The PlayStation Vita has high potential for delivering quality portable gaming experiences that might not be possible with its competitors, and with the PlayStation Portable losing momentum it seems like Japanese video game developers have realized this and began releasing more games for the console. However not all of these releases are trickling across to the international market and there can be months at a time before I can justify picking up my Vita to play a new title.
Hopefully this is all set to change with Nippon Ichi Software America in particular planning several releases on the Vita over the first half of 2014. The first of these releases is set to hit store shelves in only a few days time with Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc.This release is a port of the original game published on the PSP exclusively within Japan back in 2010, and has since garnered a strong international fanbase through the unlocalized video games and other media endeavors including anime and manga releases.
The question is however… despite its growing international attention, does the game manage to impress me? Will this be a game that may signal more people to consider checking out the Vita? Thanks to NIS America I had the opportunity to check out the game pre-release, and encourage you to read on to find out my thoughts for this unique murder-mystery game / visual novel.
Storyline / Character Development / Localization
1.1: Welcome to Hope’s Peak Academy
Hope’s Peak Academy is a prestigious, invite only high school that only invites the students that are deemed to be the best of their field. The students who attend this school are dubbed “Ultimate __________” with the blanks ranging from sports skills such as Baseball Star to creative talents such as Writing Prodigy to pretty much anything else imaginable. It is said that attending this school will set someone up for life… but not all students are attending for their notable attributes. Enter male protagonist Makoto Naegi who manages to win a national lottery which grants him access to the school as the “Ultimate Lucky Student”. However this luck may not prove so useful for Makoto, as when he arrives on the very first day of classes to fall unconscious in the main hall.
He wakes up at a classroom desk, and discovers many oddities about the room – all the windows are boarded up with dense metal sheets, there is an ominous surveillance camera looking down upon him and a note of childish scribbling warning him that the school will be his entire world from now on. Making his way around the school, he soon realizes that he and fourteen of the other ultimate students have been locked in the school with a sadistic teddy bear named Monokuma. This is no orientation event however, and they are advised that they will only be able to escape if they manage to kill someone else (Become “Blackened”) without anyone else finding out. If they are discovered they will be executed… but to manage this feat they will get to leave while everyone else is killed off. The initial premise behind the story wastes no time in getting started leaving a strong initial impact, and over the rest of the game expands into a very memorable experience.
The concept of having young people kill one another off isn’t unheard of in recent years. Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc does a suitable job of setting up the concept as a murder-mystery when coupled with the unique gameplay concepts and creative handling of each case rather than going down the more generic route of murder without mystery. The game is split up into six chapters, a prologue and an epilogue, with each of the chapters taking a few hours each leading to an overall gametime of around 15 to 20 hours provided you don’t rush through the experience.
Each of the six chapters are primarily broken up into three separate segments which feature different gameplay and storyline experiences. The first are pre-trial events which focus on characters musing about the events that previously occurred and trying to uncover the mysteries behind why they are in the situation they have found themselves in. This is where a majority of the overarching Danganronpa storyline will be found, and despite not being as intense as other sections makes for an interesting read. Each pre-trial will also provide several days worth of “Free Time” for Makoto, where he (ie. you) can opt to interact in a sort of “social link” style fashion with the other alive students and uncover a bit more about their backstory.
The second and shortest of the segments is the “Investigation” phase, where after the “blackened” has murdered a fellow student the survivors must work towards gathering evidence. clues and testimony from others in order to ensure that it is only the culprit being creatively executed at the chapters close. This is the weakest segment out of the three in terms of storyline and very linear, with the game almost holding your hand as it directs the player to each point of interest to ensure not a single piece of crucial evidence is missed.
The final segment is the “Class Trial” where all the trapped students must determine who the culprit is through a rather ingenious system that I will talk about more in the “Gameplay” section of this review. While I won’t be going into detail on any specific case, the trials are all distinctly different and often enjoyable to go through. While it is possible to reach a half-hearted “game over” by suggesting incorrect facts, the game forcing you down the path to correctly identifying the killer rather than providing a risk of misidentifying them, meaning there is at times some thinking required and attention to the plot from all three phases of each chapter.
Storyline is the core foundation of Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, and without a good one even if everything else were fantastic the experience would not have any chance of being anything but below average. While there were a few issues one could pull up if they wanted to nitpick, it was from start to finish a creatively written game. Here’s hoping to see the continuation in Super Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair Academy should NIS America ever license it for the international market…. if they haven’t already.
1.2 Meeting the Ultimate Students
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc puts a greater emphasis on certain students in the storyline over others, with some having abilities more useful for the Class Trial environment and others managing to make their way through them with the assistance of others… at least those who aren’t prematurely killed off. Despite the different prevalence’s of each character in the overall plot, Makoto is given the option to interact with any of the fourteen other characters while alive through a “social link” style system – where by appeasing them enough with gifts will give you a series of dialogue sessions as they spill their backstory and thoughts to (and occasionally berate) Makoto.
In the earlier PSP release you would have had to replay the game several times to enjoy the development of all the “Ultimate Students”, but the inclusion of the new “School Mode” grants access to these “social links” more conveniently and can provide alternate endings related to each character. “School Mode” takes place in an alternate reality where rather than being trapped within Hope’s Peak Academy and forced to kill one another… the students are trapped in the school and forced to make varying Monokuma backup units. By completing certain requirements and gaining the characters affection through trips, you can obtain a sort of alternate conclusion for each. School Mode is post-game content so I won’t go into much more detail than that, however it can become very tedious in obtaining every characters unique ending for the mode with very little gain and offers very little in the way of storyline otherwise.
1.3 Localization
For the most part there have been very few changes to Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc during its English localization, with the small amendments primarily affecting those who opt to play using the original Japanese dub rather than the new English voice acting. The primary difference between the dubs were that almost every character refers to each other using their first names, whereas the Japanese dub opts to refer to characters using their surnames. For example: Fujisaki-san (Japanese) –> Chihiro (English) and Naegi-kun (Japanese) –> Makoto (English).
Given NIS America’s previous actions with renaming characters, most controversially Esty Dee in the Alchemists of Arland trilogy, you will be glad to know that there is only one instance of a renamed characters in this title. While Monokuma has fortunately not had his named to Monobear as some might have expected, Genocider Syo has been renamed Genocider Jack (Spoiler Alert). The rename doesn’t hinder the experience much, and given the context I thought worked pretty well.
Images, classroom signs and content such as that have also been localized into English – a nice touch for something that they wouldn’t have been obligated to do.
1.4: WARNING!!! Avoid the Anime at All Costs BEFORE Playing This Game
While if you have already watched the anime then this warning may come too late, for those thinking of checking out the anime adaptation (Now being streamed by Funimation Entertainment / Madman Entertainment), I strongly advise against doing so until playing the game, or at the very least not going past the first episode which serves as an introduction to the characters and concept behind Danganronpa.
The TV anime series is inevitably a watered down version of the plot present in the video game and despite leaving many tidbits still to uncover effectively spoils many key points which may ruin the full appeal of playing the game blissfully unaware of what happens next and finding out for oneself “whodunit”. I hope that NIS America decide to localize the sequel BEFORE an anime adaptation is greenlit for production or at the very least streamed internationally.
Design
The best way to compare the improvements between the original and HD release of Danganronpa would be through the original demo that I just so happened to have stored on my old PSP. While there have been no major changes to the character designs themselves, the visuals look brighter and more vibrant than before and essentially benefits from the increased capabilities of the PS Vita. Designs while looking more aesthetically pleasing were not altered for this edition.
The character portraits themselves are all presented in 2D, with a sort of shadowy effect going on behind them to make them look 3D when the scenes necessitate them. Each character is recognizably different from the start and often reflects their personalities and Ultimate abilities. While featuring numerous different facial emotions, none of the characters have more than the one set of clothes despite being stuck in the school days on end.
Despite (almost) exclusively featuring 2D (2.5D) character designs within the game, you are given the freedom to navigate around a 3D version of Hope’s Peak Academy to your hearts content through a first-person viewpoint. The design of the school’s corridors are relatively simple (Albeit more bright and colourful but at the same time more imposing than you would initially expect), however the true charm comes into the designs of the classrooms. While many of the homeroom classes are relatively simple with Monokuma drawings on the blackboard, the specialty classes always seem to have some quirk to them that make them worthwhile navigating. Especially in the Class Trials, the merger of the 2D character designs and 3D environments works well.
CG artwork is plentiful in Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, with well over a hundred designs strewn throughout the chapters and a couple hidden until you complete certain objectives. This is coupled with several animated movies, most notably the 2.5D punishments that play after each trial when Makoto and the other “unblackened” students managed to deduce who the culprit is. Both of these alongside an ample supply of additional artwork can be purchased through the “Extras” menu for in-game coins.
Music / Voice Acting
Unlike many other titles of its style, Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc does not have a main opening sequence, instead opting to do a quick character introduction using the games suitably titled theme song “Trigger Happy Havoc”. The remainder of the games moderately sized soundtrack features a variety of tracks to suit any mood the game throws at the player – from a calming school navigation theme “Beautiful Morning” to intense themes for serious moments such as “To Survive” to a range of “Argument” themes of different styles. The music used in the Class Trials in particular are enjoyable and can really get you in the mood, but for how long the songs are you never really get to appreciate them outside of the games “Sound Gallery”.
In terms of voice acting it is really hard to go wrong irrespective of if you choose to go with the newly produced English dub or the familiar Japanese dub, with the exception of a few issues mentioned in the “Localization” section under the “Storyline” header. The new English dub commissioned by Nippon Ichi Software America was of a good standard when compared to their previous dubs, and usually complemented their Japanese counterparts well.
Unfortunately while many visual novels feature full-voice acting, Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc only guarantees full voice acting during the class trials and a small number of other sequences. The rest of the time characters will deliver a sentence or sentences with a small one word comment. This seems to have been a trait carried over from the Japanese release as well (From my playing the Prologue in Japanese) and I was a little bit disappointed even if the cost of dubbing this game may have been the deciding factor.
Gameplay
4.1: Class Trials – Investigation
While a majority of the game plays like a typical visual novel crossed with the social link system from Persona 3 / 4 (and for the most part is interesting storyline-wise), the gameplay manages to embrace its visual novel nature while including an engaging gameplay system for the Class Trial each chapter. For those who skipped over the Storyline section of this review, the premise of Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is that fifteen students have been trapped within Hope’s Peak High School, and the only way to escape is to successfully murder a fellow student without being caught or identified by anyone else. The purpose of these class trials are to identify the “whodunit” and how they committed the crime through a series of debates, games of hangman, evidence producing and rhythm games.
The Investigation Phase of these trials will see you controlling Makoto as he investigates the different related areas of the school as well as collecting testimonies. Each of the different rooms in the school are interactable through either the on-screen cursor or touchscreen, allowing you to look at points of interest or question other characters for their testimonies. It is impossible to miss out on any particular piece of information with the Investigation Phase only progressing once every clue has been uncovered.
4.2: Class Trials – Now in Session!
Upon compiling all this information, the surviving students adjourn to the Class Trial courtroom where they must work together to determine who the “Blackened” one is. This system contains a similar visual novel system where ideas are discussed and a series of different gameplay mechanics present themselves which you must work your way through to crack the case. Most prominently are “Non-Stop Debates”, where characters begin discussing a particular aspect of the case, with key text highlighted in orange. Using metaphorical “Truth Bullets” which take the form of different pieces of evidence, Makoto can shoot down claims that don’t match the evidence that have been found. This can be a claim suggesting a different murder weapon to a misspoken statement that indicates the character may know more than they are letting on.
They attempt to shake things up a bit at times by including “white noise” that can block your bullets and requiring you to take the points of interest mentioned by other characters in order to counteract another claim. While this system starts off very easy with only one truth bullet and one weak spot, but will present several weak spots and several truth bullets to choose from. The issue is, on a couple of occasions the correct responses were not what I would have expected them to do, which may or may not have had something to do with the localization of the game or just a different perspective on the case. Given the limited response time, gamers do need to think fast on their feet while dealing with unimportant evidence and white noise blocking the text of interest, but fortunately the dialogue continues looping until an action is made on the behalf of the player.
Non Stop Debates are complemented by a traditional trio of mystery systems, where you must present evidence to rebut / support someones claim or alternatively identify the person behind an act / the murder. This is done by either a simple multiple choice, visually presenting evidence through the menu or going through the circular arrangement of characters to identify an individual. This is the bare basics one would expect, and thankfully they don’t screw it up.
There are three other major gameplay systems present in Class Trials. The first, pictured above, is the Hangman’s Gambit where using knowledge of the trial so far and a few hints in the text, you must shoot down letters to make a word much in the same vein one would do so in the classic game of Hangman. It is a pretty simple system and relatively unimpressive, so thankfully only appears usually once in every trial. There is also a rhythm mini-game titled “Bullet Time Battle” which requires you to keep to a beat (the same one each time) and shoot down a characters argument and finally Closing Arguments where you must construct a comic book representation of the events that take place. While the closing arguments can be quite fun, the other systems don’t have much substance and felt like fillers instead of the developers thinking of a more creative way to present the evidence.
While there are time limits for each section of the trial (Only notable on the “Mean” difficulty) and are only given a limited number of hearts until the characters all turn on you, there is nothing that difficult about Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc provided you go through the game at a moderate pace. Therefore rather than worrying about difficulty levels I strongly advise everyone to max out both Logic and Action difficulty’s upon starting the game to provide some reasonable degree of challenge.
4.3: Free Time – Making Friends!
As mentioned in the storyline section, after each Class Trial Makoto is given several days of free time to acquaint himself with the other remaining students. This does unfortunately mean that you may not finish the social chain for a character before they kick the metaphorical bucket, but fortunately there is more than just storyline benefit from interacting with a character whom may knife someone else the next day. Upon achieving a new rank with a character (aka. Having a notable social interaction with them), Makoto will unlock a new skill or a skill point to use during class trials. These skills give you a greater advantage in the trials from “Attentive Influence” which increases the influence / heart gauge by two to “Tranquility” which steadies your aim in non-stop debate mode.
There is no particular NEED for the skills but they are handy if you are struggling with a particular section of the Class Trial and further SP increases can net you a couple of trophies. Alternatively, I sort of just set mine after the second trial and forgot about them until finishing the game.
4.4: Gotta Collect em’ All
During the game for completing trials and looking at landmarks around the classrooms throughout each chapter, you can earn coins to use in the Monomono Capsule Machine for presents which can be then used to woo the different characters into continuing their social interactions. There are a total of 114 presents in total ranging from mineral water to a Self-Destructing Cassette, with each character having their own likes and dislikes in terms of presents. It’s fun, but when you are trying to get them all for the last few trophies it can be a hassle collecting all the coins to improve your odds past 10% success. This in particular is where the grind of the main campaign comes in, with Class Trials being the only means of effectively obtaining coins at a decent rate.
4.5: School Mode
After completing the main game, a bonus School Mode will open up to you, which places all fifteen students in an alternate timeline to Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc where rather than being forced to kill each other, they must scavenge items from around the school in 8-bit form and then use these materials to produce one of several different Monokuma units. This system has you managing everyone as they go through nine different areas of the school collecting items, cleaning and constructing the Monokuma’s while ensuring their health stays intact and their surroundings remain hygienic.
After completing their daily quota of labour, Makoto is able to interact with everyone else to either finish of the remaining social events you haven’t finished off in the main campaign or alternatively taking them out on trips using acquired “Trip Tickets” where you can further improve your relationship to unlock a sort of conclusion to the characters development in the alternate world.
Both systems are terribly repetitive, and only really worth one playthrough unless you want to see all fourteen different character endings (Maximum of five per playthrough as I recently found out) and the other generic School Mode endings.
Replayability
As with most murder-mystery games I find, the enjoyment comes from the thrill of deducing who the culprit, therefore I found there wasn’t much enticing me to play through Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc a second time round. The School Mode and opportunity to unlock a wealth of content in the Extra Mode are reasons enough to pool a few hours post-completion into the game, but other than that, you will most probably be left wanting the sequel.
Final Words on Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
I was enticed by Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc from the time I first heard of it, and despite having low expectations that any English-language publisher would ever acquire the rights for it, Nippon Ichi Software America once again proved me wrong. There are some issues with Danganronpa across the board that keep it from being a perfect gaming experience, but at the same time offers something fresh and new for the murder-mystery genre. This when coupled with the strong concept, entertaining mascot character, solid visuals and mood-inducing soundtrack makes Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc one of the stronger PS Vita games I have had the pleasure of playing.
Now time to wait for NIS America to acquire Super Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair Academy (スーパーダンガンロンパ2 さよなら絶望学園) and hopefully other installments currently in development by Spike Chunsoft.
