Destination Despair | Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair Review

When I reviewed Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc on the Vita in early 2014, I’d never experienced a visual novel game prior. To be honest, the idea of a visual novel didn’t entirely interest me, but after I spent just one hour with Danganronpa, I was hopelessly hooked. The over the top characters and mix between dark themes and disturbing humor was nothing like I’d ever experienced before, and it worked incredibly well that putting down my Vita was a near impossibility. Now, Dangaronpa’s sequel, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, is upon us, and it’s just as disturbingly brilliant as the first.

In Danganronpa 2, you take on the role of Hajime Hinata, an “Ultimate” student of Hope’s Peak Academy. Ultimates are students who are the best at what they do, though they certainly aren’t always something you’d imagine being noteworthy. There’s the ultimate team manager, gamer, and lucky students, among others, and their specific skills create not only interesting scenarios, but also can be used to set up huge twists withing the story. You and your fellow ultimates have somehow mysteriously been transported to Jabberwock island. While Jabberwock Island is normally a beautiful resort, it’s been transformed into a prison by the game’s antagonist, Monokuma. Monokuma is a little, psychotic bear who’s one purpose is to instill as much despair as possible and destroy all hope, and it’s up to Hajime and his fellow classmates to endure the despair and preserve hope.

Just like the first Danganronpa, the students are being held captive against their will, and the only way they can escape is to murder another student and get away with it. When a student is murdered, the investigation into their murder begins. You and your fellow classmates must find and analyze clues that unravel the mystery and reveal the killer. After you discover all possible clues, Monokuma will force all the students to start the class trial, where all students must discover who the killer is; if they do, the killer will be executed, but if they don’t, the killer will be able to leave the island, and every other student will be executed.

Class trials are very similar to courtroom battles in Phoenix Wright games, except there are more people injecting their opinions in at once. Class trials are essentially a hub for various mini-games to occur to try and find the truth. The most prominent one being nonstop debates, which has the entire class arguing their thoughts, and you must aim and  “shoot” their weak statements with evidence or “truth bullets,” as the game calls it, to dismantle their argument and progress the trial. You’ll be given various pieces of evidence which you can shoot with, and it’s up to you to decide which truth bullet can be connected to certain claims. New to Danganronpa 2 is the ability to support another person’s argument by shooting their statement with a truth bullet that backs their claim up. Where weak statements that you must dismantle are orange, these new supportive statements are blue. When the game starts to piece every element together, you’ll eventually have to take all evidence and claims into consideration and find out if you need to support a claim or shoot down another. It becomes an incredible satisfying test, and those who pay attention through all the investigation will be rewarded for understanding the case and finding the truth.

Most of the gameplay is the same from the first Danganronpa, but what’s introduced in its sequel is hit and miss. Hangman’s gambit returns from the first game, where you must put floating letters into an order that forms a clue or keyword that’s locked in Hajime’s brain. The issue here is that trying to solve the puzzle is put on the backburner for trying to not take damage from the pieces hitting each other. Another new mini-game is called Rebutal Showdown, where you and another student “duel” back and forth to argue specifics. The actual idea of this mini-game is intriguing, but the way the dueling is handled is somewhat of a mess. Words from the person will float on the screen, and you must slash them out with either directional buttons or with the touch screen. Eventually, you must use a sword clue to cut through a specific line to end the segment, but when you’re frantically slicing through dialogue, it’s easy to slice through the statement you need to target with a clue, which then penalizes you and makes you start over.

The cast of characters in Danganronpa 2 are just as memorable as the cast from the first game, and it’s their weird intricacies and personalities that make them so memorable. What makes every murder so powerful is that the game gives every character such an unforgettable personality, and seeing that once vibrant character now lifeless is stark contrast. What’s equally heartbreaking is getting to know all these characters and ultimately finding out their true motivations that may have led them to murder other student’s for their own selfish motivations. Having a visual novel be able to go in depth with all of these characters gives each their character their due, and no character feels as big or little as the rest, which helps keep the mystery of “whodunnit” harder and harder to predict.

One of my favorite aspects of Danganronpa is you can decide how well you want to get to know your fellow students on the island. During your free time on the island, you can interact and hangout with any character you’d like, and this can open up some secrets they’ve been holding, or revealing their personal motivations and what drives them. Now, learning this extra information isn’t necessary for the plot, but doing so can unlock special abilities for class trials that can become the deciding factor between finding the killer, or losing your life.

What’s most impressive about Danganronpa 2 is that it can weave together painfully serious moments, hilarious interactions, and gripping mystery into one cohesive package. Those who are patient enough to have the story unfold in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair are sure to enjoy the off-the-walls characters and story, and even those who have never played a visual novel may find Danganronpa a great place to start. Whether it’s the intriguing characters, the off-the-walls plot, or the huge twists that await, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair is one of the very best titles this year.

This review is based on a review copy of the PlayStation Vita game Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair by Spike Chunsoft and distributed by NIS America.