Danganronpa 2 does a lot of things much better than its predecessor, but also does a couple of things slightly worse. Overall, I think its a great sequel that did its job as a murder mystery better.
- There were less characters in this that I hated. Everyone in Dangan 1 was a certified weirdo, but this cast comes across as humans with quirks instead of straight "This is my one and only character trait." There were also more characters competing with each other for the position of my favourite, whereas in 1, I only really liked Hina and Sakura.
- Nagito's existence alone earns the game half a star. Such a compelling and interesting character that really brings a new element to the story of a murder mystery.
- The longer trials are both a blessing and a curse. It allows more complex trials, but the extra complexity of most of those trials comes from an extra red herring or everyone umm-ing and aah-ing about fairly obvious evidence. Some of these trials are over 2 hours long. I'm tired, man.
- "Improved" hangman's gambit
- Trial 2 is my least favorite trial so far, as I was ninety percent sure of the culprit, only to find out that I was wrong and that the real answer was much dumber. But the game made it up to me, as I was then able to guess the culprit for the remaining trials (This is not a bad thing. The shock value still remains and it makes the player feel smart)
- On the topic of trials, some of the leaps in logic this game expect you to take are laughably bad, and I had to consult a guide at points, as numerous truth bullets could refute a statement, but only one fulfills the very specific line of reasoning that the game doesn't tell you it wants.
- The setting of this game is also generally better imo than that first, with better variety and cooler set pieces. Monomi was also an addition that won me over.
- The executions in this are so extremely massively underwhelming except for two.
- There were less characters in this that I hated. Everyone in Dangan 1 was a certified weirdo, but this cast comes across as humans with quirks instead of straight "This is my one and only character trait." There were also more characters competing with each other for the position of my favourite, whereas in 1, I only really liked Hina and Sakura.
- Nagito's existence alone earns the game half a star. Such a compelling and interesting character that really brings a new element to the story of a murder mystery.
- The longer trials are both a blessing and a curse. It allows more complex trials, but the extra complexity of most of those trials comes from an extra red herring or everyone umm-ing and aah-ing about fairly obvious evidence. Some of these trials are over 2 hours long. I'm tired, man.
- "Improved" hangman's gambit
- Trial 2 is my least favorite trial so far, as I was ninety percent sure of the culprit, only to find out that I was wrong and that the real answer was much dumber. But the game made it up to me, as I was then able to guess the culprit for the remaining trials (This is not a bad thing. The shock value still remains and it makes the player feel smart)
- On the topic of trials, some of the leaps in logic this game expect you to take are laughably bad, and I had to consult a guide at points, as numerous truth bullets could refute a statement, but only one fulfills the very specific line of reasoning that the game doesn't tell you it wants.
- The setting of this game is also generally better imo than that first, with better variety and cooler set pieces. Monomi was also an addition that won me over.
- The executions in this are so extremely massively underwhelming except for two.