LogFAQs > #951305140

Finished Danganronpa.

What an experience. What a journey. What a fucking ending.

Legitimately, I think it might be one of my all time favourite video game endings. Though by ending, I mean the whole last chapter I guess.

Just the balls to say fuck it to the entire fictional universe you've created to make a meta commentary on the consumption of that universe. And the commentary is true. The executions are the thing everyone talks about with these games. I think before I started, the only thing I knew about the series was that it was a lot like Ace Attorney, there's this asshole named Togami, the setting is a Japanese high school, and there's some bitchin' ass executions of people. Reminded me of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood when Tarantino focuses on a tv presenter saying "and now the part you've all been waiting for" or some such right before all the blood and gore and grotesqueries starts happening.

I fully understand why the ending would be controversial among the fanbase, and why people would dislike it. It does fundamentally and utterly change the context that the games that came before it lives in (still not sure how Ultra Despair Girls function in this canon, is it just like a spin-off movie or something?). DR1 and 2's stories are entirely different now. But I have a couple of ideas.

1) Try experiencing them in this context and envelop yourself in this different understanding. I think it's possible to come to like that. Or I at least think it will be a great experience to have for a playthrough.

2) If that doesn't work, just pretend that V3 doesn't exist. I do this a lot myself if a fictional universe goes a way I don't like. I enjoy playing Final Fantasy X-2 because the gameplay is fantastic. But the story is fucking shit and a lot of it is offensive to my experience of Final Fantasy X. So in my headcanon when I play X-2, X exists, obviously. But when I play X, I just ignore X-2 and everything is fine. And I can do that cause I'm not in any way bound by the continuity of the sequel when re-living that first one. Likewise, I think it's very much possible to just enjoy DR1 and 2 without considering V3 within that context. It's not like those were made with V3 in mind and so have all these things in them that only make sense in that context. At least not from what I can immediately think of. The idea of V3 came later and changed 1 and 2's understanding and thus can be easily removed from that existence. That might be where I end up myself when I've done a replay of either of them.

That said, I kind of hope there won't ever be a sequel or prequel to this. I feel like it would miss the point of what they made here.

After the full experience my issues with this game are hardly worth mentioning and I've done so previously mostly. I fundamentally hate lie bullets but luckily they turned out to almost be a non-factor in the game. Psyche taxi is the fucking worst and Mind Excavation or whatever it's called is excruciatingly boring, even when you can do it in 30 seconds. The Monokubs are the worst, but after the ending, I get why they're there. Chapter 3 was possibly the low point of the series for me, but the rest more than made up for it. I've come to agree that the creativity they have with the text in the trials is top tier, easily the best in the series, but I also still feel that the presentation of the trials is probably the weakest. Bad font, bad HUD. too dark, especially considering that the design of the characters themselves is also way darker than the other games. I don't dislike the Closing Argument in V3, I guess, but it's easily my least favourite of the three games. Argument Armament is fucking amazing. Even if it is easier than Bullet Time Ballet and Panic Talk Action, it's so much more fun.

I fucking adored the characters in this game. Easily. EASILY the best of the series. Legitimately up there as an all time favourite character ensemble in a video game (though that's not a category I've ever considered before so off the top of my head I can't think of any other really amazing ones than FF9). It's also the first game in the main series where I've felt that the main character (both of them) has enough depth to be considered beyond just a player avatar. Makoto and Hajime are cool and all, but they just don't feel fully developed the same way that the MC in this game does. Even the characters I like the least in this are so much better than the likes of Yasuhiro and Teruteru.

Yeah, that's the thoughts I could field about the experience right now. Some questions about the stuff that unlocked after beating the game:

What is this stuff, lol?

What's the thing listed underneath 'Talent Plan'? It's still not unlocked.

Does Shuichi have free time events with Amami and Kaede? Are there any special things about FTEs, like how you cant get Komaeda's in DR2 if you didn't get the first one on the first FTE day in chapter 1?

Anything else worth noting?

Thoughts on the game? On my playthrough of the series?

I'll dip into the bonus content maybe tomorrow or the day after and probably have something to say about it.

And I definitely will watch the anime some time soon. After I figure how to do so. But it won't be before this topic purges and I doubt I'll make a new one for it.

I've been watching some let's plays of the series, though never beyond where I was and I skipped over any FTE conversations I hadn't unlocked. When I replay DR2, I'll probably try out the English dub. It sounds really fun. Especially Gundham. INFINITY UNLIMITED FLAME!!!!1. I don't really see any reason to do the first game in English, though. Still haven't seen any part of a DR3 let's play so I dunno how I will fall on that.

Thanks for sticking around peeps :)

Now to read every spoiler box not posted by me in this topic.

Edit: Also, I looked through the trophy list for the game after completing it and there's a trophy for clearing the prologue that I never got. Okay game.
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"That thick shaft that causes women to shudder!"