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DanganRonpa: Trigger Happy Havoc |OT| Hope vs Dis Bear ( ´º)

Noi

Member
I had problems with this too, but now? So easy.

tumblr_mupw37x9Mn1qztgoio4_250.gif


Told you so!
 

LProtag

Member
Welp, I think the end is coming. I should stop for the night, because I'm not sure how much longer it will take and I need to go to bed at a decent time... dammit!
 

Squire

Banned
So I finished Chapter 4 yesterday. Man, what a roller coaster. So many twists. So many feels. It didn't end how I predicted it would, but the revelations... Man. Most of the these characters aren't killers and I love how the game plays to that.

I'm not sure what the hell's going to happen in Chapter 5.
The mystery surrounding the school is getting weirder and weirder and I'm guessing Mukoto is going to meet up with the group formally this chapter, prior to the crime.

I'm looking forward to playing a lot tonight as I have the next few days off.

And I convinced a friend I bumped into today to get DR. She mentioned she was still playing P4G and I told her to get this for after. She didn't even know Monokuma was the villi an. I told her not to look it up or anything, just play!
 

UberTag

Member
Working my way through Chapter 3 right now.

I'm loving this hybrid of Phoenix Wright murder solving, Persona social links and Corpse Party character death inevitability - courtesy of the studio that brought us Zero Escape. I'm seeing a lot of care in the localization as well as the jokes come through across language barriers effectively and there are few typos compared to most of the franchises I mentioned. Enjoying the saucy jokes quite a bit.

I'm somewhat torn on the characters. They're all extremely well-realized given how many there are but most of them are relatively one-dimensional - either super stoic & composed or completely off their nut to the point where it's hard to take them seriously.

Only Mondo and Hina have had some depth to their characterizations thus far. Sayaka and Chihiro hid their character depth until after they were dead. Leon had no depth to speak of. Junko barely had any exploration at all - her death was such a non-factor it's almost screaming "red herring that will be revisited later" although I suppose The 9th Man in Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors was offed in a similar fashion and he wasn't exactly made into a dynamic character when all was said and done.

I can appreciate how Kyoko and Byakuya are playing the meta game by not disclosing information in the first two cases to get a feel for how both their classmates and Monokuma engage one another in the trials. But, conversely, part of me misses the prevailing sense of dread that Corpse Party brought to the table that left even the most well-adjusted of characters completely rattled. It's hard to feel all that engaged in the initial two trials when other characters are poised to jump in with trump cards if I screw up.

I also don't feel like Makoto is in any real danger himself - he seems to be slotting into the role of spectator that other people manipulate whose only real engagement was to his childhood friend who tried to frame him and got herself killed back on Day 5.

I'm hoping a lot of this stuff changes over the course of the game. Very curious as to how the end game will play out because the entire premise of the trial by majority vote will fall apart as fewer characters remain alive. What happens when there's a tie? What happens when there are 3 or fewer characters left? Can't wait to see how this game evolves when more of the dead weight gets removed from the equation.
 

Syrinx

Member
Finished Chapter 3

While I enjoyed watching the trial unfold, I suspected Celeste early on in the investigation, so that made the reveal that it was her less dramatic. It was when I recalled the series of events with Sakura and you can just see how Celeste played a part in every step of the way. I did not expect her and Hirumi colluding together on the murder though. Felt a bit bad for the guy being manipulated like that by her, but I guess that's what happens when you fall in love with a computer program.

So yeah, the trial was cool, but yeah the chapter could have been better and wasn't as mindblowing as people said...oh wait there's more.

...

...What the fuck is going on here?

Edit: Wait, one thing about the chapter I'm not clear on:
how did Hifumi know Celeste's real name to begin with?
 

LProtag

Member
Hm. Just about to start the trial and Chapter 6 but I'm waiting until tomorrow.

I think I've got it figured out:
Monokuma is being controlled by one of the original 16 students yet we see all 6 living characters in one spot while he's being controlled (I'm pretty sure, at least). There are 7 empty freezers, which means one of the people we thought to be previously dead wasn't. Junko's death is the most suspicious because it was the only one that wasn't caused by someone else. It wasn't left up to chance at all. Though, I mean, she got impaled by a bunch of spears which I can't explain away, but it's still the most suspicious death as it didn't come at the hands of another student or through a classroom trial, it was Monokuma that did it. We know Mukuro was part of Ultimate Despair, therefore it's possible she was controlling Monokuma at the start. She's dead now though, so someone else must be controlling Monokuma, hence the person who has the most suspicious death, Junko.

No idea why they're all there though.
 

PK Gaming

Member
Hm. Just about to start the trial and Chapter 6 but I'm waiting until tomorrow.

I think I've got it figured out:
Monokuma is being controlled by one of the original 16 students yet we see all 6 living characters in one spot while he's being controlled (I'm pretty sure, at least). There are 7 empty freezers, which means one of the people we thought to be previously dead wasn't. Junko's death is the most suspicious because it was the only one that wasn't caused by someone else. It wasn't left up to chance at all. Though, I mean, she got impaled by a bunch of spears which I can't explain away, but it's still the most suspicious death as it didn't come at the hands of another student or through a classroom trial, it was Monokuma that did it. We know Mukuro was part of Ultimate Despair, therefore it's possible she was controlling Monokuma at the start. She's dead now though, so someone else must be controlling Monokuma, hence the person who has the most suspicious death, Junko.

No idea why they're all there though.
image.php
 
Finished Chapter 3

Edit: Wait, one thing about the chapter I'm not clear on:
how did Hifumi know Celeste's real name to begin with?

Well the answer is spoilerific regarding what happens in later chapters, but if you really want to know:

He regained his lost memories just before he died, hence why he was able to remember her real name.

Otherwise, just keep playing and you'll find out!
 

FluxWaveZ

Member
Junko's death is the most suspicious because it was the only one that wasn't caused by someone else. It wasn't left up to chance at all. Though, I mean, she got impaled by a bunch of spears which I can't explain away, but it's still the most suspicious death as it didn't come at the hands of another student or through a classroom trial, it was Monokuma that did it.

No idea why they're all there though.

Well, isn't Monokuma the one who's killed all of the murderers with his "executions"? Kinda the same thing as Junko's, except that one was an execution without a button press.
 

FluxWaveZ

Member
Well the answer is spoilerific regarding what happens in later chapters, but if you really want to know:

He regained his lost memories just before he died, hence why he was ablet o remember her real name.

Otherwise, just keep playing and you'll find out!

Hm, didn't think of that. I just saw it as (CASE 3 SPOILERS)
her sharing her real name as a vow of fake camaraderie in order for Hifumi to trust her more.
Flux, you broke the spoilers in the post you quoted. FIX THAT

Haha, what are you talking about...? >_>
 

LProtag

Member
Well, isn't Monokuma the one who's killed all of the murderers with his "executions"? Kinda the same thing as Junko's, except that one was an execution without a button press.

I guess it's possible all the murderers were in on it, but I don't buy heavily into that because some of them were more crimes of passion than anything. They also would have had to go on trial and it's possible that people wouldn't have picked them. Her's just seems to be too perfect and the fact that it's the only death that sticks out as different is suspicious to me.

I probably sound like an idiot if I'm arguing the wrong point, haha.
 

Syrinx

Member
Hm, didn't think of that. I just saw it as (CASE 3 SPOILERS)
her sharing her real name as a vow of fake camaraderie in order for Hifumi to trust her more.


Haha, what are you talking about...? >_>

That occurred to me but it just kinda seemed like a lame explanation.

But if dakkumauji is correct it at least gets hinted at later on so I'll just play ahead.
 

Flandy

Member
Alright, thanks guys. Ima give it a shot.

Don't know if you've gotten it yet but if you haven't then you should get it too. If you couldn't tell by my avatar I LOOOOOVE Ace Attorney. I went into it blind into this and I loooooved it too. Take a chance and get it :)
 

Moonlight

Banned
Alright, so... finished Chapter 6 last night, as I was sure to let all you good people know. I'm almost a little tired of saying this, but that was the best chapter yet, and a remarkably satisfying ending to a remarkably satisfying experience. As always, tremendous spoilers for Chapter 6 follow.
Execution (no pun intended) was absolutely everything to this chapter - in how it pulled almost everything that the narrative had already teased, demonstrating the absolute despair that the mastermind would completely embody, and conversely, expressing the fundamental message of hope in the face of adversity.

I actually thought that the beginning of the trial was a bit silly. To presume 'everyone is against me and is working together' off one photo that happens not to include you is... uh, I didn't quite follow. I mean, sure, Yasuhiro, I could totally get. You literally had to convince him Kyoko wasn't a ghost, so it's not like that sort of conclusion-jumping is beyond him, and even Aoi, I could see. She's kind-hearted and well-intentioned, but not quite the brightest bulb in the shed. It just got a bit silly when Byakuya was reaching those same conclusions. Like, dude, you're smarter than that. He probably figured it out sooner than the other two did, but really?

Still, that was little more than a speed-bump, because every answer to the mystery of Mukuro Ikusaba was just another... question. Like, jeez. It was weird for the picture to get clearer yet my understanding of the situation to pretty much dissolve. I'd already thought something was up, because of the whole situation with nine lights and ten murders (I'd counted myself, because I thought that the number of lights were more than the number of deaths, haha), and actually had a line of thought more or less the same as Toko's - that the mastermind (who I imagined was Mukuro at this time) had taken a random body and posed her own death since Kyoko wound up discovering her presence in the killing game.

And then I was really wrong. Somehow, things didn't crystallize quite until the game asked me who's corpse it would have been. If it had to be Mukuro who died, then... well, I put two and two together and put my finger on Junko. And then things spiraled out of control from them. Mukuro was always Junko but never was. MY MIND WAS BLOWN OUT THE WINDOW. Everything else came together from there: if Mukuro needed to die twice, if Mukuro had been posing as Junko, and if Mukuro had to die, there was really only one person who would benefit from it: Junko herself. And finally things began to click.

And then as soon as victory seems close at hand, the smoke clears and there stands Junko, hands on her hips and making a too-good-to-be-true offer (that I naturally refused) in as absurdly theatrical a voice as she could apparently manage. I cannot understate my confusion. Something that would only be compounded as she proceeded to pick up and throw away new identities like nothing. In the span of ten minutes, she went from a queen, to the bored runway model that she looked, to a foul-mouthed rocker, to a librarian, to... well, it was fucked up. It was weird trying to reconcile the part of me that found it absolutely hysterical and... kind of fucked up.

And this was just the beginning. Then the very final class trial started.

When the truth came out on the outside world, I'll admit that it didn't particularly surprise me by itself - it was already made out to be the most 'terrible event in human history' beforehand, and the devastation was plainly obvious in those places that had been left entirely as is. And it didn't take too much to understand that the videos of the 'first motives' had something to do with Still, as I mentioned, execution was what was really important here: the real discovery wasn't that the world had ended, not even, necessarily, the how - of which we only got a few vague hints and a couple of pictures, but the why. And that was absolute, total despair. It was all to prove a really twisted point.

Although I'm gonna run off on a tangent and say that I found Junko's rationale for increasing the, uh, potential despair rang a bit hollow for me. She talks a big game about how they were so desperate to lock themselves into the school and started killing each other to get out, but the irony of that doesn't really work when she entirely admitted to removing the context to make that ironic in the first place. For the whole plan to work she made a bunch of friends into a bunch of strangers, but I feel like she sort of made it the same difference as though it were a bunch of strangers. She invented reasons for everyone to try killing each other, which Makoto actually mentions.

But then that last Nonstop Discussion happened and everything just clicked. It was absolutely amazing. It took me a few knocks to figure out what I wanted - if there was a truth bullet in the evidence that could prove the value of hope, then I understood. And somehow it single-handedly justified the insanity of literally shooting statements at people beyond the central curiosity of the idea and possibly the greatest execution of the whole idea of harnessing the power of hope that there ever was or probably will be. Watching everyone find their resolve and push back against the despair that Junko was hoping to scare out of everyone was satisfaction to an untold degree.

I actually think that despite all my grievances with Byakuya, who - let's face it - was sort of a prick, that his moment after shooting him with THE POWER OF HOPE was perhaps my favourite out of all of them. Especially after all that Junko tried to do to really hammer in the fall of the Togami family. The tone of it was just great. Going 'as if', basically on the whole idea of despair, and moreover declaring how the Togami family wasn't dead as long as he was around, and all he would have to do was 'keep his promise' - that he would kill the mastermind, no matter what. God, I loved that. Huge kudos to Feep, on that point, for such great delivery.

And then everyone but Kyoko got some sense knocked into her, too, and the reprise of the opening happened and HOLY FUCK THAT WAS SO GOOD. I truly didn't expect anything like that at all, but it was the perfect capstone to the brilliance of Byakuya's moment - the music swelling before a robotic voice announces DANGAN RONPA and the rest of the music kicks in. I had the stupidest grin plastered on my face watching everyone speak out against despair, before finally shooting up Kyoko's statement and then:

"I think you came here for a different reason entirely... you came here to bring down the Ultimate Despair. You came here to confront despair without ever giving up. And if that's true, I think we could call you... the Ultimate Hope."

OH MY GOD

I ACTUALLY FIST-PUMPED

That was PERFECT.

I cannot think of a more perfect resolution to that moment, or a more perfect way to justify Makoto as a character. It was perfectly executed and perfectly earned. All that crock about despair that Junko was spouting, and everything that the remaining six suffered, it all came back around in the best way it could have. The feeling of finally turning the tables on Monokuma (or Junko, as it were) after five chapters of being forced to march to the beat of her drum, slamming her with her personal kryptonite was SO GOOD. Loved it when she dropped all her different personas and just started freaking out.

And I think what made Dangan Ronpa's fundamental message of hope so resonant to me, especially when on paper, something like 'the power of hope' sounds ludicrously saccharine (and indeed, it's rare that it doesn't come across that way in fiction) is that I think the message is tempered by the consequences and lasting effects of what had already happened that brought them to that point: at the end, they still hadn't reclaimed two years of lost memories that they might never get back. They're not even sure what the world outside looks like anymore, and most of their friends are still dead. It's not about how 'hope conquers all' and it doesn't presume that despair and hope aren't anything other than two sides of the same coin - rather, it acknowledges how important hope is amidst despair. It's not about pretending bad things never happen if you believe hard enough, it's about looking ahead no matter what, taking a step forward no matter how scary or miserable things may be. And that, I think, is a definition of hope that I can really get behind.

Which is all too many words to say that I really liked the kind of note that the game ended on.

In summary:

FUCK YOU MONOKUMA

FUCK YOU JUNKO

FUCK YOU DESPAIR

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

All in all, I clocked in about 29 hours on my first run. I had a habit of searching every room for monocoins at the beginning of each chapter, so that probably inflated my play-time a bit. If you were bothering to read my dumb thoughts on this not-dumb game, thanks, and apologies for rambling. Definitely the favourite game I've played this year thus far, and I can't see too many contenders on the horizon (besides SDR2, hahaha).

And yet I never did solve the greatest mystery of this game.

How the fuck did Yasuhiro make it all the way to the end?
 
Oh here we go kids

CHAPTER 5 SPOILERS, THE WHOLE KIT AND KABOODLE

*has seizure on the floor* OH MY GOD

Some clarity; I know plot bits, but we're talking the bare minimum here. So keep this in mind. All the other pre-trial stuff I covered. in a previous post, so TRIAL TIME

Wow, Byakuya really going in early. It could only be us two?! So...did she off Mukuro to protect Makoto? Hrm...And why were you late? A whole lot of grandstanding here...none of this seems right. The cover up is obvious, but...

Yo wtf Kyoko get off my back! Go deduce how to not be a butthead!

What's this now? With the arrows? Duct taped together like a pipe? That's weird. And the key was in Kyoko's room? WAIT THAT MEANS BYAKUYA DID IT
wait. WAIT. OH OH OH OH OH ASDLDKLDFKSFLSD YOU ARE TOAST

Wait..that's being laid down a little too thick for my liking...Too much internal despair there.
Eh, I'll keep that to myself. What's the worst that could happen?

OH. THAT. GEE THANKS GUYS
OH SHIT ALTER EGO WITH THE REBOOT

tldr; Chapter 6 time. LET'S GO

PS thanks for dealing with my end chapter essay freakouts, everyone. It's good to analyze!
 

Raticus79

Seek victory, not fairness
... bah, I just got the thread title pun. Kind of sneaks up on you once you're past the intro. Didn't know anything about the game the first time I saw it, so it just whooshed.
 

Labrys

Member
There a link anywhere with all the character portraits from this game?

well there is one, but it's incredibly spoilery for both games. lemme find a pack with all of them, if anything i could just pack mine up and separate the spoilers or something
 

Flandy

Member
well there is one, but it's incredibly spoilery for both games. lemme find a pack with all of them, if anything i could just pack mine up and separate the spoilers or something

That'd be really nice. Hope I can go in blind into DR2 just like I did with this one. I want to look up the OST on youtube but I'm even scared to do that >:l
 

Labrys

Member
That'd be really nice. Hope I can go in blind into DR2 just like I did with this one. I want to look up the OST on youtube but I'm even scared to do that >:l

okay, here's the pack

to be completely honest it's p early in the morning so i didn't bother sorting out spoiler sprites. heck, there are spoilers in the filenames to begin with. so only download this if you've beaten the game. it contains no sdr2 sprites though so no worries on that.

it has the waist-up and full body sprites at the PSP's resolution, since there's no way to rip Vita games quite yet. there's also the pixel art that's on each person's nameplate
 

Flandy

Member
okay, here's the pack

to be completely honest it's p early in the morning so i didn't bother sorting out spoiler sprites. heck, there are spoilers in the filenames to begin with. so only download this if you've beaten the game. it contains no sdr2 sprites though so no worries on that.

it has the waist-up and full body sprites at the PSP's resolution, since there's no way to rip Vita games quite yet. there's also the pixel art that's on each person's nameplate

Beat it on Monday so no need to worry :) Thank you
 

AniHawk

Member
I can't wait to see some sales numbers. It must have exceeded their expectations if they've already announced the localization of DR2 right?

that's probably the case. i wouldn't expect the world of vita retail sales though. 15k sell-through would be good.
 

Labrys

Member
got an avatar upgrade!

because if i didn't have the best character in the game in a properly edited avatar nothing would function around here
 
got an avatar upgrade!

because if i didn't have the best character in the game in a properly edited avatar nothing would function around here

Sakura is my favorite of the girls, next to Asohina. She seemed like a nice person to be around, despite initially being big and scary.
 
I hate my luck =/ Every person I try to hang out with ends up dead. Now past-chapter 3 I'm all out of romancing options so I guess I'll just shut Naegi in his room so that no future murder will occur.
 

LProtag

Member
Didn't get called in to work today.

IT'S TIME TO END THIS!

Edit: Oh, I've got this shit!
Junko wasn't Junko at all, she switched places with Mukuro. Their physical stature is the same. Mukuro died when she was impaled by all the spikes. This also explains why the "Ultimate Soldier" would be wearing fake nails.

Double edit:
PHOTOSHOP MY ASS!
 
got an avatar upgrade!

because if i didn't have the best character in the game in a properly edited avatar nothing would function around here

Sakura best girl~

Only because Kirigiri is such a tsun at times.

I hate my luck =/ Every person I try to hang out with ends up dead. Now past-chapter 3 I'm all out of romancing options so I guess I'll just shut Naegi in his room so that no future murder will occur.

Makoto RUINS EVERYTHING.
 
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