Ah yes, Madhouse’s Anime adaptation of the Death Note Manga has just finished up nicely with its own version of the ending at episode 37 and fans like myself are just waiting for the upcoming summer special episode to be announced. It may just be a coincidence but this seems just the perfect opportunity for Konami to slip in their second Death Note game for the DS. Entitled, “Death Note: The One to Succeed L”, the game isn’t a direct sequel to the last “Kira Game” and interestingly enough, we also have a more interesting game system similar to an SRPG.

For the Anime/Manga fans of you who are reading this and have yet to catch onto this truly amazing story, it’s about a young top class student “Light” who one day picks up a black notebook outside his school. Reading inside the cover, he learns that it’s a tool that allowed one to kill anyone by writing the name of their victim inside while imagining their face. However, like anyone else, Light thought it was just a prank but eventually discovers it’s real and it was the tool of a Death God. Taking this opportunity, Light decides to use the Death Note to create a world of justice, his own new world by passing on his judgement and killing off criminals. His anonymous existence is soon known as “Kira”. However, it’s not long before the world’s top anonymous detective “L” is onto him and a battle of the minds take place.


Story starts off by briefly re-introducing the L arc of Death Note.

“Death Note: The One to Succeed L” starts off by briefly recapping on how the whole story starts out but mainly covers the second arc of the story when Mello and Near appears. Players can select from three different difficulties and then any stages they’ve unlocked to play. After several screens of optional text and coloured Manga illustrations, you’re ready to play. Once again, the basic idea is to play your side of the role. If you’re on Kira’s side, your role is to kill off members of the investigation team using your Death Note while when you’re on investigation team’s side, you have to capture your Kira suspect.

However, unlike “Kira Game” this time it’s more of an action strategy game. All the action plays out on a map filled with streets and public transport lines while characters are represented by simple small blue or red figures. Each side of the teams take turns moving their members about and issuing commands to them. It’s kind of like an SRPG really. You tap and drag to move the figures about or tap on them once to display a menu of commands that you can give them. The controls works well here but the screen feels too small to display enough of the map clearly.


It’s kind of like a turn based SRPG.