death note among us sounded a little silly when i first heard about it, disappointing too since i was hoping for something a little closer to the VN adventure games made for the series on the DS, but i still went in with an open mind and tried to enjoy myself, and i really did. i wasn't a fan of normal among us, i didn't care for the aesthetics and i found the gameplay a bit boring because it was very one note and didn't have much variety, plus it was very confusing to me with its lack of any real tutorials i could find, but this did fix that and i found it to be very accessable and not prone to the issues i found with among us and its clones, like first class trouble, another amoogus clone i tried that was both confusing, and also very quickly devolved into bullying and trolling every match, an issue this game thankfully has not had yet.

the way this ads to the formula is by adding things like classes and directions, its got multiple layers of asymmetrical thingies in here, an L calling the shots with the investigators who fill the role of the amoogus engineers, kira who does the killing and a kira accomplice who helps them by feeding them info and acting as a buffer to kira to stop people being as suspicious. it ads a lot more depth to it and thats not even everything. gone are the annoying and confusing minigames from AU and now you just do some simple inputs to investigate or talk to NPC's and gather info (pretty useful info too), but to add more to it you are given people to follow as the investigators or to monitor specific areas, L can give orders to his subordinates and also issue objectives around the map with the cards you gain by finishing objectives (kira can also do this) like finding an informant or kira issuing a broadcast you have to stop (some like the broadcast can even change the map layout with a car crashing into the front of the TV station), the worshipper can steal ID's from people to let kira kill them and kira can kill NPC's around the map for points and also players, if kira gets L the game is over but if kira is caught then its game over, the follower can also be caught and locked up if they are found with ID's on them. there's so much depth here and its a lot of fun when you start to get into it, i would recommend the tutorial though, it can be a little complicated . the game also has some pretty good systems in play for players that don't want to use the voice chat, you can even set it to search or make a message only chat using the games pretty great pre-made message systems that always get the job done pretty well in convos, though it could use a few more of them for more niche situations and more that specify the player, i love that there's fun flavour text ones though like declairing yourself the god of the new world for when you get caught or the L player being able to declair themselves when they know they've won after a round, it's a cute touch.

so far the game is admittedly a little light on variety, just one map, but a pretty good map and its pretty big, it also looks really nice, the diorama style is cool and you can even see things like VHS tapes and apples just outside the map which are neat touches and the map itself is really nice, it's got a cute shopping ginza area and a park in the corner, i think all the locations are from the show because i do remember the shopping ginza from some misa episodes, though it is just one map, the customisation is also limited as heck unless you pay out for one of the higher quality models (that look like the nendoroids released), otherwise you're stuck with the near puppets which aren't as nice looking but there's tons of cool items to customise them with like the potato chips lol, i may shell out for one of the nicer ones though, the light or misa ones maybe, but i'm praying we get a nice matt one, a character fully absent from the game right now :(, not a fan of the game locking the cool player cards with really amazing manga art behind two battle passes too, the fact it has 2 battle passes at all feels a little iffy, but it's also free on ps plus and only £8 anyway, so its whatever, shame about no physical release though. the game in general doesn't match the style of the show or the manga and more actual original designs and illustrations would be nice, honestly hoping for some castlevania judgment crossover stuff someday :), but the 3D models for the light and L overlooking the board are amazing and i love all the new cutscenes of light looking smug when the kira player wins objectives, he's so cute......

there isn't much in the way of offline stuff, just a basic training mode that is very finnicky to work right and the tutorial, but maybe over time more will be added like challanges, just don't expect a story mode or anything, though one playing as kira through episodes of the show with bespoke objectives would have been so cool. music is pretty good though, all the songs are really nice and they fit the tone of the show super well, sad not to see some of the animes more iconic songs though, but again it is a good OST, no composer listed online though sadly, wish i could commend them! i got a super good night out of the game and i'll continue to play, i'll be throwing it in my usual rotation with faast penguin and ultra rumble for sure. the game is developed by grounding inc. a super cool team who made Little Noah: Scion of Paradise, one of the few digital games I've got this gen thanks to my roommate buying it, plus also Sakura samurai, they helped with the good life, FF15 pocket edition, world end club and crimson dragon, all great games and this is just another cool one to add to their resume. i'm happy with the game, sure i might have preffered a VN or adventure game but it came out really solid and i'm just happy to get an anime game thats a little different, plus its more death note and thats never a bad thing, it's one of my favourite anime and i'm always happy to see anything more to do with it, i just hope the game can sustain a playerbase long enough to really get some improvements, because with some extra maps and objectives and a nice offline mode i can see the game really growing to be something special, it's close enough to that already even with its lack of variety and content.