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So I recently beat Shadows of Pygmalion and Tokyo Babel.  I saw both of them get flak from people here, and they definitely both had issues, but I enjoyed them both quite a bit.  I'm really hoping we get more Propeller games licensed officially.  I also beat SonoHana New Gen (which was much better than I'd expected it to be, but still had issues).  And I finished the prologue for Majikoi (which is as far as I said I would get before waiting for the updated version from Jast).  And I beat Nekonin Ex-Heart, which is ... not good.  At all.

Of the games I've been recently playing that leaves only Gahkthun, Chaos;Head, and Princess Evangile/W-Happiness.  I think  that I've had enough serious deep plots for awhile, though.  Not sure what I'm going to start; Chrono Clock or Kindred Spirits or Fashioning Little Miss Lonesome seem likely.

 

On 9/9/2017 at 4:34 AM, onorub said:

Reading Nocturnal Illusion and it's a perfectly standard 90's horror VN. It's cool that each girl has a character arc giving a episodic feel to it, but it's funny how conveniently the MC gets items.

Edit: Finished it and the ending might be where the novel's age show the most. It wouldn't be accepted today.

The original translation does not do the game any favors.  And yes, the game suffers because of its reliance on old school game design, to its detriment.  There's a reason the old adventure game style went out of favor; and the lack of a real route structure also does not work very well.  (In fact the only thing that affects endings is having to choose between [2 girls]; if you 'can't decide' then nothing happens, but if you pick one or the other, then only the bad ending for the other girl is accessible.)

But I think it's still an exceptional example of a good story, especially from the era.  If there are other horror games like it, I want to know about them.

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Making good progress in XBlaze: Code Embryo. It's an aight VN, the overall atmosphere of it kinda reminds me of watching Saturday morning cartoons, you got a bunch of high skoo peeps living in a semi-futuristic science-fantasy city setting where there's magic and the plot is centered around a supernatural anomaly where people can get infected (then dubbed 'Unions') which makes them gain a destructive power but they turn batshit insane 

Of course, Touya Kagari is just an everyday high skoo nice guy living a normal life with childhood friend Hinata Himezuru before his life is changed forever as he meets and is attacked by the first Union of the story which then sucks him into being involved with the Mitsurugi Agency which specializes in dealing with these Unions. They assign Es, a kawaii loli with the typical robotic personality to be his protector, much to Touya's dismay. Blah blah blah, we add more girls to the harem; Mei Amanohokosaka, another Mitsurugi Agency agent and classic tsundere hailing from the prideful Amanohokosaka clan; and Kuon Glamred Stroheim, a hot-headed mage apprentice from the Magic Guild from the the Magister's City of Ishana. What a mouthful.

I'm being literal when I say the girls are added to harem; they end up moving in with Touya and Hinata and transferring to their school, l0l. The crew go about their days pretty leisurely as the exposition reveals more about their world and the Unions-and-the-science-behind-them; by the way, xBlaze is set in the same setting as that 2D fighting game Blazblue which I never played so I'm probably missing a lot of the lore; meanwhile a group of rogue mages from the fabled 'Ten Sages' from Ishana visit the city with clearly up to no good intentions, and a serial killer dubbed the "Ripper" is rampaging around killing Unions.

Eventually all the players on the board will end up butting heads with each other all over our poor little Touya because naturally as the protag he has an inner, secret power hidden within him related to Unions that they all desire Naruto-nine-tails-jinchuuriki style.

So yeah, Saturday morning cartoon atmosphere xD


~~
I like the art direction. One thing I dislike from most VNs is that they can be EXTREMELY static with how they use and place their sprites; they're usually lined up at the same spot at the same distance from the protag's field of view, give or take the once in a while situation where they are zoomed in because they wanted to whisper something to the protag or are out in the distance waving goodbye. 

xBlaze actually is seen in the 3rd person rather than through Touya's eyes, so maybe that's why they actually took the time to 'choreograph' the sprites more but it's really appreciated and makes the interactions feel much more lively; they have front/side/back views of character sprites, their eyes will actually transition to look at another character, yada yada yada, yes this seems like a silly thing to praise but give me a VN where the character sprites aren't always front and centered and equidistant - aka static for 99% of the VN - and I'll concede ;p
4MwnRZi.jpg 
(Middle) Kuon's eyes were looking to the right before she looks left once Elise pines. 

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Usually you don't see a group of characters looking at each other like this unless it's a CG

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You get to see (left) Es's cute(?) antennae thing from behind, and oh look, distant sprites!

~~
A con(?) of the 3rd person: Touya, the protag, is also 3rd-personified. Just another character in this story; you don't see through his eyes, you don't hear his inner thoughts and monologues. He's actually voiced, but they gave him a wimpy ass voice so for the first time in my VN history I actually muted just his character, lel.

 

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Finally playing Muv-Luv Alternative and i'm pretty hooked so far. What a contrast from being bored in Extra and annoyed at the MC in Unlimited.

Update: Alright, episode 7 just make me go from "this is pretty alright" to "this is top 10 VN material". I wonder how i'll rank it when it ends.

2nd Update: Got to episode 9 and i didn't expect the infodumps to be THAT bad, holy shit. Completely fucked up the momentum from ep. 7.

3rd Update: Ended episode 9 and unless this has one of best endings ever, it's not even making to my top 10.

Final thoughts: Really liked ep. 10 and overall it barely misses my top 10. IMO the only amazing episode was 7 and the only great ones were 6 and 10, with everything else being just good. Favorite VN i've read this year so far.

Edited by onorub
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Just finished Subarashiki Hibi

Down The Rabbit Hole 1: 6/10
Down The Rabbit Hole 2: 8/10
It's my own invention, Kimika Route: 8/10
It's my own invention, True Route: 9/10
Looking-Glass Insects, Kimika Route: 8/10
Looking-Glass Insects, True Route: 9/10
Jabberwocky I: 7/10
Which Dreamed It: 8/10
Jabberwocky II: 8/10
Hill of Sunflowers: 6/10
Wonderful Everyday: 8/10
End Sky 2: ????(WTF???)

overall: 8/10

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I'm playing Subahibi as well and just finished Chapter 0 of Down the Rabbit Hole - including the twin route, and of course I'd started the real Rabbit Hole here and it's definitely the start of the story. As for my VN here, guess I'll try to find the time to continuing Chrono Clock later - still stuck at Makoto's route.

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Aight boys n' gals, I finally got my limited edition copy of Danganronpa v3: Killing Harmony, excited as hell for this stuff, time to stall everything else I'm playing/watching and let the killing games begin :upupu:

e: FK me, first I gotta download the JP voices off of PSN cuz it didn't come with it built in, and it's a 1.5GB download gg, gawd i hate english dubs 

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On 9/26/2017 at 4:28 PM, Funyarinpa said:

DANGANRONPA V3 TIME, BAAAAAAAAAAABYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

I'm in the fifth chapter's Free Time Events. I think that averages to around 5 hours daily. Vague spoilers

Spoiler

chapter 1: boring investigation, best-of-all-time trial (one particular SDR2 case still stands out)

chapter 2: my favorite character killed my second favorite character... ;_;

chapter 3: great investigation, perhaps the shittest trial in the series (seriously. incredibly telegraphed killer, most interesting stuff about the whole case is dismissed as distractions, they bring up the idea of there being two killers for like 20 fucking minutes (including a Debate Scrum) only to go "hmm it WAS him all along actually". greatest wasted potential the series has had after Case 2-3.

chapter 4: that was abrupt but shit is feels man. didn't really feel all that bad though because despite wanting to feel bad for that person, their translation's so grating I feel relieved

PS: Oma is definitely a self-insert for the whole fanbase imo.

 

Edited by Funyarinpa
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Aight I'ma be invading this thread over the next few days or w.e spamming my WTFUXXORS!@# on Danganronpa v3 because I just finished Ch 1 and as any DR fan should know, Ch 1 will ALWAYS gank the best characters so while I'm dying a bit inside, that was a pretty awesome 1st ClassTrial

The prologue is nothing new, though it does feel pretty long, easily 1-2 hours of having to explore the entire campus and meet-n-greeting all 15 other SHSL/Ultimate students before the Killing Game is even announced. And then of course you gotta slog around for another hour or two as the cast naturally claims that they'll never participate in such a game, yada yada, this and that happens, First Blood finally happens, and we finally get to have our first trial

We're led by a female protagonist this time, le gasp, the bright and sophisticated Ultimate Pianist Kaede Akamatsu. The writers are quick to pair her up with the soft-spoken and unconfident Ultimate Detective Suichi Saihara, and the duo move quickly with their schemes to try to unearth who the mastermind is so they can hopefully end the Killing Game before it can even begin, but what fun would that be if everything ended so quick and painlessly :upupu:?
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jEZUZ yOU Guys mOve WAy quiCkeR THAN makotoXsayaka/Kyoko and hinata/chiaki maNG 


~~
Obviously won't speak much of the actual trial because spoilers, but it's done extremely well and is easily one of the best trials in the DR franchise mainly due to the plot twist at the end. You start off knocking out easy peasy accusations because Tutorials before having to take down some pretty evidently-plausible attractive-distractor suspects and will even have to resort to LYING when the group all begins to home in on someone you just know isn't the culprit but they are too stubborn to desist. Then BAM, when you finally shed some light on who the culprit really is, it's just like Ho. Lee. Shit. No way. No Way. NO WAY. DSKFJSDKKSDKFJEJAKFJWEIRUT48323WHYYYYYYYYYY

Lying is just another mechanic to make Nonstop Debates more colorful, just like how they added the Agree mechanic in DR2. But it's nice to have another layer of stuff to keep you thinking, looking forward to see how future trials will carry out.
Hangman's Gambit v3.0 was thankfully revamped to be less tedious, since you can just point-and-click the required letters rather than trying to line-them-up-and-click.
Logic Dive didn't make an appearance, good riddance i hope, that surfboard minigame was so meh.
Panic Talk is still its usual rhythm game
Debate Scrum sounded cool in theory, since it's half the students with one opinion vs the other half, but it's really just a simple matching game of lining up your side's arguments against the other side.
Panic Debates are the one that's probably my favorite, it's just a standard Nonstop Debate...  multiplied by 3. Makes things feel pretty chaotic and intense having three people going off at the same time:
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~~
My best girls atm are Maki and Kirumi. Maki because she just looks great aesthetically (i luv me some black and red) and Kirumi because Ultimate Maid, was wondering when one would appear (closest we got was Yukizome's Ultimate Housekeeper). The dudes are whatevers, that one guy what's his face Supreme Leader is a wannabe Nagito, fk his annoying ass.

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I swear if these two die and leave crap like that Ultimate Supreme Leader live, I'ma-

~~
Eyyyyy, ULTRA DESPAIR GIRLS 2 COMING SOON XD
TuuU5JZ.jpg

TAKE MAH MONEHY

 

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^Be sure to post your reaction to the very end of the game, it's fun to see people reacting to that.

Reading Sharin no Kuni. Really liked Sachi's arc while i had mixed feelings on Touka's. In one hand, Touka's arc had a good first half and ending, while on the other hand the rest either felt like Persona when you beat a boss too quickly or had drama that was as dull as Yuzusoft's.

Edit: Finished, liked it but the ending confused me a little.

Spoiler

Did Houzuki knew Ken was faking the drug withdrawals or not? I have no idea how he just unlocked his chains like that and didn't just caned him once he said "i love you, mr. Houzuki" otherwise.

Also, it's more of a ideological thing, but it bothered me how Ken said that a politician should change people on the sister ending. A politician is meant to work for the people by preserving their rights, if your main objective is changing the ones you work for you're gonna eventually fail.

 

Edited by onorub
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27850.jpg

I finally finished Chrono Chlock. I really enjoyed the common route and Makoto's route and in retrospect it would have been the best to just leave it at that and walk away as a happy man, since the other routes were unfortunately not quite up to that standard.

The main strength of the VN were certainly the charming characters. Especially in the common route when the plot around the clock was still strong, the character interactions were engaging and funny. Makoto's route then showed how it 'should' be continued, with a slow transition to nakige and a dramatic heartwarming ending.

Unfortunately, for whatever reasons, the other routes turned out as low effort filler routes at best where the core plot was largely abandoned. And without any plot or at least the minimum tension the inclusion of the H scenes would have brought, there was just never ending, repetitive sweet talking. And the route I was mostly looking forward to, Chronos' route, was pretty much the worst of them. Taking such a beautiful and interesting character, and coming up with a complete bogus plot twist, just to turn her into a loli with all measurements halfed including IQ for the sole purpose of making a cheap and boring imouto route, was borderline heresy. Changing a character for a route is a big no-go anyway. If they wanted a loli Chrono, then why didn't they created her that way in the first place?

Anyway, the VN had certainly good parts, but most of the routes felt like they desperately wanted to keep their annual release date. But if they wanted that, they would have been better off skipping some routes to be able to flesh out others. Or just make one main route with optional romance choices for all heroines.

Character ranking: Chrono (true) = Makoto > Misaki > Miu > Michiru > D.D. > Chrono (loli)

Overall rating: 6.5/10

I would have still given the VN a 7 despite the weak routes because of its likable characters and at least the common route and Makoto's route were solid. But turning Chrono into a loli demands for some additional... punishment. <_<

Regarding other translated VN's I'm currently reading, I pretty much stalled Dies for the moment in favor of Fata Morgana. I still finished Kei's route though. Wasn't too fond of it - it mostly resembled a bunch of Street Figher videos with Nazi posers on Youtube in slow motion. Fata Morgana has its weaknesses too, but the plot feels a lot more engaging and interesting.

Besides that, I started reading Wagamama HighSpec. It was this or Hatsukoi and Wagamama just won for the sole reason that it was already play-ready and I was too lazy to install game & patch of Hatsukoi. :P

Edited by ChaosRaven
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On 6/11/2017 at 6:26 PM, Vorathiel said:

Remember that feeling, cause you'll not feel it much more. Almost everything in this VN feels 'irrelevant', because it's beta timeline and its' offshots. There are a couple of really intense scenes, great moments, but they will leave you with empty feeling of "actually nothing happened".

Finally finished SG0, took forever as I just lost interest with it. As you said Vorathiel, some great moments, but overall completely irrelevant as we had the perfect ending in SG. Glad Suzuha got fleshed out though, and I liked Maho. 

Next ever17 or Root Double...? Started fault milestone 2 instead, glad i did... best into ever!

Edited by Trickay
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Finished Chaos;Head !

Spoiler

 

+ Great story with a lot of (very)dark and fascinating themes (madness, otaku culture, internet, crime, Society decline...).

+ The Excellent paranoid, confusing and oppressive atmosphere goes well with the Character Design.

+ I liked the evolution of Takumi in the second part (Chapt. 6 or 7-10).

+ In my opinion, the OST is very nice.

 

+- The good idea of the Delusion System quiclky becomes boring.

+- Even if there was a good reason, Takumi is really too pathetic and too creepy in the first half of the VN.

 

- A and AA endings are frustrating and botched.

- Too much "work" to get the B ending.

 

1507105410-chaoshead004.jpg1507105420-chaoshead005.jpg

8 or 8,25/10

 

Edited by Canicheslayer
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Just finished the safe ending.(9 hrs 9 persons 9 doors).

I am left with more questions than answers,

This ending is soooo unsatisfying.

EDIT

Just finished the game. I mean...

WTF. That last scene, why is the Alice women there? DO they ever meet up? 

ARGH... This ending was soo good but soooo infuriating.

And confusing.

Edited by Akshay
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Finished Danganronpa V3

I have no screenshots for my upcoming walloftext because they decided to gg console peeps and block screenshot abilities from Ch 2 onwards for both PS4 & Vita versions apparently because they wanted to limit spoilers or something #ShouldveJustGonePCMasterRace

First let me load up some Mass Panice Debate craziness and some Debate Scrum coolness and Closing Argument thinkingness and finally New World Order v3 epicness as I type this because i fking love all of these BGMs:

Spoiler

 

 

 

Individual Chapter Thoughts (ULTIMATE SPOILERS INCOMING!!)

Spoiler

Ch 1 - Y'know, technically I should've seen what was coming from a mile away... Shuichi and Kaede were just moving waaay too quickly it should've been an obvious death flag like it was with Makoto x Sayaka. But I guess since they teased us with Kaede being the 'protagonist' she automatically was given plot armor in my book.

Anyways I LOVED the twist with Kaede being the murderer, you basically got to see the murder-in-the-makings but just not realize it with Kaede spending all that time stacking those books in the library and then randomly inspecting things in the storage and finding the shot ball while waiting for Shuichi to fetch the cameras... For the actual trial though I was too stupid and so when it was time for the revelation with the whole camera-having-Flash bit I actually accused like 6 other people before finally going OHHH its her >.> #seasonedDRplayer

Again, this was one of the best DR trials for me, but shortly after i was hit with a nasty bout of despair and salt since it meant another great character (Kaede) was thrown out at the very start (and i was looking forward to playing as her for the entire game, goddammit ._.). Damned Decoy Protagonists. False advertising!!! From then on anytime before a Class Trial where they showed all the character CGs with Kaede's redded out I would always feel a bit sad ;-;

Out of the three Danganronpas, I'd rank her death as the 2nd most tragic 'poster' heroine deaths, with the 1st being Chiaki (since she's the only DR2 member who actually doesn't live) and 3rd being Sayaka. The writers messed up with Makoto x Sayaka so her death didn't really feel as impactful as much as Shuichi x Kaede

Misc Comments:

  • WHYYYY KAEDE DIE ;-; I WANTED TO PLAY AS A FEMALE FOR ONCE, DAMMIT SHUICHI WHO ARE YOU ULTIMATE DETECTIVE WANNABE YOU AIN'T GOT NOTHING ON KYOKO
  • Maki and Kirumi are my first impression favorites. Red+Black Kuudere and Ultimate Maid pls
  • Monokubs are pretty annoying, it's like they merged the brats from Ultra Despair Girls with Monokuma

 

Ch 2 - Really felt like a 'business is business' Chapter. Just another day at the park. But goddammit, already one of my favorite characters has done goofed and committed murder, RIP Kirumi. Maki, you better live to the end. Also RIP Ryoma, he actually felt like a character that would survive until top 5 with the whole reason-to-live bits, and man that motive video being empty was depressing. ///PostTrueEnd comment: They all technically had nothing to live for anymore holy cow.

Insect Meet n' Greet was l0l, Gonta not being able to capture Miu because she was walking around in underwear was l0l

Trial was whatevers. They spent way too much time trying to logics obvious things like how to hide the body in the tank of piranhas and how to ropeway from the Ultimate Tennis Lab across the Pool to the Gym. Strand of Agony was a great execution, gogo Kirumi.

Misc. Comments:

  • MAKI! WHY WON'T YOU LET ME HANG OUT WITH YOU, STOP GUARDING YOUR DAY CARE ALL DAY ;-;;; 
  • WAIT, WHAT? SHE'S THE ULTIMATE ASSASSIN???!!! HOLY SMOKES,SHE'S AUTOMATICALLY BEST GIRL NOW 
  • Ouma's annoying af, he's the successor to Nagito, the tryhard who just pisses everyone off and should die asap, 
  • Angie's also annoying with the Atua crap, cute to see Tenko fighting so hard for Himiko's attention though
  • I just realized, people who unlock their Ultimate Labs have a super high chance of being involved in the next Class Trial, Ch1. Ultimate Piano Lab was open -> Kaede, Ch2 Ultimate Tennis Lab & Ultimate Maid Lab -> Ryoma & Kirumi... and later on Ch 3 Ultimate Art Lab & Anthropologist Lab -> Angie & Korekiyo... the pattern stops from Ch 4 onwards so I'm guessing it was purely a coincidence on the writers' behalf, but anyone who made this deduction would be pretty spoiled on who'd be involved in a murder, esp the following Chapter:

 

Ch 3 - Oh great, Angie's the prevalent character this time around, and she's brainwashed half the crew for her little Student Council BS, i was honestly expecting there to be a twist that she's actually the Ultimate Hypnotist or something xD. 4th floor of the school is unlocked, jesus the music here really matches Korekiyo and Angie's creepy supernatural thematics - their Ultimate Labs are also discovered, along with Tenko's, so yeah.

Shuichi x Kaito x Maki are established as the Makoto x Byakuya x Kyouko, the Ultimate Trio, and it was actually pretty nice to see this level of comraderie with the nighttime workouts and all since the previous games kind of lacked showing this level of intimacy during the main story and left it for Free Time events.

Reviving a dead participant was a cool possibility, I was hoping for Kaede's great return or something, but alas Angie got offed by Korekiyo by wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time, heh, reminds me of a certain Ultimate Traditional Dancer's death... 

Wax effigies were creepy as hell. Was nice to see Kaede's sprite again though.

The Trial was interesting, Prior to main perp reveal I was actually really, really scared that the culprit could be Maki- usually when characters are given time in the limelight it spells their impending doom, especially with how Maki was just revealed to be the Ultimate Assassin and started hanging out with Shuichi and Kaito more, along with her becoming your investigation partner this time around (last time a certain Ultimate Gambler decided to get serious and be involved with the case, she was the perp >.>). Made worse by her suggesting Tenko could've committed suicide and her knowledge of stabbing one's vitals.

But PHEW! It was Korekiyo, bwahaha. They obviously took from past games the double murder and possible double Blackened concepts, but ultimately fell short on execution when they just decided fk it, the same guy killed both. It was actually super obvious too, idk what they were thinking trying to pin the blame on Himiko just because she suggested using the room, but overall the whole ritual itself and how precisely it had to be set up just screamed only Korekiyo could do it. Also, goddammit Ouma and the fake death scene. A triple murder would've been awesome...

Misc. Comments:

  • Really digging Maki being escalated from non-existent side character to main heroine, writers made good choice xD.
  • Bummed out that Tenko had to die, losing her was like losing Ultimate Musician Ibuki in DR2, and post Ch. 3 the overall atmosphere of the game felt a lot quieter and empty without her around
  • Himiko got a nice dose of character growth after this though, so she's probably gonna be survive to the end due to the writers' "it'd be a waste to kill this character now" complex they did with the Ultimate Gangster.
  • Angie's the first of the dark-skinned DR girls to die, RIP 
  • Didn't really care much for Korekiyo, felt like his whole sister-persona thing was just a way to mirror him with DR2's Ch. 3 Mikan despair outburst. Cheap.

 

Ch. 4  Gonta stupid, chibi-sprite Neo World Program stupid (we all were expecting a cameo Jabberwock Island let's be real), Miu stupid, I was actually REALLY hoping that there would be a twist, something like "even though all sprites have same strength, with 2v1 it's still possible for Gonta to hold her down while Ouma did the actual strangling, so he wins the trial by successfully framing the convenient memory loss Gonta" but nope. Miu also attempting to kill Ouma because paranoia got the best of her felt really uncharacteristic too, just too weak of a motive. ///PostTrueEnd comment: But hey, she ultimately did create an invention to change the world- the electrohammers/bombs that paved the way to the final couple of trials and revelations ^^

Misc. Comments:

  • Too much time on trial spent explaining the world loop physics. I was snoring during that Psyche Taxi on how the bridge board landed on the left side of the rock towards the mansion side despite flowing to the right towards the chapel side. Psyche Taxi in general is by far the worst Class Trial minigame, jesus it just takes waaay to long and breaks the tempo.
  • Uh oh, Kaito has a terminal illness, I swear I was just waiting for him to eventually do the whole 'I can't die here! So I must escape! I must win the Trial!' but alas...

 

Ch 5 - What...? Ouma's the mastermind of this Killing Game? Well holy shit, that's as unclimactic a revelation as Monaca making an appearance during the Danganronpa 3: End of Hope's Peak. Something that makes sense but felt too easy to be the answer. And jesus, I heard it's possible to beat the 2D escape game without the Electrohammers, fk that.

The tie in revelations to the Hopes Peak Saga were nice, and really started making this game feel like a true Danganronpa Hope vs. Despair. Them being the LAST 16 survivors of humanity stranded on a ruined Earth was a huge downer, that means Makoto x Kyouko x Byakuya, Future Foundation, Hinata/Izuru, Komaru x Touko...all of them died? Boooo. Also makes this entire killing game and everyone's motives and convictions meaningless, Kaede's 'let's all escape and be friends'...Kirumi's last ditch effort to escape for the people... Ryouma's giving up on surviving... Gonta's 'everyone would be better off dead'... the follow up BSOD the surviving people had where they just stayed in their rooms for several days in utter despair was great.

The trial was, as all other 5th Trials in the series, pretty fun and emotional. Maki spending so much time in the beginning with her adamant belief that Kaito was 100% dead and belittling Shuichi's 'we don't know for sure!' makes sense once you realize she's the Blackened who shot the poison arrows, and you even get to have a Scrum Debate with just Shuichi and Maki vs. the rest of the cast once all the evidence points to Kaito clearly being dead. But of course, with Ouma being the sly bastard that he is, it turns out that's not true after all. Yada yada yada, Electrobombs disabling Monokuma's surveillance cameras, the hangar door alarm, and the hydraulic press's safety function along with using a pause-play camera and we got ourselves a recipe for an unsolvable mystery!

Ouma tried to pull a Nagito with his suicide gambit to fool Monokuma and while it was pretty clever, i still give Nagito the crown having the most WOW attempt even though I hate his guts. 

Misc. Comments

  • RIP Kaito. Good riddance Ouma. Overall just super relieved that Maki wasn't the culprit, losing both of of the Ultimate Trio would've been absolutely devastating
  • Maki had a thing for Kaito. D'awwwww :3 Was kind of hoping for her to fall for Shuichi, but I guess thematically she fits with Kaito better.
  • Would've liked to see how the 5th trial would've ended if Kaito let Shuichi play along with deceiving Monokuma, but I guess we saw soon enough in Ch. 6 that the rules weren't so set in stone after all since Ch 1's trial was rigged.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 6 - Well, that's gotta be the most Danganronpa way to end all of this huh, that's all i can say honestly xD.

Tsumugi being the mastermind didn't shock me too much, usually with Danganronpa the way things are set up literally anyone can be plot twisted however the writers wanted- could've just as easily been Himiko or Maki if they wanted. Kind of glad they didn't follow up on Kaede's twin sister, would've been too stale. It was also nice to finally see Tsumugi's Ultimate Cosplayer talent in action, and we got some nice lip service from all of the characters from the entire series to boot. That was pretty hype.

This is the first time a mastermind's been present thoughout the entire game though, so it gives a nice replayability aspect to the game to see how Tsumugi's been acting, though if i recall she's been pretty... normal and plain all this time. Perfect cover. I mainly just glossed over her living this long as being the writer's way to make up for offing a certain previous bluehead from the get go. But yeah, over on TV Tropes they already highlighted foreshadowing elements such as Ch 1 Tsumugi is the first to say that the culprit couldn't be the mastermind, or Ch 5 Tsumugi being the first to express shock when Ouma says he's the mastermind, during Free Time Tsumugi has the highest amount of time being around the Library / 2nd floor Classroom, her seat position in Class Trials is the same spot as Junko's was, etc...

Didn't really care much about the Ultimate Survivor Rantaro, the horse a twin b riddle was bullshit, K1-B0's robot battle with Monokuma & the Exisals was cool but it's like why couldn't you just do that earlier, the revelation that Flashback Lights created false memories was horrifically cheap, amnesia itself is already cheap enough now we gotta throw in fake memories? Booo.

RIP Kaede though, makes her death exponentially more tragic since she actually wasn't the perp after all... YO FK YOU SHICHUI WHEN I DERPED AND DIDN'T PICK KAEDE DURING THE FIRST TRIAL UNTIL SIX TRIES I ACTUALLY PICKED TSUMUGI

 

~~
But let's get to the meat of the goodies, whoop-dee-doo, the entire Danganronpa franchise is fiction in this particular universe* and the audience is the one that's been letting this killing game between hope and despair for continue V3 -> 53 seasons (i wanna play the 5th game, Final Danganronpa 5 goddammit xD)

*I thought DRV3's universe was meant to be our real life universe, but apparently it's just another fictional universe where DR1&2 is fiction / didn't occur, and their protagonist is K1-B0 since his eyes are what they've been seeing through and acting as his inner voice. Something like that.

Only Danganronpa could pull this off without looking like a total joke. I was kind of shaking my head a bit that this was ultimately all Danganronpa boiled down to, but not many games can break the 4th wall to this level so I just went along and enjoyed it for what it was.

K1-B0's one man stand as the Ultimate Hope Robot and having to take on Tsumugi's Despair in a Mass Panic Debate with Monokuma being Loud as hell was my favorite moment of this game, it was almost as epic as Hinata having to overcome his inner Despair in DR2. That was some epic shit right there.

Ultimately though Hope's not the answer this time as it simply continues the cycle, so Shuichi brilliantly comes up with the only way to finally put an end the Killing Game: Choose neither Hope nor Despair. No more games, let the timer run out on those stupid Psyche Taxis, Hangmans' Gambit, Mind Mines, we're done playing. 

Surviving cast: Shuichi, Maki and Himiko. Not too shabby.


~~
Overall I'd rate DRV3 a 9/10. enjoyed it more than DR1 but less than DR2. Any fan of Danganronpa will enjoy it nevertheless, it's a new Killing Game, new cast, Class Trials are more flashy, the cases quite often thematically focus on finding the truth vs. what you want to believe which makes the culprit plot twists even more suspenseful. Some of the investigations themselves are a bit lacking though since they try to make the murders happen in pretty complicated ways when they really aren't and so sometimes you'd spend a nasty chunk of time explaining an obvious detail in a Class Trial. There are some tie-ins to the first two games and the whole Hope vs Despair saga, and there's an Ultimate Revelation to be had that will literally make or break the entire Danganronpa franchise for you :upupu:

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On 10/1/2017 at 6:42 AM, ChaosRaven said:

And the route I was mostly looking forward to, Chronos' route, was pretty much the worst of them. Taking such a beautiful and interesting character, and coming up with a complete bogus plot twist, just to turn her into a loli with all measurements halfed including IQ for the sole purpose of making a cheap and boring imouto route, was borderline heresy. Changing a character for a route is a big no-go anyway. If they wanted a loli Chrono, then why didn't they created her that way in the first place?

Uhhhh, they did create her that way in the first place. That's how she was for the entire game. Maybe it's hard to tell because of the perspective in the CG's and the way she wears her kimono, but she's definitely a loli from start to finish. Just look at her on the cover:

b16ff9b9df87ecd63ffdc9ceb6d4253d.png

Edited by Decay
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45 minutes ago, Decay said:

Uhhhh, they did create her that way in the first place. That's how she was for the entire game. Maybe it's hard to tell because of the perspective in the CG's and the way she wears her kimono, but she's definitely a loli from start to finish.

Can you somehow back this? I checked the text and the protagonist calls her a 'woman' the first time they met and not a 'girl'. And the protagonist also mentions that she looks very different than before when she changed to a school girl and she also apparently split into smaller beings. Naturally, it could be just because she's clothed differently and the splitting into smaller things could be just in a more spiritual sense. But she really looks AND talks a lot more mature in her original form. I'm pretty sure that she was definitely made younger than before. There are definitely a bit too much indicators here to just reduce it to a few perspective issues in the CG's.

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