Super High School Level LP (Dangan Ronpa)

[MaiMai]

When I'm not lurking around LSF, I'm usually lurking on the Something Awful forums, particularly the Let's Play section. While many of the members play games that are widely released stateside and into other countries, sometimes we're just not lucky enough to get those truly unique games that are just exclusive releases.

Dangan Ronpa is one of those games. It is a PSP game released only in Japan. Why would I bring this up here? Because there is someone who is a bad enough dude to not only play this game on its hardest mode, but also translate it and make a hybrid Let's Play with videos and screenshots, and provide game music.

Let's Play Dangan Ronpa by orenronen.

What caught my interest about this game and the Let's Play is the fact that it is very text heavy and visual novel like in nature. It has... unique gameplay elements to say the least. The art style pops out, the music is awesome and so far the story is awesomely twisted. I think anyone who's interested in visual novels and goes here to LSF should follow this LP since orenronen is doing a fantastic translation work of Dangan Ronpa and explaining the game mechanics. The update schedule isn't consistent, but you can always check the first page to see if there are any. Part of the fun of reading any Let's Play thread on Something Awful are the speculations and discussions about the game being played. Or you could just read the updates instead and be able to look at a game you can't get anywhere else.

I hope other people will look at this LP and enjoy it as much as I am! The prologue and first chapter has already concluded and it has not been disappointing so far

[OtomeWeekend]

oh my god. *_* thanks for posting it. I've been thinking twice whether I'd get this or not and the link you've given has given me the ultimatum. It looks really interesting TT.TT9 I'm buying this*goes to geo*

[Pugfarts]

I heard they were actually planning on localizing this one.. could be wrong though.

[Kura]

Oh man. This game is seriously awesome. Thanks for posting about it! I'm pretty sure I never would have come across it otherwise.

Almost inspiring me to make some bizarre twisted VN myself, ahaha.

[DrakeNavarone]

Read through the thread today, and at first it started off modestly, but after going through the entire first chapter.........

Man, that was exciting stuff... It's an amusing idea that's well executed and highly stylized. I'm so glad I got the chance to check this out, as I wouldn't have heard it otherwise. Still, I do wonder if I am gonna continue to read it... since I want to hope beyond hope there's a real localization in some form, official or fan-translated... This is just too much to be passed over.

[OtomeWeekend]

OH.MY.GOD.

So I just passed through the prologue...actually... the whole voice-acting was irritating... like maizono's always "ano desu ne". They should have just fully-voiced it instead of irritating voice-overs every sentences <.<

So far the game was interesting. Everyone should try this especially people who liked 999(it was like copy pasta with different environment) or any adv/survival game.

[MaiMai]

Ahhh, I'm so glad people here are liking it so far! I'm just giddy with anticipation for the newest updates and seeing more of this game <333

Man, that was exciting stuff... It's an amusing idea that's well executed and highly stylized. I'm so glad I got the chance to check this out, as I wouldn't have heard it otherwise. Still, I do wonder if I am gonna continue to read it... since I want to hope beyond hope there's a real localization in some form, official or fan-translated... This is just too much to be passed over.

The stylized nature of this game helps with the execution and atmosphere too. I wish I'd have the spare cash to get a PSP I'd totally get this game if it were official or fan-translated.

[OtomeWeekend]

Just finished chapter 1....and gosh, the trial system was awesome xD I kinda repeated the rhythm game for 297312789 times though due to I never paid attention to the instruction the first time and I always get game over on that one! Dx
^I didn't spoiled anything besides the rhythm game's difficulty right?
Really thank you for the heads up! xD *continues playing*

[Camille]

Ah, I played this game a bit when it came out last year! Didn't play on the hardest difficulty, though. xD Will probably go through the LP just to get a better understanding since my Japanese isn't all that great. Wasn't this game supposed to get a sequel?

[Omnificent]

This game is incredibly slick and doesn't pull any punches. I can't wait to see the next trial.

[MaiMai]

Ah, I played this game a bit when it came out last year! Didn't play on the hardest difficulty, though. xD Will probably go through the LP just to get a better understanding since my Japanese isn't all that great. Wasn't this game supposed to get a sequel?

I believe there will be a sequel and it was announced sort of a while ago? It was announced on Kotaku I think, someone on the thread linked it.

[OtomeWeekend]

Well I can only give infos. from a japanese game site "famitsu" Dx

http://www.famitsu.com/news/201108/04047830.html

Anyways, the sequel seems to be named as "Super Dangan Ronpa Goodbye School of Despair" and there are new super high leveled students.

If you scroll down on the link I gave, seems like the setting is some sort of island with the seven wonders of the world around it.

EDIT: Ahem, sorry. So the setting was in some southern island...surrounded by the seven wonders of the world @_@
There is a new system on the trial and on investigation system as well...of course, art has improved from before too. There is also some mystery on the characters who were unnamed since they well... look like the characters from the previous game(I'm swearing on my bottoms, they are either their kids....xP)

There was actually no much infos on it yet. And the release date is still not decided.

[Taleweaver]

I've been following that LP until now, and I must say:

Promising start, beautifully mad setting, major disappointment as a detective mystery. Explanation following; please only read after having read the LP:

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.

Yeah, angry rant. But my tolerance for bad plots is at an all-time low, I think.

[papillon]

The problem some people are having with it are expecting it to play by a particular set of rules that aren't at all what the game is trying to do. This is *not* a whodunnit where you read up to the fireside sitdown chapter, stick a bookmark in, think really hard about everything that's happened until that point, and then if you're clever enough come up with the Holmesian reasoning of what really happened.

That's a particular mystery genre. This game is not in that genre. If you're expecting that you will be upset. This is an adventure game, presenting a series of individual puzzles, and in a genre where using maple syrup to glue cat hair to your face is a logical plan, expectations need to adjust slightly!

That much I'm saying unspoiled because it's important to know ahead of time and doesn't give anything away.

You will not have all the evidence at the time a trial starts, don't expect to.

Now to the specifics:

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.

[Taleweaver]

This is *not* a whodunnit where you read up to the fireside sitdown chapter, stick a bookmark in, think really hard about everything that's happened until that point, and then if you're clever enough come up with the Holmesian reasoning of what really happened.

In my opinion, it's not a whodunnit at all. It's a crazy, senseless muddle of weirdness that fools the reader/player into believing he can somehow logically unravel it while it's plain impossible until the game chooses to throw a piece of true evidence into the reader/player's face out of nowhere - something he didn't even have to work for. And that piece of evidence doesn't even explain any of the former weirdness; it is only the key that makes the killer finally break down and spill the beans.

"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.

What Dangan Ronpa does is much, much worse. It's the writers of the game making fun of the intellect of their readers/players. That's a lousy thing to do.