26.6 hours played
Written 2 days ago
As most people do, I will also warn you that this game is intended to be experienced [b] after [/b] you have played Danganronpa : Trigger Happy Havoc, and Danganronpa 2 : Goodbye Despair. Despite chronologically happening in between these two games, there are major spoilers for both games in Ultra Despair Girls, and it will be hard to follow what is happening without the knowledge of the characters in the pair.
As for the game itself, it is very hard to analyze. UDG is revered as the weakest of the franchise, and it can be pretty obvious as to why. However it does receive hate that is simply "UDG is bad why would you play it" without any analysis or basis. UDG was originally released as a PlayStation Vita game in 2014 in Japan, and was later ported to the PS4 and Steam in 2017 worldwide. All of that to say, that this game wasn't meant developed for keyboard and mouse. The controls show how finicky they can be at certain points. Especially through the aiming of your megaphone. The sensitivity is set incredibly high, and changing this is locked behind an obtainable when it really should be a setting. Certain abilities that can be found are also just plain unhelpful or actually make the game harder (most notably Autolock) to play at all. That being said, it's not the worst out there. Danganronpa as a franchise a detective series, not a shooter. The way in which they chose to tie in detective and puzzle elements is nicely done, and doesn't make the new gameplay feel incredibly foreign. Overall, you shouldn't go into this game expecting a great shooter because that's not what this game is. The shooter elements are simply plot devices to move a more visual novel story along.
There will be major spoilers beyond this point. Read at own discretion.
That being said, the story itself has glaring issues. Danganronpa as a franchise is known for blunt discussion and less sensitivity with delicate issues, but this game takes it up to a whole new level of blunt. What's also worse, is that this game primarily depicts a theme of children vs. adults, making what they can do a very thin line before it gets otherwise inappropriate. They fell very quickly into uncomfortable and weird. [spoiler] Certain camera placements are very gross considering they are essentially crotch-shotting a twelve year old, but of the two female villains, Kotoko is treated like a fanservice punching bag. While never it's never outright said, it doesn't take much to figure out that Kotoko was a victim of CP and SA. This would be fine, if they gave her the delicacy they gave literally every other Warrior of Hope. Masaru, Jotaro, and Nagisa all tell Komaru the awful things that happened to them and it's treated appropriately like a horrifying trauma. Kotoko gets through recounting her traumatic past to Komaru, and then is immediately upskirt flashed to the camera. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why that's wrong. Plus, part of her chapter is a minigame where you have to swat away the hands of a machine that trying to "motivate" Komaru by touching her in private places. There is never another minigame in the game, this is the only instance of one and its disgusting. The tutorial instruction for said minigame also imply that this is something the player should "enjoy, but not too much". Her backstory is written like it's meant to be a joke, something to point and laugh at, unlike the serious and traumatizing pasts of the other villains. She's often put in situations where the player can see up her skirt (hanging from a pipe on the ceiling, being knocked over, general camera placement, etc.) which is just disgusting. They don't do this to any other female character, just Kotoko. Whoever wrote her chapter and approved it, clearly has some personal things they need to work out. Quite literally, she could be fixed entirely by removing the "Motivation Machine" minigame and not flashing her every time she's on screen, none of which would impact the story at all.
Kotoko isn't the only place where comments like this are. Of the entire cast, there are two named and alive adults. Haiji Towa is explictly said in lines of dialogue to like his partners "as young as possible" and that Komaru is "too old for him". This is never pointed out as being wrong by the main characters (Which they do point out with Kotoko, albeit not enough) or even addressed by anyone, its just a line of dialogue that gets dropped and then moved back to regular story. Haiji is already a relatively bad character in the actual plot, but this just seals his fate. Why the writers chose to add this, I can't say, but I do know it adds literally nothing to the game and only hurts UDG as a whole.
Additonally, Toko can be shown to act inappropriate at times too. Genocide Jack makes regular comments after Kotoko's section that Kotoko took Komaru's virginity, many of the books that start bonus dialogue pertain to romantic preferences, and both Toko and GJ treat Byakuya like a god they fantasize about. The "Toko's Fantasy" cutscenes that happen occasionally in the story and as the way to rank your performance in each chapter are uncomfortable at best especially when some of them end with white splatters on the screen. [/spoiler]
Outside of the increasingly inappropriate comments that occur throughout the game, the story at its core is decent. The reason Monaca and the Warriors of Hope seek revenge on adults is fleshed out and reasonable, and for the most part each character has their own significant development that feels good to read. [spoiler] (Despite the early nature of Masaru's "demise".) [/spoiler] UDG fills a small plothole between two of the major games, and explains how certain things that happen in Goodbye Despair are prepared beforehand like [spoiler] how the program the Despairs were put in was altered by Junko's AI [/spoiler].
I genuinely can't say if I would or wouldn't reccomend this game to someone. On a sheer plot standpoint, its decent and the gameplay is usable albeit a little clunky. As a whole for what it is, UDG can be very inappropriate beyond what is acceptable of "dark humor" around serious topics and fumbles the ball a lot with where delicacy should be given. If knowing all this you still want to play the game (which really I would say should only be done by those seeking the plot of it), at the very least wait until it's significantly on sale or part of a bundle with other things you want to play. It's relatively poor in quality, but certainly not the "horrible game that no one should ever play" some make it out to be.
