A video game published by Spike Chunsoft for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita consoles and Windows operating system in 2017..
Text by NiGHTS108
Oh god, Danganronpa V3. I mean that in a positive way. At last, we’ve made it to the last entry in the trilogy of visual novels, and I think it’s safe to say V3 is the most interesting of them all. In a franchise with a ton of divisive elements, from what I’ve seen I feel like V3 is the most divisive game in the series, and it’s definitely not one that’s easy to make heads or tails of 6 years later. I’ve been sitting on this review for like a week or two now, because frankly, I’m not sure if I can do Danganronpa V3 justice, but I’ll try. Let’s start with something to ease us in. In general the presentation of V3 is just delightful, here’s where that “psycho-cool” aesthetic really comes into its full potential imo, there’s a certain mid 2000’s charm to the previous games’ aesthetic, that’s for sure, but I really love the whole neon look they go for with this game and feels more like a modern coat of paint over the previous games. Additionally, the 3D environments in this game are delightful. It’s clear we’ve come a long way from Danganronpa 1’s angular Wolfenstein 3D corridors. Locations like the dark, blood red depths of the 4th floor and the boundless chapels of the 5th floor are all just wonderful to look at. The class trials equally are a big visual step up, I know it’s a small detail and all but I do really like all the different fonts they use and the 3D text and everything. It makes the trials feel a lot more dynamic. Danganronpa’s always been known for great music, and additionally I think V3 hits the peak of the mountain in this regard. It’s the only soundtrack in the series where I’ve actually been listening to the music while not playing the game! Oh, also I mentioned class trials just now, and additionally those are all a blast. They cram in quite a number of minigames into the trial, it always keeps you on your feet. Some of them aren’t so great I’ll admit, like Psyche Taxi always takes kind of a long time to answer questions that are usually pretty obvious, especially by the end of the game, but in general there’s definitely more hits than not and just from a general gameplay perspective it makes for the most entertaining trials in the series. For the story… well if I had to describe V3’s story in one word, it would be “subversive”. One of my favourite things about V3 is it really feels like there’s an effort to put a new spin on old concepts. Let’s look at some of our previously established Danganronpa tropes for a minute. In Danganronpa 1’s second chapter, one of the students was outed as a serial killer… but this ended up hilariously not being relevant to the actual case. In the second game, a student pretended to be a serial killer in order to protect a very close friend. Now we have Danganronpa V3, you get through almost the whole chapter without this idea even being mentioned, it’s only afterwards that it’s revealed that one of the students actually holds the title of “Ultimate Assassin”, it’s not something that plays into the case, rather it ends up as a part of the larger plot. This is definitely one of the bigger examples but I like a lot of the smaller stuff too, like anyone would be bracing for impact during the whole section where the characters go into this virtual reality type deal, that’s literally called Neo World Program just like the last game’s, only for it to be this cute chibi JRPG world. It’s brilliant! Of course, nothing is more subversive than the absolutely crushing Chapter 1, which definitely sets the stage for a lot of what comes later. V3 loves to keep you guessing, loves all that intrigue. If there’s any Danganronpa game that makes you question what you think you know and don’t know, it’s this one. I do have one issue in this regard though, in general the murders in the second half of the game especially are kind of… well… predictable. Like if you just generally have a vibe that someone will kill or get killed there’s a fair chance you won’t be far off. It doesn’t help that characters have an unfortunate habit of dropping dead not long after their labs are discovered, which in general is kind of a weird part of the story. Like half of them are visited once and are never relevant again, and while I like the idea on paper, as a concept the labs don’t amount to much besides being something of a death indicator for characters more often than not. I feel like this concept could have been reworked into something else which would have made things definitely less predictable. I don’t completely blame V3 for this, I think Spike Chunsoft was kind of in a difficult situation here, it’s that issue of “One’s an incident, two’s a coincidence, three’s a pattern”, and overall this isn’t a massive deal breaker for me or anything because solving exactly how the murders play out is still very enjoyable, but it’s an aspect of the game I’d be remiss not to mention. Danganronpa V3 is somehow both extremely subversive and disorienting as well as kind of predictable, weird. The cases themselves are all great though. Yes, even the dreaded Chapter 3, which I bitched about in both the last two reviews but here is actually pretty strong. Okay, the murders themselves are still a little ridiculous and it’s still my least favourite chapter in the game, but still, it’s enjoyable for me. You could argue most of these are a little, well, elaborate, that’s fair enough, but I for one really like them just for how they really pushed the envelope with a lot of these. Again it links back to V3 always keeping you on your toes, I’m glad so many of these are so gimmicky as it manages to keep the series fresh. And plus, I wouldn’t say any of them are, like, super unrealistic or anything. It’s just that they are slightly larger than before on average, but do manage to keep within the confines of what’s reasonable. There’s a good balance to these cases as a whole. Additionally, I think the characters are honestly all pretty great, at least on average this is definitely the most positive I’ve felt about a Danganronpa cast. The last two games it always felt like there were a couple little shits you couldn’t stand, but here, like, honestly I enjoy everyone and think they all get a fair amount of development. So, first things first, we need to talk about protagonists. I’ll admit, if I had one issue with this game, it’s probably that I do wish Kaede and Shuichi’s roles were swapped, and he was the fake-out Chapter 1 protagonist instead. Listen, I like Shuichi, I think he’s great and better than both Makoto and Hajime as protagonists, but I really think Kaede brought her own flavour to the role, and it would have been great if we could have had the full game with just her. I guess it’s a testament to just how instantly likeable she is, because in only 6 short hours she absolutely carried the most heartbreaking chapter in the entirety of Danganronpa, 3-1, and it definitely wouldn’t have had the same impact if Shuichi was in her place, and equal measure I don’t think the amazing stuff later on would play out the same with her in Shuichi’s place. Guess you can’t have your cake and eat it too, huh. In general Danganronpa V3 just feels like such an emotionally turbulent road, talking about the story in these games is difficult because it almost feels like I could write a separate essay on like, 5 different characters in V3 alone. Sure, the survivors are predictable, but it’s about the journey, not the destination for me. I love Himiko’s arc of finding strength from Tenko and Angie even after they’re gone, Gonta’s whole thing in Chapter 4 is just incredible, choosing to accept his punishment unknowingly manipulated by Kokichi which wonderfully sets up Chapter 5. The voice actors also all absolutely kill it, seriously. There’s so many line deliveries that are just so powerful, it really adds a lot to every character, even the less deep ones like Miu for instance still just have great line deliveries… if for opposite reasons as the deeper characters, heh. And just… oh god, what can I even say about Kaito and Maki. One of my favourite changes to the typical Danganronpa formula in V3 is the main character having two best friends here. I really like how both Kaito and Maki really play to different parts of Shuichi’s personality, and have great arcs of their own. What I like about this is it allows for more of a nuanced relationship between them, because it’s not like the last two games where the main guy doesn’t really have anyone super close to them besides Kyoko and Chiaki respectively. I love that especially in the second half of the game they do allow Shuichi to disagree with Kaito, as the flaws in his logic are more clearly shown in Chapter 4’s trial. Maki’s whole arc about learning to be more open to others also manages to tie into this, as she gets a chance to pick up the pieces with their friendship. Just in general I really love Shuichi, Kaito and Maki’s dynamic, they all play off each other super well. Chapter 5’s trial really feels like the big payoff of this, Kokichi is constantly against Kaito, so Kaito looking past his stubbornness to achieve a common goal between them both is a very satisfying end to both of their characters. Chapter 5 in general is amazing, Maki’s great in the trial itself, and I think the gimmick with not knowing exactly who the murderer is is super well done. I guess I prefer the last two Chapter 5’s, as I kind of liked how simple the core setup of both of those gimmicks were. 3-5 is quite the complicated plot by comparison, but it definitely still works. In general Danganronpa V3’s characters are all amazing, either through the great emotional moments or just by how charming their character can be. I guess I should quit beating around the bush now though, the ending of this game is… something. If you’ve made it this far you probably really don’t care, but spoiler alert for the rest of the review right here. So, Danganronpa V3 doesn’t really build on many of the plot developments seen in the previous two games, and very much goes in its own direction. In all honesty, I quite like that they did this, I mean like, honestly where was the story really gonna go after Danganronpa 2 and by extension 3? In general I think taking a new direction was a good idea, I mean the game literally makes fun of the idea of continuing the original Hope’s Peak plotline, with its ridiculous unsatisfying obviously fake ending in Chapter 5, which ends up being proven as fake before the chapter ends anyway. Chapter 6 itself though… to be broad I like the general message they’re going for but I’m not sure if I’m 100% on board with how it’s told or the state it leaves V3 in. I do like how the plot to expose the mastermind revolves around recontextualising Chapter 1’s murder, hell, I know people have their criticisms with Tsumugi being the mastermind, and yes it definitely comes out of nowhere, sure, but I like the idea of literally the last person you’d suspect being accused of the murder instead of the one who’s pretty shallow of a character and largely stays on the sidelines. Like Tsumugi dying early on feels like what should and would have happened if it was any other game in the series, at least to me. From there on though, of all things the story evolves into not really anything related to Junko or Hope’s Peak or anything, but it’s more of this really large meta narrative, there’s this idea of “Danganronpa” itself in-universe being a TV show that’s been going for 52 seasons and virtually everyone in this world is obsessed with it, this is the 53rd season, hence the name, Danganronpa V3, or 53. (Which is a really stupid name by the way and “Danganronpa 8” probably would have had about as big of an impact.) Have you guys ever seen that Simpsons episode “The Frying Game”? It’s like that, pretty much, but on a way larger scale. To be honest this is what caused me to delay the V3 review by like, a week, and even now I don’t think I completely have my head around it. This applies to probably the entire series but I feel like there’s people who do have a more informed opinion about this subject matter instead of me who only got into the series about three months ago. I’m trying not to be too self critical though. The actual happenings of the way V3 works are a little ambiguous all things considered, I feel this was by design though. It’s easy to come up with your own plausible explanation for how all the pieces come together, they deliberately cherry-pick information and keep things just vague enough for you to sort of make your own ending out of V3. It’s a bit like Danganronpa 1’s ending in that regard, like we don’t know but there is an air of uncertainty, maybe Tsumugi was just lying out of her ass the entire time and there’s some sort of different explanation that connects it to the previous games, there’s a 99% chance that’s not true, and to be honest I wouldn’t really want any kind of sequel or anything to explain it because unlike Danganronpa 1 I do feel like V3 works best as a standalone experience. The exact happenings of the plot though isn’t the point, The Danganronpa series is more of a vessel here for Spike Chunsoft to tell a larger story about franchises not losing their core, and clearly the intended message is that they’re done with the Hope’s Peak plotline. I guess it’s just layed on a little thick, like they’re kind of so high concept it’s a little easy to lose track of. I don’t want to say the V3 haters just “don’t get it”, because that’s the stupidest way of dismissing criticism ever, but I think this is the core of why the ending is as divisive as it is. Like it’s just sort of overwhelming and a little much, I guess. It’s hard to exactly quantify my opinions on this ending because at its core I do see what they were going for, and I really like it, as a goodbye to what the series was with this whole ending about the characters hopeful they left an impact on someone, it’s all super well done, just I don’t exactly know about the way it’s told. It’s definitely best to look at V3 in isolation I feel, like I don’t believe in V3 “de-canonising the entire series” or the meta narrative “criticising the Danganronpa fans for liking the series” or anything, but the fact these ideas are a thing kind of just tells me they didn’t necessarily make things as clear as they probably should. Like I feel if it was just a little more grounded it could have come across way better. I also don’t want this to be read as me saying they should have dumbed down the messages or anything because that’s absolutely not true, there’s a very bright core here, and I just wish a bit more of that light got to shine through. Honestly though, I feel the best way to read Danganronpa V3’s ending is just to experience it yourself and make up your own mind about it. Don’t take my opinion as gospel, there’s plenty other people who could offer viewpoints that are just as valid as my own if not more so, but in a way that’s kind of the beauty of it. They left the series in this delightfully speculative place, even 6 years later discussion of this game is still interesting, and it doesn’t really feel like there’s any right answers, and that’s because there are no real right answers with Danganronpa V3. As a whole, at least in my opinion, Danganronpa V3 is simply astonishing. Even despite its flaws, even despite its divisive elements, I do think I can safely say it’s my favourite game in the series. It’s the absolute peak of the mountain for me in so many ways, despite it not always being a smooth road, it’s by far the most enthralling. For one of the most underappreciated video game franchises of all time, I believe Danganronpa V3 stands as a testament to everything great about this series.