Review: Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair

The genre of these games is 'Horror'? Just how much of that is in there and how does it compare to 999 and Virtue's Last Reward, two other games I've heard some off-putting things about? I did love the story of Ghost Trick on the DS that was about solving murder mysteries, but that game was tame overall. I'm in a bit of a tricky spot here, I'm interested in checking out Danganronpa and maybe even the two other games mentioned above, but I'm too scared of spoilers to research whether these games are suitable for me or not. I'm a pretty big scaredy cat when it comes to horror stuff, after all.

I'd really appreciate some help from people who have played these games.

They're murder mystery visual novels with a splash of a horror factor because the theme is murder. Don't have a visual novel genre option so I put them as horror, but will change to adventure for now. It's not horror with jumps and scares like a survival horror, just the theme is horrific.

Something like that might barely do, then. Do you have to make decisions that affect who survives or stuff like that? I think you have to in 999 and VLR, which is one thing that puts me off a lot. Not sure about Danganronpa, though.

Nope, it's all fixed in DR.

That's great news for me. Not sure if it's my OCD kicking in or not, but I much prefer stories that are fixed where I can just sit back and enjoy the ride without any worries. Little variations are fine, but anything substantial bothers me for some reason. "What if I did this instead?..." won't leave my thoughts, but finding out lessens the impact of the path I picked the first time around and the story in general. Basically, I lose either way. It's hard to explain, but that's why I generally stay away from games that do have this stuff. The light decision making in Tales of Xillia 2 just barely didn't cross that border.

Think I'll put both Danganronpa games on my list to pick up in the near future. After all, I really need to work on my Vita collection. I've yet to buy a single extra game for it, actually.

Definitely understand the multiple path complaints. It's something you have to really be in the mood for and I'll only put up with it for certain games that really draw me in.

999 had multiple endings, and one true ending. You needed to view one certain ending to then do the true ending, but it was a pain because you had to replay every puzzle if they happened to be on the same path. Text could only be sped up if read before, but not skipped entirely (but it was a very quick fast-forward function).

VLR nailed it by giving you a road map, letting you jump to the branching moments to go down another path. No replaying text or puzzles; nothing was repeated. You could just get the full story by going down all paths and eventually it all lead to the true ending. Less frustrating than 999, but both fantastic stories.

Zero Escape has more gameplay than DR due to its puzzles, but DR takes it for me with its characters and story.

Just finished this last night/this morning ish

A amazing story and even had me on the verge of tears at one point

Would definitely recommend both games to anyone with a Vita

gf20 said:
Just finished this last night/this morning ish

A amazing story and even had me on the verge of tears at one point

Would definitely recommend both games to anyone with a Vita