LogFAQs > #951316855

#12: Case 1-5
Strengths: None
Weaknesses: Everything
The One Sentence Summary: The one chapter where nobody dies and nothing happens

When Im assessing cases here, Im really talking about the entirety of the chapter the case occurs in. Daily life, deadly life, and the class trial itself. And a big part of my ranking is how I felt when I first played it, bookmarked by the starting and ending points of only that chapter. Some stuff might cause me to revise it slightly, but I try to really take that into account for the individual chapter that it occurred in, if that makes sense. Something happening later on that improves my opinion of things is great, but it doesnt change how I felt about playing that case the first time and I think the chapter that contained the twist or revelation deserves more credit than the chapter where I was annoyed because I didnt fully grasp the twist just yet. I hope that makes sense even if you personally disagree. Anyway, I bring that up now for general ranking purposes so you sort of understand why some cases are ranked where they are. But I also bring that up now because that specifically pertains to the very last case on my list, case 1-5. Case 1-5, in many ways, feels incomplete. And, hey, thats because it is! Now it does finish up in the next chapter obviously, but this is the only chapter in either game that doesnt really tell a self contained story. Obviously, it is a set up for what happens in case 6 but even if I was just judging it by that metric I have issues. I dont really like the way it sets things up, I dont like the characters I am left to interact with, I dont like the daily life, we arent given the tools to solve everything, and I kinda hate the trial. Beyond that though it was great!

Part of the issue is who you have left to interact with. At this point were at the finale stage of the cast and we just have the survivors and Monokuma this chapter. But the survivors include Byakuya, Toko, and Kyoko, none of which I particularly like. And, of course, the game focuses very heavily on those characters this chapter (especially Kyoko) because that is all they have left. The Danganronpa games always seem lousy at picking out survivors I actually like to talk to, and the first game is particularly egregious on that end. The daily life segment is also just kind of dumb. You have Byakuya agreeing to join the group only to continue being a jerk right off the bat and forcing Kyoko to hand over her key. Then you have Kyoko disappearing to run her own investigation that you dont even find out about this chapter. And then you have Makotos random flu pop up and thats about it. I know Danganronpa writing definitely has its own weird flair and Im mostly fine with that, but this one is one of those cases that is really just kinda boring from the beginning to the end. The big exciting thing is Monokuma cheating to get Makoto killed (or Kyoko if you watch the bad ending) and everything besides that is just kinda underwhelming.

I also understand why Monokuma cheats, but it also doesn't seem to fit with the "rules" they keep blathering on about. Kyoko at multiple times in the case after this will mention how Monokuma couldn't just kill her because it would be breaking the rules so they had to orchestrate this fake murder to kill her. You know what else is breaking the rules? Straight up killing Makoto and framing him for a murder he didn't commit. The case at once wants us to believe that Kyoko couldn't have just been killed because Junko wants to abide by these rules to cause maximum despair but also that Junko is willing to just throw the rules away in order to get Kyoko/Makoto killed. It is this weird contradiction between why Junko can't just murder Kyoko and why Junko tried to make stuff up to get Kyoko killed, and it basically all comes down to "look we wanted to have one extra case here so this is how we're doing it".

I suppose you could argue that maybe Junko...blocked the video feed to the rooms she needed to go between when she was setting things up so the people she was sending out the despair live stream to couldn't tell what was going on, and in that way she was still making it look like Kyoko carried out the murder to everyone on the outside so people thought the ultimate hope was still killing each other. That's kinda how I rationalized it to myself, but I'm not sure they were ever super clear on that specific part of the case and maybe I am giving the game too much credit. But, hell, even if I am right at that point just do the same thing and kill Kyoko and frame one of the living people for it. It is this weird contrivance they half follow, half break so they can set up this extra case and the whole thing feels very sloppily executed. If you want to completely abandon the rules to get Kyoko (or Makoto?) killed, then just do it in a less roundabout, crazy way.

I think my biggest problem with this case though is it isn't a self contained story. I'm ranking these cases based on how they both feed into the narrative as a whole and how strong they are in that specific chapter, and on that last metric the chapter fails completely. This isn't really a self contained mystery here, and you don't have all the clues you need to figure things out. It is a prelude to chapter 6 really, and a lot of it winds up feeling like straight up filler. I mean, there is a portion at the very beginning here in the trial where you have to prove Kyoko isn't a ghost. It takes up multiple segments. It's honestly kind of funny so I'm not totally dragging it here, but at the same time it feels like more than half of the case here is filler where the game is just stalling to make this an acceptable length so they can end it and get on to the actual finale. It always felt like the shortest chapter in the first game to me, and I don't know if it actually was or it just felt that way because nothing of value was happening.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."