You may not have heard of Danganronpa. If you’re not a fan of visual novels or anime, it’s almost certain you haven’t. But even if those two things are alien to you, Spike Chunsoft has really hit gold. I encourage you to read on, even if everything about this game makes you feel like it’s not for you. You know the drill, smash that play button below.
Makoto is an average Japanese student heading into high school (you’ve probably heard this one before) and receives a letter inviting him to the very exclusive Hopes Peak Academy, reserved for Japan’s best and brightest. Every year, a random student is drawn into the class even without a specific skill, designating them the “Ultimate Lucky Student.” You’re going to be seeing the word “ultimate” a lot here, so buckle up. Each student in the school is designated the “ultimate something,” indicating they are the absolute best in their field, no matter how specific or useless. For example, in Danganronpa (D1 going forward) you’ll meet the Ultimate Programmer (cool!), the Ultimate Pop Star (okay…), and the Ultimate Biker Gang Leader (…). Try not to get too tied up in all this. It’s very anime, I know. These characters, who are presented as 2D and entirely focused around one aspect of personality, are amazingly well crafted. This game leans heavily on what it does best, and that is the characters depth and interaction with each other.
When Makoto arrives at school, he’s gassed and wakes up with 15 other new students, trapped inside the school. And when I say trapped, I mean trapped. The doors and windows are all covered over with steel plates 6 inches thick and bolts bigger than a fist. No one knows what’s going on, and everyone remembers having just arrived moments before getting knocked out. After introductions are made, the kids make their way to the gymnasium where we meet the star of the show — Monokuma. Ah, what a delightful little bastard. Monokuma is the villain of the story, and he is something you haven’t seen before, i guarantee it. Without spoiling too much, he is a mechanical teddy bear controlled by a sadistic game master somewhere watching everyone through cameras mounted all around the school. He’s charismatic, funny, lame, and terrifying all at the same time.
Monokuma outlines the rules of the Killing Game, which you may have surmised was going to happen. The only way out of Hopes Peak is to kill another student without getting caught. When one student kills another, they are put on a class trial, which makes up the game portion of D1. I’ll get to that in a second. If the class as a whole is able to figure out who the killer is, that person is killed. If the class guesses wrong, the killer escapes and the rest of the class is killed. Ostensibly, only one person can escape either way. The students are given free reign of the boarding school with all its amenities and are sent on their way. And as you imagine, while they are all initially adamant about not taking part in the killing game, it only takes about 3 days for one of them to break. The game follows you as Makoto conducting investigations after a murder, piecing together evidence, and going to the class trials. There’s a lot of downtime between each trial and the next murder, called “School Life.” This is the visual novel part, and can largely be skipped if you like. You collect coins, buy gifts for specific classmates, build affinity, unlock new conversations with some light romance options, etc. Pretty standard fare for an anime visual novel. That’s when the murder happens.
The class trial consists of several minigames as well as logic puzzles that become pretty difficult to solve in the second part of the game. Play hangman, twin stick arcade shooters, and shoot logic bullets from your idea gun to support or refute classmates’ arguments. It sounds crazy but it’s very well done, and is pretty difficult. And let’s get to that right now: this is a hard game for the most part. You WILL NOT solve any of the murders before the trial begins, and if you think you have, you’re in for a rude awakening. They get more cleverly designed as they go and by the end you’ll just feel like a big jackass for ever thinking you could be a detective. But that moment when you realize everything and connect that last dot halfway through a class trial… it’s priceless.
Besides the characters, the other big selling point of this game is the music. I can’t really describe how good and ridiculous it is, so just take a listen to the main theme. It’s a banger, no two ways about it.
This game is about 35 hours long, so it’s a bit of a commitment to be sure. The only negative thing I have to say about it is the clunky controls during the School Life parts, but that doesn’t make up a lot of the game and it’s mostly skippable, plus the fast travel option helps. My last note is that the ending will blow your mind and fuck you up, and you’ll probably race to start downloading the second game.
This is a violent game. It’s gorey. It’s unforgiving. But it’s also hilarious. There’s a weird line Spike Chunsoft straddles here that I didn’t know about between sadistic murders and funny pranks. But again, it’s so self aware of how ridiculous it is it all feels right. Monokuma is a great and memorable villain, and you’ll find yourself casually checking Amazon to see how much a plush costs.
Final Verdict: 9.0/10 — A Killer Good Time
Danganronpa knows its strengths and leans on them — the ridiculous dialogue and puns, the deeply detailed characters, the wacky art and music. The school life sections, which I find to be tedious, are mostly skippable. The murders are brilliantly put together and full of red herrings, and you’ll walk into the class trial feeling confident but looking like a total dumbass. The logic puzzles are difficult but mostly pretty fair, and you’ll think “oh I see I should have done that” a lot. Yes, this is an anime game, and it’s somewhere between a visual novel and an arcade puzzle, but even if you don’t like any of those things I honestly think you might still like this game.
Note: I did play the sequel and may write a review for it separately, but while it was still good I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as the first. Spike Chunsoft’s other big hitter series, Zero Escape, is even better than Danganronpa and you should give it a look. Check out my review!
