428: Shibuya Scramble

**428: Shibuya Scramble**, also known in Japan as **428: Fūsa Sareta Shibuya de** (428 〜封鎖された渋谷で〜, lit. 428: In a Blockaded Shibuya) is a crime thriller adventure visual novel. It was released in Japan in 2008, and received a North American release in 2018.

## 428: Shibuya Scramble

### Developer

Chunsoft(Wii/PS3/PSP/IOS/Android)
Spike(PS4)
Abstraction Games(PC)

### Publisher

SEGA(WII JP)
Spike(PS3/PSP/IOS/Android JP)
Spike Chunsoft(PS4 WW/PC WW)
Ravenscourt(PS4 EU)

### Director

Takeshi Furuta
Jiro Ishii

### Writer

Koichiro Ito
Yukinori Kitajima
Takemaru Akibo(Suzune Story)
Kinoko Nasu(Canaan Story)

### Composer

Naoki Sato
Hideki Sakamoto
Shingo Yasumoto

### Platform

Wii
PS3
PSP
IOS
Android
PS4
PC

### Release

December 4,2008(WII JP)
September 3,2009(PS3 JP)
September 17,2009(PSP JP)
Novermber 3,2011(IOS/Android JP)
September 4,2018(PS4 NA/PC WW)
September 6,2018(PS4/PC JP)
September 21,2018(PS4 EU)

### Genre

Visual novel
Adventure Interactive film

### Localization (En)

**Abstraction Games(Port transplant)**
David Kracker(Director at Spike Chunsoft localization)
**Kajiya Prooductions(Localization script)**

* Kevin Frane(translator)
* Alexander O.Smith(editor)

## Plot

A major event that could jolt the world has been triggered in the streets of Shibuya. Five main characters have 10 hours to come together and solve the mystery behind what originally seemed like an ordinary ransom kidnap case.

## Characters

* **Shinya Kano** (加納 慎也, Kanō Shin'ya)

A young detective from the Shibuya Police Department, Kano is one of the detectives assigned to a stakeout involving Hitomi Osawa, a young woman whose twin sister Maria was kidnapped for ransom. The kidnapper had specified that Hitomi bring the money to a hand-off location outside of Shibuya Station. When the criminal shows up and runs off with the money, Kano takes chase.
* **Achi Endo** (遠藤 亜智, Endō Achi)

A boy who loves Shibuya more than any anyone else, Achi is the former head of S.O.S., the most influential street clan in Shibuya. He has since left S.O.S. and now spends his days cleaning up the streets and picking up trash. During his daily street cleaning routine, he encounters and saves Hitomi from a gunman, and the two go on the run to evade her assassin.
* **Kenji Osawa** (大沢 賢治, Ōsawa Kenji)

A virus expert and the father of Hitomi and Maria Osawa. As the lab director of Okoshi Pharmaceutical, Osawa leads a hermit-like life. A week after his US business trip, he receives a series of mysterious e-mails that indicate someone had conducted an unauthorized clinical trial of an antiviral drug he had been researching.
* **Minoru Minorikawa** (御法川 実, Minorikawa Minoru)

A hot headed freelance writer, Minorikawa receives a desperate phone call from his former superior, Teruo Toyama. Toyama, now the president of a small publishing company, was swamped in debt and now forced to complete the latest issue of his magazine in a single day. Minorikawa offers to help finish the magazine.
* **Tama** (タマ)

A mysterious person in a cat suit. Tama, a person of unknown identity, is working inside a cat suit as a by-the-day temp worker in order to buy a strange necklace she found at a general store. She begins her work of promoting a diet drink, "Burning Hammer."

## Gameplay

### Game mechanic

#### Time Chart

   It is responsible for arranging the time and events of all the protagonists and allowing players to switch between them, for example, from Achi's 12:45 to Minorikawa's 12:30. Often, a change made in one hour only affects itself, not the other hour. This mechanic is associated with **Keep out**, **Jump**, **Bad end**, and others.

#### Jump

It's responsible for getting the player to jump from protagonist A to protagonist B at a particular moment. This is usually used to unlock Keep out, for example the player can unlock his Keep out from Tama's 13:20 Jump to Minorikawa's 13:20. Other jumps are misleading, such as jumping to Maria of the Epilogue when player get through Canaan Story, but nothing else.

## Behind the Scene

* As Chunsoft made both games, 428 and their previous visual novel, Machi (街), the two have similarities between each other.
	+ The same :
		- The plot of both games occur over a specific time period.
		- The protagonists must help each other to move the story forward (Machi is blocked as "To be continued" and 428 as "Keep Out").
		- They all have introductions to nouns and special nouns hidden inside.
		- Both games have had legal problems with production. Since no film crew is allowed to film Shibuya without permission, however, it is usually possible to circumvent the law by avoiding them before the police arrest them. To this end, the crew even made it a common practice for several people to be arrested by the police while others stayed away.
	+ The differences:
		- The incident at Machi took place over a five-day period from 11 October to 16 October. The 428 incident took place between 10 A.M and 8 P.M on April 28 and lasted 10 hours.
		- Machi's protagonists don't know each other and end the story on their own terms. The protagonists of 428 never know each other until they unite with each other and then they become friends, and they end the story together.
		- Machi has Easy, Normal and Hard difficulty modes while 428 has no difficulty.
		- Machi's theme is that people in Shibuya are busy trying to make a living, while 428's theme is solving crime in Shibuya.

* Furthermore, Chunsoft's previous visual novel, Imabikisou, shares similarities with 428.
	+ The same:
		- The plot of both games occur over a specific time period.
		- Both games are shot in live action.
		- Like 428 and Machi, certain nouns can be interacted with and further explained.
* In “Looking for Hitomi” in Achi's 14:25, a restaurant is called 忌火起饭馆. The name is a reference to Chunsoft's 2007 game Imabikisou（忌火起草）.
* Because Tsuyoshi Furuta joined Sega's Ryu ga Gotoku Studio in 2011, his name did not appear in the 2018 PC/PS4 version.
* 428 is the Second Chunsoft visual novel to be localized in English. The first is Banshee's Last Cry(Kamaitachi no Yoru,かまいたちの夜), which was localized in English and sold on ios on January 24, 2014.