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S2 Ep163: Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
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MAJOR SPOILERS: Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Join Dave, Jake, and special guest Rachel for this week's episode as they get get pulled into the High School Life of Mutual Killing in this week's episode!
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
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Join Dave, Jake, and special guest Rachel for this week's episode as they get get pulled into the High School Life of Mutual Killing in this week's episode!
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Welcome
00:00:39
Speaker
I'm going to hide back.
00:00:49
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave?
Weather Woes & Power Outages
00:00:57
Speaker
Uh, it's going okay. Day wasn't bad. It rained a lot. Yeah. All of a sudden, it just came pissing down. Did you have a lot of rain as well? Rachel? Hello. Yes, I had so much rain over here. The thunderstorm, it was just unbearable.
00:01:16
Speaker
Hmm. Do you not like thunder? She's like the outside during, Oh, do you not like, there we go. The end. That's a, that's a hard question to answer. Um, I really liked the rain, but I also like having power. So, you know, it's the trade-off really.
Remote Work & Gaming Dynamics
00:01:38
Speaker
Were you getting power flickers?
00:01:40
Speaker
I think I had one light flicker, but it could also just be the kind of faulty wiring and certain lights. It's not the storm. It's a shitty bulb. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know who I think the best neighbor would probably be? He-Man. Because even if, you know, it doesn't matter what happens, he has the power. I was looking for the tie-in. I'm like, He-Man is a character. Oh, there it is. He told him the sword, struck by lightning. What does he say when that happens? Gotcha. He's always stabbing his ceiling.
00:02:10
Speaker
People stomping around upstairs. Yeah. What happened to you? House was struck by lightning. Nobody can really explain why. Yeah. But thankfully no outages. Hopefully none for you guys either. Been up and running. For you know the two lights I have on at a given time. Yeah.
00:02:35
Speaker
I have noted that outages seem to be more impactful now that a lot of people are working from home. It's like, hey, you know, lights are starting to flicker, power outage, something like that. And then that person just ceases to exist for the work. They just aren't there.
Podcast's Unique Style
00:02:50
Speaker
Oh, no. Pico says we're going to beat down the rest of the afternoon as I log on to Animal Crossing, really hoping that I don't have my manager as a friend on Switch. Yeah, that's what the activity setting is for. You can just set it so it doesn't show you when you start playing games.
00:03:07
Speaker
Smart move does make use of that. It's just I have friends that are bad people, obviously. That's why I'm here. Yeah, we only we only have bad people here. Mm hmm. What are you picking up, Dave? I I meant like I don't see myself on the bar. Oh, I see you. I see you. I see you talking. Oh, well, I hear you talking also, but I do see the
00:03:38
Speaker
the line wave of your voice. I would say I can barely hear you, but that wouldn't be true.
00:03:46
Speaker
I'm going to make a note here to cut the entire beginning. OK. It's going to be fine. So anyways, how's it going? Yeah, no, I think I was talking to someone at LAN party about this recently, but the less like smooth the intro is, the more like rough cutting from topic to topic.
00:04:14
Speaker
like completely unnecessary throwbacks, topic shifts. There are
Awkward Social Anecdotes
00:04:20
Speaker
the better I like the episode. I agree. It's just it's all the character that we have.
00:04:28
Speaker
It's just jank. It's just jank all the way through. The jankier it is, the better. That's what I like about you guys. I do like a degree of the jank, partially because I'm like, it turned out bad. That was the whole point. Yes. Right. But I just don't think it's in anybody who I know is nature to be like, this is going to be flawless. And just be like, hey, that's not we do it for fun. And to have friends to talk about games, that's what
Game Premise & Setting
00:04:55
Speaker
I like.
00:04:55
Speaker
Yeah. Social jank, I think is the stuff I like more. It's like messed up audio. Not so much a fan of that, like the audio quality being bad. I don't really like that. But if it's just like, I don't know how to interact with people, that's just that's representative of reality. That's that's the mirror. That's charming. Yeah, I hope so. I want them to give me the bill and I try and give them a Christian side hug.
00:05:19
Speaker
Mm hmm. That's my level of social. Thanks. You too. It was recently my birthday and I said, thanks, like happy birthday to you to to someone at like a restaurant or something. It was not great interaction. I mean, that's just being considered, you know, had a birthday at some point. That's true. You're covered for a year. It's the birthday problem. If you say happy birthday to a room of about 30 people, you're almost guaranteed one of them is having a birthday.
00:05:50
Speaker
I hate how that mathematically works out. I know, right? It unsettles me. Not that I'm ever a settled individual, but. Tune in next time when we discuss the birthday, or like different algorithms we learned about in school, perhaps. Have we ever talked about pineapples in the Fibonacci sequence anyway? Don't get me started on Fibonacci. Get out of here. Yeah, that relates to art. Yeah. Comes in play. Like video games, they're art.
00:06:20
Speaker
That's true. And sometimes we talk about video games, not that often, not anymore. Usually we're just like, Hey, could you like spend some time preparing a discussion? You know, we'll just chime in with questions about a topic that you're interested in and then we never bring it up.
Game Mechanics & Visual Style
00:06:39
Speaker
But if we were to bring it up, one of the things we could bring up is Danganronpa trigger happy havoc. Um, the first of the series, um, and today's topic.
00:06:50
Speaker
Yes. So I'm going to ask what? Because I don't I don't have any experience with any of this. So I'm here to get schooled. So that's good. That's a good first pun. Hey, speaking of school, then this game is for you because it's all about school kids going on crazy shenanigans.
00:07:13
Speaker
A little brief overview of the plot of this game is you are attending a special school. It's a school for ultimate kids. Everyone has an ultimate talent.
00:07:27
Speaker
you don't have anything particularly special about you, but you won like a lottery to get picked to go to the school. So your ultimate luck. So there's like ultimate swimmer, ultimate martial artists, things like that. But you go to the school, but then suddenly you wake up and you're trapped inside with everyone else. Everything's locked, all the doors are locked, all the windows barricaded, and you're told that you can never leave the school.
00:07:58
Speaker
The only way out is if you kill someone and get away with it. Yeah. Japanese game is it?
Monokuma & Humor
00:08:06
Speaker
What is a battle royale?
00:08:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's a really cool premise, like the trailer, I think. I watched the Steam trailer for this, because full disclosure, I did play this game. I did beat this game four years ago. Not the most up-to-date on it, but the trailer lays out the rules, basically. And you mentioned the core one. If you can kill someone, get away with it. There will be a class trial to try to determine who the murderer is, if they can't guess the right person.
00:08:39
Speaker
and vote on the right person, the murderer, the blackened is the term they use, right? Yeah, it graduates and is free and everybody else is killed. Or if they can guess the correct murderer and vote on it, then that person is punished in some way. With death? Very astute. OK.
00:09:09
Speaker
The game is also just bear puns. So there is a character, Monokuma, who is trying to essentially make everyone feel as much despair as possible. It's like the ringleader of this killing game. And so you can never say the word bear enough is what I've learned from this game, if you take anything away.
00:09:34
Speaker
I thought that was gonna be one of the rules, like you can never say bear, otherwise you die. Yeah, I think, to my recollection, correct me if I'm wrong, Rachel, but like, Monokuma doesn't really go out of his way to kill people. Like, he wants them to
Artistic Style & Player Experience
00:09:50
Speaker
play in the game, like, as you're going through it. He's not like, oh yeah, let me just, like, wipe this person out, they're being a nuisance.
00:09:57
Speaker
Yeah. So, and I'm sure we'll go into full spoilers for the first game in this discussion. So, um, Monokuma tries to keep things interesting, um, to just keep, keep everyone, um, moving along. The goal is to not have everyone live there happily for the rest of their life. It's for entertainment value to, to see,
00:10:20
Speaker
people kill one another. So he eggs people on and I can't say that he doesn't kill anyone. You know, maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. Who's to say? Determining guilt is just the whole point of the game. It could have been anybody.
00:10:41
Speaker
But as far as the gameplay is concerned, so it's heavy on the visual novel aspects, but also with you're doing detective work trying to figure out how someone was killed, and then they have the trials when everyone tries to discuss what happens. The best way I can think of it is it's like an action puzzle minigame. It's just...
00:11:08
Speaker
everyone's talking at each other and sometimes you have truth bullets where you have to like shoot the lies or you might have to play Scrabble to figure out what a word is. It's very, very strange set of game mechanics, opposite spectrum, but it meshes okay. Yeah, it's like it's gamified.
00:11:33
Speaker
Yeah. Is it all like tech space adventure with like interspersed mini games or do you go around and do stuff? Is it third
Narrative & Character Engagement
00:11:41
Speaker
person? Like what's, how does it play play? So it is, um, Oh God, I'm, I don't even know.
00:11:49
Speaker
I don't remember what first and third person is. First person, which the first game is really, their use of the camera was odd. For some reason, they have it whenever the camera settles, it settles in on everyone's crotch who you're trying to talk to.
00:12:09
Speaker
It's a Japanese game. It had to have been intentional. But yeah, so you're you're walking around. It has a very distinctive art style. Everything. I mean, you're walking in a 3D environment, but all of the objects and people in it are 2D. So it has like a strange artistic dynamic. It's neither here nor there, but like sprites or something. Right. Like, yeah. Yeah.
00:12:35
Speaker
So that's half the game is walking around and doing that. And then the other half the court trials is just like rapid fire mini games. If you've done like an ace attorney kind of if you're in the court for that trying to figure out like a murder or or something in there, it's very similar in you're spending a lot of time just trying to figure out this one thing. But
00:12:59
Speaker
your, your character, his name is Makoto Naegi, he can't think things through properly without like, okay, guys, we need to work this out. Let me make a comic book to explain what happens. And so you have to put pictures together in a comic book.
00:13:18
Speaker
Yeah, you're not even kidding. You just recreate the scene in literal comic book frame by frame format. And it's the first thing that happened was the murder. And you're like, wait, no, that doesn't make any sense. That was probably later after the setup. You're like, and then he fled the scene. And you're like, no, that's also not the first scene. He fled the scene. He came back, murdered them. You literally can lay it out like that. I did want to jump in for talking about Makoto.
00:13:47
Speaker
My recollection of him is that he needs like so much prompting to figure things out like it's always piecemeal Part of that's the gameplay like here's the next hint. Here's the next
Plot Twists & Secrets
00:13:59
Speaker
thing you have to connect together, but like some of the smarter Classmates around him are just like you got it. Good job, Makoto. It's like they're all just like, you know Letting him sort of figure it out
00:14:14
Speaker
The best example of this is the very first case. There's, Makoto has been hanging out with this girl for a while. He knew her from school or something and she's like the ultimate pop star and they're forming a sort of mini alliance and, you know, she gets killed. And he's absolutely horrified and upset. And behind her in blood, she wrote the what looks like the numbers
00:14:40
Speaker
I think it was like 11037 or something like that. I'm actually going to share this. Yeah. Point being, one of the characters names is Leon, and it clearly just says Leon behind her, except for it's missing the middle part of the end. And Makoto's like, no idea what this number means. Leon, do you know what this is? I have no idea what could have happened. And he's just sweating bullets like, I don't know what numbers are, man.
00:15:10
Speaker
Guilty AF. So your character is basically the dumbass and you as the actual player has to be like, no, this is what happened. You were the flash of inspiration and an otherwise vacant mind.
00:15:27
Speaker
Yeah, it checks out. So it turns out in the game that everyone's, you know, minds, they were brainwashed. But it just seems part of Makoto's, like his personality, like you just assume that he wouldn't know this stuff anyway. So you don't really suspect anything how he's clueless. It works very well.
00:15:50
Speaker
He's also very suspicious in the way that he's related to a lot of these murders. This first one happens in his room. I think if I recall the background, I might be misremembering. She's literally like, hey, can I spend the night in your room because I'm really concerned about what's going on. And he's like, yeah, sure, whatever. And then she freaking gets murdered in his own room. And he's just like, I didn't do it.
00:16:17
Speaker
Yeah. And of course, she was like, don't tell anyone I'm going to be in your room. It's like, oh, yeah, of course. And then she goes and dies. Yeah. So he was like immediately in love with this girl and she tried to set him up to like get so she was she was trying to kill the other guy and set you up so you would take the take the fall. She could graduate and get out. Lots of lots of backstabbing, lots of literal stabbing and backs.
00:16:46
Speaker
The as the plot builds on it doesn't it doesn't feel old like it Even after like the deaths come on. It's not like okay. It's just another death like they're always Dynamic and many are heart-wrenching Yeah So you don't want to like anyone because as soon as you're like, oh man, I love this character. They're gone man Why'd you think that?
00:17:12
Speaker
It actually are all like a bunch of set characters, which with I assume like different tropes. Oh, yeah. You get is the game linear or like do you get to make choices that impact or is it like I guessed wrong on who murdered so and so therefore I failed and have to go back.
Character Relationships
00:17:34
Speaker
It's that. The story is told in a very linear way and they'll pull you back. Really the only example of where you can stray from the designated path is it has sort of like in Persona social links. So what you would do in that, you go and you talk to an individual, you learn about them as a person, and then you'll get skills.
00:17:58
Speaker
And so that's really the only thing that's not the same through each playthrough is whoever you decide to spend time with and the skills that you get that you can actually use to make the trial gameplay easier or more dynamic.
00:18:18
Speaker
And I think there was like, there's the main mode, which is like the story mode, but then there's like an endless summer mode or something like like a school mode, which I think did have other variety. This is one of the few things I looked up and I was just like, it had collectibles. It was like a gotcha game thing.
00:18:34
Speaker
And then it was like the other thing that the wiki mentioned, it was like, and you can collect all of the characters' underwear. And I was like, oh my gosh, these Japanese games, objectification of women. And then I looked through it and I was like, oh no, it's all of the characters. You can just collect everyone's underwear, the male characters, female characters. They all have descriptions. And I'm just like. And they're all distinct. So it's like not like any, no copy and paste underwear. Everyone has very specific styles. You can learn a lot about a person. It's true.
00:19:05
Speaker
Yeah, the game's very, very Japan. Like, it goes over the top with the tropes. So it can be a little hard to stomach at first. If that's not quite your thing, even if it is your thing, sometimes you're like, game, pull it back a second. I can't deal with the crazy boob physics, like the nonsense that's happening.
00:19:33
Speaker
Everyone's a caricature of themselves over the top, and they don't approach some topics in a very good way.
00:19:45
Speaker
I'd like to say that the later games get better about it, but there's a lot of misgendering a character in this one.
Cultural Portrayal & Dated Elements
00:19:54
Speaker
There is making fun of fat people, that's good fun. It didn't age very well and it's only like 10 years old.
00:20:06
Speaker
I mean, to be fair, 10-year-olds also don't really age that well, isn't it? They grew up to be people, and I hate those. Yeah, it's... I do remember that. That's one of the characters, right? The ultimate programmer, I believe. Yeah, Chihiro. Chihiro, yeah. Who I thought was such a great character. I was like, yeah. You and me, buddy, we're here till the end.
00:20:35
Speaker
Yeah, that's you had that thought. So she was killed. So Chihiro was born a male, but for reasons and self-confidence reasons presented as a female. But that's a major it's a major plot point to how Chihiro was killed and
00:21:00
Speaker
So they made it a plot point, but as soon as everyone found out that Jihiro was actually a guy, they're like, oh, it's a shame he died, huh? He, and it's not just in the first game either because Jihiro's the ultimate programmer, so of course the ultimate programmer can make the ultimate AI that shows back through the entire series, later games, later anime, and every time they're like, that's him, that's our guy. It's just, ooh, a little tough.
00:21:30
Speaker
But Jihiro's lovely. Jihiro's pretty good. Is Jihiro your favorite character probably from this?
Emotional Impact & Tone
00:21:40
Speaker
Mine is the ultimate gamer who's in the second game. I own like six Danganronpa games and I've beaten one of them. I absolutely need to play through the rest, but I play through them with my wife because they're a fun little co-op experience with the Japanese stuff in there.
00:22:03
Speaker
makes you feel better than playing it on your own. Yeah, that's also that's also a little bit true. You brought you brought this up and you mentioned it now. And I mean, I shared the picture of like the first murder. It's heavily stylized. They didn't use blood, red blood in the game. I think it was for like a content censorship reason. But like all of the blood is fluorescent pink, which threw me off greatly when I first saw this.
00:22:34
Speaker
It's very eye-popping, and because it's so bright neon, you're almost like, oh, this is cute and bubbly. Oh, wait, nope, nope, she's dead. And it's incredibly gruesome.
00:22:51
Speaker
And I know I'm not talking gameplay as much because it's like the heavy visual novel aspect, but it's all about the huge concentration is the story. And it's about the most despair inducing, horrific,
00:23:07
Speaker
worst tragedy in human history. They give it a name with a ton of adjectives that don't matter. It's just called the tragedy. And it's essentially a single high school student calls the entire world to go insane through stages and mass killings.
00:23:27
Speaker
all started from a single person. So the fact that it's bright, like neon pink and bubbly and happy with a psychopathic high school student is fun. They try to keep it light.
00:23:44
Speaker
It's a it's a tonal smoothie, for sure. It's like they're like, let's just take all of the bubbly stuff. It's great. Mix that in there and then murder and death of loved ones.
Thematic Elements: Hope & Despair
00:23:55
Speaker
And you just like keep piling it in. You're like, I've got a good thing. But that girl tripped and you can see up her skirt. So funny, right? That's good. That's good. Yeah. But then all of her organs fell out. That's a guess. I don't know how accurate that is.
00:24:15
Speaker
They cover the violence, I think, with a lot of stylization. They're just like, they go to absurdities. We talked about the punishments a little bit and how they're ultimate. Do you want to talk about those?
00:24:30
Speaker
Yeah, so the punishments are if the murderer is found out in the trial, you know, they'll get killed instead. And so there's always very specific to them in the manner of how they're going to get killed. So the Leon, because we already mentioned him, he was a baseball star.
00:24:53
Speaker
So, he gets like tied to a pole or something and they bring out one of those like baseball machines like the automatic ones that just like spin a baseball. Yeah, like spit out one at a time but it just shoots a thousand at him and it has him like rotating on a spit almost so it's just he gets like brutalized by baseballs because that's the thing that he loved.
00:25:15
Speaker
The one girl referred to herself as a witch, so they burned her at the stake. And then they went to put out the fire and drove an ambulance through her. Very, very over the top.
00:25:31
Speaker
So it's not for those that are squeamish or those that are staying at, that are at home by themselves because their parents went on vacation and were feeling very sensitive that night but thought they would turn on the game and then couldn't sleep. I might've had an actual experience with that. Yeah, that sounds a little bit traumatic for a young mind.
00:25:59
Speaker
The Japanese bit's not the murder. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. No one should be exposed to Japan. No. It was definitely the thing, like, having not played the game in forever that was the biggest takeaway for me was the dichotomy between, like,
00:26:18
Speaker
the happy-go-lucky nature and just how miserable these people were. Like even, so something I recall is that like nobody wanted to kill each other at the start. Like Monokuma literally had to come out and be like, oh, and by the way, here's a secret. Like here's, uh, for the, well, the first thing was, um, blackmail, right? Basically he like kidnapped somebody that each person loved. Yep.
00:26:45
Speaker
And the only way you can find out what happened to them is if you graduate, so you should kill someone so you can see what happened to your parents or your best friends or just whoever was important to you.
Character-Driven Engagement
00:26:59
Speaker
Yeah. And then later, it's like he introduced a secret, I think. It's like the first Chihiro was that Chihiro is biologically male.
00:27:09
Speaker
Right. And then the person who ended up killing Chihiro because the secret was so bad that he was the ultimate wasn't I think was it gangster? No. Yeah. It was like biker gang or something. Biker. Yeah. Ultimate biker. Thank you. Yeah. And he was he was really cool too. His name is Mondo. But he accidentally killed his brother. And that was that was a big a big thing that he couldn't get over and he didn't want anyone to find out. So
00:27:39
Speaker
Chihiro had tried to befriend him and he was like, Well, this is a sucker. Let me let me kill her. And but it's not just because they're cold. It's not because they're cold blooded killers. Besides the one it's you can tell that they were reluctant and you can tell that he hated that he killed them and it's
00:27:59
Speaker
It can be incredibly sad as you're digging it out of them in the court case and you know what's about to happen and the whole room doesn't want this to come out. So it's an emotional wait.
00:28:11
Speaker
The thing in particular, I remember from that one, is like, so Chihiro was training to be like, hey, I want to be able to show people who I am. And so Mondo's helping, presumably her, because he thinks Chihiro's female, until Chihiro confides and is like, hey, this is my secret. I'm going to tell you because I trust you and I'm trying to be stronger and be better and overcome this. And he's just like,
00:28:42
Speaker
he couldn't stand that comparison to himself and how he's actually holding in his secret and so he kills Jihiro. And then, this is the part that gets me, drags the corpse to the other gym room to keep Jihiro secret.
00:29:00
Speaker
And then like does all of this stuff that ultimately ends up implicating him even further. Because there's this like sense of, I guess, owed respect or secret keeping.
00:29:15
Speaker
It's really sad. It's a really sad game. It hits. But it's also fun. It's not just like, oh, it's a sad time. So, Monokuma keeps things fun by being, you know, it's just, who doesn't love a mascot character in a video game? That's everyone's favorite part, right?
00:29:34
Speaker
He just pops up to you know to keep the plot moving and things like that and you can kind of troll them a little bit like people start to sass him back and it's just cute little cute interactions in between everything else that's happening yeah.
00:29:53
Speaker
It's all insane, though, because no one would act like that if it's just like, oh, yeah, my close friend just died. And one of these people killed him. You're like, all right, let's go for a beach beach trip or whatever. Kind of idea. Yeah. But that is literally the game. So Dave, you're out of your element here. What what are you thinking? What what would you like to what would you like to know more about in this Japan adventure we have going on here?
00:30:21
Speaker
I mean, it sounds really sad overall, more so than happy. Yeah. That was trigger happy. Oh, having a happy happen. So I guess you as the main character eventually win the game. Does that take too soon?
00:30:38
Speaker
That is safe to assume. Oh, God, spoilers. Yeah. Well, we're basically spoiling the first one. I will. I'll also answer for myself real quick. The answer is no. I died many times before I finally escaped.
00:30:55
Speaker
Yeah, so you do escape. So at the beginning of the game, you don't know what's going on. You don't know why you're locked in there. And as things are happening, you learn about this tragedy. You learn actually that you're the ones who locked yourselves in there. Before your minds were wiped, you knew what was going on in the outside world. And like the teachers at the time helped you barricade to stay safe. The problem was the psychopath was in there all along with you.
00:31:24
Speaker
So as you continue to learn things at the very end of the game, and they sort of do this in each of the future games as well, they'll give you an option.
Complex Plot & Emotional Depth
00:31:35
Speaker
Like, do you want to accept reality, or do you want to stay in your little box and exist as things are now? Because sure, you and your friends are killing each other, but it's worse outside.
00:31:49
Speaker
in future games, they go over how it is worse outside. But it's just you have to take the knowledge of is it better to grow and continue to live with hope or to stay with the status quo and live in despair is the the core thematic through the entire series.
00:32:09
Speaker
I'm just going to repeat some of my snippets like, a Japanese game you say, and this game seems really sad. I mean it's sad but it's also like, the characters, it is a very character driven game I would say, right? Part of the reason it is sad is because you can get attached to the characters, but it's kind of like,
00:32:27
Speaker
watching Game of Thrones or something. It's very different from that, I would say. But it's like, oh, this is character driven. I'm interested to see how these stories go. I really hope this person is not the next person to be murdered. And unfortunately, much like Game of Thrones, they always are.
00:32:45
Speaker
Um, so stupid, stupid character, scared her plot points. So in the, the second murder, the murder, which you hear out, they're like, well, also this seems like the work of a, uh, there's a, there's a serial killer, uh, genocide Jack, like this seems like maybe it's genocide Jack. It's like the specific, like known serial killer who you find out. Um, there's this really like quiet yet annoying, like soon dairy, not soon dairy. I can't remember which one.
00:33:15
Speaker
Just girl who's like super obnoxious when she sneezes or passes out, she turns into a serial killer who is completely different personality and is bubbly and bopping around, but also making lots of weird sexual jokes. Her tongue is three feet long. It's- It's like kiss plus. Yeah. Magnified to an actual absurd extent.
00:33:43
Speaker
so it's like that's your comic relief character is how this game treats it is the occasional serial killer in your group is like you need a laugh look at her uh-huh and this was the funny thing yes like genocide jack this actual serial killer is exposed early i earlier i guess like mid game i think but like
00:34:06
Speaker
It's not like people kill her or anything, right? Like, she's not part, like, unless she explicitly kills someone in the murder game, like, there's not a process to, like, deal with her. So you just have these, like, interactions where you're like, oh, no, I'm going to the library, and that's genocide Jack. She's talking to me now, and I don't like the situation. What are you having for lunch, Hannibal? Like, just normal school time chat.
00:34:38
Speaker
But it's for the interactions. I think that's the main reason to really play the game. The actual gameplay puzzle solving is very much, I don't know. You've played other detective games, Rachel, so maybe you'd have, could provide a comparison to how the logic puzzles work. But for this one, I was, I guess, wrong. And I was like, ah, okay, it's probably that. The adventure game, just dragging two sticks together until you have a fire.
00:35:07
Speaker
There definitely was a lot of that. The different thing with this is there's a time element to it. They make the trial seem very hectic. They use like eight different font typefaces on every screen. Like the noise is pulsating.
Narrative Twists & Character Arcs
00:35:25
Speaker
They're trying to make things seem
00:35:28
Speaker
Like havoc is happening which is different than you know Say your ace attorney where you just have guys in suits sitting there quietly But this it's sort of the same idea like What what you presented as evidence is almost correct but not quite so you might have to tweak your logic a little bit
00:35:53
Speaker
It's another thing that they expand on in future games where rather than just finding out the truth, you might have to tell a little lie to get the truth later, which I thought was a neat mechanic. Like, do I tell the truth or do I lie for the sake of good?
00:36:10
Speaker
It's almost too much from as you've been going just doing like basic detective work and talking to your friends and now you're button mashing and you're trying to figure out these puzzles and It's it's a heavy switch So do they kind of like give you clues Or is that just like through the interactions of like talking to people and maybe investigating around See like oh that seems off
00:36:38
Speaker
Most of the investigation, I think you get most of the clues in there. You might get a couple during while you're talking, or it'll at least build the conversation during the court case. But if someone dies, you have a certain amount of time to examine the body, look around, and then you'll be summoned to court by the bear.
00:37:04
Speaker
Yeah, I think unless I might be misremembering, but at least for this first one, it felt like I had to get all of the clues to like the game wasn't like, all right, you missed that she was stabbed in the chest. So we're not going to let you use that as evidence. You have to have all of it play. The only like mental deduction you're doing there is actually piecing together the pieces. But you should have every piece available or else the game
00:37:30
Speaker
would have to like send you back further when you screw up inevitably and you're like, it was me, I was the murderer. That would be an interesting speed run. You just go you're like, it's this person. Wow, I didn't think you'd get it. But yeah, you're right. Oh, shucks.
00:37:47
Speaker
It's also I remember it's dramatized like it's like a roundtable the trial basically where people like stand on platforms that then raise up as part of like the preparation for like the debate, which is not how you should do a trial in real life. You don't have everybody face each other and it's like it was the judge. Yeah, it's very
00:38:09
Speaker
And it's very tight, like a tight knit area as well. It's like you're standing shoulder to shoulder in a circle. No one's sitting. So like, it's just it's just this weird, very formal looking thing. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, the game is weird. Yes. It is really weird.
00:38:28
Speaker
Do you get to kill anybody? Or are you an innocent throughout? Indirectly. No, you're the innocent good boy. The ultimate luck. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're like the staple pillar of good for the entire series. Even in later games, they're like, oh, Makoto, he's such a good little boy.
00:38:54
Speaker
So no, you cannot kill anyone is who you are. The lawful stupid. So the the main killer who started all of all of the tragedy name is a junco and Ashima, you know, looks like your stereotypical psychopath, a girl in miniskirt and
00:39:17
Speaker
pink twin tails as you do. She is presented as one of your classmates as like the ultimate fashionista, but she dies very first thing. Like I think maybe the second person to die, like not even the first trial hasn't even happened yet. And she attacks Monokuma and is killed by, what was it?
00:39:43
Speaker
like spears super impaled spears of sleep or something. Yeah, she got impaled by like 10 spears. So the fashionista is like killed before your eyes, which they also let you know at the beginning, you know, when you're talking to her, you're like, you don't look
00:40:01
Speaker
the same as you do in your magazines like you look a little different you have more freckles your eyes are droopier and she's like oh no it's just off photoshop literally it's because it was a different person like the the jugo who's the evil person is still alive and just hidden her sister was pretending to be her
00:40:21
Speaker
and murdered and she murdered her sister in front of everyone so like that was stuff that you don't unwrap for 20 hours later like you forgot about junco she's been dead this whole time and then it's like oh actually no she's alive
Surprises & Reveals
00:40:35
Speaker
and then it sort of starts to
00:40:39
Speaker
the it starts the snowball when things when you start to piece things together of oh my god this makes sense from earlier and this makes sense and i had to sort of step away a couple times like i'm a genius i'm so good at game
00:40:57
Speaker
The game does also hit you with very much days ex machinos like that, though. It's just like pulling the trope like evil twin is literally a trope, right? It's like, yeah, you can. Maybe it's a bit of foreshadowing. But it's also something that a reasonable person wouldn't expect in this situation, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, no. The reason she's still around is because she's not still around.
00:41:27
Speaker
It fits into the narrative and the world that the game spins up, though, because it is like absurd. Like it's actually crazy. The human relatable part of it is the most real ish part is just like getting to know the people. That's the high school part. And then it's just like flip. All right. Murder and death, destruction, despair, the world outside. All of these are bad things.
00:41:58
Speaker
Yep.
00:41:59
Speaker
So they were broadcasting it to the world is is what what the killing game was is even though like the world's on fire. The team, the people who still have cable are watching you murder your friends. So that's why they have to keep it entertaining. And it can't be, you know, can't go too many days without a murderer or else your ratings will drop. So Monokuma Junco keeps keeps it going. Yep. So what's happening outside? That's so bad. Fire and brimstone.
00:42:29
Speaker
Yeah, I don't remember them going into a lot of it in the first game. Not in the first game, though. But don't worry, because the series is crazy. So I'm going to try and map out the timeline for how the games work and the series in general. So there's a light novel that takes place before the first game.
00:42:51
Speaker
Okay, the first game and the first anime with the anime doesn't exist, it's awful, don't watch it. Okay, so then it's, then next, before the second game, before that is a spin off called Ultra Despair Girls. It's a shooter game, it has nothing to do with any of this, plays totally different. But even though it takes place before the second game, if you play it before the second game, it'll ruin the entire thing for you.
00:43:20
Speaker
So that's fun. Half of the Danganronpa 3 anime takes place before the second game. Half of it takes place after. This does sound Japanese. Yes. And then the second part of the Danganronpa 3 anime and then Danganronpa V3 game. Does that make sense? No? Correct. No, that makes sense. I don't know whether to say yes or no because I feel like both are correct answers.
00:43:49
Speaker
So they go all over the place point being they do explain what the outside is like. It's all it's awful across the entire world. It's it all started from from junco apparently from this tragedy of massacre of some high school students like murdered their entire class. And then the despair is treated almost like a virus. So if you catch the despair, you're more likely to murder again. And so it's
00:44:19
Speaker
The ultra despair girls goes in into it the most is you're sort of exploring the outside world and Seeing like seeing people attacking each other and things burning down and yeah Basically a high schooler was so hardcore. Mm-hmm that they broke the minds of the entire world That's about it, that's the game It's a hot topic. Mm-hmm
00:44:45
Speaker
Um, yeah, questions, questions. Dave, I think this is pretty straightforward. You know, we're covering a lot of ground. My question is like, how many times did you get, I don't want to say duped, but like surprised by a reveal? Ooh. Hmm. Cause it seems like with a lot of these characters, you're like, surprise.
Fandom & Emotional Engagement
00:45:07
Speaker
And then they, they hit you with something. Yeah. Like wasn't even a girl. That was a surprise. That was, yeah.
00:45:14
Speaker
Um, one of the characters, uh, ends up killing herself, which you didn't think like there was any reason for that to happen. That was a huge plot twist. The junco was a huge plot twist. So I think out of, Oh my God, I can't count five or five stories, six, six, six stories, like with the cases, um, three of them were big shocks for me. Yeah. And I don't remember just called like that's fucking obvious.
00:45:43
Speaker
Leon. It fucking says Leon behind her. It doesn't say 11037, you asshole. You're the tutorial murder. Your instructor has killed himself. Find out how. It's all this one.
00:46:01
Speaker
To put a shout out to the future games, there are some twists in there. The twist in the second game makes my jaw drop so much, just thinking about it. This is an audio medium, so you probably can't tell, but I actually have goosebumps because I'm thinking about the twist of the second game. I loved it so much.
00:46:22
Speaker
So question, would you consider yourself a fan of the series? I wonder. Yeah, I'd say so. My largest disappointment is that I spent two months, three months earlier in the year consuming all of the media again, watching someone on YouTube doing a let's play. And then at E3, they're like, hey, also, we're releasing the games as a compilation. It's like, oh, well, crap, I just did all of it again.
00:46:52
Speaker
Dream Drop pretty max. Yeah. 360 something days over Danganronpa.
00:46:58
Speaker
Yeah. Over a fraction. Over zero. Yeah. It's definitely unique. I don't know who to recommend the game to. We were talking about this a little bit before the episode, as far as finding touch zones. And obviously, I think familiarity with graphic novel-type games help, because for the most part, it's like that, even with some of the other systems. And maybe character-driven games.
00:47:28
Speaker
What do I contrast this to? Like a Witcher? No, that's not right. Like what, like a first-person shooter? I mean technically, but no. Like what type of genre does this game fit into? I can't, I honestly don't even know, I'll sort of talk about it to anyone, but like Dave, I don't think you would enjoy the game. Like it's just, it's a little weird. I appreciate talking to you about it. But what honestly sold me on the game was the character designs.
00:47:56
Speaker
Oh, really good. Sakura, the martial artist, is like, I don't know, six foot five, like 250 pounds pure muscle in this miniskirt. Like it's just the absolute craziest design. And my brother sent me a picture. He's like, look at this character. I was like, all right, I won't buy the game. He's like, I'm on it. Sakura puts it in chat. Let me take a look to you here.
00:48:25
Speaker
Oh, that person looks. Yeah. She's amazing. So, yeah, the really, I think character driven visual novels, like you said, if I have JRPGs also, like it's not distinctly that genre, but you're very familiar with the tropes, then, you know, it will sink better than someone who's like, I don't know what a tsundere is. What does this mean? It's not going to go over well.
00:48:56
Speaker
I would say it's different from JRPGs, though, in that those usually have some management aspect and this game is much more narrative. It's just completely ahead. If you tried to miss anything, the game's like, no, no, I'm too. I'm not. No, you can't do that. Appreciate that. It was also feels. It's a field strip. I would give it the steam tag feels trip.
00:49:19
Speaker
I feel like that is beyond more things. Mm hmm. It should be. I don't think emotional. I think is emotional. But like certain things are emotional to some people. Like, is it fly me to the moon or something? I think that very much depend on dependent on the person. Whereas this just seems if you if you're not a sociopath, you will be hit by emotions at some point. Yeah.
00:49:49
Speaker
It does a good job at making you care about the characters. So and that's the yeah, if you if you need if you need a reason to cry, you know, you're a big buff
Game Genre & Audience Appeal
00:49:59
Speaker
burly man. And you're like, I can't find any other reason pick up Danganronpa. Yeah.
00:50:05
Speaker
They make you care about like the murderers and the murdered kind of an equal measure at times. And it's also like the part that really hit me is the times that they did kind of dial back the absurdity for a bit. And it's like, wow, these are basically, you know, late high school kids like dealing with.
00:50:26
Speaker
basically living in a continual saw universe. There's not a lot that they can do about the situation. And I don't know, it made it more compelling to finish it out and follow it out, even though it is basically a story, right? There's not really choices. You're determining what happens in this universe, or playing through what happens in the universe. But I like it.
00:50:53
Speaker
So then why haven't you gone to play the other games? Yeah, as Rachel has just plowed through them again.
00:50:59
Speaker
Right. Well, first off, they're not installed, so drop that down. But no, I'm just kidding. I just like to say, so drop that down. It's a good one. I do want to play them. It's going to require a particular emotional state where it can dedicate some time to it. So in front of the computer or not computer in this case, probably steam link it out to the projector. But it's really like a weekend affair, essentially, to play through one of these, I think.
00:51:28
Speaker
Cause it's impossible to just like, Oh yeah, I'll take a break. But before we find out who the murderer was or the murdery, I guess victims. So it would definitely feel weird to like come back. Like, Oh, something came up in a week later. You're like, who am I suspicious of?
00:51:46
Speaker
You definitely have to be in the right state of mind. I think V3 came out in 2017, not a great year for those remembering
00:51:59
Speaker
political nonsense, so I was not entirely mentally there. And I think it was maybe the first case, maybe the second case, my absolute favorite character was just destroyed, just disintegrated by piranhas. It was just devastating, and I couldn't take it, and I put the game down for three years, four years. So I was not in the right state of mind.
00:52:30
Speaker
it turned out when I finished that case, I was like, Oh, this was actually really good and poetic. And I feel better about it. It's what he would have wanted. Yeah, anyway, to die and then receive absolution. Yeah, I think if there's something you could take away from Jojo and Japanese media in general, it's that they really don't know how to pull their punches. So
00:52:57
Speaker
That's just that was entirely just a setup for the or or or that's all I was going for. That's the end of my contribution this episode. So this is my segue. Some may call me the ultimate segue.
00:53:18
Speaker
But don't because I'm I'm not a vehicle So what I thought would be fun is that the game is all all the characters are tropes so they're all ultimates I was interested what you guys are ultimates of I
00:53:44
Speaker
Right. And see, I've had time to think about this, so I actually am willing to give Dave first pick here. I've had the last time to think about it, but I did try and think about it a little bit. Does it have to be like an honest and true thing?
00:53:59
Speaker
But I don't think so. Are you going to lie to the people? Well, I'm not going to lie, but if it's like. So the one I was thinking of was like the ultimate chill. It's like I'm generally a very relaxed, tempered person. Oh, yeah. But at the same time, in my head, not always the case. So I didn't know if that would be lying in a case. It wouldn't count as an ultimate thing. I've known you for X amount of years now. You are ultimate chill. I think that's fair.
00:54:29
Speaker
I will take it. I think that's fair. Did I steal it? Yeah. No, I was going to say the ultimate podcast host. I mean, that doesn't bother me. I'm pretty relaxed.
00:54:45
Speaker
Yeah, I was also going to say you could be deceptive about it because some of that's that's one of the things in the game itself is people are at times deceptive. They're like, I was not actually the ultimate blah. I was the ultimate this. You're like, yes, I mean, it's a title, so it wasn't necessary, but all right. Right. Yeah, it's an interesting game, though.
00:55:08
Speaker
I like the exists. And I. Even though I have not played the subsequent games, it exists in that space where I'm like, I'm collecting them digitally anyways, because I want to support the company and like not have it be one of those things that like, OK, we're just going to release this in Japan forever now. Like we're never going to localize any of this anymore because Jake didn't buy that one.
Closing Remarks & Contact Info
00:55:36
Speaker
So no, it was your fault.
00:55:47
Speaker
directly tell you that in the game. Like they, out of nowhere, they cut to like, it looks like it's like a Sakura fighting a bunch of Monokuma, like action game. And then they just flash like a canceled on the screen. And they're like, enough of you didn't buy Danganronpa. We couldn't make this game. You should keep playing Danganronpa too. Like, it's, it's very good. That's funny. I realize it's a good fourth wall break. Yeah.
00:56:06
Speaker
I'm trying to avoid such a situation.
00:56:16
Speaker
I do like when games use that. This is a side that won't matter at all. But like for piracy or something like that, I think like game dev simulator had a detection where if it was like this is a pirated copy, what the director, the creator did is release the game and released it, the pirated version of the game as well.
00:56:36
Speaker
And what would happen is your games over time would just sell fewer and fewer copies until it was absolutely unsustainable. And you'd get like a pop up that people are pirating your game. And that's the reason it's not profitable. And that's the version pirates were playing. And so it actually impacted some of the reviews because people are reviewing the game on Metacritic and things. And they're like, I can't make any money due to piracy. That's good. I think back to that sometimes.
00:57:05
Speaker
So now I just buy games that I don't play. Yeah. Um, but yeah, any closing thoughts on dank and Rampa? What is it again? Dank and Rampa trigger happy havoc. The first one.
00:57:23
Speaker
I meant like what is the game? How does it play? Tell me some things about it. Oh, yeah. It seems wild, though. I think I have some very vague memories of back when you were playing Jake. I think I was over at your apartment and watch you guys play for like an hour or something. Again, that was a very long time ago. It's a weird game to play with an audience, I think, because you're just like you don't know what mental state they're in.
00:57:53
Speaker
Right. It's kind of like watching Requiem for a Dream or some other sad movie or something. It's like you touched on that, Rachel. If you're like, I'm having a great day, it's kind of not the ideal place to play the game. And if you're having a bad day, it's also not the ideal place to play the game. But you have to be the ultimate chill. I think you have to be evocative of the ultimate chill. Agreed.
00:58:19
Speaker
It's worth a play if any of these things sounded like, oh, you know, that could be interesting. Then, yes, it's worth giving it a shot. As long as you're not squeamish.
00:58:31
Speaker
It's definitely the characters, the plot makes it absolutely worth it and how it builds on in later games. Again, the first anime doesn't exist. And then it goes to Dangarampa 3, the anime, which is phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal. So yeah, it's a great series.
00:58:55
Speaker
I would, uh, I would say the first game's great. That's the only one I can comment on, but it is interesting. And I'm an advocate of fringe genres like this, you know, continuing to be supported and not dying out to a Western audience. So that's why we brought you on so you can talk about it so we can reinvigorate the community. More hope, less despair. That's just good advice.
00:59:21
Speaker
All right. Well, if you guys have any hopeful comments that you'd like to send into the podcast, um, or despairful, I guess, but maybe not, uh, send those in to soapstone podcast at gmail.com, or you could join the discussion on Facebook, the platform of ultimate despair at facebook.com slash soapstone podcast. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Bye.
01:00:22
Speaker
you