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[thestopsign]

First game was great, second game wasn't as good because it just dragged on forever and anything outside of the different murders was annoying. Probably done with the series. I wouldn't call it small enough to be a cult hit, it did pretty well in Japan and on Steam.

I would call something like God Hand more of a cult hit.

 

[Permanently A]

More like cult shit.

how do you manage to get a shitpost on the front page of every single danganronpa thread

tell me your secrets

 

[CommandThrower]

I don't think I can consider Danganronpa a cult hit anymore. It got two sequels, a spin-off game, and two anime shows. I think at that point, your series isn't cult status anymore.

 

[HeatBoost]

In Japan it's a a medium sized hit

In America it's cultier than a room full of weirdos wearing sky blue sheets standing around a punch bowl with a star pattern being projected on the ceiling

 

[Ulong]

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[Jigorath]

I mean, it's a pretty successful series for what it is. V3 even managed to grow from the previous entries in Japan.

I don't think I can consider Danganronpa a cult hit anymore. It got two sequels, a spin-off game, and two anime shows. I think at that point, your series isn't cult status anymore.

It's too bad the anime shows have been such trash.

 

[Zubz]

Danganronpa's sold pretty well for the type of game it is, and also probably by Japanese expectations. Also seems to have gotten at least one game that tried to partly mimic it.

Wow, that design is... Blatant, to say the least.

A Google Image Search shows the game is called "Idol Death Game TV." Just like DR, it's a game show where the prize is being the lone survivor, but instead of the cool mystery/trial element, it's all idols.

In Japan it's a a medium sized hit

In America it's cultier than a room full of weirdos wearing sky blue sheets standing around a punch bowl with a star pattern being projected on the ceiling

I dunno. It's definitely not earth-shattering in America, but it's not that obscure in America. It still sold well despite being a Vita game, & is doing decently well now that it's also on Steam. I'm with everyone else; DR's definitely medium-sized at best, but it's past "cult" status in both Japan & America.

 

[sjay1994]

I picked up the first danganronpa because people kept comparing it and calling it a combination of Ace Attorney and Persona, and I adore those series so I bought the Vita version of DR1 the day it released.

I enjoyed it for the first 3/4ths, but the "things happening outside the school and the fact the game literally says "nah forget about this plot point, it doesn't matter"" kinda ruined it for me.

DR2 the minigames were incredibly obnoxious imo, and got in the way of the deductions which I do enjoy.

And then the anime was just a fucking mess.

I feel like I consumed more DR after one solely to see "ok where does this go", and since V3 is its own thing, I feel safe in saying I am done with DR.

 

[Ulong]

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[sjay1994]

Which plot point does it tell you to forget again?

Spoiler

The "I wiped your memories" don't ask me how I did it.

 

[Lord of Ostia]

I think a thing that soured 2 a lot for me that doesn't come up very often is that the motivations provided by monokuma were pretty ass in the second game.

The twilight syndrome murder case was terrible because it was super specific to try and motivate one character only, and the rest of them were these contrived situations that pretty much forced someone to murder eventually or everyone would die. "Who wants everyone to starve to death the least?" is a pretty uncompelling motive compared to say, everyone seeing a threatening video featuring their family and loved ones, and then seeing who is most impacted by this.
Also, I think the Despair Disease motive probably only existed as an excuse for "we need a reason for this one character to get their memories back" which probably could have been handled much better.

Well, the twist at the end kind of clears up Monokuma's motivations/the whole reason any of the events are happening in the first place. I can understand not liking the explanation, but it's consistent I think. It also explains the character's motivations or at least why the would be willing to commit the murders, but I obviously don't want to spoil things for anyone here.

I think Danganronpa 2 is the best game, personally. It has the best cases. I also enjoyed Ultra Despair Girls a lot, but people here tend to hate on that one.

 

[Ulong]

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[thebisonxrc]

More like cult shit.

Hahaha! I haven't played any of the games, but I've always wanted to. I suppose I would consider the series a cult hit.

 

[JulianImp]

Well, the twist at the end kind of clears up Monokuma's motivations/the whole reason any of the events are happening in the first place. I can understand not liking the explanation, but it's consistent I think. It also explains the character's motivations or at least why the would be willing to commit the murders, but I obviously don't want to spoil things for anyone here.

I think Danganronpa 2 is the best game, personally. It has the best cases. I also enjoyed Ultra Despair Girls a lot, but people here tend to hate on that one.

My gripe with both DR1 and 2 are the mini-games, since they add little to nothing to the court segments and actually disrupt any focus you might've had in the characters' trains of thought as they argue back and forth. They somehow even managed to make the "improved" version of a sucky mini-game even worse for the sequel.

The debate and final summary segments were by far the best gameplay segments of both games, but I'd say 2's debates suffered a bit from the new agreement system giving players too many options, to the point it was often really obvious whether you were supposed to refute, agree, or counter an argument with another person's argument instead of your regular truth bullets, even at the highest logic difficulty.

 

[RecRoulette]

Not really a cult hit,

Spoiler

it's just hypnosis.

 

[sjay1994]

I don't think it's asking you to forget a plot point, even though the HOW is irrelevant to the story, that it happened is still completely relevant. It's a very valid opinion to be annoyed by that, but I think it's different then asking you to forget a plot point, that sounds more like there was a continuity error they want you to ignore when you phrase it that way.

That scene in Looper where Bruce Willis tells Joseph Gordon Levitt to not worry about "wouldn't you have my memories about us meeting now" is comparable I think.





Sure, but the ending making that work better in hindsight doesn't take away from how it impacted my enjoyment as I played through the game.

Spoiler

Junko literally tells them "its not important and it doesn't matter how I did it"

which bugged me because its basically "this only happened for plot reasons, and I have no good reason to explain it, so fuck off" I guess DR2 and the anime kinda showed how it was possible because of the advanced tech they had but in DR1's case nothing really suggested until that point that the tech was "that advanced". Sure robot bears and AI withstanding, it was a leap in logic that kinda killed the game for me because the character literally says "it doesn't matter how I did it" to which I say "fuck you, tell me how you did it".

 

[Dangansona]

Well, the twist at the end kind of clears up Monokuma's motivations/the whole reason any of the events are happening in the first place. I can understand not liking the explanation, but it's consistent I think. It also explains the character's motivations or at least why the would be willing to commit the murders, but I obviously don't want to spoil things for anyone here.

I think Danganronpa 2 is the best game, personally. It has the best cases. I also enjoyed Ultra Despair Girls a lot, but people here tend to hate on that one.

I'm with ya about 2 being the better game and also enjoying UDG. Although I view 2 kind of like how I view Persona 4. Sure it's the better game mechanically with better characters, but there is something about the darker atmosphere of their predecessors that make me want to give them the edge.

Spoiler

In the case of Persona, I think I would say 3 is my favorite.

 

[Ulong]

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[arcticice]

It did sell well, that's why we got sequels and even anime

 

[buddha0991]

I would say so. The series has had several main entries, a spinoff game, a sequel anime, an anime of the original game, a bunch of novel or manga spinoffs, the works. I wouldn't say its an amazingly high seller though, but it constantly does well.

The new game, New Danganronpa V3, is the best selling game in the series in Japan. It will sure be interesting to see how fans react to that game here. That game more than all the rest seems to be very polarizing. I see JP fans and western fans who spoiled themselves either think its genius and is the best in the series, or that it is the worst in the series. For my money, it is the best in the series but I absolutely know it's gonna be a very split game. Can't wait to see that go down.

 

[Guru-Guru]

The new game, New Danganronpa V3, is the best selling game in the series in Japan. It will sure be interesting to see how fans react to that game here. That game more than all the rest seems to be very polarizing. I see JP fans and western fans who spoiled themselves either think its genius and is the best in the series, or that it is the worst in the series. For my money, it is the best in the series but I absolutely know it's gonna be a very split game. Can't wait to see that go down.

I played it and beat it. I thought it was the worst game in the series, though I still enjoyed it overall. The ending is SUPER divisive (I kinda liked it), but IDK, the game itself just felt like a retread. I found myself struggling to get excited about the plot/cast of characters. Some of the individual cases were cool, but a few were really weak. V3 is also substantially longer than both the previous entries (maybe my playtime was around 45 hours?), and the pacing often dragged.

 

[jettpack]

Maybe a cult hit in the West? Isn't it pretty popular in Japan?

 

[daevious]

I think a thing that soured 2 a lot for me that doesn't come up very often is that the motivations provided by monokuma were pretty ass in the second game.

The twilight syndrome murder case was terrible because it was super specific to try and motivate one character only, and the rest of them were these contrived situations that pretty much forced someone to murder eventually or everyone would die. "Who wants everyone to starve to death the least?" is a pretty uncompelling motive compared to say, everyone seeing a threatening video featuring their family and loved ones, and then seeing who is most impacted by this.
Also, I think the Despair Disease motive probably only existed as an excuse for "we need a reason for this one character to get their memories back" which probably could have been handled much better.

I'll agree that the motivations are kinda crappy in the second game, but there's other areas that the sequel improves on in such a significant way that it helps balance these issues out.

As for V3;

Spoiler

they clearly realised they couldn't come up with good motivations and just used a catch-all motive of "murder someone in the next 48 hours or you all get killed" to prevent themselves being chained down.

 

[Ulong]

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[eyeball_kid]

I bought the first one on Steam and thought it was boring. After I figured out the first few murders before the trial, I just got bored and stopped. I felt the trial gameplay mechanics were more annoying than fun, and I had the same impression of the characters.

 

[MulderYuffie]

It's beyond cult hit at this point.

 

[clay_ghost]

The art perfectly matches the tone of the game. I'm sure you'll change your mind once you actually play it.

Yes the art matches the tone of the games.

However do take note that most still prefers ace attorney and other similar interactive VN than Danganronpa. I guess it's a decent filler between the AA games if you are desperate.

 

[danm999]

Picked it up on Steam recently and liked it. The writing and characters were great in my opinion. The game elements I was less enthused by. The music was top notch.

 

[GoldStarz]

Is that applied to everyone, or are individual people

Spoiler

assigned to be the next murderer in 48 hours?

Spoiler

In the first chapter, Monokuma gives two motives: a first come, first serve get-out-jail-free card that lets the first murderer leave scott free without trial and a time limit of 48 hours until Monokuma kills everyone if they don't kill someone before time runs out.

Most of the other motives are pretty lame too and honestly I think only one of them actually inspires a murder.

 

[pbayne]

Yeah id say it's a cult hit and has turned itself into an ever expanding franchise at this point.

Unfortunately it suffers from the stupid cross-media push that seems to happen to some Japanese franchises. The two main core games are great but everything else around them i think is trash that only serves to dilute the series bit by bit.
Thankfully they seem to be making a somewhat fresh start with the next game.

 

[Yohane]

Also seems to have gotten at least one game that tried to partly mimic it.

there is also that kenji inafune danganrompa clone lmao

 

[MasterMenace]

Not really relevant to the OP's question, but...

To those who have played both Danganronpa and the Nonary Games:

Will I enjoy Dangangronpa 1+2 when it comes out on PS4 if I enjoyed the Nonary Games (999, VLR, didn't play ZTD)?

 

[I Wanna Be The Guy]

More like cult shit.

In fairness the minigames actually are shit.

 

[Dnetwork7]

I would say so, I mean we're getting the next game the same year as its Japanese release. Which is pretty good considering how niche these games are. I really love the series, can't wait for V3.

 

[Guru-Guru]

In fairness the minigames actually are shit.

Luckily none of the minigames in V3 are annoying/frustrating at all, unlike the previous entries! I wouldn't say they are super fun (and I sort of question why they are needed in the first place), but they are improved over Danganronpa 1 and 2.

 

[Poyunch]

They have two different anime series and enough popularity to have a side game. I have no interest in the series but it seems to be doing well.

 

[bobawesome]

Yeah it is a cult hit. It's like the sillier version of Zero Escape, which is another cult hit.

That was Zero Time Dilemma.

 

[michaelius]

Not really relevant to the OP's question, but...

To those who have played both Danganronpa and the Nonary Games:

Will I enjoy Dangangronpa 1+2 when it comes out on PS4 if I enjoyed the Nonary Games (999, VLR, didn't play ZTD)?

Yeah I'm loving both series - they are similar in spirit and idea.

More like cult shit.

 

[Eumi]

I'm not sure the self contained game that spawned three sequels, three animes, a tps spinoff, several novels and manga etc. can be called small.

Plus most people I know who liked the series aren't big fans of Danganronpa right now so I dunno if you could even continue to call it well liked.

 

[khaaan]

I picked up the first danganronpa because people kept comparing it and calling it a combination of Ace Attorney and Persona, and I adore those series so I bought the Vita version of DR1 the day it released.

I enjoyed it for the first 3/4ths, but the "things happening outside the school and the fact the game literally says "nah forget about this plot point, it doesn't matter"" kinda ruined it for me.

DR2 the minigames were incredibly obnoxious imo, and got in the way of the deductions which I do enjoy.

And then the anime was just a fucking mess.

I feel like I consumed more DR after one solely to see "ok where does this go", and since V3 is its own thing, I feel safe in saying I am done with DR.

Oof, yeah. I'll get back to DR2 at some point, I enjoyed in spite of the mini-games and it felt like they just dialed it up even more for DR2. I know setting it to low difficulty helps but it's still not something that I consider a plus to the experience.

Not really relevant to the OP's question, but...

To those who have played both Danganronpa and the Nonary Games:

Will I enjoy Dangangronpa 1+2 when it comes out on PS4 if I enjoyed the Nonary Games (999, VLR, didn't play ZTD)?

I think so, but they are fairly different. Danganronpa is much sillier, personally I feel it gets to a point where it's actively taking away from the darker elements in the game. I thought the payoff for the story in the first game wasn't particularly good but it was still enjoyable. I hear DR2 does a good job with the story but I haven't played it far enough to say either way.

 

[nephilimdj]

Games
Manga
Anime
Merch (statues, tshirts, keyrings. new items every few months)
Limited editions

Not being made purely as it breaks even like Etrian Odyssey, no real brainer

 

[Parilord]

That seems accurate for the west, or at least it seems that way when they're taking 8 months to localize the new game. Bet they weren't even handed the game for localization before its Japanese release.

To those who have played both Danganronpa and the Nonary Games:

Will I enjoy Dangangronpa 1+2 when it comes out on PS4 if I enjoyed the Nonary Games (999, VLR, didn't play ZTD)?

I also went from ZE to DR, and I ended up liking the games a lot (especially the second game). However I went in with rather low expectations, so I would maybe temper mine if I were you. If you're used to the ZE series you should know that the overarching story of the games is rather poor and nowhere near what ZE is known for. Luckily this only tarnishes the last hour or so of each game where it comes into play, and at least it is novel in how bad it is + certain parts are executed well.

The appeal of the games lies in its individual trials and characters, and these combine to give me some of my most favorite moments in gaming. It's like Ace Attorney except with the same characters in each trial which makes you much more invested, and also no character is safe.

Finally I'd like to say that even if DR1 doesn't capture you, I'd still recommend to continue on to the second game. I feel the characters are more original and their roles in the trials are more evenly distributed, rather than 2-3 characters being the entire driving force in them. Plus it's a game that takes advantage of being a sequel in a great way.

 

[I Wanna Be The Guy]

Luckily none of the minigames in V3 are annoying/frustrating at all, unlike the previous entries! I wouldn't say they are super fun (and I sort of question why they are needed in the first place), but they are improved over Danganronpa 1 and 2.

Looking forward to V3. Hoping for it to be a great last hurrah for the Vita. Zero Time Dilemma and Steins Gate 0 were supposed to be that, but ZTD was pure garbage and Steins Gate 0 had some highs but ultimately was unsatisfying in its conclusion and didn't justify its existence in the end.