It's not surprising to me that the Battle Royale concept has had such a big reach with mainstream audiences in all forms of media over the years, as putting a group of diverse characters in a situation where they are forced to kill each other until there is only one left is a sure way to inject thrilling drama and immediate excitement into any setting or cast of characters. So say what you will of Danganronpa, but turning such an exhilirating genre into a "whodunit?" mystery is such a concoction of genius that's it's not hard to see where its success lies.
It's not until you find yourself in the thick of the first Death Trial that the strengths of Danganronpa as a VN become apparent. You would think that the game railroading you into an unavoidable solution would hardly engage the player in the puzzle solving process, but once the accusations and reveals start rolling out interspersed with Danganronpa's stylish presentation and Masafumi Takada's bombastic soundtrack, suddenly the paper cut out characters' bickering and absurd over the top twists becomes more real and intense than what you would get out of a movie or tv show, and feeling like an active participant in the murder mystery is an interactive illusion that Danganronpa has over plain text or video.
But that strength is a double edged sword that Danganronpa reveals far more than it should. The VN limitations work wonders when you are figuring shit out alongside everyone else, but if you are instead guessing way ahead of the characters, it soon becomes a game of waiting for them to circle around the obvious solution and playing minigames where deducing evidence and confronting lies is replaced with figuring out what is the exact combination of phrases the game expects from you. This wouldn't be such a problem had Danganronpa been more willing to allow consequential choice and the threat of failure in its life or death world, instead of forcing the player to act dumb for the sake of it. Something as simple as letting the player pick what Truth Bullets to load would have done wonders.
Still, I don't think anything anytime soon will leave me as flabergasted looking at the screen like the Bad Ending of this game did:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2e/86/c8/2e86c801f658934323ace8427347d1a1.jpg
It's not until you find yourself in the thick of the first Death Trial that the strengths of Danganronpa as a VN become apparent. You would think that the game railroading you into an unavoidable solution would hardly engage the player in the puzzle solving process, but once the accusations and reveals start rolling out interspersed with Danganronpa's stylish presentation and Masafumi Takada's bombastic soundtrack, suddenly the paper cut out characters' bickering and absurd over the top twists becomes more real and intense than what you would get out of a movie or tv show, and feeling like an active participant in the murder mystery is an interactive illusion that Danganronpa has over plain text or video.
But that strength is a double edged sword that Danganronpa reveals far more than it should. The VN limitations work wonders when you are figuring shit out alongside everyone else, but if you are instead guessing way ahead of the characters, it soon becomes a game of waiting for them to circle around the obvious solution and playing minigames where deducing evidence and confronting lies is replaced with figuring out what is the exact combination of phrases the game expects from you. This wouldn't be such a problem had Danganronpa been more willing to allow consequential choice and the threat of failure in its life or death world, instead of forcing the player to act dumb for the sake of it. Something as simple as letting the player pick what Truth Bullets to load would have done wonders.
Still, I don't think anything anytime soon will leave me as flabergasted looking at the screen like the Bad Ending of this game did:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2e/86/c8/2e86c801f658934323ace8427347d1a1.jpg
Reddish
1 year ago