Basileus777
Member
I'm not sure AE really takes it seriously either. I certainly don't when playing it, no more than I did watching Mirai Nikki.
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Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls |OT| Monokuma and Co.
- Thread starter Labrys
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I'm not sure AE really takes it seriously either. I certainly don't when playing it, no more than I did watching Mirai Nikki.
Crash Station
Member
It definitely is. You got
child rape, an actual on-screen death of a child committed by a protagonist, orphan killing, stuff like that.
To me, something is "messed up" if it's emotionally resonant and meaningful. Someone could call Elfen Lied "messed up" but, for me, it's the stupidest shit I've ever seen. Something like the circumstances revolving around a single character's tragic death—with no blood or gore—could be more "messed up" than any of what you listed could ever hope to be.
Basileus777
Member
This is AE's failing too, almost all of the messed up stuff happens to awful characters in ways that are blatant and ineffectual attempts to be emotionally manipulative.
Finished up tonight. I can agree with the sentiments of it feeling a bit weak at addressing the darker themes but I felt considering how compact everything was really I didn't find it too insulting. Ch3+ spoilers
If anything I felt the world and story was perhaps a slight better told than the prior two games. Mostly due to the fact that we got a focus on a smaller cast of characters and because of that had fewer characters that just felt... disposable. Komaru is probably my favourite series protagonist after this as well, I found she just grew on me over time and going through and finding all the manga/novels was really rewarding. Their little interactions had me smiling quite a bit.
Mechanically the game was pretty serviceable, I would like to see more "puzzle shooters" like these since I felt the monokuman rooms were an interesting way to break up the areas. Maybe with the gameplay focused around these kind of puzzles if this was reused, since these were the stronger parts and when things sped up I found the gunplay didn't really work well.
If anything I'd like to see more of Towa city post this. Being able to actually walk around and explore a world affected by Despair was great. I feel this is a pretty strong entry in the series overall. Ending spoilers
.
I guess my only massive complaint is that it was a bit too easy, I messed up one or two Monokoman rooms but overall I found no great difficulty.
Except for the way they addressed Kotoko's sexual assault, child prostitution and her attitude towards sex. Up to that point, even if it was lip service the themes seemed like they were being handled at least somewhat maturely for the medium
If anything I felt the world and story was perhaps a slight better told than the prior two games. Mostly due to the fact that we got a focus on a smaller cast of characters and because of that had fewer characters that just felt... disposable. Komaru is probably my favourite series protagonist after this as well, I found she just grew on me over time and going through and finding all the manga/novels was really rewarding. Their little interactions had me smiling quite a bit.
Mechanically the game was pretty serviceable, I would like to see more "puzzle shooters" like these since I felt the monokuman rooms were an interesting way to break up the areas. Maybe with the gameplay focused around these kind of puzzles if this was reused, since these were the stronger parts and when things sped up I found the gunplay didn't really work well.
If anything I'd like to see more of Towa city post this. Being able to actually walk around and explore a world affected by Despair was great. I feel this is a pretty strong entry in the series overall. Ending spoilers
Having an origin for the Monokuma's was pretty interesting too, if Monaca did show up in DR3 as Neo-Junko it wouldn't be the worst thing I suppose.
I guess my only massive complaint is that it was a bit too easy, I messed up one or two Monokoman rooms but overall I found no great difficulty.
Trigonometrize.
Member
I don't mind the minigames in Danganronpa proper. Hangman's Gambit, takes up like 1, 2% of the 30 hour game? If that? The 3rd person shooting, however, would make the game too unfocused. Give me more investigations, trials, and lotsa reading, and that's all I need.
Spoilers for the whole game I suppose
The fucked up things that happen aren't reeeealy supposed to be for the player to shed a tear. They're to expose Komaru to the depair-riddled world so that everything goes according to certain characters' plans. It's fucked up on the most basic level of telling because the point isn't to make us care about them. Hell, the player is assigned to defeat all of the Warriors of Hope. That's the way I see it which is definitely not failure. I'm not convinced the intention was to emotionally manipulate us.
Is this because of the dumb fanservice or did you just have trouble with it in general? The fight is really easy and fast once you understand what it is you have to do.
Nope, just finding collectibles and turning in the hit list cards.
Oh, is that what it was? It seemed so random and unnecessary when I went through it.
That's disappointing oh well. On to other games I guess
Basileus777
Member
The most difficult part of that fight is the camera. But that's most of the boss fights.
Well I mean.
Japanese style shrine, clothing damage based fight (you don't take damage until your clothes are off), and Genocide Jack hopping around like a Ninja
I know very little about Senran Kagura other than it has young ninja girls who oftentimes get scantily clad.
Never played the game but I know it revolves around Ninja girls and the battle system is based on clothing damage.
Napalm_Frank
Member
So do people agree that AE has the best script like the writer feels?
Basileus777
Member
I'd say it's the worst one.
Did Kodaka say this? It'd probably be the worst between DR1 and DR3 (and DR0). He was right that it probably has the same amount of text and voice acting (if not more for this one) as DR1 or DR2.
Both,
but it's a really poorly designed encounter in general. The charging attack is weirdly impossible to dodge when you're far away, so you need to spend the match constantly trying to get in and out of Toko's space to bait the attacks and there's no way to accelerate it since you need to rely on waiting for her to charge her stun gun. It's just not fun, and I think the worst thing about it is that there's literally no puzzle mechanic related to it. It's just 'shoot when she's vulnerable' essentially. It's a regression in terms of the progression of the boss mechanics up to this point which have steadily required you to utilize and combine mechanics (if clumsily), and losing because your clothes exploded off your body and there's so minimal margin for error once that happens.
KnightHart
Member
I'm using this game to escape the madness from MGSV. Boy that was a mistake.
I read spoilers from the JPN release so I actually know some of the 'big' stuff, but I'm playing through the game anyway.
The game really does affirm a lot of the impressions earlier in the year that the game seems a lot darker than the previous two. There is some fucked up shit in this game, and the fact that it's usually followed by typical weird DR humour and the kids still technically being 'kids' makes it all more unsettling. It's great, I enjoy how strange and unsettling a lot of the stuff in this game is. It's almost refreshing in a way.
But god fuck this camera. God damn it. That chapter 1 boss I took so many hits I probably should have been able to avoid, but fuck this camera. Though my first death was from me being on one heart and a Monokuma suddenly jumping out and ambushing me, and me failing to do the QTE thing because I suck and it was 4AM in the morning after a long day. Is this a negative? Because I also feel like part of the enjoyment of this game are the interactions between Komaru and Toko. If you dislike Komaru at all, I feel like it'd be a struggle to get through this game. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people found her annoying. This plus the small cast makes the writing feel a lot more scaled down and limited compared to the other games. But that's a given, because the other games are primarily visual novels and this is a 3rd person puzzle shooter thing.
If it means anything, this game just makes me more excited for DR3. I just want to see how far they're willing to go with the themes and ways to make people go "Oh... FUCK." I appreciate the experimentation, but I think the mainline games still reign supreme here. Unless they want to make a fighting game. God that'd be weird.
I read spoilers from the JPN release so I actually know some of the 'big' stuff, but I'm playing through the game anyway.
The game really does affirm a lot of the impressions earlier in the year that the game seems a lot darker than the previous two. There is some fucked up shit in this game, and the fact that it's usually followed by typical weird DR humour and the kids still technically being 'kids' makes it all more unsettling. It's great, I enjoy how strange and unsettling a lot of the stuff in this game is. It's almost refreshing in a way.
But god fuck this camera. God damn it. That chapter 1 boss I took so many hits I probably should have been able to avoid, but fuck this camera. Though my first death was from me being on one heart and a Monokuma suddenly jumping out and ambushing me, and me failing to do the QTE thing because I suck and it was 4AM in the morning after a long day. Is this a negative? Because I also feel like part of the enjoyment of this game are the interactions between Komaru and Toko. If you dislike Komaru at all, I feel like it'd be a struggle to get through this game. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people found her annoying. This plus the small cast makes the writing feel a lot more scaled down and limited compared to the other games. But that's a given, because the other games are primarily visual novels and this is a 3rd person puzzle shooter thing.
If it means anything, this game just makes me more excited for DR3. I just want to see how far they're willing to go with the themes and ways to make people go "Oh... FUCK." I appreciate the experimentation, but I think the mainline games still reign supreme here. Unless they want to make a fighting game. God that'd be weird.
You're using the manual camera, right?
As long as their objective isn't to up the ante on the subject matter, because that sounds pointless and would probably just backfire on the appreciation of these games. Danganronpa doesn't just have "dark" going for it, so that's not how it should be in the future, either.
Pretty much. You
shoot her when she jumps up onto one of the pole-things with a break bullet to keep her from recharging
Basileus777
Member
I finished it and yeah, it was a real disappointment. It remained a chore to play the whole way through and I found little of it particularly compelling. Most of the new characters introduced in this game are bad, and too much of what was worthwhile in here was stuff I only cared about because of previous games. Thankfully Toko was great and Komaru was decent enough, and their relationship is handled fairly well.
The antagonists were poor characters and every attempt to make to establish their maudlin backstories only made me wish they would go away even more. It's not until the end of the game where they do anything remotely compelling. Haiji is a moron at every turn. The game's plot is really predictable, none of the curves they throw at you are surprising in the least. That isn't inherently bad except the game's writing left me bored for most of it. The gameplay here was poor as well. To say that the controls and camera in this game were clunky would be generous, and very few of the puzzles in it were interesting, most simply being stupidly easy (except for that BS
puzzle). All in all I wouldn't recommend this to anyone but the most diehard fan of Danganronpa that feels the need to see everything in the franchise, because this is not a good game. An underwhelming story combined with an awful shooter and a boring puzzle game is not a great formula.
Please no more child characters in future games, and
They probably need to come up with a different gimmick than new Monokumas too, they've gone to that well too many times already and Kurokuma was a lame character that had little purpose. The series as a whole is in a tough spot with this, there's only so many times you can repeat the same themes and ideas before they get stale (they already were in this game) and Danganronpa 3 really needs to shake things up to avoid that pitfall.
Komaru's struggle with despair at the end would have been better if it hadn't taken place in between long bouts of exposition in a scene that went on FAR too long. And you know, if her parents weren't some nameless and faceless pair we knew nothing about.
cancer
Please no more child characters in future games, and
no more Junko.
Napalm_Frank
Member
Completed chapter 1. Got grade C since I only found 2 of the hidden kids and some of the puzzle room Monokuma AI is just terrible. Like when you need to get them together for some AI attack and some of them just stuck standing too far.
Started playing this on Friday , enjoying it so far maybe it's just me but I find this one more messed-up than Danganronpa 1/2 that scene where the kid with the mask
is pretty messed up
Komaru is kinda annoying, I feel like I'm playing the average schoolgirl who get killed in a horror movie 5 mins after it started, good thing Toko is there at least .
created puppets with the adult corpses and make them dance with a giant Monokuma
Komaru is kinda annoying, I feel like I'm playing the average schoolgirl who get killed in a horror movie 5 mins after it started, good thing Toko is there at least .
RampagingSoul
Member
Komaru gets better throughout the game as she experiences stuff through the next chapters to the ending, but, yeah, Toko makes up for her most of the time in my opinion.
Nightcrown
Member
Weren't the previous ones cheaper though?
They were, but not by much and they had less stuff as well.
Finally got around to starting chapter 4 & wow, this seems to be the chapter to grind for levels. I was at lv. 39, then did a part or two where I was forced to fight & now at lv. 47.
Edit: Oh god, more backstories for the kids, & now I know what the back of the OST is referencing now.
.....OH GOD, now I know what the cover of the OST was referencing now.
Edit: Oh god, more backstories for the kids, & now I know what the back of the OST is referencing now.
.....OH GOD, now I know what the cover of the OST was referencing now.
They call her a he, but to me it's a she, just based on the voice.
Hours Left
Member
Shirokuma is a dude.
Tizoc
Member
I see, but the eyebrow/eyelash makes it look like a she, and while I know some female voice actresses voice male characters, it's rather odd to refer to Shirokuma as a he @_@
Hours Left
Member
You'll get used to it.
I really don't find it that odd anyway. Not every male character needs a masculine voice/appearance.
we all make mistakes
Mostly no, but yes.
That is the perfect amount of vagueness lol. Thank you.
OH MY GOD, SCREW THE STEALTH MONOKU-MAN CHALLENGE IN CH. 4, these damn challenges better be easier on a repeat for A-ranks.
These challenges are even worse when you retry because it feels like half the time, it's not your fault that you didn't clear it, it's the damn AI not wanting to cooperate with you when you KNOW the solution. But NOOOOOOOOOOO you retried over 3 times for things that aren't your fault, so no A-rank for you.
These challenges are even worse when you retry because it feels like half the time, it's not your fault that you didn't clear it, it's the damn AI not wanting to cooperate with you when you KNOW the solution. But NOOOOOOOOOOO you retried over 3 times for things that aren't your fault, so no A-rank for you.
Coffee Dog
Banned
So I was playing this game in short bursts the past two weeks (blame MGSV) and had gotten up to chapter 3, at the beginning of chapter 4 now and I plan on clearing it either today or tomorrow. I really like it so far!
So, since everyone has talked about it, ending of Chapter 3 spoilers
So, since everyone has talked about it, ending of Chapter 3 spoilers
so. Kotoko. I don't really know how to feel about some of that. Like, I get what they were going for with the minigame, and while I feel that involving the player makes the thing hamfisted in my opinion, I get the intention. They've made similar small missteps in execution of ideas like that before (namely mikan) so I'm not exactly shocked, and don't consider it some big black mark on the narrative.
what I dont get is the kotoko's underwear stuff. I mean, it wasn't necessarily done in a sexual manner like the minigame (or all the other obviously sexual content in the game) was, so I'd like to think that they were not attempting to sexualize an underage rape victim, but I'm just wondering why it was there. To emphasize her innocence and the fact that she was a child under all the bluster? Maybe? I felt her character did that well enough though. It was obviously attempting to be humorous, and even disregarding whether or not that has its place there, that's something I felt was already better handled solely through her dialogue as well. It's just jarring and takes me out of the experience when I have to stop and wonder what exactly the purpose is of playing with fire like that.
Yeah Chapter 3, and especially that mini game, were pretty stupid. Like I get what they were going for but it was just handled stupidly.
I did laugh quite a bit at Kotoko's
Doesn't help that the series has always been a bit pervy about high school aged people all the time anyway so being lectured about sexualization rings a bit hypocritical. Like the game features tons of panty shots of Komaru (or near ones), a character that's pretty young herself.
"I'm really 18, so it's okay" line though
Coffee Dog
Banned
Yeah I think what clued me in on what they were going for with
the minigame was when Kotoko said "This is reverse child porn, so it's okay to put in a game!" This is a child whose trauma has resulted in her sexualizing and abusing adults in an attempt to find closure to that pain. It's relentlessly dark and depressing, but it fits her character. What undoes this and glaringly distracts from that point, however, is the obvious fact that komaru is not in any way an adult. I'd imagine many western fans playing this feel the same way. It runs off the very, very Japanese assumptions that one is capable of being put in adult situations and capable of adult responses the moment one turns 16/17, even though the reality is that it's a much grayer area than that.