Danganronpa is a murder mystery visual novel. It is largely plot driven and while I wouldn't say that there are walls of text to read, most of the time spent in the game will be in reading. If you enjoy a good novel then Danganronpa won't disappoint. For those unfamiliar with visual novels, the story and most of the game is played through reading text over a static background. The backgrounds are really pretty and Danganronpa carries a unique, yet beautiful aesthetic. It's basically eye-candy and you'll be hard pressed to tell that this was originally a PSP game ported over to the Vita. The story revolves around the main character, called Makoto, who is transferred into Hope's Peak Academy.
Hope's Peak is a prestigious high school in which if you graduate, you are set for life. Makoto arrives in the morning along with fourteen other students, each being the best of the best in their chosen fields (stuff that are seemingly random like Ultimate Baseball Player or the Ultimate Gambler). It all turns for the worse when they find out that they are trapped within the school and there's a crazy bear for a headmaster called Monokuma. They can only "graduate" (i.e. escape) if they murder a fellow classmate and can get away with it. A further twist here being if they managed to get away with the murder, the rest of the classmates dies. Either way, only one person will win and it presents a very intense atmosphere where you suspect everyone.
The gameplay is easy to pick up. You travel in first person mode around the school grounds (although it feels a bit clunky when trying to turn) and each room is presented as a static background with interactive objects to investigate. It's pretty much a point and click adventure at times. During investigation, you will have to make sure you manage to select all relevant clues for you to use during the trials. You will also have free time in which you can choose which characters to interact with and learn more about them. Character development is where Danganronpa shines, you spend time with these characters, going through the life or death scenario and you grow attached with them.
You start to feel that these other characters are your friends (or at least your allies). Then out of nowhere, deaths happen which have a huge impact on you. You don't know who is going to die next; a seemingly important character may just be the next murder victim. All the deaths are shocking, especially the first few murders that happen in the game. Then it gets worse as you start to suspect who the murderer is, and why they had to do such an unforgivable act. It gives you a sense of betrayal and sadness. So, once you have enough clues, the class trial starts in which a debate between characters happen and these can go on for a while, easily an hour each if not more.
The gameplay changes in these debates, there will be weak points in other characters' dialogue and it's up to you to find which ones you counter with the truth to either clarify or show that the character is outright lying. It's really exciting but the time limit also gives you pressure, you need to be switched on and be able to make connections between the evidence you have and what the characters are saying in a decent amount of time. Not only that, there are also other "minigames" in which it tests your memory or deduction skills. There is a part where you need to provide a certain word crucial to the trial and there's a rhythm game to finish up the accusations.
Generally, you will have your suspicions against who is the murderer, which may or may not be correct. Obviously, accusing the wrong person will bring a game over but you can easily restart without any penalties. These trials play out in a linear fashion, in terms of storyline. It would have been nice if there were branching paths to arrive at the same accusation. Also, in some murders, where you definitely know who was the murderer, you still have to play right through to the end. It would have been cool if there was an option for you to accuse the murderer on the spot whenever you like, presenting your evidence and if it was no enough, you kept going on with the trial and discovering more evidence.
You can feel the tension between the characters in the game, especially since characters will die and have lasting consequences. It handles the serious nature of life and death well, each death weighing heavily upon the player. Danganronpa sometimes also have a dark sense of humor. The game doesn't take itself too seriously despite all this and can be very funny at times. As a warning, the story starts off slow during the set up but be persistent and by the time the first death happens, you will be hooked and unable to tear your eyes away. Each chapter have twists, such that when the events led you to believe the murderer was one person, you take it with a grain of salt.
It is at these points where you know that the game is obviously leading you astray and you can't wait to find out who the actual murderer is. These murders get more and more elaborate as the story progresses and at times, it can get overwhelming as you struggle to keep up with all the facts and make sense of it all. As you would expect, the climax is amazing. Everything starts to come together and you see the final murderer face off against the main character. At the beginning when the rules are laid out for you, you wonder how it is going to end, obviously the main character is going to survive but how will it play out? Especially considering that you end up befriending the other surviving characters, it can be tough knowing that they could be the next to die.
The deaths never rise up to the same shock level as the first few though. The events leading up to the finale was handled superbly, teasing you with many mysteries that will keep you glued until you end up completing the game. That said, the ending was not very satisfying, it did not explicitly reveal all the answers to the mysteries, especially one that they had hinted earlier on and kept being brought up in the final trial. We still don't know what it was and of course, the typical cliffhanger ending is annoying. After spending so long on the game and actually feeling like you've learned so much about everyone, and uncovered all the mysteries of the school and what led up to this mass murder scheme, it would have been nice to find out all that was unknown.
The trials can be difficult, even as early on as the second episode, knowing which specific piece you need to counter the other's argument aren't intuitive at times. Once you select the right one and the explanation comes up, it makes sense but only because it went into the other details you didn't realize at the time. Difficulty in Danganronpa comes into play through all the other things you have to worry about when selecting evidence and countering other character's lies. For example, words will spin with barriers which you must destroy before selecting your evidence. As the sentence disappears as soon as the character finishes speaking it, it can be annoying, especially when your evidence "misses" the lie (as evidence is "fired" like a bullet).
There are six trials in total and the last two trials are amazing. There were red herrings everywhere and in the final one, it gets so intense, you can feel as if you are right there in the trial room along with the rest of the characters. You can feel the suspense and actually become the one that has to make the hard choices and the despair you feel from those options. It was a fantastic atmosphere and kept you addicted. The music was good and they enhanced the scenes, in a good way. They feel familiar and none of the tracks are annoying. Music often adds in a hollow spooky feeling to the game, especially when you're exploring the mostly empty school.
After you're finished with the epic story mode, there's an extra mode that becomes available. It is not your typical New Game Plus in which you play through the same game/story again with some perks; rather, this "School Mode" has different game play. It becomes a micromanaging type of game in which you decide who goes to which part of the school to collect materials to complete each project Monokuma gives you. Along the way, you need to pay attention to the tiredness of each character, their collective levels and maintaining the cleanliness of the school. It is fun and addictive. In this mode, you also get to finish up socializing with all the character that you would have missed during story mode (whether due to time constraints of they were knocked out before you had a chance).
School Mode is a really good sub-game for something that is in addition to the main draw. It adds approximately 1.5 to 3 hours to the overall game time to finish one round and you can keep replaying to get all the different character "endings" (this is a trophy requirement too but it eventually becomes a grind). There are a bunch of additional goodies to unlock too, such as the music of the game and additional artwork. Danganronpa is a fantastic game that while it's not for everyone, it has an amazing story and manages to keep the suspense and intrigue going for the duration of the 10-13 hours it takes to finish the game. It is highly recommended even if you're remotely interested in it.
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