The Vita is an under-appreciated gem of a console. Its large library of games are often scaled down ports of games or simply cross-buy titles with the PS3 and PS4. There aren't a huge amount of games that would necessarily appeal to a mainstream market, but if you dig a little deeper than the surface you can find some pure gold, especially in games from foreign markets that have been given a western release. One such game is Danganronpa.
Hope's Peak Academy is a sanctuary of youth's best and brightest, 'ultimate' students if you will. A school that scouts out and hand picks 16 students per year to enter its doors and receive an education that will ensure they end their school life with enough refinement to their skills that they will never experience unemployment and become the best in their field. Included in the 16 is one 'lucky' student, a student with no ultimate skill in anything but is given the best schooling they could ever receive to unlock all the potential they have laying dormant.
You are Makoto Naegi, this years 'Ultimate Lucky Student', an adolescent boy with no particular merit or skill in anything, but has been miraculously picked to attend Hope's Peak Academy. Alongside him are an eclectic cast of students, the 'Ultimate Baseball Star', the 'Ultimate Fashionista', the 'Ultimate Affluent Prodigy' and many more. Makoto cannot believe his luck, that is until he walks through the doors at Hope's Peak Academy.
What Makoto are his fellow classmates have walked into is a trap set up by an evil mastermind, a mechanical bear known as Monokuma. The students are locked in the school with no escape and forced to play a game of life and death with each other. If a student murders another and successfully evades being found out, then they are free to leave; however if they are unsuccessful they are executed.
Danganronpa has a fantastic story, one of the best I have experienced in recent years. Its dark, its compelling, its funny, its at times incredibly poignant and most importantly it inspires hope in a world of despair. This 20-30 hour text based detective game will draw you in with its engaging characters, intriguing environments and exciting story and addictive gameplay. There is a reason why Danganronpa went on to spawn an anime, manga and sequels that have reached huge popularity levels in Japan, and its because it is simply fantastic.
Gameplay in Danganronpa is split into three main types, firstly you have your text based conversations. This makes up much of the game, both in terms of story progression and optional conversations with classmates. It is essential to build relationships with your peers in order to gain access to helpful bonuses in class trials. The class trial is the second main area, each chapter concludes with a class trial that can last around 2 hours in length in which all the evidence you have compiled over the investigation of a murder is put into play. It is your job to help deduce who the killer is for your very survival. Finally you have free time and investigations, these allow you to explore Hope's Peak, talk to students and collect evidence that you can present later in the class trials. Gameplay is linear, despite having multiple dialogue choices at times everything leads to the same result with no notable difference between multiple playthroughs.
Though the game has three very distinct gameplay types, the trials are the most complex and are also the most compelling part of the game.
Trials consist of four different gameplay types, these are 'Non-stop Debate', 'Hangman's Gambit', 'Bullet Time Battle' and 'Closing Argument'.
The Non-stop debate consists of students attempting to solve a particular part of the case and thus begin throwing accusations around, it is your job to deduce the weak points in the arguments and shoot them with 'Truth Bullets' which represent specific items of evidence that can be used to contradict what the student has said.
The Hangman's Gambit requires you to shoot down floating letters to form a word, this word relates to a piece of evidence that can be used to move the trial forward.
Bullet Time Battles are rhythm based, requiring you to time button presses to the tempo of the music in order to lock onto accusations being thrown at you by another student and shoot them down. These are fast paced sections, but the least mentally involved out of all of them as no actual deduction takes place during these sequences.
Finally the Closing Argument consists of assembling a comic book strip of the events of the murder, to ultimately uncover the killer. These are the entire games weakest sections with much of the skill needed to pass them being based on pure luck of being able to understand what the small, static images mean.
Remembering how to play all these different mini-games can prove to be difficult but luckily Danganronpa is never unfair or too difficult. The solution to the brain bending cases all lie within the evidence you collect, so you are never without your answer, but its just a matter of working out what the answer is.
Danganronpa is a gorgeous game. A well presented anime style with a great blend of 2D and 3D environments. Everything is colourful and richly detailed and the 3D execution cutscenes are simply to die for (excuse the pun). Load times are minimal and unnoticeable thanks to how the game cleverly hides it behind loading in a rooms assets in a stylish way. The only area I feel could be improved are the foreground assets when standing in a room. These assets are 2D with a black backing to them so when you rotate the camera all you get is a black outline of an object, this is something that could have easily been fixed with either 3D modelling or at least rotating 2D images.
The games audio is also fantastic with an excellent soundtrack that never grows boring even if its the 50th time you have heard a track and voice acting that is far above par for an English dubbing, the translation from Japanese to English is also superb with no noticeable grammar errors. This is one high quality re-release for a western market.
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is an essential title for Vita owners. Its near perfect blend of three gameplay styles, with a good relationship simulator, great evidence collection mechanic and simply amazing class trials alongside it utterly brilliant cast and story only cement the fact that this game is one of the Vita's greatest games.
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc — 10/10
+Fantastic, Unpredictable Story
+Brilliant Characters
+Gripping and Varied Gameplay
+Superb Presentation Standard
