ToontownRonpa: Citizens of Distrust
released on Jul 26, 2022
Toontown, home of the silly and fun toons of kinds, what could possibly disturb such a way of life? The answer is quite simple, a game that will threaten the livelihood of Toontown's most well-known figures, including Toontown's current Leader Flippy. Who will make it out of this killing game? That is for you to find out...
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i cried
I've been a fan of the Danganronpa franchise for a long time, they do a great job on really selling you the illusion of teenaged victims falling into some horrible, inescapable scenario and their subsequent mental degredation as they try their best to cope with their new environment. With that said, I've never actually played any sort of Danganronpa fangame (the only other "death game" style game I've even played besides Danganronpa being the similarly excellent Your Turn to Die); they've been on my radar for maybe a year and a half or so but only a few days ago did I actually make my first foray into the Fangan world with ToontownRonpa: Citizens of Distrust. I got it recommended to me on YouTube and the idea of a Toontown-based killing game seemed comical to me, however the reviews I saw of it were surprisingly glowing. With that in mind, I stopped looking, and went blind into this game.
I thought the idea of a death game, where each cast member has hopes, dreams and fears would be hindered or made comical somewhat by making them iconic NPCs from Toontown but I surprisingly found myself engaged in this world really quickly. From systems like Laff (equivalent to HP) featuring, to the death weapons having the potential to be gags or normal objects around the environments, none of it surprisingly feels overly silly.
If you really think about it a Toon's life in Toontown can very much be defined by their eternal battle against the cogs, and the game seems to very much relish in this; characters like Bessie Barnacle or Riggy Marole try to disassociate themselves from the situation at least a bit, adopting a happy persona, while other characters like Good 'ol Gil Giggles, Flippy or Coach Zucchini outline their characters around this struggle, and see themselves as defined, almost enhanced, by this everlasting war.
The game is in progress - hence my "Retired" status - with 2 full chapters done as of my playthrough of the game, but each of these trials are so full-featured, so full of surprises, and so clearly made out of love for the original series while deviating from it in a variety of ways I won't get into here made these two chapters and these 15 toons an absolute joy to get into. Hell, there's even multiple routes with different murders! I'm not sure if that's commonplace in Fangans but for one it really, really caught me off guard riding off the back of the original series.
It's a bit hard for me to say as someone who has had Toontown as something perpetually in the back of their head from an early age, but I would really say you don't need to know a whole lot about Toontown to enjoy this game - and if you're able to suspend your disbelief about the cartoony elements of the setting the two chapters here show a lot of promise for an intricate and rewarding mystery game I can't recommend enough.
I thought the idea of a death game, where each cast member has hopes, dreams and fears would be hindered or made comical somewhat by making them iconic NPCs from Toontown but I surprisingly found myself engaged in this world really quickly. From systems like Laff (equivalent to HP) featuring, to the death weapons having the potential to be gags or normal objects around the environments, none of it surprisingly feels overly silly.
If you really think about it a Toon's life in Toontown can very much be defined by their eternal battle against the cogs, and the game seems to very much relish in this; characters like Bessie Barnacle or Riggy Marole try to disassociate themselves from the situation at least a bit, adopting a happy persona, while other characters like Good 'ol Gil Giggles, Flippy or Coach Zucchini outline their characters around this struggle, and see themselves as defined, almost enhanced, by this everlasting war.
The game is in progress - hence my "Retired" status - with 2 full chapters done as of my playthrough of the game, but each of these trials are so full-featured, so full of surprises, and so clearly made out of love for the original series while deviating from it in a variety of ways I won't get into here made these two chapters and these 15 toons an absolute joy to get into. Hell, there's even multiple routes with different murders! I'm not sure if that's commonplace in Fangans but for one it really, really caught me off guard riding off the back of the original series.
It's a bit hard for me to say as someone who has had Toontown as something perpetually in the back of their head from an early age, but I would really say you don't need to know a whole lot about Toontown to enjoy this game - and if you're able to suspend your disbelief about the cartoony elements of the setting the two chapters here show a lot of promise for an intricate and rewarding mystery game I can't recommend enough.