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This just in: The PS Vita is still ***, and we know what that means!
That's right! Spike Chunsoft keeps driving as far away as it can from it, with the
black and white bear *and* the pink-slightly-darker-pink bunny in the backseat, leaving them
with a better foster family known as the PC MASTER RACE.
Now, this entry is far more important to me, personally.
Why?
Because out of the two, this was the one that didn't get a fan translation, because them
*** at NIS America were oh-so-very kind to re-release the *** game on THIS piece of ***,
and that means that the beautiful group of people working on the original
japanese PSP version, decided to stop the process halfway through, and
since I can't read japanese, I couldn't play it until... Now, basically.
So thank you, Abstraction Games, for allowing me to explore the world of...
Danganronpa 2 follows an extremely similar structure to its predecesor.
You know what they say, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!"
That means that there's still guys with weird hair, girls with speech problems, guys
that look too old to be high-schoolers, blonde troublemakers, girls with
big ***, a plain old main character... The usual.
And yet, something feels... Weird.
One minute you're talking to your friends in the classroom, and the next,
a pink bunny dressed as Sailor Moon arrives waving her Sakura Card Captor wand and says: "Remember
all that claustrophobia you felt during the first game?
Well, now I give you... AGORAPHOBIA!"
And just like that, the classroom dissolves into...
...the outskirts of an island.
It's... An interesting idea, despite being really strange.
This kind-hearted bunny tells you that there will be no killing game on the island
and instead you need to collect "hope fragments"
(Yes, those *are* a thing in the game), but of course, as soon as the main
character lowers his guard, Mr. Bear here makes his appearance and imposes a
new and improved killing game for this gang of misfits.
AGAIN.
But now on a tropical island.
Without further ado, let's get to it!
GOOD WORLD
I find it very impressive that these guys not only keep their cool and composure despite the
situation they're in, but they also get along really well with each other!
Unlike the first game, where everything was "OHH DISTRUST, BETRAYAL, GET ME OUT
OF HERE", these guys seem far more relaxed and friendly.
Not to the main character, though!
Remember the video I made for Danganronpa 1 when I praised how ordinary Makoto Naegi
is?
Well, they're both easily relatable; both Makoto Naegi and Hajime Hinata, for very
different reasons. The former because it's so ordinary that he's an open book, and the latter because
he's so mysterious that he's a closed one, and the fact that everyone gets along with
each other but with him, makes for a very interesting structure for this enigmatic character,
of which we only know by name.
It's also worth noting that being the outsider of the group, it strengthens your desire to
meet each and everyone of these guys, and this means that the social link aspect is,
in a way, better than the first game's.
As for a favorite character, this time there's no doubt: IBUKI FOREVER, BABY!
Similar to Danganronpa 1, the trials are one of the best parts of the game:
They're really heavy on character development, but there's quite the number of stuff
this time around.
From 3D-modeled snowboarding sections to crossing swords with your
classmates, there's a lot more variety in the trials' minigames, and let's be honest:
Any inventive way to call a killer on their *** is always welcome
to me.
I'll try to be as anti-spoiler as I can because I really don't wanna ruin the
MINDFUCK that is the impossible mystery, but I *am* going to say that despite being
a caveat that we've seen before, Danganronpa 2 cranked it up to 11 and took it to a n
exorbitant, head-scratching, mind-blowing level, as it constitutes a riddle whose answer
cannot be found without depending on probability instead of hard evidence, and considering
that this happens during a case and you *need* to know the answer to save
everyone's lives, it really strengthens the sence of urgency.
It's a genius plan by a genius character that I really despised, which, of course,
made me hate him *even more*, but it served as a turning point for this entry
because it's a wake-up call from the developers for us to really start taking
this experience seriously.
On the other hand...
BAD WORLD
Anti-spoiler as I am, I can't give the first case a free pass because of that.
This garbage was an absolute, convoluted, abysmally garbage mess that involves a party,
a character with OCD, a knife under a table, a wooden floor with
extremely spacious floorboards, an iron skewer on the unlikeliest of places,
a blackout via fuse overload, and THIS.
Danganronpa has always been notorious for its complicated cases, but his is too much!
For this plan to come into fruition, everything needed to be timed perfectly,
to know the security and fuse systems beforehand *and* certain characters needed to be exactly
where they were to catch the culprit, and as I said, it's the FIRST *** CASE!
This type of sloppy writing makes me think that this case was written as it
went along, and I swear I was this close to deleting the game after such a stupid experience.
Speaking of things that happen really early in the game...
Monokuma was an interesting character in the first game; he was menacing but playful,
he was a stuffed animal and even so he was more sentient than you'd expect...
All in all, you didn't know whose side he was on because he was such a mysterious character
for better or worse, and none of its appearances felt forced or too intrusive.
This time, not only have they completely "cartoonized" him (even by anime
standards) but also, besides being almost entirely crossed out from the main story, when
he *does* appear he needs to share time with Monomi, his "little sister", and
hoo boy...
I still respect Monokuma as a character and in some ways I can sympathize with Monomi, but
I HATE THEM BOTH TOGETHER.
From "comedy skits" to blatant Saint Seiya ripoffs, Monokuma and Monomi's
interactions are despicable.
They're far too ridiculous and out of place to be considered "comic relief"
and it diminishes the credibility, personality and overall image for the both of them.
SCHNEIDER'S LOG
Dangnaronpa 2 is really strange when comparing it to its big brother. It's certainly better
in some aspects, but it failed to meet the bar on others, and even though
these slip-ups don't necessarily mean that Goodbye Despair is a bad game,
it does make me think, in my most honest opinion, that it's inferior to its predecesor.
This game started out poorly and despite quickly getting up on its feet to reach even bigger heights
in quality than the first one, Danganronpa 1 was a far more solid,
better paced and more focused experience the whole way through.
Even so, if you really liked the first game (as I did), you owe it to yourself to
check out Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, because it's basically Danganronpa
1, and that game was good.
Thank you so much, my fellow explorers, for joining me in this hope-filled adventure
through the world of Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair.
If you liked this video, subscribe!
And I'll keep you poted with all the worlds I'll be exploring.
Have a game you think I should look at?
Leave it in the comments!
My name is Tom Schneider, and I'm gonna reveiw the world!