Danganronpa Trigger Happy Havoc

[DANGERMAN]

Just wrote a long post for this and lost it through my own stupidity. Oh well

It's out on the vita at the end of the week, I thought a few people might be interested as it's kind of Persona's social link stuff mixed with Phoenix Wright's gameplay, set in a 999 style story. I'll try to keep the story short as it's what took the most writing before. There's a school that only takes the 'ultimate' kids, but not necessarily those with the best grades, more like the best baseball player, pop star, gambler, fan-fic writer, biker gang leader etc. It's a school so revered that graduating from there is a guarantee of success.

Your character however isn't an ultimate anything, he got in because he won a lottery that allows a nobody to join. Unfortunately for him someone has taken over the school, who knows who but they've left a mixed-race demonic robot teddy bear in charge and he has some rules. There's no leaving the school, ever, you're all to stay for the rest of your lives, unless you do something terrible like murder someone and get away with it, in which case you graduate for the good of the school. Unfortunately the way things are rigged if you don't work out who the killer is the rest of the class is killed, solve the case and just the killer gets their punishment.

Let me say straight off the bat that Danganronpa Trigger Happy Havoc takes an age to get to any actual gameplay, or the trial aspect which is what you're really here for, there's a lot of story and exploration before then (over 4 hours worth). The exploration is largely without purpose, just to advance the story and introduce you to the mechanics. you'll also get free time to spend with other people, potentially leading to bonuses to take in to a trial.

Eventually though there's a murder, which means talking to people, searching for clues, piecing things together, and then a trial. In the story you have to convince the majority to vote the right way otherwise you're all going to die, but in the one trial I've done so far that just meant getting things right, there was no individual voting. The trials are really action packed, there's statements you have to shoot down with truth bullets (or something like that), evidence to present at the right time, a comic to pice together, then a rhythm action game. All this is against a clock, with lives, so if you take too long you die, rush and guess you die.

despite how long it takes to get to a murder I've been really enjoying it. There's also clearly a bigger story going on than just what I posted above, it's definitely got that 999 thing going on. Even with the characters, things aren't always as they seem but in quite a believable way (so far). The script is... ok. There's been a few funny bits, but some of the jokes barely make sense, I'm not sure if that's a translation issue or what. Either way the whole thing is mental, likeably so

[spatular]

i think this sounds ace, i want to get it, but waiting to see if i can get it a bit cheaper.

[spatular]

i'm not that great at waiting for stuff to get cheaper, only saved about a fiver.

been playing this for what seems like quite a long time now but only just finished the first trial, it was sort of boring at the start because i'd read/heard about the start already - no way to avoid that as i wouldn't have got the game if i hadn't read/heard about it, but its done so slowly at the start. not convinced by the gameplay parts of the trial, failed one bit because it was poorly explained (guess i would say that), but thought how the first case turned out story wise was pretty well done.

[spatular]

just done the second case now, still enjoying it, mainly for the twists and turns in the trials. but the investigation stage seems a bit pointless because

it leads you in an obvious direction, just so it can mess with this in the trial.

although it might be obvious because i put one of the settings on easy, although i didn't fully understand the difficulty settings, i didn't want to make the rhythm action part too easy, but its pretty crap and short so wouldn't make much difference either way.

[DANGERMAN]

i need to get back to this at some point, I thought the cases were the best bit tbh, but I could also see how they might end up getting frustrating. The problem is because there's so much text it's a game you need to focus on, it's not something I could play whilst watching football, which is how my handhelds are getting used at the minute

[spatular]

yeah i tried to watch a film while playing and it didn't go too well, i ended up missing most of the film.

[spatular]

just at the start of the 4th trial now (not sure if i should start it now - probably not) - the spoilered thing i mentioned above about the trials isn't really true anymore. im still enjoying it but the twists and turns in the trials - and how well the cases seem to be thought out - are the main reason, the overall story and characters are ok, but nothing amazing, i've laughed at the dialogue maybe twice. vlr and 999 are much better i'd say at this point - although not totally comparable. this is more like fenix right - but i've only played the very first one of those and can't remember enough about it to compare.

fist-based consequences

[AndyKurosaki]

Seen quite a few positve reviews of this, I'll definitely be sticking it on my boomerang list.

[spatular]

i probably should sign up for boomerang.

anyway, on the 5th trial now, failed twice, it's like you know what the answer is but how you have to present the evidence is the hard part i sometimes can't work out - im finding i need to use some trial and error. it's not too bad though as it lets you continue right from where you were anyway.

[AndyKurosaki]

Been with boomerang since lovefilm couldn't be arsed with games anymore. It's a really good service, had no faults with it.

[DANGERMAN]

this is £17.99 (with +) on the psn store

[AndyKurosaki]

Must admit, it's a tempting price, and it won't stay that for long...

[DANGERMAN]

Demon Gaze is £15 too I think, but there isn't a thread for that because I never got around to it. It's a very good, if rough looking, dungeon crawler that starts out harder than it needs to because it doesn't tell you to go and get a new character as soon as you can

[radiofloyd]

The sequel has just been released in the US, not sure about the EU. But it got a 10/10 from RPG Site:

http://www.rpgsite.net/review/3818-danganronpa-2-goodbye-despair-review

[spatular]

It's out this Friday I think.

[radiofloyd]

Ps I just looked up the title in imiwa, dangan/だんがん means bullet or shot and ronpa/ろんぱ means "to defeat in an argument". So I guess the game is about shooting people to win arguments? Awesome name.

[spatular]

funnily enough that's sort of exactly what happens

[spatular]

Number 2 is on psn for 15 quid. I went for it.

[regemond]

Is the second one worth it if I didn't play the first?

I saw this on the store last night when I was claiming my PS+ games and had to resist both this and Disgaea 4.

[DANGERMAN]

I had to fight the urge to pick up Disgaea too. I've already got 2 of them sat unplayed until I definitely one day finish the first game