps into the castle, only for fear to get the best of her. She exits to find a young woman standing outside of the castle. The woman introduces herself as Lily Hopes; Shina recalls creating a character with that name, but notes she has both a completely different design and a flying "buggy" like Shina's. Lily, princess of Heartis, tells Shina that she was arrested under suspicion of having killed the Queen. Lily asks Shina to accompany her into the castle, which Shina accepts. Inside the castle, Arata reemerges as Shina and Lily discuss their respective buggies.

Arata decides to investigate Lily's drastically altered appearance, but cannot reach Sumika or Lydia. He decides to travel to Engima Games' office, but is swarmed by reporters, who claims that all of the world's electronics have been hacked to show World's Odyssey's login screen. Arata manages to elude the reporters.

While exploring Heartis Castle, Shina comes upon a photograph of Yamabushi Park, which Arata investigates. To his amazement there are absolutely no search results, so he decides to go there on foot. There, he meets Hajime Anjo, a fan of the occult. Anjo refers to the information that has suddenly disappeared from the internet as "Truth Fragments". Anjo reveals that the ghost in the "haunted photo" is just an illusion created by a rock; after Anjo leaves, Arata notices lines of text engraved on the rock. Arata returns home, making the connection between the text and the bugged code in World's Odyssey. Indeed, it correct a block of code in World's Odyssey, but something suddenly leaves a spiderweb-shaped crack in Arata's window.

Chapter 2
Shina and Lily come across a young Beastkin, Al Astra, who is looking for her parents. Searching the Sturfil Shipyard, they find dead frogs and fish, an English-language newspaper, and another Entoma Queen. Rook warns the party about a shady peddler. Al comes across an ogre peddler, who claims that Al broke her contact lens.

As this happens, mysterious men in rabbit masks attempt to capture - or kill - Arata and Sumika. The two unite at the Night Owl, Anjo's cafe. The next morning, they get a visit from Natsuo Munakata, an old friend who used to work at Aggle. He offers the office building for his company, Summer Life, as a base of operations.

Chapter 3
The Red Peddler, Clea Glaive, tags along the party. The party encounters a gigantic mecha known as the Corpse that knocks Shina unconscious. As Clea burns all of her inventory to save Shina, Arata searches for a way to save her in his world. This is complicated by a rescue of Lydia Nolan, as well as an interrogation by a police inspector named Senji Hizumi. During Lydia's rescue, Arata is nearly hit by a car, but hears mysterious words from Lydia before emerging unscathed.

Chapter 4
The party travels to Rizaria Forest in order to warp to Odyssia, meeting exiled half-Elf Lucil Filarete along the way. However, they arrive at the Elf Village to see the elves being slaughtered by a mysterious woman. The woman, calling herself Ripuka of the "Ludens", effortlessly holds off the party. She reveals that she has destroyed the Rizaria Forest terminal, and summons an Entoma Queen before leaving. After the Entoma Queen is defeated, the party falls into a mysterious hole.

Meanwhile, Arata is kidnapped by the rabbit masks and tortured for the whereabouts of the mysterious e-mail. He is rescued by Rin Asukaze, but the experience drives Arata to push the rest of Enigma Games away.

Chapter 5
The party encounters Celica Clayton, the Monarch Adventurer. She agrees to join their quest to reach Odyssia. However, one of the Terminal Stones located within the Sanatheus Temple are cracked, forcing the party to find a replacement.

Meanwhile, Arata and the rest of Enigma have been branded criminals, forcing them to reunite at Summer Life.

Chapter 6
The party falls into the Strain Area, meeting three more Ludens: Alice, Nova, and Levin. Alice knows Arata's real identity, which alarms his, but does not appear overtly hostile. The Ludens offer to let Shina's party use their resources, which makes Lucil furious. Tensions only rise further when Nova informs the party that Heartis Castle is under attack. Lucil's tantrum inadvertently leads the party right to Heartis.

Lucil remains furious with Lily but, to Lucil's ever-increasing frustration, Lily does not reciprocate even an ounce of anger. Lily reaches the throne room to find her beloved Chief Knight Gilsura dying. With his death, Lily flies into a rage while glitching out. Her buggy suddenly begins talking, gloating about how it fed on her anger and suppressed it until it was ready to explode. The party is forced to subdue Lily; after a tough fight, the glitched Lily suddenly begins talking about her struggles with medical school and her abusive stepmother. After Lily is returned to normal, she furiously attacks her buggy to reclaim her ability to feel anger.

Outside of World's Odyssey, Arata investigates a murder scene and find a mysterious masked figure that leaves more code for W.O.D.

Chapter 7
The party returns to Rizaria Forest, coming across a grave site. The elves explain that this grave is actually for the Beastkin that were hunted down by the humans. It eventually comes to light that Al's parents were also victims of the humans; the elves saved them, but they were already mortally wounded. Al was actually in the house when they were taken, hidden under the floorboards; the event was so traumatic that Al subconsciously blotted it out of her memory. Initially, Al was nonchalant about the reveal, but suddenly noticed that tears were rolling down her face. Shina tries to comfort her, but the sadness is too much for Al and she glitches out. The party subdues the glitched Al; like Lily, memories of a different life fill her mind. Al retakes her ability to feel sadness from her buggy.

Meanwhile, Enigma Games and Natsuo Munakata hatch a plan to infiltrate Aggle Corporation and thus Aphesis Lane, the cult behind the rabbit masks. It goes off without a hitch until Munakata is seemingly found and the video feed is cut. Later, Arata investigates the family of the murdered child and visits his sister's apartment in hopes of encountering the masked man. He indeed finds the masked man standing over the boy's freshly murdered sister and learns their true identity: Lydia Nolan. She never returns to Summer Life.

Chapter 8
The party returns to the Godot Ruins, where they encounter Ripuka once again. Ripuka taunts Lucil before claiming that Lucil was actually happy to see the elves who bullied her die. After Ripuka leaves, Lucil admits that there was some truth to Ripuka's words and begins laughing maniacally. Lucil glitches out, forcing the party to subdue her. As with Al and Lily, Lucil begins to remember things about her life outside of World's Odyssey, and reclaims her ability to feel joy.

In Arata's world, it is revealed that Werner Glock, Arata's boss, wrote some of the AI code that would later be repurposed for the Alice Engine. Aphesis kidnapped thousands of people to create a computer network capable of creating a true artificial intelligence - a Luden. The first Luden created was Iris, who would eventually rebel. The other Ludens locked Aphesis out of World's Odyssey.

Chapter 9
The party heads to Landor Volcano Cave in search of the final Terminal Stone. There, they battle the Infernal Wyrm.

Outside of World's Odyssey, Rin is kidnapped and tortured by Aphesis and its leader Victor Tailman.

Chapter 10
The party finally reaches Odyssia.

Suddenly, Aphesis breaks into Summer Life. Victor summons Munakata, who he claims was tortured until he gave up their location. Everyone's phones begin to make noise, the distraction giving Arata and Sumika an opportunity to retake the laptop and escape Summer Life. To their horror, they find Martyrs walking the streets. Sumika separates from Arata to find a restroom, during which Arata encounters Alice. Alice reveals that the true purpose of the Ludens is to merge World's Odyssey and Arata's world. During their conversation, Alice points out of a window, where Lydia stands.

Arata meets up with Lydia. He recites the words he heard from Lydia during the incident with the speeding car, causing time to stand still. Lydia reveals that she is an "Observer", someone who corrects the irregularities within Arata's world. She notes that she failed her mission, but gives her reality-warping pen and ancient book to Arata in a last-ditch effort to save his world. She then ascends to the heavens. Arata returns to his laptop to find his Enigma avatar destroyed and Shina as the only person there. Shina recounts the events that just occurred.

While Arata was away, Celica turned her blade on the party, revealing that World's Odyssey was fake and Shina knew it. Celica had already reached Odyssia - hence the broken Terminal Stone - and found absolutely nothing from the legend. She continued searching until she fell out of the bounds of the game. She nearly glitched out over the prospect of her life being a lie, but encountered "God" out-of-bounds. This was, of course, Victor Tailman, who told her that he would make World's Odyssey real in exchange for Shina's capture. Recounting these events to Shina cause Celica to glitch out and attack. Celica is subdued by the party and also recounts events from the real world. Celica regains her ability to feel despair, and appears to be ready to continue the quest...until Mr. Enigma berates her. Victor reveals that he has taken control of the Mr. Enigma avatar and hacks Celica's personality. Celica proceeds to kill Al, Lucil, and Lily. Faced with death at the hands of Celica, Clea reveals that she knows the emotion that her buggy is suppressing: courage. She willingly glitches out and mutually dies with Celica.

Back in the present, Rook approaches Shina, but Arata reveals that it is a trap. Victor has taken control of Rook, and boasts that Shina cannot defeat Heaven's Messenger. Shina fights and defeats the massive creature, resulting in Ending Engage triggering and taking Shina far away.

The Ludens track down and kill Rook.

Chapter 11
Arata and Sumika reach Aggle's headquarters, where people are running from Martyrs. Arata encounters Munakata and Rin outside of the building. Arata enters the building and encounters a supercomputer calling itself the Aphesis Guru. It reveals that Shina had bonded with Iris, and that Iris's rampage was caused by his men killing Shina. This means that the Shina that Arata interacted with in W.O.D. was a digital copy that no longer exists due to Ending Engage. The Aphesis Guru calls for Arata's assistance, but Arata instead escapes. Outside of the Aggle building, Arata sees the corpes of Sumika, Munakata, and Rin.

Arata nearly gives into despair, but is rescued from incoming Martyrs by five young women who refer to Arata as Enigma. Yurisa Yamamura, Hinata Morikubo, Kaede Hizumi, Svetlana Amou, and Chloe Aaron, the real identities of Lily, Al, Clea, Lucil, and Celica, reveal that they were saved despite dying in the game. As his world and W.O.D. are merged, Arata decides to travel to the Strain Area. Arata demands that the Ludens help him fix things, which they vehemently refuse to do. In response, Arata attempts to open the mysterious e-mail, which causes Iris's body to appear, go berserk, and destroy the Strain Area. In Yamabushi Park, the Ludens agree to help Arata and produce a new digital copy of Shina. The World's Odyssey party then returns to Odyssia.

The party begins to climb Odyssia to reach the glitched Iris, but is stopped midway by Ripuka. Despite acknowledging that Iris' will directly contradicts her urge to kill, she still attempts to eliminate the party. After they fight for a bit, Ripuka stops and angrily calls for the God of Death, confusing Arata as that title was mostly used by the Ludens in relation to him. She tells the God of Death that she knows that they are watching, and admonishes them for standing proud as if they aren't involved. Arata is utterly lost as Ripuka seemingly destroys the game's camera.

Arata finally puts everything together: the glitchy world of W.O.D., how his world exhibits supernatural phenomena that could be considered "glitches", how he watched over Shina's party in World's Odyssey, the constant feeling that he is being watched, and Alice's cryptic statement about the God of Death being able to bend fate. He turns to the player of Death end re;Quest and asks them to help him. The player agrees, giving Shina's party a power boost that allows them to finally defeat Ripuka. Ripuka tries a last-minute sneak attack that backfires, impaling her with her own sword.

The party reaches Iris, fighting through her many forms and glitched HP before finally subduing her. Iris appears as her normal self for a brief moment before dying. The Ludens present Arata with a piece of code that allows him to "degrade" his world, essentially resetting things. Alice notes that Arata has tried countless times to successfully fix things, and used the Reality Objects to lead himself in the right direction. Unlike Arata's version, this degrade code allows him to retain his memories.

Arata notes that all of the party members spent time with Iris at some point (likely referring to the events of End Quest) before embarking on this journey with Shina. They return to the House of Beginnings, with Shina noting that this was the house that she and Iris built together. As everyone prepares for Arata to degrade his world, he thanks the God of Death and suggests that maybe should be called the King of Resurrection instead.

One of seven (or eight, if the Ripuka DLC has been purchased) character endings then play, showing Arata interacting with one of the party members or thinking about Lydia.

World's Odyssey

 * Shina Ninomiya
 * Lily Hopes
 * Al Astra
 * Clea Glaive
 * Lucil Filarete
 * Celica Clayton
 * Rook
 * Shirote

Enigma Games

 * Arata Mizunashi
 * Sumika Tokiwa
 * Lydia Nolan
 * Rin Asukaze
 * Werner Glock

Ludens

 * Alice
 * Levin
 * Nova

Antagonists

 * Victor Tailman
 * Ripuka

Other Characters

 * Natsuo Munakata
 * Hajime Anjo
 * Senji Hizumi