Great Games: Danganronpa
It was only when I completed Danganronpa, that I understood visual novels really are that, novels. Not to say I thought this game deserved a Pulitzer, but that the plot of a video game could just as gripping as reading through the pages of a good mystery yarn. For most games, even the story-laden RPGs, the best features are always the abilities and stratagems used to overcome the obstacles. Yet while Danganronpa had good gameplay, its most essential characteristic is the story. A novel, indeed.
Anyone familiar with Battle Royale or The Hunger Games, won’t find Danganronpa’s setting all too shocking. Unsuspecting students are imprisoned in a high school where the only way out is to kill another student and get away with it. The only means of getting away with the crime is by enduring a class trial with your peers and having them make the wrong verdict. A slight difference from Battle Royale or Hunger Games, as those were free-for-all killing tournaments, but the tension still arises from the same conflict of human freedom against human decency. Danganronpa also has a greater air of mystery than the aforementioned stories, as in those tales we saw the killings, but here they occur in secret, leaving us to speculate.
Many have commented that the gameplay is a mix of elements from Persona, Clue, and Phoenix Wright. The Persona aspect is from the Social Links, where you spent your free time developing bonds with characters, which aided in your skill set. That pretty much carries over here, though it’s far more time sensitive. Danganronpa is a game where anyone can die, so you can start a relationship one day, to only see that person slain the next. In many cases, a character can fall before you’ve even had so much as a chat. You’re not given nearly enough time to speak completely with everyone, so it’s best to be prejudiced towards your favorites. As far as Clue goes, once the murder has occurred, you must investigate the crime scene, gathering clues and hearing accounts. Chances are, you’ll correctly guess who the murderer is beforehand, but knowing whodunit isn’t enough. You have to make your case in court. The Phoenix Wright part, of course, occurs during the trial, when you expose false or contradictory statements with “truth bullets”, hence the game’s title (“Bullet Refute”). Other times, the things people say need to be absorbed into bullets, you’ll need to present your findings to convince the others, or you literally hammer away at stubbornness in an odd rhythm debate. Then, at the end, you need to make a closing argument by putting all that you’ve learned so far in proper sequence. All in all, these moments were always the height of the game, as they pushed you to think about what had been given and predict what could be. Not only was it shocking to have initial assumptions proven wrong, but that the question of whodunit wasn’t always as interesting as how and why. In each case, you learned something new, not just about the murderer, but about the victim as well.
What separates the characters of Danganronpa from those of Battle Royale or The Hunger Games, is that you don’t want to see most of them die, or worse, end up a murderer. In the, aforementioned stories, your primary sympathies lied mostly with one or two main leads (though to be fair, this sympathy is broadened in the later Hunger Games installments). In Danganronpa, you care about most everyone, so the trepidation lies not so much in the killings themselves, but in learning something ugly about someone you’ve come to favor. The characters themselves are wacky caricatures of popular traits. For instance, Sakura is The Ultimate Martial Artist, Celeste is the Ultimate Gambler, Junko is the Ultimate Fashionista, Sayaka is the Ultimate Pop Star, etcetera. So stuffing them all together produces a number of humorous and entertaining situations. So it goes without saying that while Danganronpa’s subject matter is brutal, the approach is uniquely cartoonish, be it from the insanity of its villain, the short-tempered Monokuma, or the absurdly sadistic punishments he metes out.
I feel no need to speak further of the plot or reveal any twists. Danganronpa’s best hook is surprise, so it’s better to go in blind. Guidebooks are virtually unnecessary to succeed. By the end, it appears that the game is very much about what it means to “graduate.” While in high school, you are dependent on your parents, but from this dependency comes security. After you graduate, you are independent, but security is uncertain. Danganronpa asks of you, “Is graduation worth it?” When the characters provide an answer, you’re left thinking to yourself if the benefits outweigh the consequences.
Originally published at http://sansuthecat.blogspot.com on July 23, 2017.
