Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

1. crazymurdock

   Dec 9, 2016

   10

   LOVE this game. The only thing better is Danganronpa 2, and you need to play this first to appreciate that. Great characters, brilliantLOVE this game. The only thing better is Danganronpa 2, and you need to play this first to appreciate that. Great characters, brilliant story. Just get it, and avoid spoilers at all costs.… Expand

   • 2 of 3 users found this helpful
2. C3realkillah

   Feb 13, 2014

   10

   I'll admit I wasn't as hyped for this when it got announced I just didn't get it or know what the hell the game was like. I watched the animeI'll admit I wasn't as hyped for this when it got announced I just didn't get it or know what the hell the game was like. I watched the anime which I found out was rushed and after finally playing this game for 4 hours straight I really wish I never watched the anime. This game is just that good and the anime kinda spoiled it. This game is unlike any game you've played before. It's similar to ace attorney and virtues las reward and even has some persona elements such as social links. The game is a mystery psychological horror with so many twists and turns and characters you will come to care about. The story is fantastic as well. The plot revolves around 15 kids all who get accepted into this strange school where the student has to "graduate" by killing someone without being caught. It's a wildly emotional and depressing and even downright sad ride at some points. The gameplay is unique and similar to ace attorney in a way. It's hard to describe and better if you are it for yourself. Now I want to cut this review short because I NEED to get back to the game continue the story just know that this game is well worth your time and is one of the best games for vita....period… Expand

   • 13 of 16 users found this helpful
4. vahn

   Mar 6, 2014

   9

   Along with Virtue's Last Reward, Danganronpa is yet another great game for the vita and, most importantly, a sort of new franchise, despiteAlong with Virtue's Last Reward, Danganronpa is yet another great game for the vita and, most importantly, a sort of new franchise, despite being several years old (it came on psp first). The game is simply amazing on many levels: it has style, it has an identity on its own, it's weird, it's sad, it's intriguing, it's surprising, and it's also very long to beat (the main game is about 20 hours, and after the end you can do some more stuff with the school mode).
   
   Danganronpa is basically a sort of mix between Ace Attorney (the trials), Virtue's Last Reward (the twists, the character development, etc), and a bit also of Saw if I have to say (the fact that it's a death game). The game is also VERY stylish and very reminiscent of Persona 4 (I seriously thought it was a Persona spin off, from the colors and animation), and very anime-like as well (there's even anime, although I heard it's not as good as the game). In other words, despite taking inspiration from other games, Danganronpa is its own game, and another great game for the vita console.
   
   However, If I have to be brutally honest, I didn't enjoy this game as much as I anticipated, because of few flaws that really bothered me and made the game a bit of a disappointment: this does NOT mean it's a bad game, but I want to say why It seems flawed.
   
   For one, there are too many characters...and you have no time to develop them properly. The game will give you free times where you can spend to increase relationships with your classmates AND eventually unlock skills for trials and etc. The problem here is simple: you don't have enough time during the main game to develop all of them (heck, not even one) and when the game decides to kill them off...I really felt nothing. No sadness for the most times or regret: I barely knew them, the game wouldn't let me, and when one character was killed off or was found guilty, I just had no idea what to feel; infact I felt more attached to the characters that survived, because they had actual development to the end and I'd feel sad if they died. But only because they had development. I know it's hard to develop 15 characters all together...but VLR had 9 and I felt attached to all of them. I think it required some more attention on this department.
   
   Second, some cases are "meh" (mostly referring to the first, the second and the fourth): this once again suffers because of the lack of development of the characters AND because some are far too simple, but still the reason is simple: if one character died, I wouldn't care, and while the fourth case was ok, it was pretty disappointing. Maybe it's me, but I just had no real ripercussions when someone died...because I didn't care enough for feel sad for them.
   
   And for last, the trials are good...but some parts are pretty weird and unnecessary (the rhythm game and few other things were so stupid), but it's probably the best part of the game. Just too bad it wasn't all that hard, but mostly confusing at some points.
   
   However I have to say, even if the game is flawed, the story is amazing and has one nasty twist at the end that, while I still didn't care much for the deaths, it made me feel a little grim inside....perhaps that was the idea from the start of? To not give us enough time to care, but to care at the end when the twist revealed?
   Still, It's an amazing twist and very depressing, making this game, once again, a must if you loved VLR (even though it's much less puzzle based and more like a visual novel).
   
   Definitely a good game to check: flawed in some points (IN MY OPINION), but still good enough to try it!… Expand

   • 1 of 1 users found this helpful
5. Vault1o1

   Feb 25, 2014

   9

   While Danganronpa barely qualifies as a "game" in the traditional sense, that clearly isn't what the developers were going for. It is anWhile Danganronpa barely qualifies as a "game" in the traditional sense, that clearly isn't what the developers were going for. It is an interactive graphic novel in the vein of Zero Escape or Ace Attorney. For those not familiar with these titles, the basic gist involves a crime taking place, and with the help of those around them, the protagonist solves each crime, no matter how convoluted the clues may be. The narrative is impressive, especially for a localized title. In fact, the localization itself is what makes the story so intriguing, even when the answer to your supposedly nagging questions is so clearly obvious.
   
   The investigations that the main character performs range from obtuse to blatant. The resolutions to some cases will be so conspicuous that you might find yourself almost frustrated by pacing of the story, and at other times, your mind will literally be blown away by what you just discovered. This mixed bag keeps you guessing up until the very end, at which point the expert storytelling of veteran graphic novel developer Spike Chunsoft will mystify you, probably more than thought possible in a video game.
   
   I only have a couple of issues with this title. First and foremost, the protagonist is literally treated like a moron during the entire game, even after solving every murder during its course. Multiple characters talk down to you as though you were a complete idiot, and you have no other option but to just take it on the chin.
   
   Which brings me to my other issue. While there are periods of time labeled as "free", which allow you to interact with other characters and gain abilities based on your relationships with them, the entire game is linear. This is the reason your character has to look stupid during the entire affair. You are never given the choice to point out key pieces of evidence during each case, even if you realize their significance at the moment they are introduced. This prolongs the feeling that the main character is an idiot, although he does redeem himself while presenting evidence during "class trials", the only game-like element in this exceptional graphic novel.
   
   Overall, the narrative is why you will want to pick up this title. The voice acting, though not prevalent, is well done, the characters are over the top, but still believable, and the plot is twisted and convoluted, making for a tale that is honestly hard to find in this era of half-baked shooters and cliched action games. If you believe that the journey is just as important as the destination and you own a Vita, you would be doing yourself a disservice in not picking up this zany and dark game of murder and betrayal.… Expand

   • 3 of 3 users found this helpful
6. JimPickens

   Dec 21, 2021

   8

   Danganronpa is a certainly a difficult series to talk about, not least of all because of its rabid fanbase who doxx people over their opinionsDanganronpa is a certainly a difficult series to talk about, not least of all because of its rabid fanbase who doxx people over their opinions on fictional characters, but also because the games themselves rely heavily on your emotional connection to those characters, the game relies on your ability to care when they die, betray you, and to care about the ones who survive enough to keep playing. Unlike something like Ace Attorney which hardly ever kills off named characters who aren't designated Victims, DR likes to kill off the main cast after developing them, which risks the players investment if too many characters are killed off too fast. Luckily I think Trigger Happy Havoc manages to keep the player invested for the most part, it does start to drop off by the end because the games basic formula starts getting pretty tired by then, but by that point you're basically at the end anyway.
   
   Danganronpa follows a large cast of high school students all trapped inside a rundown school building and are tasked with killing each other for their freedom. An interesting premise that's largely done justice, the game is engaging, it's sad when the characters you like are killed and it can be heartbreaking when the "Blackened" The killer, is somebody you liked, though like I said the game can fall flat when somebody too many likeable characters get killed, but I think that's a much bigger issue in the second game, here most of the cast are likeable so you're never out of characters you like.
   
   This is a Visual Novel so it's gameplay is pretty limited. The game is cut up into two halves, Daily Life, where you walk around the school exploring newly accessible areas and talk to the other characters, but given their habit of dying, it's not really worth investing time into characters unless you know they're going to live because just as you're learning about them they can get killed, which you could argue helps add to the tragedy of their death, but all I see it as it wasted time I could have spent getting to know somebody else. Free Time also gets progressively worse unless you like a character who makes it to the end because all of a sudden you have to spend time with characters you're not invested in because the ones you were are dead. The other half of the gameplay is the Deadly Life, where you discover the next corpse and have to explore for clues all culminating in a Class Trial, this is what will make or break this entire series for you. Unlike Ace Attorney which has you slowly press through text boxes to find contradictions and discover the truth, here in DR, everything is constantly moving, during conversations certain key words or phrases will be highlighted, you must "shoot" these with a Truth Bullet, think of them like Evidence in Ace Attorney, the catch is you don't get time to stop and think about it, the scene is always moving and there's a timer, you can stop and read over your Truth Bullets, but you can't stop on any one persons sentence and read it over, the character will say it, and then it'll be gone, if you need to hear it again you'll have to let the conversation replay. These sections are also include mini-games, they're awful. Included is Hangman's Gambit, a mini-game in which you'll need to form words letter by letter, this is never fun but enjoy it while it lasts because it's way worse in DR2. Then there's the Closing Argument, where you make a comic to piece together the timeline of events after you've discovered what happened, these are... fine, they're not as bad as Hangman's Gambit but they're not very engaging either, it's just fine. Finally is the Bullet Time Battle, a rhythm game where you... argue... back? I guess... it doesn't really make any sense, like the Hangman's Gambit is you thinking of words and Closing Argument is you piecing the timeline together but BTB is just arguing back I guess, it's also fine. Once you clear these "fun" games the killer is outed and executed in an entertaining and uniquely animated scene before you start the next chapter and the process repeats until the very end. If these mini-games or the non-stop pace doesn't sound fun to you, you probably won't like Danganronpa because that's a good 50% of the gameplay here, but if they sound bearable or even fun to you, by all means go right ahead and play.
   
   The cast of "Ultimate Students" here are pretty good, standouts are best girl Kyoko, Sakura, Asahina, and Byakuya, they have the most character and get annoying the least. But there's also the main character, Makoto, he is unremarkable, which is the point, but nevertheless he's pretty damn boring for a Protagonist, something the next game fixes with its protag. Other characters are fairly one note and don't really stand out outside of their dedicated chapters.
   
   Danganronpa is a mixed bag but mostly pretty good, I'd still take Ace Attorney as my Hybrid VN of choice, but DR's charm and quality can't be understated at all.… Expand

   • 1 of 1 users found this helpful
7. tukumalu

   Jun 6, 2020

   7

   Couldn't bring myself to finish the game. The characters are abit one note and the mystery by the end is too devoid of logic.

   • 0 of 0 users found this helpful
8. BigJimmy

   Jun 26, 2021

   0

   This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. didn't finish this game, I rage quit as soon as they killed Chihiro. I want my little femboy kitten happy :(… Expand

   • 0 of 0 users found this helpful

See all 40 User Reviews