High-school student, Shinjou Touya is what's known as a "Shinigami" -- an envoy of Hell who guides wandering souls, or "Creeps," who linger in the human realm. Each night, he hunts Creeps along with his partner Yuriel Arlencloyn, a white-winged Angel of Heaven. However, one night during their hunt, they happen to rescue a girl named Natsuki, who recognizes Touya as her classmate. Normal humans are not meant to know of such things as Shinigami and Creeps, with Touya's past shrouded in mystery to even himself, and Natsuki also interested romantically in Touya, things quickly become complicated.
D→A:BLACK is a so-called "active novel" -- a visual novel-style adventure game with realtime battle sequences, divided into six chapters. The story unfolds from Touya's point of view, mainly through voiced dialogue sequences with still images. The player must occasionally make choices that will affect how the story plays out and which of the 11 endings are reached; some decisions are timed, and in many cases, not answering at all is also a valid option.
At specific points in the game, the player will be attacked by Creeps. Controlling Touya, his partner Yuriel, and his familiar Rin, the player must defeat the attacker and defend their team in a realtime battle. Each of the characters has various actions they can perform; Touya and Yuriel can attack, defend, and use special moves, while Rin can defend or recover the other two characters. Each character has an affinity; Touya's attacks are Dark, and work best against Light enemies, while Yuriel's attacks are the opposite, and Rin can switch between alignments. If any character's HP reaches 0, the battle is lost, and the game is over.
