Finally I get to say again that this has been a long time coming. Almost 5 years ago, I had played a little visual novel/Pheonix Wright clone called DanganRonpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, and I loved it. But I have a lot to play so the rest of the series fell to the wayside for quite a while until I happened to find the rest of the series on sale recently. The series was back on and the next game is now completed. And yes, I waited too long to get back to this glorious madness.
Story: Meet Hajime Hinata. This young man has a bright future ahead of him... in fact one of the brightest he could hope for and he knows it, for he is about to start his career at Hope's Peak Academy. For as long as he was aware of this school, it was his dream to go and with good reason. Graduating from Hope's Peak is a surefire way to make the world your oyster! But it is also an incredibly elite school... so much so you simply can't apply to get in. They have to find and recruit you.
Nor will they just pick anyone. This school picks the best of the best and the most talented students only. In fact each student who goes is chosen because they have the talent to be the absolute best of the best at some specific thing which the school will train them to hone and master. Every one of the students Hajime was about to meet is just like him in this respect.
But things are not what they seem. Immediately after meeting the others, Hajime is trapped in the room, only to be whisked away to a tropical island with the rest of his class by their new teacher Usami for a class trip meant to build the bonds of friendship between them all. Unfortunately for everyone, however, this trip would take a darker turn when the ever charismatic and chaotic Monokuma arrived and took over it. No longer is this a trip to build good cheer and bring people together, but it is now a "killing trip." The rules are simple: no one is leaving the island unless they kill someone to do it and fool everyone else to get away with it. Do this, and you get to leave while everyone else dies as punishment for believing the wrong person is the killer. But if they catch you instead, you are executed as punishment yourself.
If this premise sounds familiar from the previous game, it should. This is basically the same framework as told the story in the original DanganRonpa game and if you've played that, you will immediately feel at home once the game finishes leading you through all of the above and the real game and story structure begins. Every murder you investigate is a story arc all it's own, as you figure out how the murder happened, who did it, why, and the ramifications of both the murder and the execution to follow. And just like that last game, you can expect these scenarios to go off the rails in all the best ways possible, each being an absolute blast on this "whodunnit" level with each effectively being an amazing mini-feature you will enjoy thoroughly.
But don't let yourself lose sight of the bigger story, for these students are still trying to get off the island, as well as understand why they are here... and even though the game only pushes this overarching plot into the main view during the latter half, it's always there, and a careful eye will see details that, once you have the whole picture, tie it all together nicely. To explain much more would be a disservice to anyone who wants to play, especially as this game is a visual novel and therefore relies heavily on this story to be worth playing... and worth it it is!
If anything, I would argue it really only faulters here in light of it's predecessor, and even then it's debatable. Don't get me wrong that over-arcing story is even better then the first, which is something to absolutely respect and be happy to see. The issues here are with the individual cases and spoilers. While still great, the individual cases don't quite live up to just how amazing they were in the first game. It was really just that hard to beat. The other issue is that you really really REALLY should not just jump to this one. If you haven't played the it's predecessor, you really should first since things revealed here will spoil the story of there pretty absolutely.
9/10
Graphics: If you played DanganRonpa: Trigger Happy Havoc already, you have a good idea of what this game is going to look like... a very good idea in fact, as the game follows very strongly in it's predecessor's footsteps. But for the rest of you, this is a game that wears its anime-style on it's rather blatant sleeve. Right from the opening scene you will be greeted with hand drawn and painted characters and locations that, if they were more animated, would fit into a show all their own brilliantly.
However what we get here are stills of everyone. Whether they are in a circle for the trials, standing around in places to be found and interacted with, or painted into scenes specific for the moment. None of these moments involve any movement, but rather fittingly like characters waiting for you, even as their chosen poses and expressions seem made to point out exactly who each one of them is in a single solitary picture. They are expressive as hell and quite brilliantly done.
Nor are they the only thing visually stunning. The world itself will floor you as well. Bright, bold, and colorful, you will find yourself exploring six islands arranged so that 5 attach to the last as a hub, slowly opening each over time to explore a wholly new and unique mini-world carrying it's own theme. From the tourist resort to the bustling city to an amusement park and more, you will find yourself exploring many delightfully detailed locations all carrying the same art style, leaving you with a simply fantastic looking game overall.
Not that the game looks perfect, mind you. Ironically considering how much I can praise the style of the game, the issue I have is much more tech related. A lot of your navigation will feature walking between locations in a side-scrolling view, which frankly looks rough. Hajime is fully animated, but it looks, for lack of better terms, old. And I don't mean old like it aged badly. I mean old like he would fit right in with flash games of the early 2000s where you can clearly see each part of him animated as a separate piece moving around in the place it needs to to simulate either walking or running. If you didn't spend so much time traveling between locations it might nor be such a detriment, but if you look to play organically and see who you run into by chance, you will be looking at this scene, which just feels off after the rest of the game looks so good, a lot.
8/10
Sound: Once again anyone who played the first game will know exactly what are they going to get here. If anything even more so,t than when talking about the story since the music is literally the exact same tracks! This is not a complaint, however. This music was great in the previous game and remains so now, so enjoy what is going to be the main feast of the ears as it ranges from some peaceful moments to a nice energetic metal rift of a title track, to foreboding doom as details that just make your situation on this island worse reveal themselves in the plot.
And while there will be very little in the way of actual sound effects (explosions, thuds, booms, and the like as needed), it is the voice acting that will star the show. You have a whole new cast of characters, all of which have amazing voice acting to back them. True not every line is acted, but what is just oozes the personalities of each of your fellow students, and I can assure you they will not leave you board. Some you will love, some you will hate, some you will want to protect while others you won't able to wait to see them killed off. Its a great cast and I can not say anything bad about in the least!
9/10
Gameplay: Again, like every other category of this review, DanganRonpa 2 follows the original in just about every way. This is a visual novel and as such you will spend a lot of time reading/listening to plot development as the students on the Killing Trip make their way through life on the island. However, unlike a lot of these titles, it is not all you will be doing or even the majority.
Rather, the gameplay will be divided into chapters, one around each murder you will have to figure out a whodunnit for. These will follow a specific pattern, starting "free time." The days with free time are exactly what they sound like. You will have the chance to explore any island you have access to, spending time with any other student you wish. If you don't wish to randomly run into anyone, but find a specific other student, you can find them on the map. It is also your call if you wish to navigate to them or warp over with the map, allowing you to speed up the process. However, there is a leveling system that will allow you to expand your skills for other portions of the game and is based on how far you actually walk, so you will have to choose which is more important to you.
In addition the game have a sub-mechanic in the form of a digi-pet the game will ask you to take care of while wandering around. The more steps you make, the more the creature grows up, and the life you provide will change what it grows into as well as what gifts and how much cash it will leave with it's egg that will hatch into the next one, and you will want these gifts for the other students. In essence, when you spend time with another student, you will be given the chance to offer a gift that, if you choose a correct one, will give you one of 8 relationship points for the character, culminating with a skill you can use in the trial portion of the game. You can also gain these gifts by a vending machines found about the island: some random, other with specific gifts to sell. Of course if you do not want to spend your time doing any of this, you can "sleep" to skip all of the above and move right to the next part of a given chapter.
And this next part is the investigation. At this time a dead body has just been discovered and it's now up to the class to review the crime-scene, uncovering as many clues as possible before Monokuma declares it time to start the trial. And while in the story this has a time limit, effectively the game itself does not. Rather it's up to you to investigate and find all the clues which will be your tools for the next part and the main meat of the gameplay: the trial.
When a trial begins, the remaining students will gather together to debate the murder that has happened in an attempt to figure out which one of them just killed someone. At this point, everything is on the line, for convicting the right person will send them to their death. But find the wrong person guilty and it will allow the real killer to leave the island while everyone else will be executed. And the game will break up this process into several mini-games. The first and most common event is when everyone will present their arguments. In this event all the characters will discuss a specific point as you listen and watch text for the arguments fly around the screen. Some of these will have either gold or cyan text, and these are the points you will care about: gold text can be argued against while cyan can be agreed with. However, in order to do this, you will need to select the right "truth bullet" to shoot it with, each of which is one of the clues you found during the investigation. That's right, its a targeting game that will require you to pay attention and apply the right clue to proceed. In addition, the game will also through violet noise lines in your way which can run defense for what you want to shoot and even sometimes you will need to take an argument said itself as an additional bullet you can fire at an argument you want to counter. Of course you also have a concentration meter which you can use to slow all this down as well for a short while, so this isn't quite as insane as it sounds.
But it can also lead to a second part directly if another student disagrees with you and calls you out. The result is a debate between you and them. When this happens you will be given swords instead of bullets and a certain number of swings. You can use any sword you want but the goal is to slash enough arguments to force the other student to listen, then use the right sword after this to cut the right argument and win this second part.
Aside from this, there are four other mini-games you will play which are drastically different than these arguments. The first of which is a "spell the answer" game. You will be given a question that you are spelling the answer to, and letters will begin to float across the screen. Your goal will be to select letters and match them to stop them and make them in place. Then you can select them to be added to the answer. Get the right letter and it fills in. Get the wrong one, and it blows up and takes a small piece of your health. Of course you can also blow up the letter yourself and let it go away safely, and you will want to do that from time to time as if two different letters drift into each other, they will blow up and also do damage to you.
The next game you will likely see is when a student just doesn't want to hear your point at all and you literally have to browbeat them into submission. This will take the form of a rhythm game. To the beat of the music you need to target and unleash rounds of ammo to destroy what is effectively just garbage arguments with no real meaning behind them until the shields that represent their will to fight are broken and destroyed. Any that you fail to do this in time will hurt you, however. Once you reach this point, you will be given a set of 4 pieces that, placed in the right order is the final "shut the fuck up" argument to force them to stop. Get it right and you win, get it wrong and you go back a little bit with some damage to try again.
Additionally you have a game that happens, not around an argument, but connecting the dots between facts you already know. This takes the form skateboarding game that will remind many of an old game from the days in arcades. In this case, you will be surfing down a tube, clinging to the edge while it spins into position, keeping you in the center at the bottom, jumping over holes and dodging obstacles to preserve your health until you reach a question where each answer is a different path along the wall. The wrong paths will just drop, but the right will proceed to the next session. Rinse and repeat until you reach the end of the track.
And finally you have a comic depicting the murder and how it was done where several panels will be empty. It will be your job to fill in the proper pictures to complete the story. This is usually the last game you will play to end the trial and is frankly the perfect recap to set everything in place.
Combine all these and you are up for a challenging set of obstacles to figure out what happened and who needs to be executed so the rest of the cast can survive... It's fast, furious, addicting, and will not let you go till you reach your conclusion. Enjoy this every big as you did the previous game.
8/10
Bugs: This is another of those games that ran flawlessly for me from start to finish. If there is a bug in here I didn't see it.
Digital Rights Management: Outside of Steam itself, this game is DRM free.
Score: This game really does take a lot from the game that it follows. In fact it might as well be an extra-long expansion for how much it is more of the same. But in this case, it's also far from a bad thing. This is a great visual novel with several absolutely wild rides along the way and actually entertaining trials to figure out to get those stories straight. If you enjoy mystery games and things going off the rails, you will find few games that scratch the itch quite like this one will.
8/10
System Requirements:
- 2.8 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
- 3 GB RAM
- Anything that supports OpenGL 3.2 with 1 GB VRAM
- Windows 7
- 5 GB of Hard Drive space
System Specs:
- Ryzen 7 (5700X) 3.4 Ghz
- 32 GB RAM
- AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT (8 GB VRAM)
- Windows 11 (64 Bit)
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