I will admit that I came in with a kind of expectation that it's a bit of a meme game, often heard be it called the poor man's grisaia. Even still I tried coming in hoping maybe I'd be surprised.

And boy was I surprised.
Never have I seen a more exploitative prose that treats its starring cast as math problems to be solved, complete stand ins for real mental issues that feel less like honest understandings of PEOPLE and more like caricatures to be toyed with. Everything about this prose SCREAMS awful, and no amount of unintentional 4chan brain worms excuses any of it.

Don't ever read this mess.

08/13/2020 PS4 Open Beta - minor spoilers for the first few hours of the game

Crystal Dynamics’ Marvel’s Avengers wants to be a lot of things: a Destiny-style PvE loot grind, an Uncharted-tinged highly scripted action game, a God of War reboot-esque brawler, all enclosed within a new take on the Marvel universe ala Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man. If it did even one of these things well, it could’ve been worthwhile, but to call it a jack-of-all-trades would be an overstatement, as that implies a level of competency in the game’s variety of aims which it often doesn’t reach.

Being a team game, Black Widow has to be equally viable to the Hulk or the God of Thunder for co-op to work properly, even though that balance often undercuts what makes these heroes compelling in the first place. Which is where, in theory, the single-player levels come in. Locking the player to a specific hero allows the developers to cater the level design to their abilities and showcase what makes each character unique… you would think. However, aside from the occasional Hulk platforming sections that make Uncharted look masterful, the levels appear haphazardly thrown together without a particular character in mind.

The animations are lifeless, cutscene direction is bland at the best of times, the writing is bad both in terms of dialogue and overall plotting. The quicktime events feel unintuitive, and the transitions from cutscene to gameplay and back are woefully inelegant. Despite an all-star voice lineup, the lack of in-depth characterization ends up making it feel more like the Uncharted 4 cast cosplaying as marvel characters than it does a proper Avengers story. The art style very much looks like a knockoff of the first MCU Avengers film from 2012, which itself was not exactly the most visually compelling Marvel adaptation. In a world where even the homogenous cinematic universes have the occasional Aquaman or Guardians of the Galaxy, this feels sorely lacking in style.

The structure here is a real problem. The intro level gives you a taste of each character, but it’s not really long enough to give you a feel for any of them, and after this point the game locks you to Hulk and Kamala for the next 2 hours or so. The opening puts an emphasis on saving civilians and grounding the Avengers in this world, but this is mostly dropped afterwards, with all the following missions being totally devoid of civilian life (maybe this comes back in the full game later, though). It also transitions rather abruptly from the “A-Day” defeat of the opening level (I don’t think colloquial names for catastrophic terrorist events are supposed to rhyme), with a laughable cutscene comprised of the camera panning over stills of the sequence as if didn’t bother to animate the storyboards. On the one hand, this may be jarringly structured because certain things are edited out for the beta, but on the other that could mean even more time before the game properly opens up in the final product.

You’re not able to do co-op until you’ve cleared the 3 story missions available, which took me around 2 and a half hours or so, though I was doing other things in between so you’d probably be able to rush through it faster if you stay focused. It’s a really strange structural choice when the main draw of the game is playing superheroes with your friends. The narrative, itself not very compelling, is overly restrictive to the gameplay structure, locking out most of the cast for the main section of the beta, locking out co-op, and furthermore, Thor and Captain America aren’t playable for the remainder of this demo. Captain America “”dies”” offscreen in the opening level, so I’m assuming this major playable character is going to be locked off for the first half of the game or so in service of a dumb story decision. Not sure why Thor isn’t here, he’s even present on the radio in one of the side missions so I suppose they’re just holding him back for the full release, I don’t know.
(EDIT NOTE: The third story mission does allow co-op, though I couldn't find anyone online when I first played it, and as far as I recall you don't unlock Iron Man and Black Widow until after you finish it)

In future, Hawkeye and Spider-Man are also apparently being added, but for now there’s just these core 6, only 4 of which are really present in the beta. Yes, Spider-Man will be only on Playstation, but with how much this game is biting from ps4 exclusives Square probably had to make a deal with Sony to avoid getting sued (also I wouldn’t be surprised if he makes his way over to other platforms a few months later). Every aspect of this game, from the combat, to the visuals, to the loot elements, to the story structure, to the setpieces and story-driven exploration segments, to the humor, are thoroughly lacking and have been done far better by the games and films Avengers is so blatantly taking from.

In a few Discord servers, I've stated, usually in very chide one-off statements, that this game sucks. I've never actually spent time elaborating why it sucks, and I realize that just saying it does doesn't really help any conversation whatsoever, or really have anything new to put forth.

Because, to be honest, to say this game is all bad is missing the mark just as much as saying “anime is for weebs”... which is largely true but still missing some information that could point a different direction..

So what is DDLC? It’s a very, very short VN that lampshades what happens in most VNs, where you meet a handful of characters and deal/handle their personal issues, except without a lot to say about it. It uses its runtime to poke fun at the laughable traits of the worst of VNs while then proceeding to put some valid criticism of unconditional attachment, while peppering its runtime with enough shock value to make streamers freak the fuck out and thus become a touchstone of Twitch culture with its reaction and memes such as “just Monika”. I highly doubt that all of that was intentional, but the impact can’t be disregarded, because it did become a part of online video game culture as a whole… for better or for worse.

There is something I need to outline. While I agree usually that a game should not be based on its toxic fanbase, DDLC is so big that it’s tough to ignore. It is extremely hard to detach the community and fanbase as a whole from the game. We can agree to disagree from there.

Let’s be clear, the shock value fucking works for one key moment. I am a wimp and autistic and find very emotional attachment to video games that is borderline unhealthy, and thus the very infamous first shock rolled me over like a lawnmower and I still have nightmares thinking about it. If there’s one thing to give credit to DDLC, it is that it’s very unpredictable, although at the expense of pacing or having a good kind of shock value past the first moment.

Everything else is very standard and frustrating to go through, particularly a moment where you have to “auto-skip” for a moment that abuses its time to the fullest extent. I don’t care if it’s not supposed to be fun, it’s nauseating. It doesn’t have anything to gain for its inclusion OTHER than shocking the player and to hammer harder how messed up Monika is, which would have benefitted from a tighter pace. Subversion, especially when it’s creatively done like DDLC, is fine, but its pace and execution despite its concept hampers this to an extreme.

DDLC’s good, however, comes in two things: a general and well done understanding of depression and the pain it causes through its first introductory character arc, and the danger and toxicity of parasocial relationships represented via Monika’s rampant fascination with the player. The latter unfortunately…. is not even knee deep. It does not deconstruct how it comes to exist but rather comments on its existence, which is fine but doesn’t leave a lot to take away.

So what anecdotal interactions poison the game for me? It is that it has massively poisoned talking about VNs and the Western reaction to VNs as a whole. The game is definitely pointing at a very particular subgenre of VNs, but its popularity has created a vacuum of using the game as a point to how “all VNs are bad” and how ridiculous the genre is. Yes, people can sometimes be dumb and stupid, as can I, but I’ve seen it happen EVERYWHERE.

I’m not an expert on VNs (in fact I’ve only started recently to delve into the genre with games like Umineko, The Silver Case, and Nekojishi), but it’s insane how much DDLC has colored VN’s image that the games themselves have been not at all what’s expected. I don’t even… know of any game DDLC is really pointing out here. In the end, it feels like it has a blanket “VNs bad” side to its conversation around the medium where the tropes it is subverting in its runtime a mainstay more for anime as a whole rather than VN dating sims instead. Am I missing something? Maybe I need to play more VNs.

Trust me, it’s not that there aren't bad VNs. I can go to fucking TOWN on Nekojishi for its disgusting moments with its true ending and in the end having zero to take away from other than… the tiger guys are adorable.

The biggest struggle comes from where, when I enjoy a VN (or when other big friends of mine do), it’s tough to recommend, because the image that DDLC has created in popular culture casts a big enough web to catch SUVs. There are other barriers to entry such as price and it not being as “video game” as other genres, but this to me has been the biggest barrier now.

My hope is to understand where I come from now when I say “Fuck DDLC”. It’s partly the game but way more because of the culture that surrounds it.

At least it’s free.

Danganronpa 2 is an interesting sequel that takes the core aesthetical mix of murderous insanity and exaggerated dark humor in an iterative if somewhat separate direction. It reflects a bit on the flaws of the previous games but ultimately doesn't do a whole lot to fix them, and more so swaps them out with something else.

The core plot is still a walking trash fire, with convoluted elements that walk straight off a cliff at the conclusion arc, leaving no satisfaction other than making true on just being insane as the game's first step let on. Characters are a bit more fleshed out now, with some interesting relationships and a few good motivations, but the game also does a good deal of throwing that out just to hit the core themes of the previous game, with one character in Case 3 especially turned straight into fucking mush for the sake of a gotcha. The game also ditches its grounded and dismal atmosphere for something way more surreal, and that doesn't come off as a welcome change because again, DR2 doesn't have much more of interest to say with it. This kinda leaves the setting to be a lot less memorable overall.

What is fun though, are the cases. They're an entire step up from DR1 by having more intricate puzzle solving structure to them, with situations so bizarre and outlandish but with case logic so strictly put together that each reveal in-game is interesting as it is satisfying to figure out. Each case still has a decent who dunnit, and a crazy interesting how dunnit. The why dunnit is still a crock of shit, but at this point it's something you have to accept when jumping into this game. In general the HEART of DR2 is still almost entirely absent for much of the runtime.

That's probably the most grueling flaw that DR is in no rush to fix. At the end of the day, DR is comfortable in drenching itself with an insane and somewhat satisfying junk food look, and leaves you with very little to mull over aftewards.