A cult basic from the PS Vita turns 10 as we speak, however won’t see the sunshine of day once more in a console technology that's much less bizarre, messy, and experimental

A phrase of warning: this recreation accommodates an outline of sexual assault and makes frequent references to little one abuse, and so this text additionally touches on these matters. Deal with your self, and please do not learn this in case you do not want to.

Danganronpa was one in every of my lockdown consolation video games of alternative, and I’ve spent the years since accumulating a painstaking understanding of the expanded universe that surrounds this trilogy of homicide thriller visible novels. I’ve watched the entire anime, learn tie-in novels and all of the manga that is been translated into English (I even began studying Japanese as a result of the non-translated manga appears to be like even higher and it’d really be faster than ready for all of it to come back out); and I’ve even performed all through the deeply bizarre spin-off shooter that is celebrating its tenth birthday as we speak.

Danganronpa One other Episode: Extremely Despair Women was launched for the PlayStation Vita on this present day in 2014, and bought a second life by way of PlayStation 4 and PC ports in 2017. The latter is what allowed me to snoop into others’ taking part in habits by way of Steam’s world stats, and be taught that I am amongst roughly 45% of gamers on the platform who’ve really overwhelmed this recreation after beginning it.

That is not really a horrible retention statistic — I’ve seen highly-lauded video games with a a lot starker drop-off charge — however to me it nonetheless tells a narrative concerning the oddball nature of this recreation. The best way I see it, to even hunt down an obscure story-led third-person shooter title spun-off from a sequence of visible novels, you are most likely fairly nerdy about that sequence already and aiming for completionism. Seen in that mild, the truth that solely 45% of these presumed franchise die-hards caught it out to the tip credit reveals what occurs when the unstoppable pressure of endurance required to be a Danganronpa fan within the first place meets the immovably unusual object that’s Extremely Despair Women.

I had so many various emotions over the course of taking part in this recreation. I liked it for starring side-characters from the unique, injecting some much-needed long-term character improvement right into a franchise that tends to wipe the slate and begin afresh with a brand-new solid each entry. I resented it for its wildly unpredictable and ungenerous save factors, which turned what ought to have been rewarding trial-and-error puzzles into pointless frustrations I bodged my method by as shortly and messily as wanted. I used to be pretty detached to its taking pictures, to be sincere; I grew up on janky mid-2000s motion video games, and UDG largely satisfied me to play together with the well mannered pretence that it was a retro throwback and never only a shooter made by devs who concentrate on visible novels.

Ultimately, my essential takeaway was that Extremely Despair Women is an unmissable addition to Danganronpa lore, and for all its faults accommodates a few of the finest storytelling within the sequence, fleshing out backstories for a number of characters given brief shrift in the primary video games, whereas including a number of extra who grew to become iconic in their very own proper. Later entries into the franchise definitely assume that you simply’re as conversant in the characters and occasions of this recreation as you’re with the 2 main-series titles that preceded it. Which is why it is bizarre that Spike Chunsoft and co. do not appear that eager on acknowledging it any extra.

As I’ve already stated, Extremely Despair Women did get ported to PS4 and PC again in 2017, however that is the final outing it had. Whereas the three core Danganronpa titles have all by now additionally made appearances on Xbox methods, and have been notably remastered for a Nintendo Change assortment in 2021 in a imprecise nod to the franchise’s tenth anniversary, Extremely Despair Women has languished by comparability. Certainly, the Danganronpa Decadence Assortment boasts that it consists of 4 video games — however shortly corrects your pure assumption by letting the fourth is a brand new, non-canon board game-style spinoff. The board recreation in query, Danganronpa S: Final Summer season Camp, even consists of UDG characters together with these drawn from the remainder of the franchise, however is introduced with out the sport that provides them context.

It is a curious omission on condition that the Vita and the Change are about as appropriate as methods made by completely different firms could be, and porting between them is reportedly a relatively clean course of. But it surely turns into considerably much less odd when you think about that there have been two massive elements working in opposition to Extremely Despair Women when it got here to anthologising the Danganronpa franchise for the Change. It is a third-person shooter that performs fully in another way from the visible novels that make up the primary sequence, and it is about as removed from Nintendo’s family-friendly picture because it’s potential to get.

Danganronpa’s already a sequence about susceptible younger individuals being manipulated into brutally murdering each other, however Extremely Despair Women nonetheless someway managed to be a lot, a lot darker. Regardless of the surreal presentation that it shares with the franchise as an entire, there is not any getting round the truth that the central theme of UDG is horrific violence dedicated each in opposition to and by youngsters.

I do really assume that UDG largely offers with these themes pretty nicely, with a surprisingly empathetic (given the darkly comedian tone of the sequence as an entire) concentrate on how such violence impacts survivors within the aftermath, relatively than depictions of the violence itself. There are, sadly, a number of locations the place the sport badly fumbles this — most memorably an unskippable interactive scene the place you as the primary protagonist should defend your self from a sexual assault or get a recreation over, which I think about is the place fairly just a few of the DNF’ing 55% dropped off.

To be clear, I imply it after I say that I nonetheless actually loved this recreation for probably the most half, though the aforementioned scene got here as an disagreeable shock that it was tough to push previous. Extremely Despair Women definitely is not the one work of fiction in historical past to fail to drag off the balancing act when making an attempt to mix harrowing realism and darkish comedy. However all the identical, I can simply see why all of the content material warnings on this planet would not persuade Nintendo to let UDG anyplace close to one in every of its kid-friendly methods — which, by extension, implies that different platforms getting the anniversary remasters now thought of the definitive variations may even should do with out.

Finally, although, even in case you have been to do one thing to mitigate that one badly misjudged scene, the central downside with Extremely Despair Women stays that it would not actually cater to any common demographic. Its one-strike-and-you’re-out puzzles aren’t intuitive sufficient to enchantment to followers of that style; critical motion followers aren’t going to like sitting by hour-long cutscenes to get to the comparatively transient sections of janky taking pictures; and its scoring system punishes poor efficiency in fight, which means it is more likely to show too unforgiving for gamers primarily or solely into visible novels, even ones interspersed with minigames like the primary Danganronpa sequence.

No, as I stated on the outset, Extremely Despair Women is actually aimed toward only one kind of participant: hardcore Danganronpa followers who’ll push on by any bizarre experiment sequence creator Kazutaka Kodaka cares to check out so as to get their lore repair. And what a lore repair it’s! Which makes it fairly ironic — even when it is fully comprehensible — that the remastered collector’s version of the sequence omitted it, regardless of bodily copies coming wrapped in a £90 steelbook clearly aimed toward these very same followers.