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Case 1: okay, the introductory case. Can't expect much here (think Ace Attorney; first cases were always rather easy and acted as tutorials. Pretty much a case where one part of the mystery was solvable with the evidence presented (victim was actually the murderer but got the tables turned on her) and the actual evidence nailing the guilty party was a dead giveaway (his name written in blood by the victim). Okay, that was the tutorial. Now for the real deal.

And what is the real deal? An unsolvable case with no evidence pointing at the real killer, false evidence placed by someone who was NOT the killer (which, by the way, would have led to the person placing said evidence executed had it not been revealed as false), the real killer identified only by a slip of the tongue regarding a formerly useless piece of information and the motive for the murder being a secret the killer didn't want revealed... but a secret nobody would have given a damn about (killer was responsible for his older brother's death - no one in the group of people even knew the killer's brother nor would have given a care about him). As a mystery, a total failure because
a) lukewarm motive without any relevance to the victim
b) no evidence before the trial
c) total bullshit behavior by someone not even involved in the case
d) most important rule of the detective novel violated: in the end, reader has to say "aaah, I could have found that out too!"

Really, a story that throws curveballs is a good think. A story that makes the ball disapppear. then reappear magically in the catcher's hand and says "whoo, brilliant strikeout!" is not. Dangan Ronpa is not about detective mysteries. It's about making the reader believe he's reading a detective mystery while making up bullshit stories and presenting them to the reader on a silver platter in the end.

Creator of The Loyal Kinsman

Scriptwriter and director of The Dreaming

Scriptwriter and director of The Thirteenth Year

Scriptwriter and producer of Adrift

"Adrift - Like Ever17, but without the Deus Ex Machina" - HigurashiKira

A large number of readers pegged the right culprit because it was obvious that he had the most opportunity, even though nobody picked up on the only actual evidence which was available other than Kirigiri. (It wasn't 'no' evidence before the trial, it was 'ludicrously subtle' evidence.)

The threat of having his secret revealed was _not_ about having his secret revealed to the people in the group, but to the outside world. Nobody in the game would care about it. The people outside the game would, and he would care about them knowing.

Also, as it wasn't a premeditated murder (as pointed out by the speech about killing vs ending-up-killing), the fact that the secret-motive was unrelated to the victim isn't that important. The secret was just stressing him out. The actual moment when the murderer snapped was definitely related to the two of them and their relationship and personalities.

Yes, the framejob was bizarre and stupid and I don't buy his reasoning; it should have gotten him killed. That's the one point I'll agree to a claim of dodgy writing on. Some players have tied themselves in knots trying to make his actions make more sense, but their justifications aren't really supported by the game itself as far as we can tell.

"A large number of readers pegged the right culprit because it was obvious that he had the most opportunity, even though nobody picked up on the only actual evidence which was available other than Kirigiri. (It wasn't 'no' evidence before the trial, it was 'ludicrously subtle' evidence.)"
Yeah, he had the most opportunity, but neither motive nor even a bit of motivation aside from the secret revealed. In fact, he even liked the victim, right until the moment before the murder when the victim said something innocent that, by the power of shitty writing, made the killer snap because it incidentally related to exactly the secret he didn't want anyone to know about - the secret the player/reader had no chance of knowing beforehand. Yeah, you could guess the killer, but you could never, not once, be sure of it until the reveal.

And that "ludicrously subtle evidence" also wasn't evidence at all but another unrelated personality quirk that, at best, could draw suspicion towards the killer. But it was so subtle that it wasn't even a game element! You had no chance of adding that to your "gathered evidence", and that in a game where the evidence you gather is used as "ammunition" in the action sequences that dominate the court sequences! The game told you that this was not evidence, even if you might have THOUGHT that it was! Ace Attorney pulled a cheap trick like that one in "Trials and Tribulations" too when you overlook a piece of evidence because "it was behind a tree" and you had no chance of even trying to look behind that tree. I groaned a lot when that happened. But that was one piece of evidence, and hardly the only decisive one, and it was not necessary to correctly identify the killer - only to put the final nail into his coffin.

Creator of The Loyal Kinsman

Scriptwriter and director of The Dreaming

Scriptwriter and director of The Thirteenth Year

Scriptwriter and producer of Adrift

"Adrift - Like Ever17, but without the Deus Ex Machina" - HigurashiKira