History VideoGame / TheTwentyFifthWard

* TakeThat: ''black out'' is very much a Take That to critics of Suda's previous visual novels [[spoiler: as well as to the idea that visual novels have to have choices, branching stories, and MultipleEndings. For once in the entire series, you are given true freedom to affect the story in any way you choose...as in, actually choose from a list of a hundred, while being told [[TakeThatCritics 'this is what you wanted.']] And to top it all off, you literally cannot get the game's true ending unless you painstakingly replay the final chapter [[UpToEleven a full 100 times through and choose every single ending one by one.]] And yes...it's as painful and time-consuming as it sounds.]]

* TakeThat: ''black out'' can easily be seen as one to [[spoiler:MultipleEndings, as well as the idea that visual novels have to have choices and branching stories. For once in the entire series, you are given true freedom to affect the story in any way you choose... as in, literally choose from a list of a hundred, while being told [[TakeThatCritics 'this is what you wanted']] And to top it all off, you literally cannot get the game's true ending unless you painstakingly replay the final chapter [[UpToEleven a full 100 times through and choose every single ending one by one.]] And yes...it's as painful and time-consuming as it sounds.]]

* TakeThat: ''black out'' can easily be seen as one to [[spoiler:MultipleEndings, as well as the idea that visual novels have to have choices and branching stories. For once in the entire series, you are given true freedom to affect the story in any way you choose... as in, literally choose from a list of a hundred, while being told [[TakeThatCritics 'this is what you wanted']]]].

* SequelHook: [[spoiler:Many of black out's endings end with "to be continued", but it's unclear how many of them are serious]]. Other elements of the final few chapters definitely do imply multiple continuing plot threads in future works, though.

* ProtagonistJourneyToVillain: Correctness, but especially boys don't cry, is this for [[spoiler:Shiroyabu. He starts off as a good-intentioned detective; trigger-happy and reckless, but not any more evil than the other trigger-happy cops in the game's world. In boys don't cry, he's left to his own devices for an investigation and ends up killing civilians, sexually assaulting one of the bad guys and becomes a pawn of the villain. At the very end of electride he might have a HeelRealization, but the circumstances are unclear]].

* PlayingThePlayer: The apartment puzzle in electride, which asks you to investigate 100 floors of an apartment building, even making a point of telling you that you need to look over every nook and cranny of the building and check every single apartment. But there must be some trick to it, though, because it also tells you that you'll receive "no hints," which is itself a bit of a hint that you don't actually need to do all that. [[spoiler:The secret is that the rooms you have to check aren't actually specific rooms; going to any floor and checking the first door will make the person you need to find be in that room, and the room you need to find to finish the puzzle can be any one of many that follows certain rules. You don't actually have to investigate thousands of rooms, but the only way to solve the puzzle is to buy into the idea of doing so...at least, until after checking every room of a few floors you notice that only the first apartment of each floor has anybody in it]].

* PlayingThePlayer: The apartment puzzle in electride, which asks you to investigate 100 floors of a building, and making a point of telling you that you will receive "no hints". [[spoiler:The secret is that the rooms you have to check aren't actually specific rooms; going to any floor and checking the first door will make the person you need to find be in that room, and the room you need to find to finish the puzzle can be any one of many that follows certain rules. You don't actually have to investigate thousands of rooms, but the only way to solve the puzzle is to buy into the idea of doing so]].

* BigBad: [[spoiler:Kosuke Kurumizawa, although in true Suda fashion their role is very non-traditional.]]

** On the internet in TIGIRI, characters have more cartoonish or anime designs and the 3D environment is based on 8-bit dungeon crawlers.

* '''Correctness''' (Goichi Suda), which follows the 25th Ward Heinous Crimes Unit investigating the secrets of the 25th Ward's conspiracies.
* '''Matchmaker''' (Masahiro Yuki), which follows the Regional Adjustment Bureau, a team of glorified government hitmen who "adjust" undesirable residents of the city.
* '''Placebo''' (Masahi Ooka), which follows returning character Tokio Morishima who has lost most of his memories.

* EldritchLocation: The Red Room (why, yes, that is borrowed from ''Series/TwinPeaks'') and its adjacent Blue and White Rooms.

* TwoLinesNoWaiting: Similarly to the first game, the most sensible playing order is to rotate between the storylines, only there's three instead of two this time.

!! The 25th Ward has examples of the following tropes:

* WhamShot: In white out [[spoiler:when Joker's mask falls off, and the camera zooms in to reveal him to be Shiroyabu himself]].

* WhamLine: In moon over 25, [[spoiler:"The fact that Osato was an illegitimate child of Sundance..."]]

''The 25th Ward'' has a complex release history; it was originally only released episodically on Japanese flip-phones in 2005, which means that very few people had a chance to play it before it went down. For this reason, it was long considered lost media and a "phantom game", until a full remake was released in 2018 on PC and PS4, complete with four new chapters.

''The 25th Ward'' has a complex release history; it was originally only released episodically on Japanese flip-phones in 2005, which means that very few people had a chance to play it before it went down. For this reason, it was long considered lost media and a "phantom game", until a full remake was released in 2018, complete with four new chapters.

* WhamLine: In moon over 25, [[spoiler:"The fact that Osato was an illegitimate child of Sundance..."]]

* EldritchLocation: The Red Room (why, yes, that is borrowed from ''Series/TwinPeaks'') and to a lesser degree its adjacent Blue and White Rooms.

* PreviousPlayerCharacterCameo: The chapter white out [[spoiler:stars protagonist Akira from the first game]].

* PoorlyDisguisedPilot: YUKI, which is tonally and artistically very different from the rest of Placebo.

* NostalgiaEpisode: digital man for ''The Silver Case''; YUKI for [[spoiler:''Twilight Syndrome'']].

* ChekovsGunman:

* DarkerAndEdgier: The original ''Silver Case'' was dark, but ''25th Ward'' is filled with sociopaths; even the Correctness protagonists are guilty of police brutality.

* GovernmentConspiracy: Too many to list.

''The 25th Ward'' is the sequel to ''VideoGame/TheSilverCase'' and ''VideoGame/FlowerSunAndRain'' - like its predecessors, it is a visual novel/adventure game directed by ''Creator/Suda51'' with a complicated and surreal mystery story.