Board 8 > Danganronpa Spoiler Topic for All Games (SPOILERS)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Nanis23 posted...

OH YES THANK YOU
At that point I just wanted the game to end
Just mashed "Enter" or whatever key it was to skip text on PC
Game was far too long

speaking of this, there is way too many dialogue where I just skip

that's a big thing Ace Attorney and Zero Escape have over Danganronpa. So much of DR's dialogue is just....wasted breath about horniness or fourth wall breaks or anime references. It's skippable. DR has good highs and definitely can be serious when it needs to be, but for a game that's heavy on text, a lot of it is definitely skippable

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Danganronpa is definitely the most long-winded of the series, which can be really annoying. Characters rarely just get to the fuckin' point.

Ace Attorney is a work of understated genius on this front - there is very little wasted space in the script and all the joking around between characters is largely optional.

Paratroopa1 posted...

a) Everyone votes for Kokichi at the end, Monokuma confirms that it's correct and goes to execute the person in the mech, but Kaito pops out in a dramatic reveal at that moment, to the rest of the group's surprise, greatly upsetting the TV audience who realizes the game is rigged, and this makes K1-B0 go crazy instead which ushers 3-6 in a different way, with everything mostly going the same from that point.

Yes Please

like, serious question, is there more wasted potential in any video game ever than DRV3? For as much love as it (justifiably) gets, holy shit it still could've been so much better with just a couple relatively small tweaks

Reg posted...

Yes Please

like, serious question, is there more wasted potential in any video game ever than DRV3? For as much love as it (justifiably) gets, holy shit it still could've been so much better with just a couple relatively small tweaks

As much as it's my favorite of the trilogy, I can agree with this statement.

The fact that Angie's student council ends up being COMPLETELY meaningless (in a chapter with perhaps the WORST motive in the entire franchise)...it's such wasted potential.

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The resurrection motive could have been interesting, but it wouldn't quite work from the player's perspective.

(Obviously, the "resurrection" would have been faked by Flashback Light.)

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Inviso posted...

in a chapter with perhaps the WORST motive in the entire franchise

Eh, I'm not sure. The despair disease is pretty high up there

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I mean, it's not actually despair disease. She just regains her memories and kills them because she's a serial killer.
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Mac Arrowny posted...

I mean, it's not actually despair disease. She just regains her memories and kills them because she's a serial killer.

In that case "being a serial killer" is the same motive as V3-3

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hombad46 posted...

Eh, I'm not sure. The despair disease is pretty high up there

Large cash sum after five deaths have already occurred due to stronger motives > Nonsensical disease > Nonsensical revival of a dead character

Case 3 has the shittiest motive in every game.

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hombad46 posted...

In that case "being a serial killer" is the same motive as V3-3

Sure, though in 2-3 it at least ties into the main twist of the game.
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Mac Arrowny posted...

Sure, though in 2-3 it at least ties into the main twist of the game.

V3-3 kind of ties in, at least in that the main twist explains how they could revive a dead character, between the flashlights being manufactured memories, and the students either being kidnapped or consenting volunteers.

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Inviso posted...

Large cash sum after five deaths have already occurred due to stronger motives > Nonsensical disease > Nonsensical revival of a dead character

Case 3 has the shittiest motive in every game.

Worst motive is Mondo's...come on
He just got angry for the shittiest reason and decided to kill him...what

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Nah, Mondo's was better than most of those. Dude legit just lost it from a combination of survivor's guilt, his secret, and the pressure of being something he wasn't. It's a more natural, likely reason than a lot of them.

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Boy oh boy, Anagram sure did make some BAD "0%" predictions.

/100% prediction.

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Kaede Akamatsu: Ultimate Pianist
Obviously our protagonist. Her power is so much less impressive than Makoto's and Hajime's that it makes me wonder if she'll have a plot twist about her identity, but something tells me she won't.
Chance of being a victim: 0%
Chance of being a killer: 0%
Chance of surviving: 100%
Chance of being secretly behind everything: 30%

Chance of surviving lmao

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also a 0% chance of Himiko surviving

BOY WON'T HE BE SURPRISED (to be fair, I was too, because it's fucking hilarious that Himiko survives what is otherwise a total bloodbath of a game)

They keep teasing the possibility of her dying, though, and I think they were doing it on purpose - she was made to look like someone who would be a victim who inexplicably lived because DRV3 is all about defying the expectations of a player who has played DR1 and DR2, something Anagram really failed to pick up on

I'm sad because I'm being reminded of how cool it was to be a protagonist who had a normal Ultimate talent instead of being some bullshit Ultimate talent that isn't real

I really wish the game had started with Shuichi and had Kaede as the sidekick, and then switched to Kaede having to take up the mantle of Ultimate Detective, fuck that would have been sooooooo good

Paratroopa1 posted...

I really wish the game had started with Shuichi and had Kaede as the sidekick, and then switched to Kaede having to take up the mantle of Ultimate Detective, fuck that would have been sooooooo good

UshiromiyaEva posted...

https://archiveofourown.org/works/10517349/chapters/23213121

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Shuichi's the more interesting character, so I'm okay with it.

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Maki Harukawa: Ultimate Child Caregiver

Chance of being a killer: 50%

I mean...he's not wrong. >_>

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Inviso posted...

Shuichi's the more interesting character, so I'm okay with it.

I do like Shuichi as a very different take on a DR protag, and a different take on being an Ultimate Detective as well, so I'm still good with it, but I think rewriting it just a touch to have the player start as the Ultimate Detective, go "oh that's different", but then have him die and switch to a random cast member out of nowhere would have had even more punch. Although the way they wrote their personalities it works better this way, so Kaede would have needed to grow into her role a bit more and Shuichi would have needed to not.

I don't think I should repost this in the thread just because of the possibility of implied spoilers, even though there aren't really any, but this was my list of "who is most likely to be the mastermind" immediately after meeting all the characters:

1. Maki
2. Tsumugi
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3. Rantaro
4. Kokichi
5. Shuichi
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6. K1-B0
7. Himiko
8. Angie
9. Kirumi
10. Korekiyo
11. Kaito
12. Someone Else
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13. Miu
14. Kaede
15. Gonta
16. Ryoma
17. Tenko

I think I did pretty well, given that I had the right person in the top tier! But I understand his suspicion of Maki, since there's obviously SOMETHING going on with her - I knew almost right away in chapter 2 that she was gonna get promoted to sidekick.

also I just want to brag that I went 6 for 6 on correctly guessing killers before starting the trial

Paratroopa1 posted...

but I think rewriting it just a touch to have the player start as the Ultimate Detective, go "oh that's different", but then have him die and switch to a random cast member out of nowhere would have had even more punch.

I don't think anything beats the gut-punch of losing the first female protagonist. That was very clearly set up to hurt the player as much as possible.

I think what you described as an alternative is actually a difference in how V3 approaches emotion vs. DR1 and DR2. The first games talk about despair a lot but as far as the player is concerned, it's something you dabble in rather than experience. You're watching the characters go through despair and maybe experiencing it vicariously but it's not YOUR despair, it's the characters'. V3 does a far better job at attacking the player directly. The 'start as Ultimate Detective and switch to a random character' thing isn't an intrinsic emotional beat - it's just a twist and potentially interesting. Kaede was built up in the marketing as the first female protagonist, and they HAD to know there was a demand for that, which is why they gave you what you wanted and ripped it away from you.

Then you get to Gonta's trial, which is more of an anti-trial in how it serves to demystify the killer aspect and make the player as upset as possible with how it plays out, and the final case speaks for itself. When doing things well, V3 is very good at making the player feel despair, which is ironic considering it's the game where hope/despair matters the least in the story.

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Anagram's predictions this go-around are deliciously inaccurate, given how good he was at picking apart the first two games.

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Kaede is too perfect to have a game fully about her, they would have ruined her eventually!

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KamikazePotato posted...

V3 is very good at making the player feel despair, which is ironic considering it's the game where hope/despair matters the least in the story.

That was very much the realization I had when I finished V3-1, and I was just stewing in complete amazement at what just happened to me.

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KamikazePotato posted...

I don't think anything beats the gut-punch of losing the first female protagonist. That was very clearly set up to hurt the player as much as possible.

I think what you described as an alternative is actually a difference in how V3 approaches emotion vs. DR1 and DR2. The first games talk about despair a lot but as far as the player is concerned, it's something you dabble in rather than experience. You're watching the characters go through despair and maybe experiencing it vicariously but it's not YOUR despair, it's the characters'. V3 does a far better job at attacking the player directly. The 'start as Ultimate Detective and switch to a random character' thing isn't an intrinsic emotional beat - it's just a twist and potentially interesting. Kaede was built up in the marketing as the first female protagonist, and they HAD to know there was a demand for that, which is why they gave you what you wanted and ripped it away from you.

Then you get to Gonta's trial, which is more of an anti-trial in how it serves to demystify the killer aspect and make the player as upset as possible with how it plays out, and the final case speaks for itself. When doing things well, V3 is very good at making the player feel despair, which is ironic considering it's the game where hope/despair matters the least in the story.

This is good analysis, I see your point

And for the record I think starting with Shuichi and switching to Kaede would've been great! Still a much better start than DR1 and DR2 had. It would've made more players overall happier too. DRV3 takes a lot of risks in what it does. Attacking the player directly requires walking a tightrope - how badly can you upset them in a way that's interesting without taking away too much of what they like? Where this line is drawn differs vastly from person-to-person. You see it in this very topic where some people outright hate what happened in Case 1 and Case 6. They are entitled to this opinion; it simply did not work for them, and that's the natural result of what V3 aims for.

I think at the end of the day it makes for a more interesting overall experience though. I don't agree with 100% of what DRV3 does (I like Case 6 in theory but it has execution issues) but I don't think there's a narrative quite like it out there. Something like Kaede's death creates an emotional upheaval that reverberates throughout the rest of the game, and that's just Case 1.

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I can't remember if I ever described this but I had a theory in 3-6 that didn't pan out that still really upsets me - when they threw in that red herring about Kaede having a twin sister, I thought for sure that it was going to turn out that the Kaede we knew in the game told the TV show's producers something like, "I want to be just like my sister Kaede, she's amazing," which would give both Shuichi and the player that little twinkle of light in the distance knowing that the "real" Kaede is out there somewhere, even if our Kaede died - I think it would have been a nice way to bring things full circle and to sort of apologize for being so cruel in taking Kaede away from us in the first place, without disrupting the impact her death had in the first place. (They could have also brought back the time Tsumugi showed us having cospox when dressing up as Kaede - if it turned out that cospox was a real phenomenon and she couldn't cosplay Kaede because she was based on a real person!) But they didn't do that, it was just a dumb red herring, lol. I do think it would have been nice if they 'closed the loop' on Kaede in the end, just to give us some kind of thematic meaning to her death or some sort of way in which that outcome meant something in the end, but oh well.

Cospox is a dumb plot twist too. It's SO pointless.

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Cospox serves to muddle the waters of what is/isn't real in Case 6, which it does but is also a little weird

The most unrealistic part of Case 6 is actually that their plan worked, the world would have absolutely voted to continue the killing game and then shitposted about it on twitter

Keebo going against audience wishes was pretty awesome though

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Yeah I feel like it's a bit forced the way they end up stopping the game in case 6. This is why I really like my suggestion earlier of having 3-5 actually revealed to the audience to be a sham - it would destabilize the whole operation like nothing ever had before, and Kokichi going out making the whole game's audience realize the whole thing's a fraud would've been such a goddamn baller move. And then Keebo, instead of just having his antenna randomly clipped, could instead go insane because of all the angry people in his head, and then have to work through that instead. I dunno, just feels like it would have been a smoother transition into the rest of the cast being able to get Danganronpa canceled.

Sadly I had that protagonist switch spoiled to me on 4chan ( I don't remember how it happened and why I was dumb enough for this to happen to me) so I felt less of an impact
But looking back and thinking "what could have been" with Kaede as the main lead for the whole game..yeah, I am in despair

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I loved the Case 1 twist and I'm glad it exists but I would have also been happier if I got to play with Kaede instead of Shuichi.

KamikazePotato posted...

I don't think anything beats the gut-punch of losing the first female protagonist.

Hmm, I don't think the idea that killing female characters has more emotional impact on the audience is a good reason to kill female characters.
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Mac Arrowny posted...

Hmm, I don't think the idea that killing female characters has more emotional impact on the audience is a good reason to kill female characters.

You're missing a layer, Mac. It's not "female => dead" results in greater impact, although that may be true. It's "first female protagonist => dead" that is jarring. Both that they killed something that the player base clearly wanted, and that they killed the player character...that the person you were manipulating murdered someone without you being aware of it until the trial. Each game has featured roughly six dead female characters, and none of them have the impact that Kaede's death does.

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Oh yeah thanks for reminding me that Kaede did not kill Rantaro and that was such a stupid twist and I am angry again thanks

I mean I know why they needed to do that to make a connection to a mastermind (and prove the game is rigged) but..WHY

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Since Para brought up the whole "getting the killer right going into the trial" thing, here's how I did.

Got the killer right: Leon, Celeste, Sakura, Junko (as the mastermind), Mikan, Gonta, Kaito, Tsumugi.

Mess-ups:
I though Byakuya killed Chihiro.

I thought Nagito killed the impostor.

I had Mahiru's killer narrowed down to Peko washing the blood off and Sonia wearing a bodysuit to hide the blood and went with Sonia.

I thought Fuyuhiko killed Nekomaru.

Totally thought Nagito offed himself.

I thought Shuichi killed Rantaro.

I thought Miu fabricated her alibi with Gonta and killed Ryoma.

I thought Kiyo was too easy and thought Tenko killed Angie and Himiko killed Tenko and Himiko would get to survive.

I know I said I got Kaito right, but that's only half true. I thought both were dead, Kaito killed Kokichi and Maki killed Kaito, and would get to survive. I just REALLY thought the "first murder counts only" rule would actually mean something.

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The newest Anagram predicitions are amazing
They are so much off, like almost the exact opposite of what happens

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Most Likely Victim: Tsumagi or K1-B0
Most Likely Killer: Maki
Most Likely to Die Period: Ryoma
Most Likely to Survive besides Kaede: Kato and Rantaro
Most Likely Mastermind/Spy: Suichi or Kirumi

1 for 5.

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And the easiest one, at that.

I'm really surprised he thinks Maki is the killer. For as much as he metagames, Maki is just too obviously sinister to be the R1 killer.

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Oh my goodness those Kaede percentages. I absolutely can't wait for his reaction to 3-1.

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azuarc posted...

And the easiest one, at that.

I'm really surprised he thinks Maki is the killer. For as much as he metagames, Maki is just too obviously sinister to be the R1 killer.

He doesn't think Maki is the first killer, he hasn't gotten to the murder yet. He thinks that she will kill, not that she has.

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azuarc posted...

You're missing a layer, Mac. It's not "female => dead" results in greater impact, although that may be true. It's "first female protagonist => dead" that is jarring. Both that they killed something that the player base clearly wanted, and that they killed the player character...that the person you were manipulating murdered someone without you being aware of it until the trial. Each game has featured roughly six dead female characters, and none of them have the impact that Kaede's death does.

This is what I was getting at but the point Mac brings up is an interesting enough topic that I want to address it

Mac Arrowny posted...

Hmm, I don't think the idea that killing female characters has more emotional impact on the audience is a good reason to kill female characters.

When it comes down to it, writing is the act of emotionally manipulating your reader/player/watcher/whatever into feeling a specific emotional response. When doing so, you have to consider every angle. People's emotions are influenced by a wide variety of factors, most of which they're unable to actively control.

With that said, it would be irresponsible of a writer not to consider the dichotomy between responses of violence/death against males vs. violence/death against female. Simply put; people care more when a female character is hurt. You can make them care as much about the fate of a male character, but it almost universally takes much more time than a female equivalent. An average male character needs several hours of familiarity to reach that same emotional response to harm that people will have for an average female character after 5 minutes. This is due to social and biological factors and is ubiquitous in every culture I can think of.

That's obviously not to say you should always kill female characters for MAXIMUM PATHOS or anything. Outside of the fact that it very very quickly become 'overused' and expected, an excess of violence against women in media has a very high chance of sickening people to the point where they don't want to watch anymore, even if it makes sense in the context of the story. You can torture a dude and get away with it. Torturing a woman is something almost no one wants to see. It would also add to the whole Women in Refrigerators problem (which, to head off any comments, Kaede dying is not an example of).

Even so, it's still a factor for a writer to consider when looking into their toolbox, just like - for example - the fact that a younger character dying is considered more tragic than an older character dying. A common element in media that you'll notice very often if you look for it is that when writers want to signify that shit's getting real, they kill off a male character. When they want to do that AND make a person have a visceral gut reaction, they kill off a female character.

And they do this because it works. If you Genderswap Kaede and Shuichi I guarantee the reveal has much less emotional impact for people even if they weren't clamoring for a specific kind of protagonist. Kaede is close to Shuichi's level of popularity and she was around for like 5 minutes, simply because she was a girl with a good character design, and I say that as someone who likes Kaede. Men are considered expendable until you get to know them while women start at a higher baseline of importance. The Danganronpa writers are far from perfect, but in this instance I think they knew exactly what they were trying to do, and they succeeded. Whether or not it worked for you is a your mileage may vary scenario.

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I was under the impression the reason they killed the female lead was because most DR players in Japan are women so having a husbando in the lead sells more than having a waifu.

But that's some random opinion I read in Reddit. No idea what the actual reason is.

The amount of Kokichi x Shuichi (and Nagito x Hajime) hentai out there agrees with that!
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It doesn't take very many female Japanese fans to flood the internet with yaoi.

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