Topic: Danganronpa

Ultra Despair Girls is great, despite how different it is in terms of gameplay. I liked the puzzle elements, and how disturbing the narrative became over the course of the game. And, of course, Toko and Komaru have a GREAT relationship.

Eh. I think it's better to play UDG first, considering that expands the focus of the series' lore, whereas V3... well, it does what it does in the final chapter that has made it such a polarizing game.

@Kidfried You’re thoughts are right on target I think. Glad you’re enjoying it. The shooting mechanic is an interesting approach to gameplay — yes it’s shooting, but more of a puzzle solving type of requirement. Yet, you’ve still got to be able to hit the monokuma with the shot as it’s running toward you. The addition of Genocide Jack’s powers makes it fairly easy to get yourself out of a bind usually. She’s pretty overpowered so the game is usually not that difficult as far as combat is concerned - which is fine by me. The whole point of Danganronpa is the whacky yet strangely philosophical story. The combat does have a couple moments when it gets pretty tough later on though.
And yeah, and the fan disservice — I like that term. You’re probably not through the worst of it, but hopefully you can just roll your eyes and endure like I did. Sometimes it’s done in a funny way and sometimes it’s cringey, which is actually part of the desired emotion narratively I guess, but still something you’ll probably not care for.

But yes, the game is a great fit on the Vita. The simplistic shooting controls never feel too much for the little machine, and the puzzle-type of spin that the different bullets put on it make up for the lack of challenge that the shooting is. So it works on the handheld nicely. I would guess it’s still fun on the big screen, but I don’t think it quite translates into the experience it was originally intended for when played on PS4.

The shooting mechanic works well enough. Some people just go into it expecting Gears of War or something, I think. I like the increasingly large amount of cool stuff you can do over the course of the game with that Megaphone Gun. And the puzzle rooms are kind of fun.

I quite like the music in this game, especially the very smooth theme that plays as you're exploring the city. And the cheery-yet-vaguely-sinister carnival-esque music that plays whenever the Warriors of Hope are on-screen. It's a great, dissonant accompaniment to whatever crazy thing they're planning or doing.

I really like the disturbing tone of the game. Especially the notes you find from the children and adults, some of which become increasingly cold-blooded. As usual, I feel like the stylized violence helps make it somewhat more impactful and memorable than if they opted for something more realistic and openly grisly. I don't get shocked by anything, really, but there are some really surprisingly dark moments, especially toward the end of the game, that help immerse you in the twisted, exploitative, and nihilistic headspace that these children have been living in for a while now.

It also made me like Toko, so there's that.

I'm really enjoying Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc at the moment. I've completed the second class trial, which was a big improvement over the first one. With all the plot twists in it, I kept going back and forth with who I thought the culprit was, not being sure of who it was right up until the point where it became crystal clear in the trial.

Those rhythm games at the end of the trials still confuse me, and it's going to take some more practice before I get good at them. Thankfully the game lets you retry any sections you fail on instead of getting you to restart from the beginning of the trial.

I loved all the Dangaronpa games, all of them. V3 is my fave, Ultra Despair Girls was fantastic too.

EDIT: changed a word for the sake of clarity

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy

The games go on sale pretty often, so I doubt you'll have to wait too awful long for the next one.

Anyway, I'll help provide some clarity.

Danganronpa 1 and 2 are part of the same story, and should be played before anything else in the series. Everything references them extremely heavily.

Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls is technically a spin-off, but it's referenced heavily in the Danganronpa 3 anime. If you're going to watch the anime, you'll really want to experience this beforehand.

Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School is an anime-only sequel to Danganronpa 1, 2, and Ultra Despair Girls that concludes the "arc" from those three games. It's a 24 episode series split into two parts that intertwine and foreshadow events in one-another. "Side: Future" is a 12 episode storyline that functions as the direct sequel to Danganronpa 2. "Side: Despair" is an 11 episode storyline that functions as a sort of prequel to the events of Danganronpa 2. Then there's a single "Side: Hope" episode at the end that caps off both storylines and properly ties them together at the end.

Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, while part of the mainline series, isn't really a continuation of the narrative from the previous three games and anime series. It does, however, function as a sort of spiritual successor to them. Knowledge of previous games isn't necessarily required, but it's HIGHLY recommended that you play this as your final game in the series for reasons I won't mention. This game, once you complete the story, has the normal dating sim postgame mode that the first two games had as well, but it also has highly fleshed out board game and JRPG modes, and the post-game content heavily references characters from every previous entry in the series, including the anime.

So, you can experience the series in three orders.

The "I don't care about the EU and cross-media lore" order. In this case, you'd play:
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony

The "I don't want to have to watch an anime" order.
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair
Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony

Finally, if you want to experience the series in all its glory, you should watch the Danganronpa 3 anime after UDG, but before V3. It also wouldn't hurt to read the mini light novels included with the Danganronpa games. And, if you're really hardcore, you can also seek out the Danganronpa Zero light novel that was never officially translated.

If you do end up going the multimedia route, I'd be careful to avoid confusing Danganronpa 3 (an anime-original storyline) with the exceedingly mediocre anime adaptation of the first Danganronpa game.

“Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls is technically a spin-off, but it's referenced heavily in the Danganronpa 3 anime. If you're going to watch the anime, you'll really want to experience this first.”

Ultra Despair Girls is set between 1 and 2. Yes, it’s a spin off and you don’t need to play it at all, no harm will come to your V3 experience if you skip it. It is however a great game and well worth spending the time to play.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Glad you enjoyed watching the start of the game. From what I've played of the series, it's really good (completed Danganronpa Trigger Happy Havoc, and halfway through Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair).

@Ralizah Useful info. I hadn't heard about the Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School anime before now.

@Ralizah @Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy I’ve played Danganronpa 1&2 and Ultra Despair Girls and really enjoyed them all. Somehow I’ve let V3 sit in the backlog; I think mostly because I bought the Vita version (because these are awesome on the handheld) but I’ve largely forgotten my Vita for the last year while I’ve focused on more of my PS4 backlog. I also was trying to procure the anime to get the full experience, but I think I need to just do the "I don't want to have to watch an anime“ version of Rali’s options. Maybe if you get into them then I can play alongside you Foxy by the time you get to V3

I watched both my brothers play through 1 and 2 on the PS4 and then they both played V3 on the Vita. I’d already played the first chapter of the first game and felt it was a bit grim for my taste, which is bizarre given I love the first two Zero Escape games. After watching them play it a year or two ago, I’d probably try again with them. At this rate we’ll all end up playing them at the same time 😂😂

It would be disappointing if Danganronpa returned after V3. It was, on a philosophical level, a very definitive conclusion to the franchise.

I think Spike Chunsoft will probably churn out games in the series without Kodaka's input, though. Money talks, and while it's not some huge, mainstream franchise, Danganronpa has a surprisingly large amount of cultural clout with anime and gaming communities.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy "Meaty" doesn't even begin to describe it. When I was going for the platinum, I spent roughly 130+ hours with the game. Only 40 of those hours were the main story playthrough. The rest was all trophy clean-up/post-game content. The modes are actually quite interesting: you collect gold in the JRPG mode to buy character cards of various rarities from a sort of slot machine (the higher the rarity, the faster the card levels up and becomes powerful), which you then proceed to level up via the board game. These leveled up cards are then usable in the JRPG (they represent people in your party) to advance further, defeat more bosses, collect more gold, etc. so that you can use more gold to play for stronger character cards to level up in the board game to get even further in the JRPG, etc. So those two modes are really one massive side-game.

Even the dating sim mode felt more fleshed out than in previous games.

I still question to this day whether the arcade game trophies were worth going for, though. I still have gamer PTSD over listening to this for hours as I played the despair-inducing puzzle game Treasure Hunter Monolith over and over until the goddess of RNG blessed me with her favor and allowed me to get a high enough score.

@Th3solution Yeah, I enjoyed the anime well enough (it was a lot of fun watching it while it aired in Japan and engaging in speculation with friends about the mystery behind it; there was one particularly bananas theory that I still kind of wish had turned out to be true), but the references don't really factor in until you get to the post-game content, which is entirely separate from the main campaign. Realistically, you can play 1 and 2 and then be perfectly good to go with V3.

It is kind of frustrating that people will watch it in a sub-optimal manner thanks to the way Funi distributed it on DVD/Bluray, though. The two storylines making up the anime as a whole were designed to be watched in tandem. That's the way it aired. Bouncing back and forth between the two storylines allowed for neat foreshadowing and narrative parallelism that disappears if you binge each storyline at a time.

@KratosMD THAT scene did its job: I'll never hear Tsubasa wo Kudasai again and not mentally associate it with grisly images of mass murder.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Yeah. Admittedly, I tend to take a bit longer than average when it comes to beating games, but the post-game is still easily the longest part of the experience. Those modes felt like a love-letter to series fans, as they featured tons of possible interactions between characters from each of the games (and the anime). It was pretty cool watching the dialogues between characters who would have had no possible way of ever meeting one-another in the canon timeline of the series. It's sort of like fanfiction, but from the official source.

Ah, I never got that far in Nocturne, although I have seen footage of the minigame you're referring to online. Looks tough! If there's any substantial amount of time between DDS2 this year and SMT V, I think I need to dig into that game in 2021.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Your character guesses would be great fun, each case is so much more than it seems. It would be interesting to see who you think did the murder at the start of each chapter and then see if you’re right!

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Yeah, Atlus announced SMT V well before proper development started. So while people like to start the clock around 2017, realistically, it only started around mid-2018. So I'm not expecting an update for another year or two. SMT V and Metroid Prime 4, both announced fairly early in the life cycle of the device (SMT V was literally announced before the device released, lol), could very well be among its final major exclusive releases.

While I wouldn't count the original DDS among my favorite Atlus games, it was an incredibly unique experience, so I am looking forward to the sequel. There are still so many SMT games in my backlog. I don't know why I even care about SMT V!

RE: Danganronpa, I do think it'd be fun to read predictions of yours, as well as your guesses about the larger mysteries at work. It's always fun seeing people discover one of your favorite series for the first time, y'know?

Interesting to hear that your daughter is playing it as well! I'd be interested to know what she ends up thinking of it.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy I’ll also share in the excitement of you getting to experience the games for the first time. Hopefully no one will spoil it for you. You know us regulars will give you the decency to not spoil things for you, but Kratos’s cautionary tale means maybe you should avoid reading comments from unknown users. So post on the thread, but don’t read it. 😄. That should be possible. I hope you get on better with this than the other recent games you’ve played.

Edit: sorry, wrote that while you were posting; you’re way ahead of me.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy It’s gonna be so fun seeing these as the twists start rolling in! I think you’ve inspired me to play the game for myself starting today, I’d only seen both my brothers playing through it since I played chapter 1, spent my free time chatting to Leon and then finished the chapter saying ‘Yep, this is grim’.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy
Enjoy this amazing series!!! Keep us updated on your personal thoughts and predictions/opinions about each of the quirky cast. You will love it no doubt!! Good luck!!

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Thanks for sharing. It's always fun to read people's initial impressions of the characters. I'm arguably too far into Danganronpa 2 now to do something similar, but I may have to steal that idea for when I start playing the next game

@KratosMD People who intentionally spoil things for others are just frustrating. I did have trouble with someone on here who created a new account on this website just to spoil a major Persona 5 revelation for me.

Hifumi is brilliant, because his representation of a certain type of male anime/gaming nerd is both very cruel and very accurate.