Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair Anniversary Edition

Genre: Graphic Adventure / Visual Novel

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in the physical-only bundle Danganronpa Decadence, along with Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc Anniversary Edition, Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony Anniversary Edition, and Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp.)

Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (from here on for the sake of simplicity simply referred to as Danganronpa 2) is the direct sequel to the 2010 original game in the Danganronpa franchise, with this entry in the series having originally been released in the West on PlayStation Vita in 2014. In the time since that release, the game has appeared on numerous platforms, and in multiple bundles, though its release on Nintendo Switch in 2021 as an Anniversary Edition marks the first time the game has been brought to a Nintendo platform.

This game bears a lot of similarities to the first game in the series, so I’ll be re-using some of the text from that review and changing it where it is warranted.

Similar to the original Danganronpa, this game combines elements of Graphic Adventure and Visual Novel games, with the player taking the role of one of a group of students starting their school year at an ultra-elite high school, only to find they have apparently been kidnapped and brought to a deserted island resort where they are held prisoner, taunted by a sadistic animatronic bear named Monokuma (here joined by a peace and love-spouting bunny named Usami) who claims to be their new “headmaster”, who and says that there is only one way to leave this place – Monokuma tells the students that any of them who kills one of their peers without getting caught by the group will be allowed to escape back to the outside world.

With this plot setup, you can see multiple influences at work here. A story focused on a group of schoolkids forced to murder each other to win their freedom harkens to the beloved cult film Battle Royale, and more modern derivatives like The Hunger Games. The group dynamics and atmosphere of suspicion seems inspired by the classic game Werewolf AKA Mafia, or its popular recent successor, Among Us. And the game’s detective work and courtroom scenes to determine who’s guilty of murder frequently resembles the Ace Attorney franchise. Suffice it to say, I believe that all of these comparisons are apt, yet anyone who played the first game can tell you that this series is far more bizarre in its twisting plot and its unusual tone.

Much as with the first game, this game’s themes of death and despair clash with its presentation, which is frequently jovial and whimsical, with Monokuma himself being cartoonish both in mannerisms and in his over-the-top voice. However, I feel like the second time around, the tone is even wackier and more bizarre, thanks to this game’s cast of characters.

Where the first game’s cast of unlucky students were mostly all stereotypes, this game goes even more absurd and cartoonish with these stereotypes, and while I know that many were delighted with this game’s characters, I simply hated them right from the start. Seemingly every last character here is poorly-written, self-obsessed, and unlikeable, including the player character whose shouty, complainy, over-the-top reactions make it difficult to sympathize with his plight.

On a technical level, this game combines 3D and 2D elements in a way that seems odd, but which can perhaps be dismissed as stylistically intentional. Characters all have highly-detailed anime-style portraits, and this is how they’re represented when you see them in the game’s simple but colorful 3D locales… which is to say that they all have the appearance of cardboard standees. Again, it’s visually-interesting, but it’s not going to be for everyone. Also, this game seems to suffer from some framerate issues at times, though this doesn’t really hamper the gameplay.

As with the original Danganronpa, the gameplay here has long stretches of story where players are listening to discussions between the game’s characters, as you’d expect from a Visual Novel. There’s also a “dating game”-style relationship system here. These story bits are interspersed with freely wandering around the island, and often this is what you’ll be doing after a murder has been committed and you’re searching for clues.

Finally, you have the series’ courtroom sections, when the game feels you’ve gathered enough evidence and must use it to piece together how the latest murder happened and who the culprit is. Mostly this plays out like an Ace Attorney-style search for contradictions in the statements characters make, but Danganronpa 2 once again piles on multiple tedious minigames on top of this, such as literally making players shoot away contradicting statements with “truth bullets”. If they just stuck with the “find the contradiction” stuff, this would be great, but all these additional elements seem unnecessary and junk up the gameplay to make it far more complicated and tedious than it needs to be. Also, as with the first game, the movement controls for navigating the environment are just terrible.

I’ll be honest, I simply could not get into Danganronpa 2 in the same way I could with the original. The first game was odd and at times off-putting and poorly-designed, but it was still fairly novel and its characters and story were great. But Danganronpa 2 has all of the bad qualities of the first game combined with a story and gameplay that seems derivative, and a cast of characters that are wholly unlikeable. Fans of the first Danganronpa may appreciate this continuation of the series, but I found this to be a huge step down from the first game.

tl;dr – Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, much like the first Danganronpa, is a game with Visual Novel and Graphic Adventure elements where players find themselves among a group of high school students who have apparently been kidnapped and told their only way to escape is to kill each other. The gameplay and overall story seem highly derivative of the first game, and the characters this time around are more poorly-written and overall pretty unlikeable. Danganronpa fans may appreciate a return trip to this bizarre franchise, but everyone else is better off sticking with the first game.

Grade: C+

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