Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc could quite possible be the best the description of what would happen if Capcom’s Ace Attorney series and Atlas’ Persona series got together and had offspring. This revamped title that originally was released for the PSP by Spike Chunsoft/NIS America has been translated and brought over to the PS VITA with upgraded visuals, additional features and English voice acting for the North American release.
Prepare yourself for a very different high school experience!
Danganronpa sets the player in a high school called Hope’s Peak, where only select students are invited to attend based on their certain elite talents. The player will take the role as Makoto Naegi, who along with 15 other students quickly discover that there are being held hostage in this school by some evil mastermind. If the student graduates from the school, they’re entitled to leave; but there’s a catch: To graduate means murdering a fellow student and not getting caught after doing it. Despite the students claim that they will not murder each other for the entertainment of the headmaster of the school, bodies slowly start piling up and the trust between class mates begins to fade.
Meet your headmaster: Monokuma!
The game itself presents a variety of different mechanics. Moving throughout the school is done in a first person prospective very similar to the original Persona on the PlayStation. Using the on screen curser or by using the touch screen of the PS VITA interacts with the environment and other students in the high school furthering the story or increasing the amount of closeness with another student. While skipping the interaction with the students can be done, doing so will rob you of various skills that will help you during the court room scenes. Much like Ace Attorney, when a body drops you must investigate the murder scene and try to figure the means, motive and opportunity of what happened to prove whodunit! The gathered information will then be presented at a class trial where you must decide who performed the evil deed. Get it right and the murderer is punished with a horrific death. Get it wrong and you and your fellow students will all die at once, leaving the murderer to graduate.
Investigating the scene of the crime.
The class trial presents several mini games that will pressure the suspect to confess and give the player new leads by bringing up witness testimonies. Other mini games will help force a confession by doing DDR style button presses in time with the music or playing a variant of hangman to discover additional clues. Finally, when the murderer has been cornered; the player will summarize the crime commented by putting together key moments of the crime in a comic strip. These make for plenty of variety in nailing the suspect and keep the player on their toes because they’ll never quite know what’s coming next. If you screw up, Danganronpa is pretty forgiving and will usually take you to the last part you messed up on.
Summarizing a murder…
This game is definitely one you will want to use headphones on. The soundtrack is well composed and will definitely remind players of something they would hear out of the Persona series. The English dub of the characters is well produced, though you will get occasionally annoyed with some of the quick audio quips that get used over and over again to bring some life to the story text.
On the promise of freedom, trust is a dying breed.
After my 15 hour experience with the game, I still had plenty of items to unlock and even a resource gathering side story called “School Mode” that would add even more play time to this title. This was certainly a title I enjoyed playing and I’m glad to hear that the sequel will be coming to the U.S. in the fall! If you enjoy the Ace Attorney games, Persona or visual novels with a murder twist, this is worth checking out.