Game Time ID - Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

A few weeks ago Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair was released for the Vita and I was super excited to play it. I got through the first chapter and got distracted by other new releases. Today I started playing it again and remembered how much I loved the first game. I came here to my blog to see what I had written about it at the time and discovered that I had never finished writing a post! That's why I'm here now. The world needs to know how amazing I thought Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc was.

The name is quite a mouthful and as far as I can remember doesn't really have anything to do with the game. It sounds like it would be some kind of crazy Japanese shoot-em-up, but instead it's an insane Japanese visual novel. The best way I can describe the game to you using previously established franchises is that it's like Persona mixed with Phoenix Wright.

In Dangonronpa you play as Makoto Naegi, who is a high school student attending Hope's Peak Academy. The school is only for the most gifted students known as the Ultimates. Each character has something that they are the best or "ultimate" in. For example Makoto is the ultimate lucky student. Every year one average kid is given the opportunity to attend the prestigious academy and in this case it was Makoto. His ability is a tad lame when you compare him to the ultimate affluent progeny, the ultimate baseball player, and the ultimate martial artist. Including Makoto there are 15 ultimate students each of whom have their own very unique personalities.

Time for Despair

When you start the game everything seems relatively normal. Makoto shows up for his first day of classes, but ends up passing out. He finds himself in an empty classroom with bars on the windows. He wanders around the school until he finds all of the other ultimate students in the entrance hall. He recognizes them all, because he had researched each and every one of them online so that he could make good first impressions. It turns out that all of the windows in the school are barred, and all of the exits to the school are locked.

Just when everyone starts to wildly speculate a voice comes over the P.A system and instructs them to meet in the gymnasium. This is where things start to get a little weird. A black and white colored bear named Monokuma introduces himself as the schools's headmaster. Yes, he's a talking bear. He then informs them all that they cannot leave the school unless they start killing each other. Then the real game begins!

These are the characters you'll be getting to know throughout the game.

Monkuma lays out the rules for his killing game, which I will probably butcher here. If a student kills someone they will become known as the blackened. They don't want anyone to know that they did it, so they need to try and set up the murder in a way that makes them look innocent. Once a few students find the dead body Monokuma will announce over the loudspeaker that a body has been found. At that time everyone must start investigating. Everyone will want to do a good job of investigating, because if they don't the blackened will be able to leave the school and everyone else will be killed.

After Monokuma thinks enough facts have been found he will call together the class trial. This is where all of the students gather in a courtroom underneath the school and have to figure out who the murderer is. You debate with one another, until the trial is over. At the end all the students vote on who the killer is and if they're right the killer is then killed by Monokuma. There's a whole lot of killing in this game.

It's an interesting concept that takes a close look at human nature and the limits of people's willpower. In any ordinary setting human beings would never kill each other. Monokuma also makes it quite clear that if they don't kill one another then they will be able to live safely within the school forever. As time wears on though people begin to crack and think that they need to leave. Monokuma obviously wants the killing to occur, so throughout the game he gives everyone new motives. It starts out simple with him showing each student a video of their families, but it quickly escalates from there. His entire goal is to create and spread despair.

As the game goes on the killings escalate and it's easy to see the characters lose their sanity. It's scary to see how people can turn when they feel they have no options left. Monokuma eventually gets to them, but Makoto and a few others vow to find a way to escape the school. The way I play games I tend to forget a lot about them once I'm finished, but I can still clearly recall most of Danganronpa. It's an intriguing premise that's backed up by great writing.

I think one of the reasons that Danganronpa left such an impression on me is that the characters are all very well developed. You know what they're the best at, but you eventually learn their likes, dislikes, and fears as well. Much like in Persona 3 and 4 you can choose to hang out with characters at certain points in the game. You can chill with any of the ultimates, and through each interaction you learn more about them. It eventually becomes like a Persona social link in that the interactions won't necessarily happen every time. In order to advance each scenario you may need to give out gifts in order to gain more affection.

These interactions fill out each characters report card, which is essentially their bio. Sadly it's not very easy to max out your relationship with every character. That would require an advanced knowledge of who is going to die and when. The characters who die first have less interactions than those who live for the entire game, so depending on who you hang out with you might be able to figure out who's going to die.

Gameplay?

Most of the time when I think of a visual novel I think of things like the Ace Attorney series where you don't really have direct control over the game. You tend to choose from a series of menus and have minimal influence over the actions going on in-game. Danganronpa is still essentially a visual novel, but you have a lot more control than most other ones I've played. The game does a good job of trying to get you involved.

For starters you don't just select from a text menu in order to move from place to place. You actually control Makoto in a first person view when you're in the hallways of the school. Sure, you can fast travel to places you've been previously, but I enjoyed running through the halls of Hope's Peak Academy. When you enter rooms the game transitions to a more traditional visual novel style. You control a cursor, which you can use to interact with characters and specific objects in the room. Sometimes searching an object will get you a coin, which you can use to purchase gifts at the school shop. The running around is a cool addition, but there's no incentive to do it.

First person looks pretty good.

The main gameplay portion of the game is the class trials. The investigations themselves are fairly simple. You go to all the places available to you and examine things. The trials themselves are where the game gets truly batty. It's like a trial in Ace Attorney, but on speed. All of the students are arranged in a circle to facilitate debate. The dead characters still have seats, but a sign with their face that has an X through it sits in their place. The trial starts by everyone throwing out what they know, so the camera rotates like crazy to get to the person talking. Your job as the player is to point out contradictions. Everything the characters say shows up on screen in large lettering. Certain words will be a different color, and those are the ones you want to focus on. If you find one that's incorrect, or you have evidence that contradicts the statement you can shoot a truth bullet at it.

Each piece of evidence you have is what's called a truth bullet. Certain pieces of evidence will be loaded up depending on what section of the trial you're in. You then choose which one you want to shoot at the incorrect statement. This will cause the statement to shatter and the trial will advance. It's not always easy to hit the statement though, because small floating statements known as white noise will show up from time to time. If you hit the white noise nothing will happen, so you need to touch the screen in order to get rid of it. If you shoot something other than white noise you'll take damage so you need to be careful.

Sometimes there is a lot of white noise.

Most of the trials play out as a series of back-and-forths where you need to present evidence and truth bullets. On some occasions you'll need to do what the game calls Hang-Man-Gambits. These have the screen fill up with all kinds of floating letters, which you need to shoot in order to fill in a statement. These tend to happen a few times per trial and aren't exactly my favorite part of the game. In these sections I often had trouble figuring out what the game wanted me to spell out. The logic the game uses isn't always readily apparent.

Once you figure out who the murder is, you enter a mini-game where you need to get them to crack. In order to do so you have to press them on the beat of a song. That's right there's a rhythm mini-game in Danganronpa. The character who's being accused will be freaking out and yelling all kinds of things at you. You need to much the X button to the beat the game is giving you and then alternate to another button on the beat to get rid of the statements. After you've done this for long enough you'll shoot a final truth bullet at them and they will admit to what they have done.

All you need to do is shoot the letters.

The trial still isn't over at that point though. You then need to go over the whole murder scenario. This has you filling in a comic book with blank pages. It's not the most exciting thing ever, but it does a good job of recapping everything that happened with the murder. Sometimes what happened didn't make a whole lot of sense until this scene, so it kind of pulls everything together.

On to the Second Game

It's hard for me to sound excited when talking about Danganronpa in this context. Most of what blew me away about the game was related to story and characters. The whole magic of a visual novel is experiencing that for yourself since it's basically the whole purpose of the game. Trust me when I say that the writing is way better than I expected it to be. Even the general anime stereotypes present in most of the characters are not as obnoxious as they normally are. I guess I really like the psychological aspect to the game and its plot. There's something both amazing and horrifying to see how perfectly normal people turn into horrific murderers with the right provocation.

I'm only on the second chapter of the second game, but it seems like an improved version of the first game. The class trials are even more involved than before. There are also a few more incentives to walking around as opposed to fast traveling everywhere. So far I don't like the characters or setting quite as much, but I imagine my opinions will change the further into the story I get.

If you have a Vita I highly reccommend Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. I can say without a doubt that it is my favorite Vita game. Sure, there are barely any games unique to the platform, but I don't say this lightly. Danganronpa is a unique experience and if you like story based games I promise you're going to love it.