! Well, I spoiled the ending for myself. I'm not sure whether I like it or dislike it. That said, its looks like there will be a Danganronpa 4 and I'll probably skip this game until that comes out in like 4 years. Oh well.
Dangan Ronpa (Translated VN via SA) [Spoilers through DRV3]
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Hype intensifies.
Even though I'm probably not going to play this one through blind like I have been with the first two games, as I'll likely end up watching one of my friends stream it.
Also, female player character? I dig.
Wonder how this will end up comparing to the previous games, since it's apparently in a different universe/continuity and all.
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I just finished up Killing Harmony, so major spoilers:
! The message of Danganronpa V3 is fuck Danganronpa.
! I really liked it! It has the strongest opening chapter of any of the games and the ending managed to surprise me more than I thought it would. I managed to avoid spoilers besides Kiyo's death (fucking Youtube thumbnails), so the revelations got me good. I wasn't sure that the franchise had much more ground to cover in terms of ideals, so I really respect the idea of the franchise turning against itself. It's a little weird, given that you pay for the game and play through to the end to reach the conclusion that the games are awful, but it makes sense at this stage of the franchise. This is about when players like myself are in the rhythm of things; we know we're going to get piles of dead dudes, so why are we playing it? By turning in on itself, it poses the question on why we like it so much. I think the idea of us wanting that last bit of hope or despair ties into the idea of the ultimate despair in the first place, where the popularity of an idea lead to awful things. In the end its message is about minding the power of fiction for better or worse and to be careful of the ways we consume media. The fanbase seems a little divided on the ending, but I think the self-examination was worthwhile and interesting. I also liked how they used the gameplay to convey it by giving you rapidfire minigames which you weren't supposed to play. It makes you face yourself and your value of entertainment. Even if you're ceasing play to let the story go on, the games are tempting. I loved the idea of the vote in particular. Earlier in the game, I thought the feature was redundant, but they added it specifically so that you would have to abstain at the very end. That last moment has a real tension to it just because it seems like you have to play to win. That's some good narrative through gameplay.
! On the characters, I think the cast was more balanced than the last two games, with only one character I outright hated (Tenko, cause fuck her). Gonta was by far the best and sweetest most pure innocent child there was. Chapter 4 was really unfortunate since he was just manipulated into attempting to mercy kill the group. I really think it was a mistake to have him killed off at that point as a culprit because it damages both Gonta's and Kokichi's characters in ways that are inconsistent with the rest of their arcs. Gonta might have been gullible, but I think it would take a lot more to get him to kill. Kokichi was later revealed to be a mostly ineffective prankster who was working for the good of the group, but that's called into question by how he got Gonta of all people killed. Chapter 4 woes, aside, while the cast in this game is balanced, I think they lack any real endearing interactions outside of the core group. DR1 had a lot of lesser characters interacting with each other, like Mondo's complex relationship with Chihiro or his brodown with Taka, Celeste's master-servant relationship with Hifumi, Sakura and Hina's friendship, etc… DR2 focused a lot on those relationships, having four of the five survivors in the end being people who lost someone dear to them in the game (Sonia losing Gundham, Fuyuhiko losing Peko, Hajime losing Chiaki and Akane losing Nekomaru). DRV3 had three central relationships (Shuichi+Kaede, Shuichi+Kaito, Kaito+Maki), and the only ones left on the periphery were Tenko's crush on Himiko and Miu fixing up K1-B0, so while the cast was decent, I felt the game was missing that element. Even so, I did enjoy the time I spent with the characters, and their individual actions and moments were interesting.
! On the mastermind, I think somewhere around chapter 4 or 5 I came to the conclusion that it was Tsumugi only because she had done jack shit up to that point. When the game gave me the scene of Junko walking around, that cemented it for me, since it had to be cosplay (both in-universe and in the game's fiction, Junko was way old news). Still, I loved her interaction in the last trial. Her cosplaying each of the Danganronpa characters was a great fanservice made even better by the irony of it (presenting all of your favorite DR characters while making a point against the worship of DR).
! Overall, I'd say that DRV3 ranks just below DR2 for me, but it's a close match. While DRV3 has a lot of great things going for it, I think the lack of cast interactions definitely dragged it down just below DR2. Plus, I liked DR2's setting and soundtrack better (and it has best boi Gundham in it). Even so, DRV3 is not far behind. The story and twist are really great, and the cases are interesting. It ranks well above DR1 in overall quality, and DR1 was a game I loved enough to make me a super fan of the series, so I liked it a whole lot. I wonder if there will be another DR game after this, though. The end's general theme suggests no, but the epilogue opens up the possibility for a continuing story. As much as I love the franchise, I think now would be the time to let it go and move into something else. Maybe the world's story will pick up later, but in another game. I guess I'll reserve judgement until they make another move. -
! I can't shake the feeling that out of the three survivors, Himiko just seems to not belong on that group.
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I just finished the game with Noqanky:
! Honestly I had a LOT of issues and complaints about the game, even to the point where I was flat-out not enjoying it at times. The first chapter was complete bullshit because we finally had an opinionated, self-confident lead (who was female to boot), but it was just a cheap fake-out to surprise the audience. After which guess what! I get to be another boring dude with self-esteem issues for the rest of the game. They rubbed a bit of salt in that wound at the end by revealing that Kaede was wrongly executed on top of everything else.
! Second of all, the cases and trials felt weaker than usual. They were kind of sloppy with some of their timelines and evidence, and even worse with the way you go about putting it together at trials. A few examples:
! * Even though Rantaro's Perk Monopad ended up significant at the end, it REALLY bothered me in the first chapter that it was clearly visible in the photo but it ended up in his pocket (at the time I figured they were the same pad). Nobody ever mentioned this, despite all the other random details they go over a million useless times.- In the second trial, it drove me absolutely nuts that I already knew most of how and when the crime was committed, but during the trial I was FORCED to deduce the wrong timeframe for the murder and penalized when I tried to select the actual correct answer.
- Unless I'm totally missing something, the blood trail in chapter 5 went right up to the hydraulic press. But it never showed up in the video. In fact I just went and looked up the video and the crime scene on YouTube, and the blood patterns are inconsistent in the two. The video makes it seem like maybe the angle conveniently obscures everything past the primary blood splatter, but even that is shaped wrong, and should show traces of the trail. It also doesn't make sense because the trial makes it seem like Kokochi was first dragged up to the control panel, but the blood is an unbroken arc directly to the press.
- Psyche Taxi was the most boring and pointless thing in my life. If you're going to waste my time with minigames, bring back Logic Dive. At least they fixed Hangman's Gambit to be tolerable.
! And in a more general sense regarding the crimes, I feel like they were mostly designed in a way that made them nearly impossible to guess in advance. Sometimes there were suspicious characters and sometimes the main idea of how the murder was executed is deducible, but not really both at once (the who and the how, and especially the why). I never felt the kind of satisfaction I did in previous games where before the trial I figured out who did it and how. I had some guesses, and sometimes they were right, but that's about it. I think the only true exception was figuring out that Tsumugi was the mastermind / Kaede's killer. Sure I suspected her for being so useless and "plain" for a while but as soon as the secret passage was revealed I pinned her down 100%.
! Anyway the game redeemed itself completely in the final class trial. It dragged on way too long (over 3 hours for me), but it was just golden. Totally made the game worth it in every way. I don't even care that much about the "message" it sends (let's be real, that's not why we play the games), but just the all-out fourth wall breaking and meta were amazing. Noqanky and I both burst out into maniacal laughter after Tsumugi turned into Byakuya and we both begged her to transform directly into Byakufat, which she promptly did. And then stuff like Danganronpa 7: A New Hope and Despair. It's so good. We had actually both already called that everything about Hope's Peak etc. was fictional, but never expected it to go in such a crazy direction.
! In terms of overall characters, the cast was okay. A lot of the better characters died in the early chapters though, which irritated me. And the game doesn't even let you interact with Maki until like halfway through. By then I mostly just liked Miu for being over-the-top and Noqanky liked Kokichi for being smart and chaotic. So thank god Maki turned out awesome. On the flip side, Angie was just unbelievably intolerable. I was wishing for her death since the opening act, and she just got exponentially worse every single chapter. She is pretty much what's wrong with humanity. I thinks she's only second to Teruteru for me in terms of worst character ever. Though that said, I STILL felt kind of bad for her given the coldness of her murder. Which is impressive, trust me. Because I hate her guts. Kiyo was kind of interesting but he always had that super creepy vibe given his Nazi getup and overall behavior. Though I didn't expect him to be quite as fucked up as he was revealed to be. Gonta was dead weight. Sorry, I know a lot of you are fans of him, but he didn't belong in the game. His "innocent toddler stuck in the body of a giant in a killing game" thing got old pretty fast. I'm honestly glad they found a way to get rid of him, even though it was pretty fucking ham-fisted. Ryoma was amazing and didn't deserve to die so quickly. Kirumi was also pretty damn cool until they ruined her with a completely bullshit motive to kill.
! Oh and then there's Monodam. Honestly he's probably the best character in the game. You can never have too much Monodam. The rest of the Monokubs were pretty garbage though. They kind of worked as a team but individually they were pretty terrible.
! Other details were cool, like the Splatoon reference (Spla-teen Vogue), or the completely unexpected reference to Xenoblade Chronicles X (when Miu confuses the word "prone" for "drone"). Or the items used to unlock new areas, which were cool references themselves. So yeah, in the end I'm satisfied, but it wasn't exactly a smooth journey.
! @KageKageKing:
! > I can't shake the feeling that out of the three survivors, Himiko just seems to not belong on that group.
! Well she had plot armor as soon as she had her attitude transformation due to Angie and Tenko's death. Exactly the same way Fuyuhiko got plot armor in DR2. -
! Well she had plot armor as soon as she had her attitude transformation due to Angie and Tenko's death. Exactly the same way Fuyuhiko got plot armor in DR2.
! You see, I wouldn't mind if there was one or two extra survivors. It just when I see this trio composed of Maki, Shuuichi and Himiko, it just feels out of balance.
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! Man, Fool, you've got an opposite POV compared to most people I've seen review the game, haha. I've read a lot of fans talk about how they absolutely loved the game until the final chapter, which killed it for them.
! It does suck that they wasted the opportunity for a good female lead, but what I like about the first chapter is that it's the only first chapter where the killer and crime weren't immediately obvious. I think I like it most, though, because playing as the killer is the sort of crazy that I love to see from DR. Plus, the buildup is there. Wooden was watching me play, and he even called that Kaede might have done it, due to the suspicious focus on her with the shot put ball. So I think the twist was shocking and well-executed (so to speak), though you're right that it is disappointing that the cost was replacing an interesting female lead with Shuichi.
! I'm surprised that you complained about the pace in chapter 2, but not chapter 4. The time they spent figuring out that the virtual world looped was kinda egregious, haha. I thought case 2 was fine. I pinned Kirumi as the killer, because the motive seemed tailored to her (not even her specific crazy circumstances, but the idea that she would have to fulfill her request no matter what). I didn't actually figure out the full how until the case went over it (I got the way Ryoma was kept in the tank, but not the ropeway). I guess it really depends on how fast you pick things up. I think the pacing of the trials is like this on average, so I'm just thankful we didn't spend half an hour proving Kyoko wasn't a ghost again.
! Never noticed that in chapter 5. Just an error on the writing I guess. I agree, though, that they didn't properly discuss the blood trail. Presumably, Kokichi shoulda still been bleeding out as he operated the press while Kaito was under it, so there should been a clue left there. I had a similar issue with chapter 3's case, where Kiyo made the ring out of salt and made his plan involve jumping on a loose floorboard in the salt circle, but none of it had been displaced.
! Psyche Taxi is just easier/worse Logic Dive. I like the music on it and I thought it was kinda fun in a zen sorta way, but the pace is a little slow and that gap in play between hitting the boxes and picking up to passengers goes on too long.
! I disagree on the crimes being impossible to guess, besides 5 where that was the whole point (and even then, you can get most of it).
! On characters, I liked Kiyo being an actual fucked up serial killer. It always bothered me that Genocide Jack never killed anyone in-game, and even got redeemed by the end of DR1 (or if not, then definitely in UDG). I don't think Gonta was dead weight at all. I'm biased towards him, definitely, since he's adorable, but he actually did help out in the trials, especially 2. He helped acquit Himiko by proving that she didn't swap with Ryoma and he even discovered the rope trick. Plus, the time he spent looking for bugs helped the group discover the password to get into Rantaro's safe and the existence of the Nanokumas. I really wished he and/or Ryoma made it to the end, since I think their reactions to the whole situation would have been interesting (Gonta would have some difficulty grappling with the final choice and Ryoma might struggle some with learning that his dark past wasn't real and gain a chance at redemption through it). I actually liked Kirumi more because of the twist since, again, Danganronpa levels of insane. Plus, the idea of her struggling to the very end, no matter how low she needed to stoop, helped sell her dedication to me.
! Also, just another reason why Ryoma's incredible: his English VA is the same as Gundham's. His Japanese VA is Solid Snake, himself. -
! Ah, I wasn't complaining about the pacing in chapter 2. I was complaining that I was forced to select a knowingly incorrect answer. I tried the right answer (because obviously it happened at night from the pool area), but lost health. That's what irked me. But yes, the trial pacing in the 4th chapter was abysmal. Even by DR standards haha.
! Personally I found Logic Dive at least somewhat fun, insofar as it requiring some skill and having a sense of progress (and looking cool). I also felt less insulted by the questions and length of it overall TBH. Plus it felt original, instead of a really bad Cruisin' USA clone. But that's kind of a minor thing. Overall, the trial minigames are ALL pretty much just mildly annoying filler that I put up with to progress the game.
! I don't think the crimes are completely impossible to guess, I just think it's really hard to put all the pieces together as anything more than an educated guess. Maybe others felt differently. But in the previous games I had at least half the cases pretty much solved beforehand. Maybe lacking a couple of details, but the culprit nailed down and most if not all of the evidence explained. In this game I felt like they went out of their way to obfuscate more, leave way more unknown variables, and lots of possible solutions. It's hard to explain. It's like when you read a mystery story and at the end the detective catches the bad guy by recalling a detail that was never previously revealed to the reader, leaving them frustrated that they didn't have all the information to solve the case. It's not a perfect analogue, but I do think that it's not until discussions start happening at the trial that the game begins to pinpoint details in an adequate fashion. The writing can be brilliant in the way that it leads you to solve the case and think that all it took was logical discussion to arrive at the conclusion, but the problem is that the discussions are really VERY leading, and in small ways they confirm or disprove facts arbitrarily that eliminate options that should have been totally valid. It's really hard for me to be more specific though. Like one thing that comes to mind is the shotput ball with pink fibers. Someone said "what if the blood had just been washed off?" and Shuichi immediately and definitively states that the fibers would have washed off too. Uh, why? What if the water only hit the side with the blood? What if it had been wiped off another way? The game constantly pulled stuff like that, ruling out all kinds of things just because, while then spending half an hour debating other facts that ARE completely self-evident. I mean it could just be me, but I had a lot less of the "aha!" moments where my idea just perfectly fits the evidence and I suddenly understand. That only ever happened in localized ways. Like immediately realizing how Angie's room was locked, which is only a small piece of the puzzle (which is a bad example in this case because that murder was unsolvable without Tenko's murder investigation, but you get the idea). So as a result I felt like a lot of my ideas were nothing more than cool guesses. Oh, another example might be the inner tube in the pool. It's just so dumb to me to assume that when taking down the rope, it would carelessly zoom all the way into the pool from the window sill. (And that there's literally NO pool cleaning devices or other ways to fish it out, but whatever.) Consequently I was sure it was in the pool because it had to be for some reason. That was one of the only things that threw me off about what happened. Oh speaking of writing inconsistencies, since I'm on the subject of that case. If Ryoma was drowned in the sink with his hands cuffed in front of him, how the hell did he scratch up the entire OUTSIDE of the sink with the cuffs? I don't think the angle of his arms and body would ever make sense to make the marks the way it was shown.
! Well I'm just ranting now. As for the characters, we just have different tastes I guess. Yeah they made it so Gonta picked up on a few details, but none of that really required him. Ultimately it was K1-b0 who was able to see the nanokumas, and I don't know why Gonta knew that rope trivia but good for him I guess. But conversely it bothered me how much people had to slow down to explain things to him, or manipulate him, or how he'd argue against points in trials because he just didn't understand. And to be fair the writers didn't make things any easier by deciding he should have his virtual world memory wiped and be even MORE clueless. -
! Chapter 3 introduced a neat thing that I kinda hope they do in a future game/am disappointed that they didn't do here. They say how in the case of a double murder, only the first murder culprit can be punished. It woulda been neat if Angie and Tenko had different killers, then you had have an actual guilty murderer walking free because they acted second. It could have been something really neat for the series to do something like that instead of playing the double murder straight as the first two games
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! A few more inconsistencies I remembered, from Chapter 5 (probably the sloppiest)
! * Why did the antidote bottle have words blocked out to make it look like the poison bottle? Maki had no time nor reason, and even assuming Kaito/Kokichi had a marker or something, they wouldn't be fooling anyone (they expected Maki's story to come out)- If the Electrohammer disabled the Exisal completely to let Maki get inside, why was it still operational, allowing her to ride it into the hangar…?
- Why did the camcorder work in the wake of an Electro Bomb, and when did they have time to procure it?
- Why did only the infrared sensor on the hydraulic press get disabled, and not the press itself? Are you telling me the controls involve no circuitry whatsoever?
- Why didn't the Electro Bomb disable K1-b0 completely when they used it to get into the hangar?
! At first I thought I misunderstood what the Electro Bombs did, but Kokichi's explanation literally says " For two hours, any and all electronic devices within 50 yards will be completely disabled."
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! @Foolio:
! > A few more inconsistencies I remembered, from Chapter 5 (probably the sloppiest)- Why did the antidote bottle have words blocked out to make it look like the poison bottle? Maki had no time nor reason, and even assuming
- Kaito/Kokichi had a marker or something, they wouldn't be fooling anyone (they expected Maki's story to come out)
! Probably to indicate that poison was used (it implicated Maki, making the case more confusing).
! > * If the Electrohammer disabled the Exisal completely to let Maki get inside, why was it still operational, allowing her to ride it into the hangar…?
! The electrohammer only works temporarily, so even if it did stop it completely, it would only be for a couple hours, which Maki could wait out.
! > * Why did the camcorder work in the wake of an Electro Bomb, and when did they have time to procure it? - Why did only the infrared sensor on the hydraulic press get disabled, and not the press itself? Are you telling me the controls involve no circuitry whatsoever?
- Why didn't the Electro Bomb disable K1-b0 completely when they used it to get into the hangar?
At first I thought I misunderstood what the Electro Bombs did, but Kokichi's explanation literally says " For two hours, any and all electronic devices within 50 yards will be completely disabled."
! Even if they gave no real explanation, they indicated that the electrohammers/bombs mostly just disrupt sensors. Explaining that woulda helped, but every use of the gadgets (besides destroying the death road traps) just disabled security systems and made Keebo sneezy, so it wasn't an asspull.
! And for the hydraulic press at least, those things are analogue. Maybe the controls were digital? But considering how simple they were, they didn't need to be. -
! @Wagomu:
! > Probably to indicate that poison was used (it implicated Maki, making the case more confusing).
! A bottle of antidote implies poison was involved just as much as a bottle of actual poison. Either way it would lead Shuichi to find the actual poison bottle that was used in his lab. And Kaito / Kokichi's script flat-out admitted that they weren't trying to frame Maki; rather it hinged upon the unknowability of whether Kaito had died due to poison or the press (and of course the body swap on top of that).
! @Wagomu:
! > The electrohammer only works temporarily, so even if it did stop it completely, it would only be for a couple hours, which Maki could wait out.
! I don't think we know how long it takes things out, and I somehow find it improbable that the plan was to sit inside an exposed cockpit for a couple hours, hoping to go unnoticed by both Kokichi and any other visitors, until it worked again to get in. Either way it's sloppy writing.
! @Wagomu:
! > Even if they gave no real explanation, they indicated that the electrohammers/bombs mostly just disrupt sensors. Explaining that woulda helped, but every use of the gadgets (besides destroying the death road traps) just disabled security systems and made Keebo sneezy, so it wasn't an asspull.
! Except they literally gave a crystal-clear explanation which I provided word-for-word: "For two hours, any and all electronic devices within 50 yards will be completely disabled." It doesn't say sensors, it doesn't say transmitters, it says with painful explicitness that it disables any and all electronic devices. It's kind of a big deal because it made me assume a lot of wrong things. Such as that the video was pre-recorded or faked entirely, or that maybe an Electro Bomb was not in fact used and the IR sensor was simply broken to begin with (making K1-b0 think it didn't consider him human, which I was also partially doubting because from an IR perspective you could reasonably expect him to be generating heat too).
! Edit: even if it's just sensors. If it disabled the IR sensor on the press then it would have disabled the light sensor on the camcorder, which is, you know, responsible for actually recording the video.
! @Wagomu:
! > And for the hydraulic press at least, those things are analogue. Maybe the controls were digital? But considering how simple they were, they didn't need to be.
! Well the control panel was up on the catwalk, and didn't seem visibly connected to the actual press. I would expect it to at least be a wired mechanism at that point, especially considering the IR sensor would need digital integration into the mechanism that locks and unlocks the press. It could even be wireless. This is a future where we have humanoid robots and far more ridiculous stuff, so for me that's all the more reason to be less goddamn hazy on rules that are central to the murder. -
Some thoughts I've been wanting to reflect on regarding the game.
! First of all, I guess I'll stick to the more basic bullet points I can think of
! - Kokichi, as foo said, was a constant favorite for me, and I think by the end rose to outright favorite over even Maki, who was an early favorite and wound up being the Kyoko/Chiaki of the game. I want to talk more about him later, but small call-out to the fact the game trolled his "death" in Ch. 3 investigation and how much fun you know his VA was having.- On the note of Rantaro's locker… the letter that were written with the hints for the code... who wrote them and how did they figure those out? They implied it was Kokichi, but how would he access Rantaro's lab so early or why would he know those? Was it just the gamerunners doing it themselves and making us think it was Kokichi?
- I like the additions that adhere to the theme of debates within trials. Things like the Mass Panic Debate, the Scrum battle thingy, and the mechanic where you can lie all felt pretty great. Though I do wish Shuichi/Kaede were less stupid about how they lie. I do want to look up at some point how you can do the roundabout ways with lies to alter how the case progresses.
- The thing where you react to others during dialogue felt like a completely unnecessary and useless addition. That is, with the gigantic exception of that moment where Korekiyo was talking about his love for "Sister" and foo makes Shuichi go "That's wrong!" Probably one of the greatest laughs I had while playing/watching this game.
- Regarding other characters: As foo mentioned, Angie was one of the most hateable characters to me in the series. I think I actually do hate her more than Teruteru, though for me she's at a close tie with Ruruka Ando. I do want to talk about her function further on and why, despite disliking her character, I like the inclusion of the cult bullshit in this game.
- I still have that thing where I enjoy these games but hesitate to recommend them to most people, and part of it is just how mindbogglingly slow the game expects you to be. I think for most cases pretty much the first entire half was just fucking around while the characters dumbed into how the murder happened, something we would 90% of the time figure out during investigation. After intermission it would get more interesting while the game lets you discover events or motivations that previously led you to discard/ignore certain people as suspects.
- I don't think I can stop resenting the fact that what started as a game with a strong female lead instead devolved that character into another Sayaka, a character that exists pretty much only for the development and growth of a less interesting male lead. Well, less interesting in this game... Sayaka wasn't that interesting in 1.
! Ok, now I want to talk about the ending and why I actually think it's great
! During the whole game it was clear that a huge, HUGE part of this game was the notion of truth vs. lie. In fact, I think this game for once was more about that duality than the whole thing of hope vs. despair, and I really really liked that. Particularly because a lot of the more central characters were intricately tied to multiple notions of truth.
For one you have Shuichi's entire deal being about uncovering the "truth", and how the sheer objective of his existence was dealing with that truth and even reaching the truth beyond.
Then you have someone like Kokichi whose entire reality is based on lies. I love how his character is so adhered to lies to the point even the game calls out the fact that you could easily interpret a lot of his actions as lies and a lot of his lies as truth and shape your perception of his reality accordingly, which character-wise is brilliant to me. As someone who likes him, I could easily assume he was lying about enjoying the killing game and lying about not caring for Gonta, and is this anti-hero character who accepted becoming the villain and being mistrusted, hated and alone in order to "win" the game by ending it. But I can just as easily interpret everything the opposite way and see him as a legitimate troll and asshole. The fact he was executed in such a malleable way and how he drove the game for so long made him delightful to me, and in that way impacted me more than Nagito in DR2.
Then further going into the whole truth thing you have constant references to belief. Kaito's reality consisting of constantly believing in himself and in people and having that drive him was heavily prevalent and the positive and negative of it made clear. Heck, even Angie, whom I hate, along with Kiyo present that dangerous side of faith/belief, in which one uses their faith in how they perceive reality ("it is Atua's will") and to brainwash others into that same nihilism ("can Atua be a handsome guy that watches over me?") where they can believe what they want and ignore reality; and the other has a level of open-mindedness to alternate cultural truths to the point he coped with the loss of a loved one by refusing to let go and twisting that into a mass-murderer mentality.
! With all this melting-pot of what is true, I just absolutely love, LOVE, that the conclusion of this game didn't shy from the logical next step of questioning the truths normally presented by DanganRonpa and having the characters go back and forth on the reality of it all, and actually talking about the notion of killing games as entertainment. I like that the game doesn't shy from having the characters judge the people who would be into watching people kill each other while ALSO noting the psychological reality that the concept of a killing game is something that naturally appeals to people. And yea, what was noted here already of pretty much paying fan-service to the entire series while ALSO mocking the fanbase with hilarious things being said by the audience ("kyoko is my waifu" "can they start murdering each other already?")
Regarding the notion of what's true, something I kept thinking that was never addressed was something similar to DR2, where regardless of what these characters were like before the game, ultimately what they are now and what they have experienced is nonetheless who they are now, and in that sense it is more real to them than their actual origin. I thought they would challenge Tsumugi by noting that and then challenging her to cosplay as one of them and note how cospox was the result due to them being "real".
I do see where some people would have trouble with this since essentially the ending means absolutely nothing mattered, but that's where I see the irony. Tsumugi is constantly trying to bring them down by noting everything they did was planned and done for showmanship, but what they say is true… that still has an effect on reality. That fiction still gets to people and makes people care and think about specific notions and how they relate to them. So it's a case where if you enjoy the game's story but dislike the ending, it's kind of proving the point of the "heroes" in that their existence DID matter and it wasn't all just a completely pointless lie. Ryoma is still a badass, Kirumi is still admirable in her dedication, Gonta is still a gentleman, etc.
! And to talk about something lighter regarding the ending to close, lol at the multiple DanganRonpa titles. Love that the devs had fun with this. -
I regret having spoiled myself from this game in a random wiki binge.
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! Kokichi is certainly an interesting character. I hated him throughout the game, especially for what he did to Gonta, but I think some distance and character interpretation has made me appreciate him more. I like to believe that he was incredibly scared by the idea of Miu trying to kill him, to the point where he made the plan involving Gonta out of fear. After the trial, though, he regretted his action, saw himself as the villain, and thus decided to play the villain, accepting that everyone else hated him. In chapter 5, his plan was to confuse the victim and killer, making even Monokuma unsure about the culprit and victim, so he specifically didn't have to die, but chose to do so, anyways. My belief is that it was his repentance/suicide. That's all just my interpretation, though. He definitely can be seen in a lot of different ways, thanks to his constant mixture of truth and lies, but that's sorta where I settled on him, since I liked the idea that he was just a harmless prankster way in over his head, constantly lying to make himself feel better.
! As for the ending, I don't get the haters, either. Like you said, the entire thing was about the power of fiction, and the experiences we had with those characters weren't any less real. I've seen people complain about turning DR1 and 2 into in-universe fiction, which I find to be an even weirder complaint. It doesn't change those stories to say that they are fiction, since we already knew that. We just shifted continuity. In terms of characterization, I think that the fiction twist makes them all more tragic. Ryoma was made to believe that he was a murderer, lost everyone he loved and had no reason to live. Kaito was literally given a disease just because the mastermind thought it would be interesting. Korekiyo was twisted into an incestuous serial killer (there's an interpretation out there that believes his sister was real and watching him express his distorted feelings). They're no less badass, or blockheaded, or creepy for it, since we only know them as the fictional characters they were, but that twist has me wondering, long after I've finished the game, just how they would have dealt with the ending revelations. Like I said before, I really wanted Ryoma to be a survivor and I think that his reaction would have been really interesting to watch (I imagine it might break his stoic demeanor to learn that all of his grief was a lie). Way more interesting than Himiko, anyways, who I think was a waste of a survivor (not the worst character, but one of the least interesting to me). -
Something great we haven't yet talked about
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That really is catchy.
! Also, thinking back, it seems like incompetence on Tsumugi's part that her carefully-crafted fictional story didn't contain a decent way to get the killing game started.
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! Somethings I had to think about it. If there were 50 other seasons of Dangan Ronpa, does this means Tsumugi and Keebo were all on them? Also, does this means she is older than 17 years? And why would someone watch the same the same thing over again with that same person that might had appeared on previous seasons and came back for no reason? If not then why only now on the 53rd season she would become an Ultimate Cosplayer? I guess that's a little inconsistent.
! I would prefer that instead of she pretending to be a clueless plain otaku she would also lose her memory and somehow that song would put an effect on her that she would remember who she was and make sure the killing game continues and in the end Monokuma would play it and reveals her as the mastermind. -
! Somethings I had to think about it. If there were 50 other seasons of Dangan Ronpa, does this means Tsumugi and Keebo were all on them? Also, does this means she is older than 17 years? And why would someone watch the same the same thing over again with that same person that might had appeared on previous seasons and came back for no reason? If not then why only now on the 53rd season she would become an Ultimate Cosplayer? I guess that's a little inconsistent.
! I would prefer that instead of she pretending to be a clueless plain otaku she would also lose her memory and somehow that song would put an effect on her that she would remember who she was and make sure the killing game continues and in the end Monokuma would play it and reveals her as the mastermind.! K1-B0 is new. Tsumugi stated that audience participation was the new gimmick for 53. And K1-B0 was just a vehicle for that.
! As for Tsumugi herself, it was unclear to me how long she was supposedly involved. -
! As far as I can tell, only Rantaro was on the show multiple times. Tsumugi was just a big otaku fan for it so she knows all the ins and outs.
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Finally beat V3. Overall I loved it, definitely my favorite game of the three. You really connected to the characters and all chapters were equally interesting. I'm a bit iffy about the final twist, but that's all.
Long rambly version.
! The good points.
! * The cast was well balanced and everyone was likable (with one exception). It made the chapter more engaging, because no matter who dies I'd care.- The story is also great. The first five chapters are gold, and even if you dislike the final chapter I still feel it's well made with a satisfying epilogue. Having the final three survive was a relief. I like how they kept the theme of lying, and how you sometimes can't tell things apart.
- The trials were amazing. While some of the amazement comes from going in un-spoiled, I still feel they outdid the previous games. The twists kept me guessing till the end. All trials were varied and while there were an odd answer here and there I never felt cheated like I've felt in previous games.
- Kokichi was the star. Loved him from start to end. It's a shame we didn't learn more about him, but I guess that would've ruined his character being a walking lie.
! It might be a short description but I absolutely love this game. I love the tone, the atmosphere, the characters, the music… (almost) everything.
! And besides it's more fun to talk about the negative stuff. Most of this is nitpicky but I want it off my chest.
! * In chapter 3 Angie and the cult subplot was thrown under the bus. The entire chapter builds up this cult and character but in the end Tenko hogs the show and the entire trial becomes about her. I still liked it, and I don't resent her character, but I wish we could've spent more time figuring out Angie during the trial. She was annoying as hell but in a good, villainous way. You wanted that asshole to die, and because of those feelings I really wanted to deal with her death in the trial.- Tenko should've laid off the "degenerate males" crap.
- Sometimes the trials dragged on.
- Why did Kaede have a twin? What was the point?
- I'm not a fan of a character turning out to be a crazy psycho. It's cheap and turns them from interesting characters into one-note idiots. In other words I hated the reveal of Kiyo being some incestuous madman. He's a god damn anthropologist, there's so much you could've done with that!
- Hangman's Gambit is still terrible. I don't know it it's easier in Japan due to using Kanji instead of letters. Either way half the time I just had to give up and look it up before i lost all my hearts. Maybe it'd work better if chosing the right letter let you regain a sliver of life or if the game consisted of syllables instead of single letters.
- Remember that key card motive Kokichi stole? What happened to that? Where was it used? What did he learn?
- Tsumugi is the one exception to the cast. She had no development at all - I guessed she was the mastermind purely because she never did anything interesting. It's a shame because she had a lot of potential. Just give her one or two more events and the mastermind reveal would've had a lot more impact. She still worked well as the mastermind, I just wish the reveal would've been more heart wrenching.
- The final twist. I'm just barely in the "this was a good ending" camp (largely thanks to the epilogue), but I can definitely understand why people hate it. I had read before that it was controversial and "people got mad because it targeted reality" so I was guessing they realized they were in a fictional game. And while the trial was fun and I think it was fairly well done, there's something about the execution that just feels off. Messy, somehow. Like during the trial I was confused about who it wanted to target and what it wanted to say, and in what tone. I guess your reaction depends a lot on your interpretation, and what kind of player you are. I think it's one of those stories that'll work better when you replay the game knowing the game ends on a positive note.'
! Thinking a bit more about it, I think my problem lies in not knowing how seriously I was supposed to take the twist. For example, were all the executions real or fake? Did people die or were they secretly waiting behind the stage? How much of Tsumugi was an act, and what was real? Stuff like that. It wasn't until the very end you could be sure.
! Oh, and
THE WORLD FUCKING LOOPS.
I'm guessing they made it that dragged out for people who don't play a lot of games, but damn that was painful. -
! @Zar:
! > * Tenko should've laid off the "degenerate males" crap.
! Yeah, Tenko was by far the worst character in the game to me. She's an awful pervert, a dead-set misandrist, and kind of an idiot but not in any amusing way. I wouldn't even mind the man-hating as much if there was something to justify it in her character, but if you do the free time events, you discover that she's just an idiot that her master misled as a joke.
! > * Why did Kaede have a twin? What was the point?
! She did not. If you remember, Tsumugi was the one who found the 'evidence' that Kaede had a twin. It was just a distraction she made up quickly (or maybe it was always a possibility for their 'story,' like an unused plotline she brought in as a red herring).
! > * I'm not a fan of a character turning out to be a crazy psycho. It's cheap and turns them from interesting characters into one-note idiots. In other words I hated the reveal of Kiyo being some incestuous madman. He's a god damn anthropologist, there's so much you could've done with that!
! I liked Kiyo a lot, actually. For one thing, he's the first serial killer actually played straight. Toko didn't kill a single person in-game and then got redeemed somehow? And Peko was just playing with Spear of Justice. Kiyo, on the other hand, actually got to kill two people, and was really just a creepy person.
! What makes him even more interesting, though, and actually sympathetic, is that he was given this personality to begin with. He was twisted into a weird serial killer, because the plot demanded it. Some people even speculate that he actually did have a sister, who would have been watching everything (since everyone was a fan of the show). That plus the implication that their characters were auto-suggested to some extent makes for some interesting character depth.
! > * Hangman's Gambit is still terrible. I don't know it it's easier in Japan due to using Kanji instead of letters. Either way half the time I just had to give up and look it up before i lost all my hearts. Maybe it'd work better if chosing the right letter let you regain a sliver of life or if the game consisted of syllables instead of single letters.
! SEESAW EFFECT
! > * Remember that key card motive Kokichi stole? What happened to that? Where was it used? What did he learn?
! He just learned the 'truth of the outside world' that he later showed Gonta. He told Monokuma that they should reporpose it. As for where he found it, who knows. I know it was going to be the secret room behind the bookcase, but by chapter 6 it's clear that wasn't the case.
! > * Tsumugi is the one exception to the cast. She had no development at all - I guessed she was the mastermind purely because she never did anything interesting. It's a shame because she had a lot of potential. Just give her one or two more events and the mastermind reveal would've had a lot more impact. She still worked well as the mastermind, I just wish the reveal would've been more heart wrenching.
! Yeah, same here for having guessed her on account of her being a nobody. I still think there's some intrigue about her just being such a big fan of the series. She's the Ultimate Danganronpa Fan, and represents all of the crazy devotion for the franchise that the ending meditates on. She's still kinda shallow (besides some speculation that she was 'created' too), but at least I don't loathe her like Tenko.
! > * The final twist. I'm just barely in the "this was a good ending" camp (largely thanks to the epilogue), but I can definitely understand why people hate it. I had read before that it was controversial and "people got mad because it targeted reality" so I was guessing they realized they were in a fictional game. And while the trial was fun and I think it was fairly well done, there's something about the execution that just feels off. Messy, somehow. Like during the trial I was confused about who it wanted to target and what it wanted to say, and in what tone. I guess your reaction depends a lot on your interpretation, and what kind of player you are. I think it's one of those stories that'll work better when you replay the game knowing the game ends on a positive note.'Thinking a bit more about it, I think my problem lies in not knowing how seriously I was supposed to take the twist. For example, were all the executions real or fake? Did people die or were they secretly waiting behind the stage? How much of Tsumugi was an act, and what was real? Stuff like that. It wasn't until the very end you could be sure.
! All the executions were still real. The idea was that the world turned Danganronpa into a bloodsport, the way dystopias do. I think that was pretty clear from the idea of Ultimate Real Fiction.
! As for the ending itself, I think it's a clear meditation on what makes Danganronpa popular. We're three games in, so us fans know what we're getting. It makes sense that Kodaka would pose the question here. We know we're buying loss, and we're playing to watch characters die, or watch them triumph over adversity, and isn't that kind of fucked up? On the other hand, he recognizes that these stories have a lot of power. The V3 characters may be fictional, but those identities give them strength and allowed them to defeat the killing game. That power is also present in their decision to give up their lives, since even though we've been told that their characters were just fakes made up for the game, their deaths still have a huge impact. Opposite to you, I thought the ending would have benefitted from everyone staying dead, since that would give much more weight to their decision.
! > Oh, and
THE WORLD FUCKING LOOPS.
I'm guessing they made it that dragged out for people who don't play a lot of games, but damn that was painful.
! Yeah, trail four sorta did get stuck in a loop. -
! IMO, I think they wasted a seriously great opportunity by making Korekiyo the killer of both victims in Chapter 3.
I really think it would have been great to have an honest to God murderer successfully live by way of the first come first served rule, in addition to how much drama that would add with Himiko and his reaction to the twist in chapter 6.
It really would have been neat and they just had to muck it up by making him kill both. It would have made much more sense for Tenko to be Angie's killer and then performing the seance to say it was someone else/a suicide before getting offed by Korekiyo. -
! IMO, I think they wasted a seriously great opportunity by making Korekiyo the killer of both victims in Chapter 3.
I really think it would have been great to have an honest to God murderer successfully live by way of the first come first served rule, in addition to how much drama that would add with Himiko and his reaction to the twist in chapter 6.
It really would have been neat and they just had to muck it up by making him kill both. It would have made much more sense for Tenko to be Angie's killer and then performing the seance to say it was someone else/a suicide before getting offed by Korekiyo.Definitely agree here.
And just in general I hate characters whose "true nature" is only ever revealed mid-trial. It's boring. I mean you can have people hiding who they really are but if it doesn't come through somehow to the player (beyond "hey this person is a creepy weirdo" which is not a good indicator of anything in the DR universe), it saps the fun out of the experience for me. Yay shocking reveals.
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! IMO, I think they wasted a seriously great opportunity by making Korekiyo the killer of both victims in Chapter 3.
I really think it would have been great to have an honest to God murderer successfully live by way of the first come first served rule, in addition to how much drama that would add with Himiko and his reaction to the twist in chapter 6.
It really would have been neat and they just had to muck it up by making him kill both. It would have made much more sense for Tenko to be Angie's killer and then performing the seance to say it was someone else/a suicide before getting offed by Korekiyo.! I was hoping for this too. It would've done Kiyo a lot of good. Such an interesting character, they could've done a lot more with him.
! Also another very minor nitpick: the abracadabra skill (reveals the correct truth bullet after a while) needs to be nerfed. I love the concept, it's great if you have trouble with arguments but don't want to use the net (it's the best in blade rebuttals). But they reveal the bullet after one round of debate. I ended up disabling it for the final trial because it took away the fun. It'd be better if it comes into effect after at least three or more rounds.I almost want to play through the entire series again, in order. The second game especially since it's been so long since I played it.
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That's a skill? Wow haha. I didn't bother with skills in this game (though I did in 2). Not like anything was giving me trouble to warrant it.
I still think the second game is the best by a solid margin, despite its flaws (and some really stupid executions).
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Sooo i finally beat this game, thoughts
! Its pretty okay. Honestly maybe because ive played through dr1 and 2, the twists and culprits for all the murders felt too easy. Once you recognized the trends of dr, you are pretty much set on who is going to survive all the way and who definetly will not be a blacken. For instance, Ouma while a perfectly well written character and served as a foil is too much of a remiscent of Nagito. Although they are not the same, you'll wager pretty early that he would never murder. Also Himiko character growth throughout the game made it pretty certain shes going to stay alive. Keebo as a just in case deux ex machina also guaranthees he stays.
In terms of ranking, from best to worst,
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 1( too half ass)
! I know DR is an absolute crazefest and fuckfest near the end but this one actually feels grounded.
Of course, it has its fair amount of flaws, namely the big reveal where the story overly emphasis that people are watching this, a point being mentioned EVERY chapter which was also done in the first DR.
And also the plot device of flashback lights being utilized like crazy, implanting memories through a flash? We legit?
Also, i called case 1 bullshit long ago because her plans were left waaay too much to luck.
To top it off, its not like the big reveal is something original. Think hunger games and to a certain extend, Battle Royale and some cheap knockoff animes here and there.
Dr has this bad tendency where it always rushes things in the last chapter in an attempt to awe the readers, its not bad but felt messy and rushed in the end.
! The good parts though are great.
If chapter 6 was written with the real world in mind, its a good representation that both Hope and Despair are always on an equilibrium. Finally the meta called out Naegi on his bullshit. Only in a fictional world is his infinity hope a way of life. Tsumugi, while not another Junko, feels more real as a villain.
You can even see the normalcy in her actions, some of the things she does are the things we do in everyday life(e.g appeal to ratings, wanting thrill at the expense of others).
! Character development is also a blast. Shuichi is easily a better protag than his counterparts and all of the characters were memorable(even if annoying) and all the ones left alive had development. I liked Himiko the most and was genuinely sad for Kaito and Ouma. Kaede and Maki are both strong contendors for best female. The strongest point in V3 has to be the characters.All in all, it was a good game but not even close enough to dethrone dr1.
Oh btw, i get the shit hangman gambit is getting but personally, fuck psyche taxi.
So damn redundant and time consuming. Just take some tips from Ace Attorney and we are better off.
Ps: abracabra is broken. -
Having finished V3 recently (I loved the finale btw) but there's one thing still bugging me.
! The resurrection motive. It made zero sense, and the writers never did anything with it. At the end of Chapter 3, I had assumed that it would be brought up again once the truth about the killing game was revealed, but nope, it was never mentioned again. As a motive, it didn't even do anything besides coincidently making Angie go into the room where Kiyo was making his seesaw, which could have just as easily occurred without it.
! I guess the intent was to make everyone fight over who would get to be revived (with Shuichi in particular being targeted by it) but I find it really odd that we were never told what would've happened had they gone through with the ritual. The result could've been as simple as Monokuma popping out to laugh at them for actually thinking that it may work, but I have to wonder now if there could've been more to it, like if the show's producers had an extra student waiting backstage to take someone's place, and Tsumugi would've used Flashback lights to make everyone think that they were someone who had been killed earlier.
! But in the end, I guess it's just another thing Chapter 3 feel really half-baked compared to the rest of the game.