Danganronpa is the story about a boy named Makoto Naegi who got accepted into a very prestigious school called Hope’s Peak Academy. Most of the students in this school all have some sort of ultimate talent such as the ultimate baseball player, ultimate writer, ultimate programmer and so on. However, Naegi is the ultimate lucky student because one person who is ordinary in every way gets in because of a random selection and he was chosen. However, shortly after entering the school he passes out and wakes up somewhere in the school and finds he and 14 other classmates are trapped. A mysterious bear named Monokuma that’s half black and half white appears and tells the students that they are trapped in this school for the rest of their lives, but there is a way out. They simply have to kill another student and not get caught.

So first I’ll talk about the story as it is very twisted and perfect for the Halloween season. I didn’t get it for Halloween I actually got it because it was on sale on the Nintendo Eshop for $4 but the timing was perfect. Like I said earlier a student has to murder another student to get out and there is nobody else in the school so for the most part the students try to be civil and look for alternative ideas. Monokuma isn’t a fan of that and decides to use various means to motivate the students to going to the extreme by taunting them about the state of their loved ones outside, blackmail and so much more to turn them against each other and each time it works. When a student dies that’s when you explore the crime scene to find clues before you all have a class trial where you vote on who did it. If the class guesses right the murderer will be punished; however, if they guess wrong everyone else will.

The students themselves all have big personalities such as one who is the inheritor of a massive business and another who has multiple personalities one of which is very dangerous. You have some students who are very aggressive and argumentative while others who are much more laid back and thoughtful. You have a very large cast and everyone gets some time in the spotlight to showcase their individual personalities. Plus during free time in the game you can move around freely and hang out with these students to get to know them, just hope you can get to know them well before someone gets to them first.

Now that already sounds like a lot but there’s also a lot of mystery involved as the students seem to have met each other for the first time at the beginning of the game but clues such as photographs of them with each other scatted in the school suggest otherwise. Without spoiling anything it turns out there is a far greater situation than just the maddening killing game the students are forced to partake in that addresses why they are trapped in the first place, why the photos exist, why the school is abandoned and secrets about each other that they themselves did not know. There are a lot of unknowns in this game that get revealed bit by bit till a huge info dump at the end that leads to a mind-blowing result that in my opinion made for an absolute beautiful final reveal.

Next I’ll talk about the gameplay. Now this isn’t a game where you have a lot of fancy controls as it’s primarily a visual novel that involves going to various rooms and using the cursor to interact with various people and items to get information and progress to the next part of the story. The complicated part of the gameplay is when you get to the trials after you get each clue you will need. As the trials happen everyone is talking in a mode called Non-Stop Debate and the text is displayed on the screen. Some of the text will be highlighted to show a weak argument that you must use the information you gathered to contradict. This can be tricky as only one weak argument out of possibly many will be the one you can address and you’ll have many arguments to use but only one will work.

The trials have a variety of other game modes too like Hangman’s Gambit where you are asked to provide a very specific word or phrase to address the current argument and you spell out the answer using letters provided in random intervals on the screen. Then you have Bullet Time Battle where you play a rhythm game where you press buttons to the timing of the beat to destroy arguments till you’re able to present a counterargument to win the discussion. The games alternate for several rounds back to back till you are able to identify the killer where you’ll make a Closing Argument by being presented a comic book like series of pages where you’re given images to correspond to missing pieces of the story till the full tale of the murder is presented.

The events that unfold during these trials are mind-blowing. You’ll go into a trial leaning towards one sequence of events or having no idea what happened at all and as the story unravels piece by piece there isn’t a single situation that is simple and easily addressed. You can easily label multiple people as a suspect only to often find it was someone else entirely or you’ll find that their reasoning is far different than what you would originally think. One example is in one case looks like a person was chased and brutally taken out only to find it was an act of self defense the entire time as a result of a trap set by the very person who was killed that simply failed.

The story is incredible dark and sadistic so I can understand how some people will be bothered and triggered by some of the stuff in the game. As someone who is a firm believer in everyone maintaining a safe space with their lives as much as possible I do want to emphasize that this story really dives into things that are very depressing and traumatic such as murder in some very gruesome ways and other morbid topics. It is by no means a happy story even at the end so I really want to stress that for any of my readers who need a warning like this to avoid games that may trigger or upset you.

Overall though the mystery behind the game is beautifully presented and I got chills at the final reveal as these seemingly random, unconnected clues actually fit perfectly together for one twisted tale. The gameplay is fun but it’s not the highlight of the game it’s just fast paced and makes you think about what’s happening, which I love quite a bit, but ultimately it’s the story behind the gameplay that’s the driving force. It’s the fact that the gameplay is also fun and does a great job of making you think carefully that adds to the overall experience. I’m legit sad it took me so long to get this game as it’s incredible.