Board 8 > Rain Code out in 1 week! (Danganronpa 4: The Somnium Files)

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://youtu.be/-TQ_2J-QM9c

Other than XVI this is my most anticipated release of the year, wish it wasn't releasing one week after it though.

Who else is planning on giving it a whirl?

Gonna wait to find out if it's good - I played Danganronpa for the premise, not for the style.

I don't think I can do it. The only part of Danganronpa I really liked was the trial aspects. I get that it's still here (kind of) but also that girl/mascot character seems really annoying.

My mom still insists on spending a lot on me for my birthday, so this seemed like the perfect thing to throw on a shortlist for that. Which means I'll be getting this in August.

Considering how I felt about the DR games leaning strongly no

I'll almost definitely end up playing it at some point

The side character is annoying but I just finished Somnium Files 2 and I'm still feeling more spike chunsoft

I watch that video up there, and if I haven't turned it off the second I hear that person say "My name is Shinigami" I definitely turn it off the second the guy says "My name is Yuma Kokohead"

names are important people

Thank you for reminding me!

Won't be playing this on Switch but will eagerly look forward to playing it whenever it goes everywhere else. Extremely excited to see what sort of story this will weave now that it's free of the DR structure and it just looks stylish as hell.

Looks interesting but will be playing Ghost Trick that day

If it isn't like DR or AI, especially in terms of characterization, then maybe.

That means probably not

So, Danganronpa visuals and "tons of characters with quirks", AI: The Somnium Files meets Persona 5 meets Monark meets ID: Invaded go inside the brain/enemy investigation something shenanigans brain stuff, with 3D movement and vibes that look like Soul Hackers 2.

Well ok then. I'm curious.

I'll likely pick it up.

Out tonight! I....will not be playing it much until I beat XVI lol.

Been playing this. Beat Chapter 0 and the prologue. It's solid so far, but I dunno if focusing more on the MC benefits it, since the best thing about DR is the colorful cast. Mystery and such is solid, and the minigames are fine so far. Game adds walk and talks, which I think was unnecessary. Shinigami is a fun companion character, personality and dialogue-wise, though I dunno if the game needed to focus on her bouncing boobs that much...

User SaveEstelle has put his stamp of approval on this game, which is a big deal coming from him.

Chapter 1 finished. A few more thoughts:

I wish Kodaka's games could have a protagonist as great as Swindler. She's so much more interesting than any of them.

Speaking of, the setting feels a lot like Akudama Drive's, particularly in tone, which isn't a bad thing.

Everyone is really tall. Like 3/4 of the characters (same ratio for the women) are over 6 feet for some reason. Which is great, of course. Just interesting.

It feels somewhat more like Ace Attorney to me, since you're mostly just investigating regular murders.

The equivalent to the class trials isn't as good. It's just you and your assistant most of the time, so you don't get all the character drama.

The investigations are probably better than DR's, since there's a lot more to do. They're more spread out though. How many Danganronpa fans main demand was "a bigger world to explore?"

Halara is pretty cool.

If I hate the DR mini games will I hate rain code

Chaeix posted...

If I hate the DR mini games will I hate rain code

Quite possibly! It still has quite a few mini games in the trial equivalent. Some of them are pretty similar to the minigames from DR, but none have been that bad so far, IMO. I think they're easier than DR's minigames.

Have not read anything in this topic for fear of spoilers, will not read anything after this until I finish. I am currently on chapter 2, and will report my thoughts later. This is mostly a tag.

There are no spoilers in this topic!

I think I'm coming close to the end on 16 and I'm really excited for this.

If it's got Akudama Drive energy I'm all for it.

MacArrowny posted...

Quite possibly! It still has quite a few mini games in the trial equivalent. Some of them are pretty similar to the minigames from DR, but none have been that bad so far, IMO. I think they're easier than DR's minigames.

Well thats encouraging at least haha

Chaeix posted...

Well thats encouraging at least haha

There's also a skill tree you can use to make specific games easier, which is nice

Looks absolutely awful and still better than DR

Chapter 2 complete. Thoughts:

I feel like the biggest twists in these cases have been kinda obvious so far. Like, there are always details I don't predict, even major ones, but yeah.

I wonder if meat buns are Soylent Green.

I've been thinking for a while that some or all of the characters from chapter 0 are alive. Maybe Kurumi's grandpa is the old guy.

Fun that it follows the same format as previous DRs in that the culrpits get more sympathetic over time. Not sure if that'll be the case in Chapter 3 though, since it seems like it might be time to fight Yomi.

Desuhiko makes me think someone on the staff really liked Teruteru. Desuhiko's a bit more charming, but I still don't think it's a great concept for a character.

It sucks that the execution equivalents are just a movie every time with 1 second that's different at the end. Too many canned sequences in general in this game.

So I'm in chapter 2 and I think there's a problem with a certain character's profile. There appears to be a picture of them as a mystery phantom when I'm not even close to entering the Mystery Labyrinth yet.

Beat chapter 2. Does anyone know what the stars in the case files are for? I have one next to all of my completed chapters except the prologue.

hombad46 posted...

So I'm in chapter 2 and I think there's a problem with a certain character's profile. There appears to be a picture of them as a mystery phantom when I'm not even close to entering the Mystery Labyrinth yet.

I noticed this, too. Clearly just an oversight.

Finished chapter 3.

Surprisingly short. I kept thinking there was going to be another twist, and I'd have to solve the bombings separately from the murder, but it just didn't happen. It wasn't like, ultra predictable or anything, but none of the twists were particularly surprising.

Fubuki's pretty fun. Reminds me of Sonia. A lot of the characters are kinda similar to certain old Kodaka characters, actually...

Anagram posted...

Beat chapter 2. Does anyone know what the stars in the case files are for? I have one next to all of my completed chapters except the prologue.

I think they're for completing the labyrinths but I could be wrong. The prologue doesn't have one.

Chapter 4:

Kinda dragged. Yeah, I know there's an in-game reason for that, but while I didn't figure out everything before hand, it feels like it takes sooooooo long to establish that he stood on top of the Ama-Pal's head.

They also try to make it sad at the end, especially how Yuma has to kill him, but Yuma having to kill the girls in chapter 2 was way sadder, especially since Yakou was already dead. Speaking of, why couldn't they kill Yomi with the labyrinth? He contributed to the murder about as much as Yoshiko did in chapter 2.

Vivia's pretty solid. His sleepy gimmick isn't that great, but he was enjoyable here as the smart guy trying to protect Yuma's feelings.

Early chapter 5: first zombie I see makes me think everyone in Kanai is a homunculus.

And then they say the blood is a hint. Guess there being red blood in chapter 0 and pink in the rest of the game was meaningful!

Starting this tonight finally. Obviously haven't read any spoilers, but how are we feeling? More DR energy or more Akudama energy?

Chapter 3 beated

finale why are all the cop cars' license plates 420

Just finished chapter 3. I think that was the most easily solved case yet

Chapter 4 beated

Beat the game, will post thoughts later.

I don't know how much I should say to avoid spoilers, but basically, I was underwhelmed. The game has a few moments, but it's much weaker than Danganronpa in probably every single way.

I can agree with that so far. For chapter 1 I was surprised that the culprits didn't even have names

Some thoughts, mega spoilers:

Not kidding around, these are mega spoilers, don't click them:

• I feel that this game basically demands to be compared to Danganronpa, so I won't feel bad about doing that.
• Shinigami and Yuma are pretty good as the protagonists. I liked them well enough; no problems there.
• The Mystery Labyrinths are way weaker as a climatic showdown than the class trials, and like, I don't hold this against the game, but they're clearly just stolen as a concept from Persona 5. Having to stare down someone who's desperately trying to lie his way out of it by shoving evidence in his face, while other people speculate about what's happening, is way more emotionally engaging than arguing with a psychic recreation of a corrupt corporate guy. And it doesn't help that all of the Amaterasu guys are just comically, pointlessly evil.
• Having most of the killers and accused just be randos really makes them much more boring. The game really wanted me to care about the three high school girls, but we've heard them speak like four sentences each, and then they all die. The only case that works for me is Yakou's, but even that's damaged by the fact that he's basically already dead, and he isn't there to defend or explain himself, only the comically evil Yomi is. There's even one accused whom you never even meet, you just meet the guy's son.
• The mysteries themselves are also way weaker and easier than Danganronpa's or Phoenix Wright's. I was expecting a lot of convoluted wacky murder schemes, and the only one that even approaches that is the Yakou case, which is unsurprisingly the best one in the game.
• Once I realized that the detectives would never actually do anything important on their own, and were just there to facilitate Yuma's exploration and investigation, they just become a series of wacky characters with no point to them. The only exception is Vivia. Again, you compare this to Danganronpa or Phoenix Wright, where the non-protagonists actually go out and do stuff and have their own motives and may or may not be planning to betray you.
• For how much time is spent driving home the idea that Kanai Ward would be destroyed by the awful truth of the homunculi, it's jarring that everyone just accepts it off-screen and it's no big deal and no one really cares that much. I laughed when Kurumi said the ramen guy makes food with "the nutrients we need to survive."
• I hated the pink blood twist, but I know most people like it, so that's just me, I guess.
• I didn't hate the game or anything, and I will play the DLC, but it definitely underwhelmed me.

Chapter 4: Man, I just don't care about Yakou as much as the game seems to think I should. He was around for a bit every chapter but it's not like I spent that much time with him, even with Gumshoe Gab

I liked it, going in with zero spoilers I think helped because thats super difficult to do with DR nowadays lol

Finished the game. Like Anagram I'll play the DLC but this was definitely weaker than Danganronpa

hombad46 posted...

Chapter 4: Man, I just don't care about Yakou as much as the game seems to think I should. He was around for a bit every chapter but it's not like I spent that much time with him, even with Gumshoe Gab

Agreed. Chapter 2 was way more emotional IMO.

Anagram posted...

mega spoilers:I hated the pink blood twist, but I know most people like it, so that's just me, I guess.

I noticed the red blood in chapter zero followed by pink in the later chapters and wondered what was up with it. I think it's pretty well done.

My overall thoughts. Generally spoiler free, though I do include some game mechanics from chapter 0:

The most interesting part of the game is how much the investigations and overworld are expanded. There are a lot of places to explore, there are side quests, and the city grows in size every chapter. It's similar to Danganronpa's areas in many ways, but much larger in scope. For the most part, this works quite well, but the areas can be a bit too big, and there are frequent loading times. I could see these being better on a non-Switch console. This also affects the side quests, which often have you going back and forth between multiple areas. Thankfully, those quests have high quality writing in general, fleshing out the game world, but they can be tedious to complete for that reason. The trials have also been replaced with a new system called Mystery Labyrinths, which are similar to DR's trials (full of minigames, using clues you find to defeat enemy arguments, solving word puzzles, etc.). Labyrinths work alright, but they're not as fun as the trials are, since it's usually just the protagonist and one or two other characters in there. Though the minigames might be a little better than DR's, losing the thrill of arguing with your friends is a substantial downgrade, since that was DR's high point. Worst of all, there are a ton of gameplay sequences in the Labyrinths that just aren't that fun. You get a bunch of canned animation, and often run through long hallways where nothing of interest happens. Why are there walk and talk sequences instead of just regularly advanceable dialogue? They could've knocked hours off the game by cutting these parts down. The recaps, like the comic books at the end of DR trials, are pretty tedious to watch play out too. Really makes me wish you could manually advance them.

In other aspects, the game's pretty swell. Masafumi Takada is back with more great music, the character designs are as over the top as ever, and the cases are all fun stories. Some of them are a bit easy to solve, but none of them are outright bad. To me, the DR games all have cases that I'd consider black marks against the overall games, but that's not true with Rain Code. I at least enjoyed every chapter. The overall story of the game is a fun mystery too, as they usually are with DR games, and it all comes together in a pretty logical way, with hints delivered throughout the game. The cast is maybe the strongest aspect. I didn't like the MC at first, but he gets some good development as the game goes on. Shinigami, your partner, adds a lot to the game's fun factor, since she's with you at all times. The other detectives are all interesting in their own ways, with Halara being my favorite of them. The cases are more like Ace Attorney, where each case has a new cast, and those casts are all good. I'd like to see another Rain Code-styled game, since everything here works pretty well, but I'd hope they can come up with something better than the Labyrinths to replace the trials. Rain Code 2 with more exciting confrontation sequences could be a great game.

DR1 > DR2 > RC > DRv3 for me. The peaks of every DR are much higher than the peaks of RC though.

That was helpful to me as someone on the fence, so good post.

No joke, I have actually fallen asleep twice during the chapter 1 investigations. I don't know if I can make it though this game. I usually like games like this, but I've got nothing to latch onto here. "Solve a mystery for mystery's sake" just isn't working out. Even DR1, which I generally disliked managed to keep me engaged for the whole game.