Here is a title that has had my curiosity for a good long while. Originally I found out about it at a Gamestop where they had the PSVita version on the shelf. Max Powers pointed it out, but there was no way I was going to get a new portable just for this game. Still, the concept had my curiosity. So when I got to play the demo of game 3 during last year's 100 Days of Gaming for Extra Life I wasn't about to say no. And it didn't take long for that demo to impress me enough to pick up the first game and add it to my collection. Now, as we reach the credits, I am SO glad I did.
Meet Mokoto Naegi. He is a high school student entering the best school in the world: Hope's Peak Academy. It's said that the world is the oyster for any student who graduates from there, but it's also a unique school in that you can not just simply apply. The school has to choose you.
And this school doesn't just take anyone. If you want to go to Hope's Peak, you have to be the best of the best at why you were selected. Where the class is made up of the likes of the "Ultimate Swimmer," the "Ultimate Novelist," or even the "Ultimate Programmer," Makoto kinda breaks that mold. He is not so much anything. In fact he is average in about every way you could possibly imagine. Rather he was chosen by a lottery drawing, proving his luck as the "Ultimate Lucky Student" instead of any innate talent. But that luck did not hold, for when he stepped inside those hallowed halls of learning, Makoto passed out.
When he came to, he and his 14 fellow classmates found themselves sealed off from the rest of the world. All the windows have massive metal plates bolted over them, all the doors are locked, and there is no way to communicate with the outside the building. The only other soul is someone controlling a small remote control bear named Monokuma who claims to be the school's headmaster. And his first conversation with the class sets the pace for all that will follow when he tells everyone they are stuck here in this school for the rest of their lives.
Not that there isn't ANY way out, mind you. But to do so requires murdering another student and not getting caught. If the other students figure out it was you, the penalty is death. But if you can literally get away with murder, you get to graduate and leave this school while everyone else in the class gets executed in your stead. The killing game for who dies and who leaves with all this school can offer begins!
This adventure will be told mostly from a first person perspective, but in the form of a visual novel as much as a game. While I assure you there is very compelling gameplay to be had here, you will have to wade your way into it with many parts being long conversations and story-points. That is not to say it's not interesting. In fact most of the writing here is great, filled with character, charm, and humor, and will just pull you into the world and characters you are going to be interacting with. Add to that some absolutely mind-imploding scenarios and twists and anyone who is a fan of story dominating their games will absolutely love this! But for those of you looking to get right into the meat of the game, you may be waiting through a long and slow burn to get there.
As of for that gameplay, it's divided into 4 basic parts: Exploration, Free Time, Investigation, and Trial, with each of the 6 chapters dedicating a section to each one (with the excpetion of the 6th combining Exploration and investigation into one, forgoing Free Time altogether). The first is always exploration, in which you will be granted access to at least some portion of the school. You and the other students will scour some area you could not before to see if you can find clues as to how you will get out of there, reporting back to the group to say what you found. Sometimes this will give you a clue, but it will always give you a taste of what your classmates are like.
After this phase, you will enter free time, in which you get to choose a still living classmate to hang out with. Favor them with a gift they appreciate and you can increase the information in their bio, earn skill points, or skills your fellow student knows. And while you can bypass this part, it is in your favor to play it through since these abilities can give you big advantages when it comes time for the trial. For example the tutorial-like first few suggest a student who gaining the favor of will allow you to do more damage to another student's integrity when challenging them directly in court.
But all this ends once a body has been found and you move into the Investigation phase. Once this begins, you will wander around the crime scene and anywhere else related gathering clues to figure out who committed the murder. At this point you will be tasked with finding all the clues before proceeding as these will become your tools for the main event... the trial!
The trial itself is not quite the traditional you would expect with a judge and jury. Rather you and the other surviving students will gather in a circle facing each other and through debate, presentation of evidence and even on occasion verbally beating your opponents into submission to accept the picture you are presenting. Each of these sections is represented by a minigame requiring you to pay attention in light of the evidence you collected during the investigation. For example the most common one (debate) will have you listening to the class discussing the event while certain phrases will show up in yellow while you will have a phrase selected in a bullet at the bottom. Your goal is to figure out which one is incorrect, using the reason on the bullet to explain why. This may sound simple, but over time the game will expand the options you have by things like having multiple bullets to choose or even absorbing those phrases to become a new bullet on the fly.The game will explain these updates to you as it adds them, making for a smooth transition from "I get the idea" to the full experience as you play.
Now there are other functions you will have to face to finish the trial, but through out all of them, you have an "influence" meter that behaves basically like your health. If you fuck up and miss the point you were supposed to counter, your meter drops. While doing things like making the right argument yourself or supporting one with the right evidence you collected before and during the trial will gain some back. This is the part of the game where you can lose... although on default skill level, you can always try the part you failed at again to keep the momentum rolling
And supporting all of this is some descent if simplistic art-choices. There are no animated cut-scenes in this game... at all. Rather everything is either told with fulling painted stills (which is also when you get full voice acting and not just a clip of the character's voice to further push the tone of the text outside of trials) or a 3D render room or hall you are in. The locations depicted are vibrant and colorful as hell, standing out to a lot of what's out there on that note alone. The halls alone don't stand out much beyond this point, but the rooms look almost like a pop-up book being places in front of you. It looks fantastic and is something more then different enough to stick with you well after you are done playing.
Bugs: This game ran perfectly. There were no bugs to speak of.
Overall: Dark, warped, and never letting go, this is one hell of a story to sink your teeth into. True it waits till the very end to get to any reason for why the overarching event is taking place, but you will really only notice if you stop yourself to think about it,d as the murderous deeds you will have to figure out get fucked up to the point that they are all that matter while you are investigating them. In fact, up till that last act, the main plot is secondary to these smaller grisly tails backed up by an incredibly outlandish cast that somehow still manages to stay coherent. If you like a good twisted ride of a plot, you will definitely enjoy this.
However, be ready to sink some time into this one. The game does not start you near the action, but takes it's time setting the stage before the real shit begins. If you have no patience for such things, you may miss out on something great.
Score:
8/10
System Requirements:
- 2.8 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo or better
- 3 GB RAM
- Open GL 3.2 or Direct X 9.0c compatible card (1 GB of VRAM)
- Windows7
- 5 GB hard drive space
- Ryzen 7 (2700) 3.2 Ghz
- 16 GB RAM
- Nvidia Geforce 1660 (6GB VRAM)
- Windows 10
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