Karifean's Blog of Visual Novels

Yep, this again. Writing this was actually quite fun last time, so why not do it again? I'd adopt it as a regular thing for more visual novels but there wouldn't be much point to it, would there.

The rest of this post contains spoilers for the entirety of both Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc and Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair.

(SPOILER)

In many ways Danganronpa 2 feels like a natural evolution of Danganronpa 1. The mysteries are more complex, the story builds upon the foundation of the first, the minigames are all "improved" and the character relationships are more defined. I guess for some people it was a disappointment that the game didn't just continue where DR ended, but I can't say I minded, at least not for the first five chapters. Overall I quite liked this feeling of improving on what already worked in DR.

In general though I'd say Danganronpa 2 feels more ambitious. Like they were aiming for something more than with DR. And this is where I feel the game both succeeds and fails hard. But let's take this one step at a time. Starting with the cast.

I'd say my feelings towards the cast of DR2 mirror the ones I had towards the cast of DR. A lot of them I didn't really care about, but some of them are quite good. There's obviously one character that really stands out however: Nagito Komaeda. Easily my favorite character of both games, but I wasn't a fan of his gradual role change. I liked him best as the twistedly well-meaning side character who screws with everybody for his own purposes but still never really ends up being a central figure. When he ended up becoming the antagonist that thinks 50 steps ahead of you I didn't enjoy him nearly as much. And I'm kinda bummed he died the way he did; I can't help but feel the final act of the game could've been a lot better with him there. But more on that later.

Besides Nagito I also liked Chiaki a lot, which in turn made me frustrated when it turned out she was an AI. The humanlike AI concept is very hit or miss for me, it worked beautifully in planetarian but being a software engineer myself I typically can't really bring myself to humanize AIs. I'd have far preferred if she had just been a member of the Future Foundation or an avatar for one of the DR original cast (Kyouko anyone?) instead.

And I can't honestly say the Junko AI had anywhere near the impact of the original Junko.

So while the cast does have its standout positives, they aren't one-sidedly amazing either. Merging the higher highs and lower lows brings me again to feeling pretty much the same about the DR2 cast as the DR cast.

One thing I overall enjoyed quite a bit more in DR2 were the cases themselves. They're more complex than the cases of the first game, but it's rarely due to a super duper high school complicated plot by the culprit and more due to circumstances playing together to weave an intricate web, which is preferable as far as I'm concerned. The trials were a joy to play through as they flowed well and I only found myself stumped a few times. The gameplay though also had its low points. "Improved" Hangman's Gambit was pretty atrocious and I hated how I couldn't read what the hell the characters were talking about during Rebuttal Showdowns (and no screw English voices). Panic Talk Actions were okay I guess, clicking and releasing the mouse button in a rhythm worked fine, though for some reason reloading never worked well. I did like the additions to Nonstop Debates and the Closing Argument and the new Logic Dive minigame at least.

*sigh* I feel like I still haven't really touched upon what I really liked and didn't like about DR2. Time to do another chapter recap!

The first case was actually pretty damn solid. It handled the reveal of Nagito exceedingly well, especially when it all just falls into place how he was the suspicious guy all along. It's something I never saw coming, since if the guy gets hyped up so much to be this amazing character, surely he can't be an early culprit? And so I was caught totally off guard by his actions. Though I don't really get how he was planning to commit a murder? Was he just going to randomly stab someone in the dark? Eh. Teruteru being the real culprit fit in quite well, and I like that his motive had multiple sides to it. I don't really have anything negative to say about it, except maybe the fact that it took me a Game Over to get "Meat on the Bone" right. Tried all sorts of different combinations before I thought of this one. I was so sure pointing out the bone, not the meat, was the way to go.

Of course the moment he died my doubts about the guy really being Byakuya Togami multiplied themselves tenfold. I even got suspicious about the fact that you never see him from the front after he died and assumed it might've been a fake body.

Then we come to the second case and this one is a bit less steadfast. I like how they managed to make you doubt the obvious motive only to have it turn out to be the real motive after all, but that motive in itself is problematic for me. So Mikan, Hiyoko, Mahiru, Ibuki and Fuyuhiko are at Hope's Peak Academy and an unknown girl (whose identity is still a mystery??) kills Fuyuhiko's sister and is in turn killed a bit later - a case we also still don't know the perpetrator of. First thing I thought when I saw this was that this was certainly going to be connected to the 'Tragedy', and maybe even be one of its causes or effects. Unfortunately, we never return to this case ever again. Why not? This sounds like it was a huge deal! I guess maybe it was all faked by Monokuma but from my impression of Monokuma's M.O. he wouldn't fake it.

My other problem with that case was the goddamn murder weapon. This was the first time I found myself stumped on a riddle and if I hadn't it probably wouldn't bother me nearly as much, but... Monokuma randomly decides that finding out the murder weapon is really important so you have to deduce it and it ends up being gravel stuffed into a swimsuit. There were two reasons I didn't think of that; one because I didn't really get what gravel even is (don't think I ever came across this word in a context where it's important) until I reread the Fish Tank evidence description, and secondly because I was under the impression that the murder was not premeditated but rather committed on the spot when reasoning with the victim failed. So I was more thinking along the lines of bashing her head against the fish tank or something like that, not a weapon that clearly has to be prepared beforehand.

Either way I ended up looking up the answer and what frustrated me the most was how completely inconsequential the whole thing is. After how Monokuma deliberately brings it up (and after how much trouble it gave me) I expected it to have some sort of relevance to the murder trial but no, there was absolutely NOTHING of the sort. Well smurf. In the end this whole murder game feels like wasted potential, like it should've had much more of an impact on the story than just being the motive for this one case. The rest of the trial was pretty alright though.

Then we get to Chapter 3. Hoo boy. I don't even know what to say. The Despair Disease is easily one of the worst plot devices I've ever seen. First off it massively hurts the integrity of the rule that the supervisor cannot interfere with the players directly, because this is as direct as 'indirect' could possibly get. Secondly it's just absolutely not an interesting motive. Half the fun of the DR cases is how psychologically consistent the whole picture ends up being with everyone acting the way they would. Having a disease that literally changes someone's personality drives a stake right through that. Thirdly, "Remembering" Disease are you smurfing kidding me? If Junko has the power to make the players remember their smurfing pasts why would she not smurfing do that from the smurfing beginning. Seriously the amount of ways she could've messed with the cast is insane, but it ends up being just this one instance. I mean sure it prevents the rest of the game from being as frustrating as this case but well, the Despair Disease much less the Remembering Disease should've never been a part of this game to begin with!

Rant over. Of course Mikan's change in personality after remembering her past serves as nice foreshadowing that quite a lot of trout happened to the cast at the academy. Yet again this could've been tied into the motive murder of the second case but enough about that. The trial and structure of this case ironically ended up being my favorite, probably because I called just about the entire thing ahead of time, making the whole trial experience immensely satisfying I wonder if Mikan could've enlisted Nagito's help in creating a more complex mystery (always wondered if anyone was ever going to take him up on his offer), but well Nagito wasn't fond of Mikan's reason for committing the crime in the first place.

Mechamaru didn't really bother me btw. The idea of placing an actual person's consciousness into a machine is much, much more intuitive to me than programming a personality from scratch.

The fourth case was pretty cool. The case structure itself wasn't quite as fun as the third's, but it gets solid second place overall. The real structure of the funhouse was cleverly alluded to (although at first I suspected Chiaki of misleading on purpose =P). IMO the most remarkable part of this chapter was Nagito's character arc, however. When he gets his hands on the academy files, his demeanor really starts changing. Seeing him get more cynical and annoyed with his peers was shocking and I was surprised at how even I suddenly found him really annoying to deal with despite finding him so utterly delightful before.

I really like Gundham's motive for this case though, how he basically decided to make a fateful coin flip and get things rolling again, being accepting of either possible outcome. Good stuff.

Then we get to Chapter 5 and as I already mentioned this is where I ended up not enjoying Nagito's character nearly as much as I had before, and it all culminates in him dying before the game's conclusion :/

His plan was interesting and tragic, especially when you realize he knew about them all being Ultimate Despair which puts his self-torture in a new light. It's heart-wrenching just to think about. I also respect him for going through with his plan even if I think said plan was certainly not the way to go. Though the whole self-murder thing has a narrative flaw that kinda ruins it for me. And that is the rule that in a murder with multiple participants, the mastermind takes precedence as the 'blackened' over accomplices. And while Chiaki wasn't an accomplice and was indeed the only one who killed someone, Nagito was undeniably the mastermind of the incident and should, by my interpretation, been the correct answer as to who the 'blackened' was.

Chiaki being the 'traitor' was nicely foreshadowed, especially with one line of hers I came across in the dialogue of her final Free Time event where she seems resigned to being left behind even if the others escape. Of course I had my doubts about the 'traitor' being an antagonist to the cast at all, but Nagito's actions pre-death (so much talk about "luring out the traitor") in Chapter 5 really made me reconsider that. Though with his Ultimate Luck you'd think his plan for everyone but Chiaki to be executed would go through...

Best execution scene btw.

And then Chapter 6 begins. Like with Chapter 3 I don't know where to begin with this one. Let's start with the fact that I'm not too fond of the "it was all a game world" twist. The sci-fi to me is the weakest part of the Danganronpa world and story and the first game did a superb job of just handwaving everything away as unimportant, but it's so integral to the setting of DR2 that it becomes a lot harder to overlook. At least I had a very hard time with it. The entire exploration part of Chapter 6 I was just like... why is this presented this way? I didn't care for it. It felt detached from what DR2 had been up to now and it didn't feel attached enough to what DR had been so it was just awkwardly stuck somewhere in the middle. I couldn't even be bothered to look for hidden Monokumas at this point anymore, I just wanted to see where the story would go from here.

So then the 'trial' begins and everything gets laid out on the table. I gotta say I really liked the "Ultimate Despair is none other than you guys" twist. It was right there especially with Makoto joining the trial that I got really hyped for this final part of the game, and I still feel that this was the point where the game could've turned out to be something amazing. My expectations and hopes shot through the roof, but sadly, as you can probably tell, I can't say they got fulfilled.

I guess mostly I was hoping for a mindblowing twist that changes how I look at the whole novel. Really though, even though the very identities of our cast is put into question, it doesn't affect or even relate all that much to the earlier chapters (notable exception being Nagito's self-murder as pointed out above). The truth about how the murder game came to being doesn't really matter in the earlier chapters, since the characters at that point don't know about any of that, and because the murders do end up killing the real-life counterparts it has no bearing on the validity or meaning of the previous trials either. Basically my frustration is this: even though the whole setting and foundation of the game changes, it doesn't actually have much of an impact on the story. If that makes sense?

The final act was an interesting philosophical question although Hajime's strength that allows him to face his fears head on feels like it comes out of nowhere. And ngl, when Hajime still called himself Hajime in the epilogue I was kinda taken aback since wasn't the whole point of the last conflict that he was going to lose everything from the virtual world? I dunno, I feel like the potential for a legitimately interesting and thought-provoking plot was there, and I appreciate that the story is more ambitious in this regard compared to DR, but in the end it was just a bit underwhelming.

Before I forget, another thing that felt a bit dubious was that these people ended up becoming Ultimate Despair. Nagito is the exception, as his character arc in Chapter 4 and 5 makes it pretty believable that the tragedy would just have him break. But the others? Somehow I don't see them becoming Remnants of Despair that easily. Again, I hoped this would tie into the murder case discussed in the second chapter, but nope. I guess Junko is a goddess of despair that can create despair even in hopeful people, but that's not really interesting to me psychologically?? IDK, maybe doing the rest of the Free Time Events would shed more light on this matter, but at this point I'm content with having done Nagito's, Chiaki's and Sonia's (the latter of which did nothing to make Sonia becoming a member of Ultimate Despair any more believable).

And that's about all for the final chapter, for now at least. If I remember something I forgot to talk about I guess I'll edit it in later.

Guess I'll mention a couple other things. The soundtrack, as mentioned in my first impressions, was pretty great. It never failed to deliver. I also liked the structural change to Free Time and skills for the trial, it feels a lot more satisfying in DR2.

I never really cared for the strange justifications they use in this game, like the Monobeasts "guarding" the islands and Monomi "defeating" one of them after every trial? It's like *shrug* you could have just had Monokuma destroy the bridges and Monomi take time to repair them instead and it'd have felt more natural. Whatevs, the game doesn't seem to give a damn about the Monobeasts so neither should I, I suppose.

Overall I still liked Danganronpa 2. The trials were fun and the story was alright for the most part. I like that the story feels more grand that the story of the first game, but it does fall flat at times, especially at some crucial points. Doesn't help that for everything DR2 did badly I've seen it done well in another story. Yes, even that despicable Despair Disease.

Now I understand why the creators felt Danganronpa 2 did not need an anime adaptation. The story really does stand on its own and the involvement of the original cast is pretty small. That being said, I'm looking forward to seeing what DR3 and NDR3 have to bring to the table =)

I can easily see why people would like Danganronpa 2 more than I do, and I'd definitely recommend it to fans of the first game since it does still mostly improve on what the first game did well. Nagito is a great character and I think I might cosplay as him next Aninite =P

If there's anything I forgot to bring up that you want to hear my thoughts on, just tell me.