Danganronpa V3 Review

Sorry, the 4 Year Anniversary Special has been postponed to Friday due to unforeseen circumstances. Until then, how's about some Danganronpa?

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It's weird to think that over the course of 4 years, there was one franchise that stayed with the site from its inception to today. Danganronpa first hit the states in February of 2014 and I eventually played it during that summer and immensely enjoyed it. Then it played the sequel a few months later. Then I had the spinoff game, Ultra Despair Girls, shipped to my University in the UK. Then I streamed all of Danganronpa 3 the day each episode aired. To say I'm a fan of the series is a huge understatement, but the reason why each I love the series so much is because the story of each game and anime is so captivating.

The premise is... not quite simple, but it's still easy enough to understand. 16 students that excel in a particular skill, making them an "Ultimate", are imprisoned in an academy by Monokuma, a robotic bear that orchestrates the Killing Game. In the Killing Game, the students have to murder each other, but after each murder, the students hold a class trial to figure out who the murderer is. If they're right, then the murderer dies. If they're wrong, then everyone else dies and the murderer can leave the school. By the end of the game, we grow attached to all of the characters, twists and turns are everywhere, all building up to the revelation of who was pulling the strings for each game. It's incredibly compelling stuff to say the least.

So since my review of The My Little Pony Movie has been delayed (and believe me, I'm going to have a ton of fun with that one), I felt that it would be a bit cheap to not post anything on my intended release day. I know this isn't what everyone was hoping for, but then I had a thought. Yes, it's nice to talk about a franchise that I don't like and everyone revels in me suffering because of it, but I also wanted to talk about something that I hold dear. Something that I wanted to talk about because it's important to me, and is just a good game. And so, here's Danganronpa V3.

And now, please join me for a spoiler free dissection of just what the hell happened here.

So the premise above is still the same here. 16 students are trapped in a school run by Monokuma, now joined by his 5 kids the Monokubs, and everyone is trying to find a way to escape. More so than any other game in the series, this game loves to screw with your expectations and understanding of each trial and the overall plot. The central theme of this game is exploring the power of lies and the power of the truth, and it does so exceptionally well. By the end of the game, you'll be wondering what is true and what actually happened.

Also, I'm just going to take this moment to say that the ending of Danganronpa V3 is a Goliath of an ending. Oh sure, you could have ideas about what's happening, but none of it will really click until the very end of the game, and even then you won't believe what just happened. I still don't believe it, and I just finished the game! But that being said, this ending is controversial, and by controversial, I mean it could ruin the entire franchise for you. Not just the game, but the whole series. Everything changes because of this ending, even previous games will no longer be the same once you finish V3. Without looking anything up online (and if you do you will ruin the entire game for yourself), Japanese players HATED the ending for just how radical it is, and Japanese players are usually all for interesting ideas like the ones here.

Now I'm not going to spoil it, because I'm not a monster like that, and I'm not even going to spoil any of the game via my screenshots, but I can say this about the ending; it's the perfect exploration between truth and lies. I loved how it dealt with that topic, and the reveal of the mastermind was brilliant, but if there was one thing wrong with the reveal, like most of this game, it's that it drags. It draaaaaaaaaaags.

I'm all for visual novels taking a lot of time to explain certain situations and characters, but V3 felt like a lot of its time was spent with tangents that took much longer than they needed to. This isn't that big of a problem in the beginning of the game, but after the halfway point things start to slow down immensely. Now that is when we get the best story bits, but the time it takes to get to each juicy new reveal is frustrating to say the least.

Thankfully we get at least a well rounded cast of characters that you're bound to like. Every Danganronpa game is known for having a solid cast of characters, and V3 is no exception. My personal favorite characters are Kokichi, the Ultimate Supreme Leader that embodies what a lie is, Gonta Gokuhara, the Ultimate Entomologist that aspires to be a true gentleman, Miu Iruma, the foul mouthed Ultimate Inventor that flaunts her body wherever she goes, and Himiko Yumeno, the Ultimate Magician that has a fantastic character arc over the course of the game. Those are just my favorite characters, but you can get to know a whole array of characters over the 40 hour journey that you may love or hate.

Like every other game in the series, V3's gameplay is broken up into two sections; Free Time and Class Trials. In Free Time, you can go to students to befriend them, spend time with them, buy random items in a shop, search the school for Hidden Monokumas, or play some casino games to get special items. These are all just little elements to kill time, but there's no denying how fun it is to go and spend time with whoever you want and get to know them. It's a simple touch, but it's a nice one.

Once the Class Trials begin though, it's a whole other story. After conducting a little investigation to gather evidence, you're thrust into a trial to discover who killed who. The trials are the same as always, you choose evidence, look for holes in a person's argument to exploit them or to agree with them, and figure out whodunit. There are a couple of new additions though that slightly change things up, some for the better, some not so much.

During the trials, you could be forced to do one of several minigames, but usually they're all pretty ho-hum. They're usually to answer questions that you could figure out based on the current circumstances, but the game decided to drag them out because they can. You might have to excavate for a special object, drive a taxi to answer questions, refute arguments with a rhythm game, or play a game of minesweeper to really annoy you. They're all lame diversions that just serve to spice up the trials, which is fine I guess, but I never found any of the minigames in the first two games that annoying, so why now?

The trials are at their best during Debate sections, and for good reason. During it, you use the evidence to dispel arguments, but there are a bunch of new twists to it. You have Nonstop Debates, which are debates where everyone talks at once and you have to figure out where the discrepancy is, you have Scrum Debates where you have to match multiple arguments to each other, and then you have my new favorite mechanic; Perjury. Perjury is taking a piece of evidence and turning it into a lie. You can then steer the trial into a new direction in order to get the truth out of people.

At first, I didn't like the ability to lie. Lying just seemed so counter productive in class trials where the entire point was trying to find out the truth. The more I tried it though, the more interesting and compelling it got. It was super satisfying knowing exactly when to lie in order to contradict information and just everyone talking about a new train of thought. What's even better is that in every trial, there are multiple hidden "back routes", which are routes you can lie at to completely change the discussion in a way that'snot obvious. Every trial has one mandatory lie, and they're pretty obvious to find, but finding the back routes are super satisfying and I want to discover them all.

There's also a metric ton of end game content, like the obligatory dating mode, but now there are two new modes; an RPG and a board game. I haven't really tried out the latter two for to long, but they're both harmless and fun little diversions. In both modes, you can even play as characters from the previous entries in the series, so you can have a party in the RPG of your favorite characters as they kill Monokuma monsters.

I tried so hard to take my time with this game, I really did. I din't want to blaze through Danganronpa V3 and finish it in a week, but that's exactly what happened again. I just got too engrossed with the world, the story, and the characters to not finish it as fast as I could. Hell, after playing V3, I kind of want to go back and play every other game in the series again just because I can.

And guess what? If you want to play it, you don't have to have a Vita anymore! I mean I still play all of the Danganronpa games on my Vita, but now you can play them on your PS4 and on Steam, so there's no excuse not to at least try the first game. And once you play that, every game afterwards just gets better and better. I'd hesitate to say that Danganronpa V3 is the best in the series, since the overall structure, characters, and setting of Danganronpa 2 were so good, but V3 is still one of the best sequels, one of the best Visual Novels, and one of the best Vita games ever released.