Please note that as of the date this was written (December 17th 2022) only the prologue is out! I may revise this review later.
This was put on my radar by another friend of mine. This past month or so I've began my journey into fan-made Danganronpa spins (referred to as Fangans, a name I really love). My first one was the high quality if maybe hard-to-approach ToontownRonpa: Citizens of Distrust; a worthwhile game to be sure but probably a bit away from the typical settings and themes of these games for some people's taste. In some respects this is the first Fangan proper I've played - if such a thing could even be said to exist.
There was a lot to be excited for going into this one - the protagonist's monologue in the trailer seemed to portray him as rather stuck up about his talent, something I've never seen explored in one of these few games I've peered into. In most of these kinds of games the cast doesn't really acknowledge their talent or the academy that much for the sake of bringing a more diverse range of personalities into the killing game; seeing someone who actually takes pride in their talent and perceives certain Ultimate Students as denigrating the institution of talent is really fascinating. We see a bit of how this rubs off on the more laissez-faire cast in this prologue and I am so very for it.
The rest of the cast is great too, some of them took a bit to shine for me, but there isn't a single character I dislike, and no matter who dies in the first chapter I'm sure I'll be very sad. In particular, besides the protagonist, I'm really fond of the amicable yet brazenly passionate Wolfgang Akire, the homely motherly presence of Ingrid Grimwall, and the surprisingly reserved Diane Venicia.
Additionally the soundtrack is really lovely; we don't get a super large variety of songs but for one the ones we do get are lovely and for two all of the spectacle of this mod is incredibly lovely to see all in all, and a original soundtrack that both takes inspiration from the original Danganronpa and carves a more pensive atmosphere is really welcome to see. The sound effects here are similarly great, without getting too much into it the scene where you first start meeting the students uses sound and gameplay really brilliantly to make an utterly paralyzing experience.
The gameplay too is up to this standard. This game was made in the Unity game engine, which in my head evokes ill-optimized and messy games made by people who hopefully just haven't learned what Godot is but the polish here is lovely. This takes a lot of notes from the DRV3 engine - dialogue takes place in the 3D environments, camera jumping between character sprites physically residing in this world - and they pretty much nail it here. The mock trial teased in the trailer is similarly amazingly done; a lot of the trials in Danganronpa, though satisfying mysteries in their own right, feel like they have a whole slew of obtuse convoluted minigames keeping you from these. The first trial we get here feels comparatively stripped-back mechanically to great effect, there's some Non-Stop Debate and some fill-in-the-blanks and that's more or less it. Though, we do get extremely lovely Closing Argument graphics which are similarly well done, lovely to look at and entertaining.
Overall, I would recommend this to any fan of the original Danganronpa games whole-heartedly, and will definitely keep a finger on the pulse of this game's development; now that the engine is done and working to the extent it is I'm very excited to see the new chapters bubble up and develop other the upcoming year. I have it rated as a 4.0 as I type this review, but the only reason I hold off from a 4.5 is because this is just the prologue, but I might not even be able to contain myself in that respect! In particular if you like the more subdued vibe of the first Danganronpa game - or its good share of realistic bitterness in its cast - I would recommend this game 100%!
This was put on my radar by another friend of mine. This past month or so I've began my journey into fan-made Danganronpa spins (referred to as Fangans, a name I really love). My first one was the high quality if maybe hard-to-approach ToontownRonpa: Citizens of Distrust; a worthwhile game to be sure but probably a bit away from the typical settings and themes of these games for some people's taste. In some respects this is the first Fangan proper I've played - if such a thing could even be said to exist.
There was a lot to be excited for going into this one - the protagonist's monologue in the trailer seemed to portray him as rather stuck up about his talent, something I've never seen explored in one of these few games I've peered into. In most of these kinds of games the cast doesn't really acknowledge their talent or the academy that much for the sake of bringing a more diverse range of personalities into the killing game; seeing someone who actually takes pride in their talent and perceives certain Ultimate Students as denigrating the institution of talent is really fascinating. We see a bit of how this rubs off on the more laissez-faire cast in this prologue and I am so very for it.
The rest of the cast is great too, some of them took a bit to shine for me, but there isn't a single character I dislike, and no matter who dies in the first chapter I'm sure I'll be very sad. In particular, besides the protagonist, I'm really fond of the amicable yet brazenly passionate Wolfgang Akire, the homely motherly presence of Ingrid Grimwall, and the surprisingly reserved Diane Venicia.
Additionally the soundtrack is really lovely; we don't get a super large variety of songs but for one the ones we do get are lovely and for two all of the spectacle of this mod is incredibly lovely to see all in all, and a original soundtrack that both takes inspiration from the original Danganronpa and carves a more pensive atmosphere is really welcome to see. The sound effects here are similarly great, without getting too much into it the scene where you first start meeting the students uses sound and gameplay really brilliantly to make an utterly paralyzing experience.
The gameplay too is up to this standard. This game was made in the Unity game engine, which in my head evokes ill-optimized and messy games made by people who hopefully just haven't learned what Godot is but the polish here is lovely. This takes a lot of notes from the DRV3 engine - dialogue takes place in the 3D environments, camera jumping between character sprites physically residing in this world - and they pretty much nail it here. The mock trial teased in the trailer is similarly amazingly done; a lot of the trials in Danganronpa, though satisfying mysteries in their own right, feel like they have a whole slew of obtuse convoluted minigames keeping you from these. The first trial we get here feels comparatively stripped-back mechanically to great effect, there's some Non-Stop Debate and some fill-in-the-blanks and that's more or less it. Though, we do get extremely lovely Closing Argument graphics which are similarly well done, lovely to look at and entertaining.
Overall, I would recommend this to any fan of the original Danganronpa games whole-heartedly, and will definitely keep a finger on the pulse of this game's development; now that the engine is done and working to the extent it is I'm very excited to see the new chapters bubble up and develop other the upcoming year. I have it rated as a 4.0 as I type this review, but the only reason I hold off from a 4.5 is because this is just the prologue, but I might not even be able to contain myself in that respect! In particular if you like the more subdued vibe of the first Danganronpa game - or its good share of realistic bitterness in its cast - I would recommend this game 100%!