Danganronpa is a game developed by Spike for the PSP in 2010. It’s a murder mystery visual novel game in which you play through the events of students kidnapped and forced to kill one another. Kind of like Battle Royale meets a dating sim… I’m playing the remastered version for the PS4 today, so let’s see if this game fills us with hope or leads us into despair in my mighty review of… Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc!

With this game being a visual novel, the story is incredibly important, so let’s start there. Danganronpa stars Makoto Naegi, a high school student who has recently been admitted to the illustrious Hope’s Peak Academy, a high school for the super elites of the world. Every student at the academy is proficient in one skill or another, be it sports, academics, or writing fan fiction. Makoto is admitted by pure chance, making him the ultimate lucky student.

Upon arrival to the school, however, Makoto falls unconscious and wakes up alone in a classroom. Upon entering the gym and meeting his future classmates, a remote-controlled teddy bear pops up behind the podium and informs the 15 students that they are trapped inside the school with no way out. They are all presented with a choice: stay in the school forever or kill another student and get set free.

Over the course of the game certain students will be murdered by others after which the remaining students have time to investigate and attempt to find clues which may be presented at a class trial. After a debate over the guilty party, each student votes for who they believe is the culprit. If the majority chooses the correct culprit, the killer is executed in a flashy and often hard to watch cutscene, but if they’re wrong, everyone except the killer is punished and the killer goes free.

Phew! So that’s the story. I know it sounds like a lot, but the game does an excellent job of explaining everything to the player in detail without being pandering. The most important thing to remember about this game, however, is that it’s a visual novel more than an RPG. You’re meant to experience the story as it is presented rather than take an active role to influence its progression aside from moving everything along. And in that regard, Danganronpa is an overwhelming success.

Full disclosure, I watched the anime based on the first game before ever playing it, so I knew all of the twists and turns the story would take, but even then I had a blast with this game. The story is incredibly interesting and kept me invested the entire 20 or so hours it took to play, with great characters, an entertaining villain, and a fantastic mystery. Each case is really unique and has some excellent plot points to go along with it. Usually combining standard biological and physical sciences with psychology and philosophy to really give that Sherlock Holmes feel.

Monokuma makes for an excellent villain as well. A douchey, perverted teddy bear that would infuriate anyone unlucky enough to make its acquaintance makes for a great motivation to finish the story. Although while the game does a pretty decent job of making its message of hope overcoming despair subtle enough to not be annoying, some of the character moments can be a bit… obvious, I guess? Like they normally feel like real characters, but can sometimes drift into the land of exposition, but admittedly there are way more moments that are hilarious or touching that the game can get away with it.

On top of this, the game looks and sounds great for the most part. The character art is an excellent anime style and the poppy, catchy music is top-notch, but best of all is the game’s sense of style. It has some really gorgeous cutscenes, some stylish menus, and interesting and varied locations. Still, there are a few problems. While the character art looks great, the backgrounds are really low quality sometimes, leading to a weird juxtaposition in the visuals.

The game consists of multiple cases, each beginning with a murder and ending with a trial. The gameplay is split into 3 sections: before the murder is committed, where you get to know your peers, the post-murder investigation where you look for evidence, and the class trial in which you attempt to reveal the killer and convince your classmates of their guilt.

The pre-murder sessions involve getting up in the morning and choosing which of your classmates to spend some time with. This allows you to grow closer with them and maybe find out more about their character. This does nothing to the core gameplay, but the characters are very well written, making this a welcome way to spend time between cases. You can also give your friends gifts purchased from the school store, which can lead to them divulging more information or giving you useful abilities to use in class trials. Although I do wish that you could purchase multiple gifts at once instead of having to spend an eternity playing the random chance game to get new gifts.

The post-murder portions of the game are my least favorite. They lack the open-endedness of the pre-murder sections and the challenge of the class trial. Here you’re pretty much guided by the text moving from room to room trying to find evidence from the different parts of the school. This would be interesting if I could find it on my own or if I knew what to look for, but usually it consists of a character telling you with room to go into, then clicking on everything in the room until all of the evidence has been seen, then leaving to the next room. Rinse and repeat until the trial. While it is kind of fun trying to piece everything together from the evidence, its linearity can make it seem tedious. And I know it’s supposed to be a visual novel, but in a novel this kind of information would be told to the reader instead of having them tediously read pieces of text associated with every single object in a room.

The class trials on the other hand, are fantastic. The style here is undeniably eye-catching and the way things unfold is masterfully done. There are a handful of mini games used to get to the truth, but the main portions of these segments involve listening to your classmates argue, then using evidence you found or their own words as ammo to point out a contradiction. Sometimes this is a really tense, enjoyable challenge, but it does have moments of frustration where two things can clearly be a contradiction, but they aren’t what the game is looking for.

In addition to those segments, you also have to play a game of hangman in order to guess a word relating to the topic at hand, which is usually just super obvious and a waste of time and then there are the one on one debates. These are rhythm games in which you have to fend off your opponent’s arguments to the beat of some music. It’s interesting, but I think a debate-style minigame involving rapid fire rebuttals and proof of evidence would have been better.

The only issues I have with the class trials besides those mentioned above are the lack of conditional circumstances. No matter what happens when the player loses, Makoto is found guilty. Even if the entire class suspects someone else at that point in the trial. It would have been nice to see an execution if the entire class was wiped out and made the stakes feel even higher, but nothing like that ever happens.

Danganronpa is a wonderful story that makes for an excellent game. It has some faults, but they aren’t enough to bring down an otherwise excellent story with fun, interesting characters and fantastic pacing. Still, I can’t recommend this game so someone looking to play a great detective. The game isn’t about solving cases, it’s about being the catalyst to continue the game and watching the events play out with great characters, voice acting, and interesting cases which is why Danganronpa gets an 8.5 out of 10. Just remember that in this game you’re not Sherlock Holmes, you’re Watson, but with a mystery this intriguing I’ll be Watson any day. That being said I hope you enjoyed this review. If you did, be sure to like and subscribe to see more mighty reviews, dissections, and great gaming content. And as always, have a mighty nifty day today!