Ultraguy's mega review on Danganronpa V3

Ok so Danganronpa v3 has been out for a few weeks and I’ve decided I’m actually going to write a review on it! I’ll be breaking down my thoughts on the game into various sections starting with an examination of each case, the gameplay mechanics, the bonus content, characters and so on. I’m also going to have an entirely separate section for talking about some of the more polarizing twists of the game.

And also before I start I’m going to warn everyone outright

THIS REVIEW HAS SPOILERS IN IT! I HIGHLY RECOMMEND PLAYING THE ENTIRE GAME BEFORE READING IT BECAUSE I AM NOT GOING TO HOLD ANY INFO BACK.

Case by Case review

Background

So quick background on the story. 16 students get locked inside a delinquents high school enclosed around a large dome like barrier. Said students have special abilities called “ultimate” talents, which are derived around some superhuman enhanced skill they have mastered (mechanics, art, ect). Additionally none of said students know how they got there and clearly have amnesia. Said students are then forced into a “killing game” by an antagonist named Monokuma and his supposed children the Monokubs. During said game a character needs to murder another student, and then avoid being indicted for it in a following trial held with the rest of the class. If they succeed they get to go free while the rest of the cast gets executed, but if they fail they get executed instead. In order to spur murder to happen Monokuma will normally provide some sort of motivation, say blackmail or bribery. Some students play along with this, while others try to fight the system by trying to uncover the mastermind behind their situation.

It’s overall the same set up as previous games and the game splits into 6 chapters in a similar way as well.

Chapter one

The motive

The first motive given in this chapter is actually pretty interesting. The “first blood” perk basically allows the first person to commit a murder go free, which is something we hadn’t really seen at any point in the series before. Though that being said it was pretty obvious the perk wasn’t going to end up getting used, given the game obviously isn’t going to cut out a potential class trial. In contrast the second motive, which was a class wide time limit, was pretty dumb. Danganronpa motives are best when they mesh organically with the characters personalities and spur people to kill each other of their own free will. Making a motive that basically forces the characters into killing each other, less everyone die immediately as punishment, is just a lazy ultimatum in my opinion.

The case and the trial

I’ll elaborate on this in a later section but…..I’m kind of lukewarm to this case. Disregarding the fanbase split in regards to Kaede being found guilty and the protagonist switch, I really don’t see what’s so revolutionary about chapter 1 from a storytelling standpoint. For all intents and purposes everything revolves around a female supporting character betraying the trust of the male protag in an attempt to a commit murder. In other words almost the exact same scenario that already played out in the first chapter of the original game with Sayaka and Makoto. Granted Kaede had more noble intentions than Sayaka, given she only wanted to take out the mastermind and her “apparent” murder of Rantaro was an accident. However the end result and how it ultimately backfired was pretty much the same.

Likewise while I’ll admit I think the writing manages to be heartfelt and the execution of Kaede at the end is gut-wrenching, I have to question how much of the drama surrounding Kaede’s death is actually earned.  The budding relationship between Kaede and Shuichi certainly was sweet and Kaede did do a decent job of rallying the students up till the point of the first trial, but these people still had to have known each other for what was probably only a few days at best. Despite that the game wants to present the emotional backlash of this chapter as being on par with the effect Chiaki dying had on Hajime and the cast of DR2, forgetting that Chiaki had 5 chapters in DR2  and almost an entire anime to develop her relationship with her cast in comparison. It makes the reactions to Kaede dying feel much more forced, like suddenly she was a borderline Mary sue everyone couldn’t stop loving for no apparent reason even when she’s arguably not any more or less important than any of the other characters that died.  You also can’t explain it away by making arguments about the cast retaining subconscious feelings towards her either, since none of the DRV3 cast knew each other before their memory manipulation like the previous casts.

…..I guess what I’m trying to get at is that a lot of this chapter feels like a cheap emotional punch, and it’s actually not very original at this point in the franchise. It takes a lot of cues from plot ideas we’ve already seen done in the previous entries of the series, except it executes them worse because it doesn’t take nearly as much time to set them up. In fact personally I’m convinced that the only reason why this chapter gets a pass from so many fans is because the player character being the culprit is such a big mind fuck. That aspect of the plot goes so against the paradigm of plot armor that it tends to shock people to the point where they stop critically examining the rest of the chapter. Likewise because Kaede was presented as a “protagonist” rather than a side character, people are much more likely to get emotional over her death then they normally would. That being said if you take that perspective shift away, you’re honestly left with a case so similar to past ones that people would have complained about it being repetitive and unoriginal if it had released in said state.

Chapter 2

The motive

The motive for this chapter was a series of videos explaining or talking about various machinations of a characters background and life outside of the killing game. Some tapes had incriminating criminal info on a character they may not want others to know about, some may show a characters loved ones in danger, and finally some relayed news that the recipient may have found depressing enough to lower their willpower. The overall goal being to spur people into conflict by causing them to want to get out of the school to protect something, making them target other students to hide information or by making certain students lose enough willpower to be more susceptible to murder by someone else.

 Overall it’s a pretty decent motive, albeit one based on combining various types of motives already seen in the first game. Though that being said the game lampshades this somewhat, and puts a spin on the idea by having the videos all go to random recipients, alleviating that somewhat.

The case and trial

The chapter kicks off when the character Ryoma blackmails the student who got his video (Maki) into giving said video to him. He then watches said video only to realize Monokuma literally didn’t bother taping anything for him due to the fact he doesn’t actually have any emotional or social ties to the outside world. This drives Ryoma into depression and when he discovers another character named Tojo is basically a prime minister, he allows himself to be killed so she can get out. It’s all pretty consistent and makes sense, albeit Tojo being a prime minister comes off as a little silly, given her actual title is that of ultimate maid.

Anyway the rest of chapter 2 is a pretty solid from what I can tell. Nothing about it is particularly out of the ordinary compared to the rest of the series, but the murder itself still isn’t so oversimplified that I found myself getting bored with deciphering it. Additionally while Tojo makes some oddly specific physical fumbles that leaves behind some decisive evidence, I never felt like it got to the point where it was inconstant or pushed my suspension of disbelief.

If anything my only complaint is in regards to a background event that gets involved with the murder trap, a magic show set up by the character Himiko. Said magic show being utilized in Tojo’s murder plot isn’t a problem of course, but the magic show itself involved Himiko getting into a large water tank and utilizing real piranhas during an escape trick.  Like obviously this is still early on enough that the students probably wouldn’t have grown to distrust each other all that much, but it still seems silly that anyone would allow one of the younger characters to set up something so inherently dangerous and prone to tampering with in a killing game.

Chapter 3

The motive

I originally thought the motive for chapter 3 was kind of crummy, but I changed my mind after some reflection. Monokuma basically promises that if the cast performs a certain occult ritual that they’ll be able to bring a previously killed character back to life. Now obviously most of the characters write this off as nonsense, but surprisingly there’s a few characters, particularly the extremely religious and superstitious Angie, who do take it seriously. The motive then creates more conflict as Angie uses it as means to rally other students into joining what is essentially a cult led by her, and then promises that her newly formed “school council” will keep everyone else safe by keeping them imprisoned in the school permanently. Obviously with the cast split and tensions running high the chance for a murder increases.

It’s actually a good set up and surprisingly clever since it plays on the fanaticism of a few key students, rather than targeting the entire cast.

The case and trial

… that being said a lot of the rest of this chapter is pretty weak if I’m being honest. It follows the tradition of previous games having a double murder in chapter 3, but it drops the ball in regards to explaining why both murders could have happen in the first place.

For example this is how the first murder goes down. The character Korekiyo decides spend a night altering the insides of 3 empty adjacent room on the second floor of the school building. He then plans to convince the rest of the cast to hold a séance ritual with him in one of these 3 rooms. Said séance is obviously a trap, with the alterations to the rooms allowing Korekiyo to murder the person who participates in it, in a way that’s not easily discernible.

However Angie unexpectedly walks in on him part way through his preparations (wanting to grab a candle from the room he was in), and understandably Korekiyo panics. Korekiyo decides to knock her out and then carries her back to a separate room where she was preparing the resurrection ritual. He then kills her and then somehow manages to scramble up a plan to lock said room from the outside, creating a locked room mystery. Because of the nature of the crime some decisive evidence from the murder is left behind in one of the empty séance rooms(blood underneath a pulled out floorboard), which is unlikely to be found as long as the cast doesn’t think they have a reason to search those rooms extensively.

Everything up till this point still technically makes sense, and while killing Angie was unintended, Korekiyo pretty much sets up a murder mystery where he’s not likely to be implicated anyway. This would be the point where any smart person would go “eh fuck my other plan, I don’t want to take any more risks that could lead to evidence potentially leading back to me”. Yet for some reason Korekiyo just can’t help himself, and decides he shouldn’t let a perfectly good murder plan go to waste. He then talks the students into performing the séance anyway, and unsurprisingly this second murder ends up being way easier to figure out than the first one. Even worse because this second murder took place in the same set of rooms Angie was attacked in, the cast ends up finding the decisive evidence they otherwise would have never found, allowing them to nail Korekiyo for both murders.

It’s frankly all really contrived and goes against any kind of common sense any rational person would display. Granted the game tries handwave these idiosyncrasy by adding some bizarre personality traits to Korekiyo that could explain his misjudgments, but I don’t think they really work. The game basically tells you Korekiyo is a serial killer and that he has a penchant for targeting young women. This is supposedly because he thinks he can channel the spirit of his dead sister, and that said sister wants him to kill noble girls to be her friends in the afterlife (he also claims he had an incestuous relationship with her…which is a pretty cringey and brain bleach worthy moment)

It’s a really weird character development and comes out of literally nowhere with no buildup or hints besides a few vague mentions of him having a sister in some of his free time events. Likewise even taking that into account and assuming Korekiyo just couldn’t help but try to murder another girl for his dear sister, getting away with murder kills the entire rest of the cast in Danganronpa anyway. It essentially means he would have gotten what he wanted if he had just delayed his gratification for an hour or two. It’s frankly pretty sloppily written. I also hate this sudden twist because it makes Korekiyo’s reasons for murder have nothing to do with this chapter’s actual motive (or the casts social drama), invalidating the reason for having them in the first place.

Anyway besides the logistics of Korekiyo’s plans, I also have a few other nitpicks with this chapter. Specifically the fact that it has another case of the main cast clearly not having common sense or displaying the kind of awareness they should within the context a killing game.

For example by the time Korekiyo suggests holding the séance everyone knows that Angie is dead and that there’s a killer among them. Yet for some reason the characters are still ok with going through with said ritual, even though the séance involves putting a student in a cage, putting a 175 lb statue on top of the cage, covering the cage with a tarp, and making the person in the cage stay in a turtle position while not talking, then turning out all the lights in a windowless room with loose, creaky floor boards. Like Jesus that sounds dangerous under normal circumstance, let alone with a killer on the loose. Also why anyone would think it would be a good idea to give a single person so much solitary control and knowledge over an event like this is beyond me.

I also have to bring up the fact that there was a new rule added by Monokuma this chapter, called the “first come first served rule”. This rule basically states that if there are two different murderers for a set of victims, only the murderer of the first body discovered counts. Why this rule is brought up but not capitalized on is beyond me, and tbh I think it was a huge waste of potential. Seeing how the group dynamic would have changed if the cast had to live with a person they knew had killed and gotten away with it would have been awesome. Likewise it would have been something we had never seen at any point in the series.

Chapter 4

The motive

The motive for this chapter sort of makes sense I guess? Monokuma gives the cast a keycard that opens a special door in the school facility. Said door leads to the outside world and depicts an earth that’s supposedly desolate and destroyed by a natural catastrophe caused by meteor showers. The point of said motive probably being to try to drive whoever sees it into despair and causing them to want get the whole cast killed as a form of mercy or perform suicide to escape their situation . That being said while the motive can potentially work in theory, I can’t help but feel like it has an abnormally high potential to backfire. In the story itself the character Kokichi actually steals the keycard and opens the door by himself, limiting the amount of people who initially learn about the outside world. Likewise while the motive gets re-integrated into the plot again when Monokuma decides to place information about the outside world into a virtual world the rest of the chapter takes place in, again only one character besides Kokichi actually finds it.

My issue here is that while the motive can work in the context of one or two characters finding out about it, had the entire cast found out about it at once it could have caused them to undergo mass apathy or may have even caused them to consider group suicide (and in fact when the rest of the cast does find out about this they briefly consider that). Considering the goal of the killing game is to stay interesting and spur murders continuously, this motive basically had the chance of making everything non-functional.

The case and trial

A lot of the set-up of this case also doesn’t make a lot of sense tbh. After the motive has been given out, the chapter continues with the inventor character Miu announcing that she’s discovered a “virtual world” imbedded within a computer of one of the schools rooms. She then announces that she has modified said program to take out anything in it that could be considered dangerous and wants to make it a safe haven for the students to hide out in. EVERY SINGLE student then agrees to test out this idea and plugs themselves into this virtual world matrix style, leaving their real bodies motionless in the real world.

This is yet another example of characters in this game clearly lacking common sense and not thinking their actions through. For one the game says outright that the virtual world program was originally made by Monokuma, which means the entire cast has to solely trust Miu’s ability to not miss anything in it Monokuma set up as a trap. Next everyone has to put an obscenely large amount of trust into anything Miu says about the virtual world, including the machinations of how it works, settings on the games character avatars, how to log out, the worlds map and that Miu didn’t modify anything more than she needed to. Finally they all had to be willing to leave their real bodies in a vulnerable and near comatose state outside of the game.

It’s absurdly stupid and especially surprising for the cast to go along with given Miu isn’t even one of the more will liked students in their group. It’s even weirder given allowing Korekiyo to control all the variables of the “séance” in the previous chapter got somebody killed. Like realistically if Miu was truly heartless she could have stayed logged off when everyone else entered the virtual world or logged out remotely during its exploration(she could do that), then killed the entire cast while they couldn’t fight back.

 Anyway unsurprisingly Miu was in fact planning to murder someone, and her target was Kokichi. However her entire plan backfires because Kokichi found out about her plan ahead of time, and created a counter plan to flip the situation back on her. He basically manipulates the character Gonta into finding the virtual world’s version of the destroyed earth motive, which consequently causes Gonta to freak out. Gonta then agrees to murder Miu when she makes her own attempt on Kokichi, as an attempt to get the rest of the cast mercy killed if he can win the class trial. Personally I feel like Gonta was convinced to do this crime a little too easily, but I’ll admit for the most part this section of the chapter works.

I’ll also admit that odd setup and nitpicks aside, I actually really enjoyed this chapter. The virtual world concept was pretty cool and I liked the artstyle that accompanied it. Likewise given the virtual world basically ran off video game logic, it had tons of idiosyncrasies from the real world that made it interesting to discuss in the context of a debate. The trials end was also legitimately heartbreaking, and I actually found myself somewhat unwilling to sentence Gonta to his fate.

Chapter 5

The motive

The motive for Chapter 5 is probably the strongest motive in whole game. Basically at the end of the last chapter the rest of the cast finds out that Kokichi manipulated Gonta into killing Miu for him. Kokichi then proceeds to use the hatred caused by that to rally the rest of the students against him. Additionally by using some tech created by Miu, Kokichi is able to take control of various killing game weaponry. All of this calumniates in him more or less taking over the school and using his newfound power to pretend to be the games mastermind. This more or less makes the entire killing game go off the rails, given Kokichi doesn’t actually have any real interest in continuing it and prematurely ends it.

This naturally angers the real mastermind, who devises a plan to implant some false memories into the remaining cast, spurring them to take more direct against Kokichi rather than giving up. Unsurprisingly with emotions running high, it works with one of the students, causing them to attempt an assassination on him that sets the stage for the chapter.

The case and trail

The set set-up for this chapter was pretty good all around, though I do need to point out one oddity. The main reason why Kokichi could pretend to be the mastermind is due having asked Miu to create various devices for him that could disable the more dangerous machinery and traps in the school, as well as control the attack mechs that were keeping the rest of the students in line. A lack of trust in the other students aside, I kind of question why Miu didn’t attempt to use any of these devices herself to escape instead of trying to set up a half-baked murder plan in the previous chapter. I mean logically you would think it would occur to her that either way she had a decent chance of dying, except if she tried to escape on her own merits it wouldn’t have put the other students in danger of being executed as well.

But anyway this was probably one of the most complex and well written cases in the entire franchise. It gets set off by a long series of events involving Maki trying to kill Kokichi, and Kaito coming to his rescue before agreeing to go along with some crazy plan Kokichi has to mess with the mastermind. Basically Kokichi devises a murder where the body can’t be examined and nobody can discern who the victim or the culprit are, including Monokuma himself. Because of this the entire concept of the killing game gets flipped on its head as Monokuma can’t make any valid judgments during the trial. As a result everyone, Monokuma included, basically need to blindly flounder through all their deductions.

It’s a fantastic premises, and the chapter also throws another huge curveball that enhances said premises quite well. Essentially the surviving character from the murder (who is either Kaito or Kokichi) shows up to the class trial hidden within a commandeered exisal mech, and joins in the debate. Because they’re hidden inside a mech the cast can’t discern their identity and the persona inside constantly uses this to their advantage. They do this by pretending to be both Kaito and Kokichi at points in the debate, causing the characters to constantly question each other and basically creates a Schrodinger’s cat situation. It adds another layer of mindfuck, onto a chapter that was already a tremendously wonderful mind fuck to being with.

Chapter 6

The motive

So this is the endgame chapter and as per series tradition it’s pretty much where shit gets real and you’re basically tasked with trying to discover all the secretes and conspiracies surrounding why you’re being forced to play a killing game to begin with. This time around things get kicked off because the execution in the last chapter accidentally knocked off an antenna on the robot character Kiibo. This antenna actually has something to do with the mastermind, and supplies Kiibo with an “inner voice” that guides his actions within certain paradigms. Without it he gains a larger range of free will and decides to upgrade his body and go on a rampage to destroy the entire school. The remaining cast not really wanting to die strike a deal with him to discover the remaining secretes about the killing game, while Kiibo promises to hold off Monokuma’s forces at least until dawn. Overall it’s reasonable climax and the kind of set up you would expect in the final chapter.

The case and the trial

I like the idea of having to complete an investigation within a designated time period from a narrative standpoint, but I’m not sure I liked how the game implemented it from mechanics standpoint. The game pretty much puts a time limit on how long you can take with the investigation this chapter, and given all the winding roads and corridors of the school its way too easy to waste precious seconds if you don’t know exactly where you need to go. Likewise for some reason the game disables your map function in this chapter, so it’s ridiculously easy to get lost. It creates a frustrating experience and in a lot of cases may end with the player failing and being forced to replay a certain segments of the investigation over again.

Anyway in regards to the actual story elements of this chapter, the trial and so on………………………………………………………….Woooo boy.

I can see why it all pissed a lot of people off and honestly I think I’m probably just going to separate my thoughts on the chapters twists into a separate section altogether.

That being said I do think a lot of concepts and ideas used in this chapter are basically good, even if you can debate the execution. For example one idea I really liked is that this chapter re-examined the murder of the first chapter with new information. It turns out that the Mastermind has a separate secrete passage they could have used to kill the game’s first victim, essentially meaning they probably framed Kaede and broke their own rules. The characters attempt to expose this lie as a way of illegitimatizing the killing game as a whole.

I’ll also say that I liked how this chapter played up several inconsistences in the characters memories and plot as playing into a larger twist that explained them both. Likewise chapter 6 works in a pretty large number of cameos from previous games, which I found to be pretty cool as far as fan service goes.

Misc thoughts

So there’s a couple of misc things about the story and cases I feel like I need to point out. It feels to me like the Danganronp series is getting needlessly formulaic. For example you ca  boil down the concepts of every chapter and arch in each game and you’ll get pretty much the same thing.

and of course the climax where all secretes are revealed and you get a shocking twist

It’s kind of jarring to notice this in a series that prides itself on supposedly being unpredictable. If we ever get another game they really need to stray away from this templet.

I’m also going to be honest I feel like a lot of the aspects of the plot in v3 are a bit contrived at times. I mentioned this before but most of the motives for this game are pretty bad compared to past ones. 

We have …….kill somebody or else everyone gets executed immediately, an already used background tape motive, reviving the dead, finding out the world is destroyed, kill the fake mastermind, and discover all the secretes of the school. Out of all of those the 1^st and 4^th could have easily backfired(and in fact the first nearly did, requiring intervention from the mastermind). Additionally the 2^nd and 6^th are technically not really “new” as far as the series goes.  It’s pretty odd in comparison to past motives which generally didn’t have much overlap and typically worked organically to play on characters flaws to provoke murder rather than forcing characters to do it.

Likewise I also have to point out that while motives are often given, a lot of the actual reasons for characters trying to commit murder have nothing to do with them. I explained this earlier but kiyo basically decides to murder Angie and Tenko on a whim, not because of chap 3s resurrection motive. Likewise Miu pretty much sets up a plan to kill Ouma just because she suddenly has this intense need to get out of the school for some reason. Granted the game gives a vague explanation that she thinks her inventions are too important to keep locked away, and it’s a fair assumption she was undergoing rampant paranoia.

I also have to reiterate just how little common sense this cast has, which is ironic given individually they probably have the highest number of well educated, stoic and manipulative people in the whole series. They let a little girl set up a giant water tank with Piranhas suspended over it, didn’t try to make plans in regards to how to deal with the background videos , they readily agreed to take part in a creepy ass séance controlled by one character, and trusted Miu on everything she said about the virtual world. It’s a far cry from previous casts who reacted far more sensibly.

For comparison in Danganronpa 2 fat Togami went out of his way to try to make a party event to get characters to get along, and removed all possible weapons from the premises, before getting high tech surveillance gear to look over things. The cast of that game also went out of their way to attempt to guard their second motive in shifts to prevent anyone from utilizing it. Granted not EVERY motive played out like that, but normally when students had agency they would use it, and in DR2 they mostly just got screwed over because Komaeda was demented and there were certain events or relationships they couldn’t have possibly anticipated without prior knowledge.

Finally I have to reiterate the really weird aspect of Miu making tons of ridiculously useful inventions that could have allowed the characters to escape via force, but ultimately choosing not using them and supposedly giving them to a character she doesn’t even like. Tbf I’ve seen some decent theories on the matter on the net, but it still doesn’t sit well with me.

Characters

Like all Danganronpa games the cast is filled with 16 eccentric students who all have idealized “ultimate” talents their personalities are centered around. I have individual thoughts on the games cast below, though note that I’m not going to be talking about the two leads Shuichi and Kaede given I’ll probably bring the up multiple times in other sections with more detail. Monokuma is also going to be left out since he’s returning from past games and Tsumugi as well given she’s the mastermind and I have more detailed thoughts on her later.

Angie Yonaga: I know this character gets a lot of hate, but I actually found her to be pretty interesting from a storytelling perspective. We don’t get very many religious characters in Danganronpa and seeing one that wore their religious affiliation on their sleeves was unusual. The fact her personality was also magnetic enough to coral the students into a near cult like state during a time of desperation, was also an interesting source of drama for the story itself. That being said I will admit she has some creepier tendencies, given she supposedly dabbles in selling organs and has some weird sexual tendencies.

Gonta Gokuhara: Gonta is probably my favorite “giant character” in the series. The guys is just so much of a teddy bear and the sheer innocence he displays over the course of the game was pretty endearing.

Tenko Chabashira: Tenko is a decent-ish characters as far as I’m concerned. Tbh I’ve never been a big fan of man hating characters, but her relationship with Himiko and general upbeat attitude were enough to overshadow that in my opinion. Additionally the reasoning for her misandrist behavior is so god damn stupid that I can’t help but just laugh at it somewhat anyway (it was pretty much the result of her MALE teacher telling her to stay away from boys).

Miu Iruma: Miu is my favorite character in the game. I love her brash and un-lady like demeanor. I also enjoy her more open perverse side given you don’t see that in female characters often. Likewise her skills as an inventor are probably among the most useful and prolific out of the cast, setting the stage for several conflicts and solutions to story centric puzzles. Her inferiority superiority complex also gives her a bit of depth, which makes her relatable in my opinion.

Kiibo: I find Kiibo to be pretty interesting as a “robot character”. Yeah he still tends to fall into the cliché “what is this thing called love?” and “how do I human” trap, but I find the fact he constantly calls out other characters who make assumptions about his strength, technical knowledge and emotional understanding due to him being robot refreshing. The guys honestly is also a huge dork and gets some pretty interesting character development towards the games finale, where he more or less shirks off a role that was forced to play by the games mastermind.

Rantaro Amami: It’s Kind of hard to say anything about Rantaro one way or the other. He got killed almost immediately after the game started and consequently didn’t really interact with anyone or get any character development. Granted later story segments painted him as the survivor of a previous killing game which was pretty interesting, but anything regarding that plotline comes down to mostly speculation. For what it’s worth he seems to be a pretty mellow guy and his mysterious nature makes him kind of likable I guess.

Ryoma hoshi: Royma’s presence in the plot isn’t extensive, but he left a pretty big impact for the short amount of time he had. He has a dark past and a kind of depressive nihilistic personality that isn’t too dissimilar from what you would see in character like sans from Undertale (which is ironic given his fate). However he also has a very self-sacrificing attitude not found often in Danganronpa, and seems to be one of the most self-aware characters in the cast. It made for a surprisingly complex and badass character, which makes it pretty disappointing he couldn’t get more screen time.

Kaito Momota: Kaito is for all intents and purposes a stereotypical bro character and one that probably pushes the lines towards being a bit too perfect at times. That being said I think he’s a well executed version of the architype, and his actions in helping Kokichi set up the unsolvable case of chapter 5 were pretty bamf. Overall I found him enjoyable.

Himiko Yumeno: I actually found some aspects of Himiko to be kind of annoying early on. Particularly how she wouldn’t stop using the “it’s just magic” excuse when a magic trick she performed became a huge point of discussion in the second chapters class trial. ….That being said she probably suffers the most out of the entire cast given most of her closest friends get die, and she gets accused of murder in like every case. She’s also one of few living people to see the revelations of chapter 6. I feel like she should get a pass for some of her shortcomings given that, and probably deserves a hug.

Kirumi Tojo: I don’t have much of an opinion on Tojo tbh. Though I’ll admit I find it refreshing to have a maid character who’s more stoic and composed than fanservicey though. I’ll also say outright I thought her attempts to avoid her execution in chapter 2 where probably amongst some of the ballsiest in the entire series.

Korekiyo Shinguji: I liked this character a lot more before the game shoehorned in all the twists regarding his split personality and incest fetishes. Afterwards he kind of just came off as unsettling creepy, which is kind of sad is given he seemed to be a more harmless kind of weird I could actually get into before that.

Maki Harukawa: I have mixed opinions on Maki tbh. A lot of her behavior in chap 5 caused tons of trouble for the cast in the long run and inadvertently resulted in the killing game continuing for a bit longer. Though that being said I think it’s ironic that the assassin of all people managed to live through the events of the game without killing anyone. She also has some good character development tied to Kaito, so she’s redeemable in that way as well.

Kokichi Oma: Kokichi isn’t my favorite character in the game, but he’s definitely a close second. He has some similarities with Komaeda, but I find some of his idiosyncrasies to be much more interesting. Simply put the guy presents himself as being a huge troll and a borderline psychopath ….but a lot of that is implied to be an act. He actually performs a lot of actions for the purpose of undermining the authority of the mastermind and probably has a more childish pacifistic personality under the surface. It creates an interesting dynamic for him, especially when he interacts with the main characters.

Monokubs: Eh I don’t care for the Monokubs, but I don’t hate them either. They aren’t really as endearing as Monokuma or Monami, but they’re definitely nice for some quick laughs. None of them really have any character development and relevance in the plot though, which is kind of a minus.

 Misc thoughts

Overall I would say the cast of this game is pretty strong, if not better than the last two games. There really isn’t a single character that I outright hated or found forgettable. Likewise even if a character wasn’t likable, I at least found them interesting. The only exception is Korekiyo, who pretty much had his entire character fucked up for the sake of a cheap twist.

Game mechanics

The basic gameplay of the series remains the same from past instalments. You switch between 3 main segments, daily life, deadly life and class trial. In daily life you talk to and engage in relationships with students, which nets you points you can spend on character upgrades. In the deadly life you search for clues pertaining to a murder, typically from a roaming first person perspective. Finally in the class trial you use evidence collected during the deadly life segments to create arguments or counter arguments that will lead to finding the culprit of a given case.

Out of the 3, the class trial is the most complex, containing multiple different debate types and minigames for the player to claw into. The main mode being a “nonstop debate” where all the characters will talk about a case in real time while you look through their statements for contradictions. You then target said contradictions with a shooter style reticule, and literally break down their claims by shooting a metaphorical bullet of “evidence” at it. It’s pretty fun all things considered and the game adds in tons of smaller features in to spice things up as well. For example “white noise” statements that block more important statements and must be shot down with a “silencer”. The ability to target certain parts of a stamen for more points. Alternate difficulties that increase your evidence choices and decrease the amount of mistakes you can make before getting a game over. Previously mentioned character upgrades that net beneficial skills that can bypass certain challenges and so on.

The other smaller mini games and debate mechanics included are called mass panic debate, argument armament, scrum debate, lying, hangman’s gambit, physic drive, mind mine and closing argument. I think trying to address all of them at once would be difficult though, so I’ve separated my thoughts on them into smaller sections below.

Mass panic debate: In mass panic debate you listen to the testimony of multiple characters at once and have to find the contradiction hidden within one of them. It’s basically just like non-stop debate, but with 3 times the complexity. It’s overall a pretty cool concept, but at times can be overly hectic and disorienting (though tbf that’s the point). I don’t think I can stomach it in more than small doses.

Scrum debate: Scrum debate is probably my favorite new mechanic. Basically in this mode all of the participates of a trial split down the middle in regards to some important topic and get sent to a separate arena where everyone takes one of two sides. You then have to work together with your “team” to create and match counterarguments with the opposing arguments team, allowing you to regain control of the debate. It’s actual pretty simplistic in practice, but it looks really epic and adds a lot to the mood, so I love it.

Lying: Lying is ….well lying. By selecting evidence and holding down a button, you can lie about the qualities of it when you try to counter argue a statement in a non-stop debate. The point being to try to manipulate the flow of a debate in your favor. It’s a mechanic that’s pretty interesting in concept, though if I’m being honest somewhat underutilized in the context of this game. While lies can be used as an alternate answer in some trials, the story has a habit of re-railing the plot pretty quickly anyway, making their usage pretty negligent. In fact lying is almost never required to progress though a case at all. Additionally if you screw up trying to hit a statement with lie “evidence bullet” you get a huge penalty for it, which make using them in the first place way to much of a risk versus the reward. It makes the whole system become more an elaborate optional Easter egg if I’m being honest.

Hangman’s gambit: Hangman’s gambit sucks. You basically need to guess random letters from a partially obscured screen to make out the words pertaining to a piece of evidence or an idea, but Jesus Christ it’s difficult to figure out what the exact words the game wants you to use are half of the time. It doesn’t even matter if you have a basic idea of what to look for, because the words themselves might still be ordered in a way you don’t expect. Like for example some words are “ropeway” “victim helped” and “seesaw effect”(is that last one even a real phrase people use). It’s honestly just a huge pain, and I have no shame in admitting I just looked up all the answers for these segments after a certain point because I didn’t want to deal with them anymore..

Physic drive: Physic drive isn’t really that good or bad tbh, it’s just kind of mediocre. You basically drive a car on a road with multiple lanes and have to pick up letters that spell out a question without crashing into anything. Once that question gets spelled out, you then have to drive down one of several lanes to choose an answer. Rinse and repeat 3 or 4 times. It gets boring pretty quickly, though I’ll admit the car driving itself can be fun the first or second time you do it.

Mind mine: Mind mine is probably my favorite debate mini game. It’s basically a puzzle game where you match up and destroy similarly colored tiles on a grid pattern. Tiles next to the ones you destroy also change color, so you have to plan out your moves. Once you’ve removed enough tiles you can see various pieces of evidence underneath, which you can choose to advance the debate. It’s overall simplistic yet cerebral enough that I don’t really get bored by it. I would say it’s similar to that of candy crush, Tetris or minesweeper in terms of fun.

Argument Armament: This mode is basically a rhythm game used during the final segment of a case to break down the culprit’s final argument. Similar mechanics have existed in past games, but it seems slightly improved here and more fun all around. You basically just press buttons in time with a set of music and then at the end of the game you need to press buttons in a certain order to form a rebuttal sentence.

Closing argument: Basically an interactive comic depicting an entire murder start to finish. You fill in missing panels with clipped panels provided to you when the mini game starts. It’s pretty simple, but fun to do, and entertaining to see play out when you are done.

Misc thoughts

For the most part the gameplay of V3 flows together quite well and I think it is actually an improvement over past games. I do have one slight grievance in regards to a lot of these modes though. The fact that the game almost always only allows one piece of evidence be the correct answer for a given logic puzzle, even when logically multiple could apply. It’s a common trope in tons of VNs tbf, but it’s still annoying and I wish more games would avert it so the player doesn’t get unearned penalties.

Bonus modes and extra content

Like previous games V3 has a lot of bonus modes for the player to delve into. For the most part the majority of them are unlocked post story, but there are a few you can play during the story itself. The game also establishes a few different types of currency you can use in these modes including gold, tokens and Monokuma coins. You can see my overall thoughts below.

Love across the universe: This is basically a free play mode where you can engaged in the games life sim elements without interruption, as well as experiment with some additional  dating features. It’s mainly just for convenience given most players probably aren’t going to finish up all the daily life events from the main game in a single play through. You can also social link with a few characters that aren’t really available in the main story at all which is also a plus. This mode also serves as an improvement over past versions in the series, as it does away with some extra fluff most people didn’t care for. Particularly a resource gathering and managing mini game that could prevent you from getting any of the modes extra endings if you at failed it.

 My only complaint is that Kaede isn’t playable in this mode, which is a problem given she does have daily life events for herself in chapter 1. Not having her here means you need to replay chapter 1 over and over again to get all of her sim events done, which kind of subverts the point of having a mode like this in the first place(though admittedly the developers wanted her playable but ran out of time apparently).

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Talent plan: This mode is something akin to a board game crossed a JRPG. You start by choosing a character from one of the 3 Danganronpa games, and then you send them around a Mario party inspired game world. Landing on certain spaces powers up these characters “stats”, gives them special shards they can spend on new abilities and even triggers social sim events with members of past game entries. It’s also all set within the famous “hopes peak” setting that the series has become famous for, which is pretty cool. It’s overall a fun and fleshed out mode, though I think it drags on a bit at times. The fan service scenes of seeing all 3 casts interact with each other is enough for me to get past that however. My only nitpick is the game doesn’t let you keep track of what events you’ve seen, so it’s not easy to avoid repeats. It pretty much necessitates just going onto YouTube at some point to watch said scenes, where they can be organized in a more cohesive manner.

Monokuma’s test: This bonus game is basically a more traditional top down JRPG game. In order to play it you need finish the talent development plan bonus mode at least once, and then select the character you built up there to use here. This more or less makes the two modes interconnected. Anyway as far as RPGs go it’s pretty old school, yet  surprisingly complex. Not only are there multiple environments, but the game has a crafting system, a large category of special attacks and a fairly complex stat system carried over from the talent plan mode. Monokuma’s test is also surprisingly long from what I can tell, with about 100 floors to explore. It’s no persona 5 by any means, but it definitely exceeded my expectations in regards to what to expect from DR bonus game and easily could have been a full on mobile game if spike had wanted to.

Death tarot draw: This is less of a game, and more of a place to spend some of the in game currency you can earn in Monokuma’s test by defeating enemies(Gold). It allows you to buy more characters for you to use in the talent plan, which subsequently can be used in Monokuma’s test afterwards. This makes the 3 modes in general an interconnected experience.

Casino: V3 has a huge separate casino section where you can play all the main game trial mini games, and some separate slot machine games for fun. You can also earn another form of in game currency in this mode called tokens, which can be used to redeem special skills, special gifts and so on. As far as modes itself goes its pretty fun if you actually enjoy most of the trial mini games to begin with. Though that being said I think it takes too long to build up enough coins to buy anything worthwhile, unless you take the time to get really skilled at one particular minigame or don’t mind indulging in some of the less risky slot machines for a few hours.

Love hotel: This is less of a bonus mode and more of an extra unlockable scene. Basically if you get enough tokens in the casino mode you can buy a key to an in game love hotel, where you’ll have a random encounter with a member of the games cast. The events of this encounter happen in a dream more or less, and the point is to play out the fantasy of the other character. …truth be told it’s mostly for fanservice and fetish fuel, though it’s a nice little bonus scene for those more interested in the sim aspects of Danganronpa. Though that being said it may also be way too much of a hassle for some people to unlock. You need 10,000 coins for a single key, which can take an hour or so to grind using the safest methods in the casino. Frankly you’re better off going on YouTube to watch them all.

Gallery: Basically a series of modes where you can view the artwork, music and movies of the game. In order to access anything you need to pay for it with coins though, which are earned based on scores you get for you performance in trials in the main game(or exploration of the school to a small extent).Personally I don’t have a problem with accessing stuff in this mode that way given a lot of it is dirt cheap, though I do find it kind of redundant given most of the unlockable cut scenes, character events or in game storyboards just end up being things you have or could already see in the main game (or on youtube tbh). I kind of wish there was more legitimate original stuff here, but I’ll admit it’s a decent addition for people who like 100% games I guess.

Misc

V3 probably has the most extensive and legitimately good bonus modes in the entire series. It also fixed a lot of problems I had with the free play modes in the previous games, which makes me a happy camper.

Controversial controversies

Ok this is the meat of the review guys. This is what it was all really about! Addressing all the really big controversies that apparently tore a lot of the fandom apart. These are my opinions

Kaede being the killer of ch 1 and her execution

I’m not a big fan of this twist.  Having your main character secretly be the killer all along is a plot point I can sometimes see being pulled off with varying levels of difficulty in more contemporary media, but I find nearly impossible to do well within the context of a video game. Particularly because you’re so intimately tied to the main character(via controlling almost all their physical actions, seeing everything happening through their eyes and having privy to the characters inner thoughts 99 percent of the time) that major events happening with them outside your knowledge feels improbable.  In order for any of it to work the game pretty much has to bend over backwards to make any actions Kaede takes towards setting up her murder plot as vague as possible, as well as making her inner monologue asymmetrical to what it should actually be in her situation. Many will see it as borderline cheating tbh

It’s basically like when the player character Shelby was shown to be the killer at the end of the game heavy rain, but the game had to go out of the way to dissociate a lot of his actions and thoughts from what they actually were to hide it from the player. Though admittedly v3 is better in this respect given it doesn’t actually lie directly to the player at any point and YES there are a few hints to what’s going on in if you pay attention.

Though that being said I’m still on the fence of if v3 pulled it off well, and yes before people start, I do know what an unreliable narrator is. Personally it’s in my opinion people are way too quick to jump onto the “unreliable narrators are a thing” bandwagon to defend this twist. While it’s true unreliable narrators are a well-known writing mechanic, that doesn’t automatically mean this game pulled off the concept well and that it’s free from scrutiny regarding it. Unreliable narrators are notoriously difficult to write and in universe typically need to be given substantiated reasons for why their dialogue is off compared to reality. A lot of times this can be explained by the character in question suffering from psychosis, having memory problems, having strict inner biases, childish views on the world around them or repressing events on a subconscious level. It’s also common for said characters to be directly addressing a 3^rd party (the audience or an in universe character) with the intention to mislead or manipulated them.

……This really doesn’t apply to Kaede. From an outward perspective sure she could be considered as misleading Shuichi, but this shouldn’t really extend to her inner monologue given we know she’s of sound mind and she’s not actually addressing the player directly to mislead them. Likewise while you could make an argument that maybe her inner monologue avoids mentioning her murder plan cause she wants to dissociate from it, the fact the set up would have taken some complex thought and the fact she admits to her crime in the trial kind of goes against that notion.

…basically what I’m saying is even disregarding some of the hints regarding her physical actions and outward dialogue possibly being well executed (tbh the nature of the perspective you see V3 from at times, makes it easier to obscure the players view of what’s happening) Kaede’s lies of omission in her inner monologue isn’t really well backed up from a story standpoint. The explanation for why she never addresses the fact she directly murdered someone or her actions setting up the trap are pretty much “cause it would ruin the plot” and nothing else, which is pretty counter to how an unreliable narrator should actually be written. It’s not that much of a surprise to me that many people just weren’t feeling it because of that.

Shuichi replacing Kaede as the main protagonist

I’m going to be clear I DON”T HATE Shuichi.

That being said I think the protagonist switch with him and Kaede was misguided at best and a bad idea at worst.

When it comes down to it his situation isn’t to dissimilar to what we’ve seen from other characters in the video game industry, particularly characters like Apollo Justice and Raiden in the Ace Attorney and Metal Gear series respectively. Both of those character got introduced into a series where the games they starred in already had another advertised main character or had a different preferred main character. Unsurprisingly despite subversion of expectations being the point of them being appointed protagonists, fans flipped due to feeling like they had been lied to. This ended up hurting the popularity of said characters in a lot of demographics for YEARS, due to the fact fans couldn’t dissociate their negative feelings towards their initial introductions. This overall made it harder for them to stand on their own without being compared to who they replaced.

Beat for beat Shuichi has mostly received the same treatment, albeit people seem to have gotten over it somewhat in japan. That being said when I’m sitting down and really comparing the situation, I can’t help but feel like Shuichi actually got off worse in some ways. 

1. For one Kaede was actually killed PERMENANTLY, meaning she doesn’t have the chance to come back in a sequel. While Apollo and Raiden may have had to deal with backlash when they replaced their more popular counterparts, neither of those characters died, which meant they could come back to star in sequels like MGS4 or duel destinies.
2. While Pheonix and Snake both got shafted from main playable statues in said games, they STILL PLAYED HUGE ROLES in the story and were integral to the plot. In comparison Kaede doesn’t really have much of a role besides her death providing development for the other characters and her murder case coming back up again during the late game.
3.  It is very unlikely Shuichi will ever be the protag of another Danganronpa game outside this one, which means if he didn’t grow on you here, he’s not going to be getting many second chances. This is contrast to Apollo and Raiden who eventually won fans over in their own spin offs or deuteragonist roles in later games. Additionally this might be the last Danganronpa game Kodaka will write for a while, so we might not get another chance to get a protag like Kaede anytime soon.
4. This protagonist switch isn’t actually a subversion of Danganronpa series staples. Even taking things like gender out of the equation, Shuichi has much more in common with past protagonist personality archetypes than Kaede did. In fact Kaede has much more in common with the support sidekick characters that were already prone to dying in the previous games. If anything the twist would have made more sense as a subversion ha the roles been reversed.

I guess what I’m saying in simplistic terms is that historically advertising a certain character as being playable, then bait and switching them with another character almost never tends to go well(heck ironically this happened for a short period to Kaede herself when Kiibo seemed to be the main character). It pisses people off if they spend 60 dollars on a game that they feel may have appealed to them on false pretenses, and it really fucking sucks cause it often results in the replacement character gathering haters that may not dispel for years. I also have to be honest in my thoughts that the switch doesn’t really make that much sense as a twist either, given it pretty much reestablishes series status qous by happening.

In regards to having a female protag

…..ok I’ll be honest I wasn’t entirely sure if I could address this. The fact of it is in this day and age it seems difficult to talk about issues of gender, race or whatever because ….well frankly people get a bit too extreme and derogatory about it. People want to often times destroy others they think are bigots in self-righteous displays of self-victimized social justice and other people want to dismiss a lot of legitimate grievances people may have as over reading into things or….well SJW-ing.

So the question I have to ask is does Kaede being a female protag effect whether or not it was a good idea to replace her.

….well yes and no.

To be frank Kaede being a girl doesn’t and was never going to make her an inherently better character than a male character like Shuichi. This is a trap a lot of people, even companies or writers themselves, seem to fall into whenever they want to make their lead something outside the “norm” and quite frankly it’s annoying. At worst this is a type of thinking often results in elements of positive discrimination, where a character from a certain demographic becomes overly perfect due to wanting to overcompensate to prevent accusations of racism/sexism or whatever. It can also result in a work becoming immune to criticism or elevated above a statues it actually deserves because people misinterpret attempts at being progressive as actually being good.

I also don’t necessarily think that Kaede dying, and her death pushing Shuichi’s character development is an inherently sexist thing when taken in isolation and in the context of the games story itself. The fact of it is when you have your entire game centered around a “killing contest” it’s difficult to not have character deaths serve at least partially for character development, especially the main character. Heck even several side characters like Maki and Himiko had loved ones die in V3 and developed because of it(and said characters were members of both sexes). I also have to point out that even had the roles of the protagonist switch been reversed, you would still be fridge-ing Kaede’s “love interest” in a similar way, so it’s hard to advocate for that result being better without sounding hypocritical (though admittedly Fridge-ing is a trope that applies much more often to female characters in general fiction, and the concept of doing it with characters like Kaede was already explored a few times in Danganronpa already, so I can understand annoyance towards it).

That being said I DO think that having a female protagonist would have allowed for the series to tread some great undiscovered ground and would have been a breath of fresh air compared to another male one. It’s kind of contradictory to say in a world that continually wants to be more equal and politically correct, but to be honest growing up as a different gender, race, religious affiliation, sexuality and so on does tend to affect your world view. The fact of it is society and culture tends to embed or encourage certain stereotypes, social norms, double standards and values on you based on your demographic. While on an individual level how much a person incorporates that tends to vary, it does often effects how you function around other people and in society itself, since you may have self-awareness of it or others may interact with you differently based on said principles.

Like basically what I’m saying is think about how say a man and a women may react differently in certain situations. For example a lot of Men I know tend to be more afraid of using makeup or drinking “girly” drinks, because they have conscious or subconscious desires to not do something considered unmanly. A lot of women are more conscious of being alone at night or at a bar because of rape culture, and many may be affected by the fact that many positions of expertise in some countries may be male dominated. There’s double standards in regards to how both sexes deal with abusive relationships, sex lives, criminal punishments, what you can wear, ect. Heck even male friends and female friends tend to treat each other differently based on social norms, and seeing things like romance or lust through the lens of the opposite sex sometimes seems like a shock to people.

Like the point I’m getting at is that even on more subtle levels, there’s a large enough difference between the viewpoints of different demographics, that’s it’s worth exploring them(whether it’s gender, race or otherwise). Likewise while no one background is inherently better than another, given the world is made up with tons of people from different demographics, it’s no surprise to me that people like to see themselves represented to some extent.

This is also why blatantly promoting a female protag only to sweep the rug was a boneheaded idea. The fact of it is despite there being so many large gulfs in demographic, media still has a tendency to be oversaturated with white or Asian male leads, with it always seeming like going outside that norm is a ‘risk” of some sorts. Yeah you get spin offs or smaller projects from time to time, but It tends to not extend itself to mainline projects. People tend to really want more variety these days, and it doesn’t surprise me when they get all hyped up when somebody promises it. Heck Kaede was promised to be the first mainline female protag of their series and probably would have been one of the first major female protags in a mainline VN in a while. It’s kind of worsened by the fact that Kaede’s overall role in the plot suits a side character better than somebody who’s meant to be a full-fledged protagonist.

For comparison it would be like if Black Panther, the first major African American super hero movie, had Black Panther die in the first 10 minutes to be replaced by Bucky Barns. The rest of the movie could be legitimately amazing, but man would that tick me off personally. There aren’t that many black hearos in mainstream movie media, so why would you kill off the first one in your franchise ever after so much buildup, for the sake of a twist that’s sure to disappoint tons of people who wanted to see another group represented.

TLDR: No Kaede is not inherently a better character because of her sex. That being said female protags are still somewhat of a rarity in video games and not exploring a game through the unique viewpoint of one when given the chance is just wasting potential. Likewise her dying in the plot isn’t an issue on its own, albeit one I can understand people would find an annoying. The problem is the fact V3 got peoples hopes up, and then killed the series’ first female protag almost immediately after the story started, without giving her large enough role in the plot to justify her protagonist role in the first place. Quite frankly if the game had just been upfront from the start and hadn’t promoted her the way it did, a lot of the backlash regarding her would not have happened.

How Shuichi fairs as the main protag

I think that being entirely fair Shuichi probably gets shit on a lot more than he really deserves to be as a character(at least from some people). His backstory is actually pretty interesting and involves being traumatized after he gets a sympathetic murder arrested for killing a person who drove his whole family to suicide. He has a fairly well written arch regarding coming to terms with reaching out for the truth, no matter how unpleasant. He also does a fairly good job of deconstructing the premises of Danganronpa as a whole towards the games end and shows some serious balls by being willing to sacrifice his own life if it means ending the killing games permanently.

……..that being said

I you didn’t like Makoto or Hajime, or wanted somebody who felt distinct from them, you’re honestly not going to find a whole lot to like in Shuichi. He honestly doesn’t do much to get outside of the vanilla male protag archetype you might find often in harem anime and feels somewhat like an amalgamation of tropes from said previous protags.

He’s 

• A quite nice guy. He’s also easily rolled over and made the butt monkey if the situation calls for it. 
• Lacks of self-esteem and needs to learn to be more confident. Particularly in the nature of his “talent”. 
• Generally lacks a lot of quirks of other students in both personality and character design 
• The kind of guy who’s going to get all nervous if somebody else freaks on him or probably if he’s put in a sexual situation.  
• Tends to act as the straight man to most of the higher octane antics caused by the other characters.  
• May have an element of “luck” be involved in his achievements

Like obviously I’m probably oversimplifying, but you can kind of see my point if you’ve watched a lot of anime in the few years or if you played the last two Danganronpa games and know various vanilla protagonist tropes.

I will also be honest I feel like Shuichi’s skills as an ultimate detective kind of go to waste or don’t get used all that much. Like he’s really only moderately more competent than other series protags in the context of a class trial, and outside chapter 1 he never really takes that much imitative to study the other students and smoke out the mastermind. It’s kind of jarring when in comparison Kokichi (who actuality just ran a 10 man organization that pulled non-violent pranks), clearly psychoanalyzed most of the other students to the point where he seemed to know what murders would go down before they happened. Made various deductions about the nature of the killing game Shuichi didn’t and actually staged a near successful coup of the game against the real mastermind themselves. Then also filled his room with diagrams for potential weapons (with fake ones to throw off surveillance), preserved evidence from past murder cases and various whiteboard deductions regarding Monokuma or the Monokubs. Like if anything Kokichi out detectives the ultimate detective by a large margin, which shouldn’t really happen(though admittedly Shuichi does provoke the climax of the game into happening near the midpoint of chap 6).

Tsumugi as the mastermind

I have mixed opinions on Tsumugi being the mastermind I guess?

Like on one hand I don’t really mind the fact that she was the mastermind, and I think her gimmick of being a stodge for a higher organization was interesting. I liked her plain girl persona and nerdy cosplay obsession during her daily life events. Same with her creepy character shapeshifting abilities and her supposed obsession with Danganronpa as a whole after her reveal. But on the other hand she’s just so far removed from the relationships of the casts and the events of the story that it’s hard to actual care that she betrayed the group. Heck if anything she was so plain and out of focus, that I couldn’t imagine anyone but her being the mastermind by the time the final trial started.

Now tbf I realize her taking a step back and essentially acting like an NPC was probably intentional given her assigned role in the game, but I still think some sort of character arc would have made her reveal better.  She just doesn’t have that much going to be invested in, and unlike Junko I don’t think her more quirky antics could really carry her appeal to the same extent in a single trial appearance. I likewise feel like given this is the first time a mastermind has actually been present with the students an entire game, that they clearly must of missed some sort of opportunity by not capitalizing on that fact.

 The Truman show twist

Before I start I should probably point out that the game is actually all over the place in regards to what narratives given to the player by the mastermind Tsumugi can be actually be trusted. Many of the revelations she claims in the final chapter have some obvious contradictions to them and given she’s the only one with full knowledge of everything happening in the plot, the other characters can’t exactly engage her on even ground. That being said for the sake of confronting and dissecting most everyone’s thoughts on the twists I’m going to assume most of everything she said can be played straight. I’ll go over my thoughts regarding the possibility of some of her revelations being false in another section.

Anyway……………..Oh boi

This has probably got to be one of the most controversial twists I’ve seen in a video game in a while.

When the game reaches its climax Tsumugi basically reveals that the cast has actually been staring on a hit reality TV show watched around the world called Danganronpa, and said show is run by a larger organization called team Danganronpa. Additionally none of the casts memories, personalities, backgrounds and talents are actually real, but simply implanted for the sake of the show. The games backstory being built up was also supposedly fake and memories of it where implanted artificially using the games flashback lights.

Previous Danganronpa games like 1-3 and UDG are also said to be fictional works that served as the basis of the reality  TV series. Also surprisingly the entire casts of the game signed up for season 53 of Danganronpa “willingly”, and knew what they were getting into. Tsumugi also shows some “audition tapes” to prove it, which depict characters like Shuichi and Kaito outright saying they wanted to join the game for the chance to kill people.

Anyway Tsumugi says there’s no way to revert the surviving cast personalities back to what they were and there’s no point in them going back to a real world given their flanderdized minds probably can’t function in it anymore. She also says that the game must end with the remaining students voting for either hope or despair. If they choose despair then they live in the shows prop set forever, and if they vote for hope the game ends but two remaining students will be forced to in the next seasons killing game. During this time a lot of the students start freaking out and Kiibo guided by his “inner voice”, which is actually just an audience polling device, attempts to steer the class into voting for hope.

Shuichi suddenly mans up and declares that everyone in the class take a different route. Abstain from voting altogether, killing themselves in the process since not voting is an automatic execution. He then declares that he refuses both hope and despair and attempts to deconstruct the premises of Danganronpa by pointing out the depravity of wanting to watch people kill each other for amusement. He likewise claims that despite being essentially a “fictional character” everything was still real to him and despite being fictional it doesn’t mean they can’t have an impact on the real world. The audience more or less hacks more direct control over Kiibo as a response to his suicide suggestion, and Shuichi argues with them over how the series needs to end, while Kiibo spouts tons on nonsense regarding complaints about such an idea (saying things like “I’ve given so much to this series”).

Anyway what Kiibo is actually going to vote for starts being put into question, so Tsumugi also decides not to vote to avoid a tie, even though doing so will also get het killed. Then surprisingly it seems that Shuichi was successful in convincing the audience in Kiibo to give up on Danganronpa after all, and they don’t vote either. Since nobody voted the game ends in a tie and everyone supposedly gets executed as Kiibo goes on a rampage destroying the entire school, though in the end Shuichi, Maki and Himiko survives anyway. Shuichi then goes on a philosophical rant about how fiction is important and how both lies and truth have merit.

……phew

h

No addressing all the major points of the ending one at a time

Everything being a reality TV show: I don’t hate this twist. The idea of a world so bored and depraved that they actually enjoy watching people kill each other as a sport and obsess over like a good manga is pretty interesting. The idea people may potentially be complicit in participating also represents a more institutionalized type of despair that hadn’t yet been touched on that much in the series. The main villain being an organization that’s probably also more interested in popularity/profit than simply spreading chaos, is also a nice change of pace from the norm. That being said it’s kind of hard to know how much some of these revelation may or not pay of narratively, because we don’t know much about the outside world besides 2^nd hand claims.

The cast’s personalities and the storyline being pre-written: I get why this pisses some people off. It makes it seem like all of the events of the game were pointless and that we didn’t really learn anything about anyone. Knowing the backstories of the characters have no legitimacy in “reality” also makes them seem like they have less weight. That being said I actually find the philosophical implications of which version of a character should be considered “real”, how memories tie into motivation, the effects memory manipulation on free will and the legitimacy of a character undergoing growth under different personas quite interesting. It’s basically something akin to the questions asked in media like Total Recall, KH chain of memories, or any story that has an amnesic/brainwashed villain. OF COURSE being fair I also have to question how well this story handled it given most of those stories gave characters more time to discover and ruminate on those philosophical question. Here it was kind of just a last minute development, and we don’t learn much about their original personalities so it’s harder to make comparisons between the two.

The cast “willingly” sighing up for the game and their audition tapes: I also don’t have an issue with the fact that the audition tapes portrayed students as assholes or those without faith in humanity. It’s basically just another form of amnesic dissonance, and a similar concept already appeared in DR2 with little complaints arising from it (the cast all being former terrorist with said memories removed).

Kiibo’s actions and his correlation to the real world audience: This is probably what pissed off people the most. A lot of the actions that Kiibo takes when being taken over by the in universe audience, sound like jabs or insults being flung at the real world audience. Particularly when he starts pouting phrases like “Kaede should have lived instead of Shuichi”, “this game is to meta for its own good” “x is my waifu” “I’ve given so much to this series you can’t betray me” ,ect. Likewise some of the heavy handed exposition about Shuichi trying to get the Danganronpa series to end by invoking an unsatisfying ending and the allusions to in universe series stagnation, understandably give off the impression to a lot of people that Kodaka basically wanted to nuke the franchise and be done with it.

And frankly I can’t blame people for these thoughts. I’m aware spike has come out and said that it wasn’t intending to be condescending, but it’s hard not to see some bitterness and the correlations to the people playing the game in some of the script.  The game itself even prompts you to be the one who initiates the audience takeover of Kiibo and you control him for a short period after, so clearly the separation between both sets of audiences isn’t that definite.

Now to BE FAIR I don’t think that both the in game and out of game audience are meant to be taken as a totally synonymous thing the entire ending, regardless of if there’s some double entendre allusions at some points. I also will say I believe Kodaka’s explanation and don’t think the game literally meant to go “fuck you”, rather than just trying to provoke some introspective thought about Danganronpa as a scenario. BUT……..even at absolute best I have to admit that some parts of this twist may have had some unfortunate implications, and that people need to remember that being innocently insensitive is a thing.  If Kodaka’s message here is so easily muddled that it offends tons of people, than it’s still his own fault for failing to convey himself in an understandable manner, not the fans who dared to have a subjective interpretation of his story.

Danganronpa 1-3 being “fictional”: One the aspects brought up in V3s ending by Tsumugi is the idea that the entire Danganronpa hope’s peak arch is fictional within the context of the V3s universe. This has naturally become a point of contention for a lot of people, because they feel like the revelation is basically retconning games they like out of existence and shits all over the history of the franchise.

And my response to that is eeeeeeeeeeeeeeh

Disregarding the fact I’m not sure her claim is true, personally I’ve internalized it as just being an alternate universe completely separate from the originals, where those originals just happen to be fictional works. Sort of like Digimon seasons 1-2 vs tamers or how some comicbook movies have their own real life comics series sold within their universes. I really don’t think it’s a plot point you need to take all that seriously.

Though Tbh it may have been better if they hadn’t used hopes peak at all when constructing the idea of there being multiple killing games over the span of several TV “seasons”. It just seems to be a needless way to provoke anger, and it’s the sort of twist I can admit not everyone can get behind. Though admittedly the plot would have to be re-written a lot at some points to compensate for that.

The overall message of truth and lies: I enjoyed most of what the ending was trying to say in concept, but I’m kind of mixed on the delivery at points. Like the whole topic is just handled with the subtleness of an elephant on a tricycle, and as I mentioned some of the concepts they brought up regarding the character having fake personalities would have been better with more time to develop. I’ll also be honest that I think the way Shuichi gives equal value to truth and lies in the epilogue is wrong. Yeah lies have merit, but putting them on the same level of importance as the truth can lead to disaster, something that’s highly apparent in today’s political climate.

Misc

Overall I would say I didn’t hate the twists in concept, but I kind of question the execution. A lot of it feels like it would have been better with more time to develop, rather than being thrown at the player in a single trial. Some extra elaboration would have made the implications of the twist a bit more meaningful. I’d also say that personally the “ DR 1-3” is fiction angle doesn’t ruin those games for me, but the idea of them being fictional in this universe was so obviously base breaking that I’m surprised they used it.

Lies lies lies?

So not playing the ending straight.

You actually can’t trust anything the game tells you about all the twists. Tsumugi makes tons of claims at the end of the game, but it’s pretty apparent she’s unreliable given some of her claims can be contradicted by keen observation. I also have to reiterate that given she’s the only student that knows anything about the games higher workings, it’s not like the students have the knowledge to 

rebuttal her claims.

Anyway some thing’s Tsumugi says are

1. The entire killing game is just a Tv show set on air for world that enjoys watching killing games. Kiibo even acts as an in game camera and a vessel for the audience to participate.
2.    That she implanted the entirety of each characters backstory and personality into them, essentially making them “fictional” characters.
3. That she wrote all the scenarios for the game and that various characters relationships were of her own design.
4. That the students themselves willingly signed up for said killing game and allowed their original personalities to be erased.
5.  That there’s been 53 seasons of “Danganronpa” and that the hopes peak saga was fictional.
6. That she’s the mastermind

So going through these one at a time

1: While it’s clear there’s an audience and that they have been interacting through Kiibo on some level, whether or not they number in the scope Tsumugi claims or are as complicit to the violent nature of the show as implied can’t proven. Almost all the information regarding the outside world comes from Tsumugi, and it has been established she’s not a reliable source. We really can’t know anything for sure until the characters let us see the outside world from their perspective.

2: I can buy the characters having altered memories and fake talents, but whether or not their personalities were fake to begin with I’m not sure. The game has a prologue before the cast initially gets there memories overwritten, and for the most part every character that speaks during it acts similarly to their “TV show “counter parts. Miu in particular having the same brazenness.

3: Chaos theory and common sense would dictate that the characters still have free will, so how easily Tsumugi could control and guide their actions in planed scenarios is up for debate. Heck Kokichi in particular probably went off script in ways she didn’t expect in chapter 5.Though that being said playing the conspiracy game in the other direction, assuming she could manipulate all these scenario’s with precisions, there’s no way of knowing whether she fully intended for cast to learn about the Truman show plot or not. For all we know the final showdown could have been intentional.

4: It’s very clear to me that the stuff about the character’s willingly signing up for the death game was probably a lie. In the actual prologue before they got their memories altered they were clearly confused about their situation and while they recognized Monokuma, they were scared of him. The characters in the original prologue also specifically mentioned being kidnapped. This is stark contrast to how Tsumugi portrayed everything. Likewise the video auditions were probably faked, given Tsumugi can easily disguise herself as other characters and pull off fake voices(her the videos even look like they were recorded in a room that belong to her in the school). Yeah I know Tsumugi makes claims she can’t cosplay as real people, but she could have been lying about that and events in the talent plan mode imply she can exploit loopholes in more ambiguous situations (which the students of V3 probably fall under).

Conversely though I’ll admit a lot of this can be debated in multiple ways due to the presence of memory manipulation.

5: The game is actually pretty ambiguous as to the nature of if Danganronpa 1-3 and UDG are fiction. Keep in mind all the information about this comes from Tsumugi, who isn’t a good source of info. Granted there’s some hints in story this might be true as a room dedicated to Shuichi’s talent has supposed pictures and case files of the murders of each past game, and the first 3 are remarkably different. However the end of the game also calls fact to the point Tsumugi may have been copying somebody in “real life”, who would probably be Junko.

6: Yeah technically even Tsumugi herself being the mastermind can be called into question. With such prevalent memory manipulation going on in this game for all we know she simply had the mastermind role implanted in her by team Danganronpa when the rest of the students got actual talents.

So yeah I guess basically everything and everything about the plot can be debated to some degree. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing though. I mean the previous two games had open natured elements. For example Junko could have been lying about the world having fallen to despair and you didn’t really know if the students at the end of DR2 where going to wake up. But this kind of takes it up to 11 in some ways, and I find it harder to get invested in some of the potential ramifications of the story’s later game reveals if almost all of it has a chance of being a lie. Granted these kind of open ended games do make good fodder for theories, which is fun for people who like that sort of thing.

Though likewise it’s pretty apparent much of DRV3s plot and ending aren’t really going to be intelligible unless we get a direct sequel or prequel of some kind, which is ironic since the game itself seemed to call out making needless sequels at some point.

Misc thoughts

I kind of have to wonder at this point whether or not Danganronpa is experiencing a form of serial escalation. Like tbf even the concept of having this huge twist come out in the 11^th hour is pretty standard at this point, and the series seems to keep on escalating the craziness of the twists to compensate for that. I feel like if the series is going to continue in any fashion, they’re probably going to have to put a stop to that at some point. Likewise to people who think they have nowhere to go after this twist,,,,eh I think that’s being a bit close minded, though I would agree changing the setting and rules of said games somewhat would make sense. I also have a similar response to people who think Kaede wouldn’t have had anywhere to develop as a main character, as that similarly is being closed minded.

I also have to share an opinion that way too many people are willing to write off potential flaws and problems with V3 for frivolous reasons. A big one I’ve seen that a lot of the plot was intentionally written to have sloppy elements, to be formulaic and to have twists for the sake of twists, to make a big meta statement about series stagnation. This sort of makes sense given Danganronpa has become somewhat of a cash cow franchise and in universe the series went on for 53 season, but I frankly can’t see how that’s excusable. Intentionally writing your plot badly just to make a point is pretty obnoxious and ultimately isn’t going to have any pay off given the players themselves aren’t going to enjoy large chunks of the story as much because of that.

I also feel like “the theme of the game is truth and lies” gets taken to way to far extremes. Yeah I get the theme of the game naturally involves deceit, but no that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to lie about aspects of the game in advertising. It’s also not an excuse for making so many elements of the plot and ending in itself needlessly interpretable.

Finally I have to make a point of calling out a really obnoxious behavior I keep seeing in tons of discussions of this game. The “you need to have a high IQ” and “you just didn’t understand” posts in regards to any criticism towards the ending or certain twists and so on. It’s one thing to try to create a dialogue or counter argument centered around somebody else’s claims, and it’s another thing entirely to condescendingly talk down to other people like their opinions are objectify wrong. It’s particularly weird given this is a game that clearly wants to make you think and interpret it in multiple ways in the first place.

I dunno I think some of it comes from a place of wanting to defend the series, but personally it just comes off like this

Final thoughts

All things considered I actually do think Danganronpa v3 is a good game. In my personally opinion a lot of the gameplay mechanics have been substantially improved from past instalments and the amount of bonus content available is probably the best in the whole series. The cast is probably also on par if not stronger than the past two as well. My more critical eye falls onto the story itself. It follows prior Danganronpa story formulas far too closely for my taste and the cast makes some truly bizarre critical decisions. I also can’t help but think that a lot of the games twists where ultimately unoriginal, unneeded, or poorly executed. I’d even say some of them were over the top surprising for the sake of having a surprise. Though even so I would say the story itself still has tons of cool cases and concepts so I’m by no means dumping on everything it presented.

Overall 8.2 out of 10

+Great gameplay mechanics

+tons of bonus content

+likeable cast

+Has one of the best trial cases in the series

-Has some weird plot inconsistencies, like characters making too dumb to live decisions and motives being the catalyst for murder inconsistently

-Has way to many polarizing twists for its own good, particularly the protagonist switch

- The theme of lying may be taken to slightly far extremes at times, particularly what aspects of the plot can actually be trusted and how you can interpret the story as a result.