Things I love and hate about… Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc & Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair

Love – Not “just” a visual novel

If you ask me what type of game both Danganronpa entries are I’d probably um and ah for a while before having to say a visual novel. This would be sharply followed by a “but!” and a further explanation. While the games are presented as visual novels and the entirety of the experience is reading through the text on screen events are mixed up in various ways. A way a wider audience may be able to understand the experience is if you look at it in this gameified equation: Phoenix Wright + Persona + Zero Escape. It’s got hints of all those titles and yet feels like none. During the “Daily Life” sections of the game you progress the narrative as required while getting to choose to spend free time with whichever characters you like most to see different scenes and build bonds with them. During the “Deadly Life” sections you must investigate the murder that has taken place looking around the school/island for clues and talking with the others to deduce what happened. Finally we have the “Class Trials” wherein the gameplay shifts quite radically, here we have to find out who the guilty member is whilst completing mini games and it’s here where the Phoenix Wright comparisons can be drawn as you find flaws in statements and seek out the truth. Add into this a little rhythm action sequence or two plus some shooter type sections and you get quite a spin on the visual novel experience.

Hate – Narrative story beats don’t always land

I made it clear earlier that some suspension of disbelief is required and I really do mean that, the very premise of both titles is bizarre and that never changes. One negative I found though was that while the first game largely was conceivable, school kids locked in a school and forced to kill to escape, think Battle Royal. The second game takes some pretty grand leaps in all the narrative focus that is based on the outside world and the grander goings on. Whilst easy to accept at the time once you begin to think about some of the beats and events it becomes pretty inconceivable shockingly fast.  Games aren’t about realism I get that, but the best fiction has some grounding in reality and while Danganronpa 2 still maintains this to a degree, the further in you get the farther away from that base you find yourself.