Danganronpa V3 is here!

[commandercool]

Ending spoilers:

I've got a crackpot theory about

Spoiler:

Kaede's twin.

Do you think she has something to do with the Necronomicon ritual? Assuming it was basically scripted that she was going to be the first killer then it makes sense to me that that decision was made precisely because the creators of the game knew they had a backup of her that they could unveil if the ritual was used. They probably just assumed that she would be the one chosen to be resurrected and may have had the twin ready as a replacement. When that didn't end up happening they rewrote some stuff about a twin being part of the Gofer Program with the intent to use it later and never had the chance, but she wasn't originally remembered to be a second person diagetically.

Presumably if this is the case then they would have programmed Kaede 2 to be evil or something, since the ritual isn't much of a motive if it doesn't lead to a death. And if that is true then presumably the twin died when the facility was destroyed, but it's not impossible that she was stored off-site or otherwise somewhere safe. Sequel fodder maybe?

[Edible]

I've got a crackpot theory about

Spoiler:

Kaede's twin.

Spoiler:

The Kaede's Twin thing was a total red herring.  Keep in mind who alerted Shuichi to the "Twin" part of that document.

[commandercool]

Spoiler:

The Kaede's Twin thing was a total red herring.  Keep in mind who alerted Shuichi to the "Twin" part of that document.

Spoiler:

That definitely makes the most sense, I'm just wildly speculating about whether it's a red herring based in some amount of fact. Tsumugi didn't intend for the game to end with the sixth trial, so it makes the most sense to me that if she was going to make something up to deflect attention from herself it would be something she could use again later. Possibly repurposing something she had intended to use earlier and already had ready but didn't get the chance to, rather than a whole cloth fabrication.

[CF7]

Chapter 1 End.
Dear game, do kindly fuck off.

[commandercool]

Might want to brace yourself for a lot more of that...

[Thata no Guykoro]

I'm almost certain it's impossible.

It's not impossible, just really really fucking hard. Stupidly hard. It's basically meant to be an optional challenge to hurl yourself at if you really want to.

[CF7]

Might want to brace yourself for a lot more of that...

We'll see, i guess.

My thought process during second half of trial.

Spoiler:

So far kinda standard. But where do they go with this..?
Oh...
Chiaki 5th trial PTSD flashback.
Oh, no...
Chiaki 5th trial PTSD flashback intensifies.
I call bullshit. That plan shouln't have worked for a number of reasons.

But i admit, when Kaede's red UI slowly turned off during her monologue and Shuichi's blue UI slowly turned on during his, that was kinda cool.

P.S. Korekiyo. He creeps the fuck out of me. If he isn't one of the killers, i'll eat my passport.

Edit: Oh, there's a casino... I guess, i know what i will be doing for the next few hours...

[CF7]

So... Chapter 2.

Spoiler:

Ryoma decided to sleep with the fishes.

Pre-trial thoughts.

Spoiler:

Time of death is obviously important.
There was a black strip of cloth. That's likely a piece of killer's clothing. People who wear something black are: Maki, Himiko, Kirumi and Tsumugi.
Himiko is right out, Maki is out as well. She has done nothing, but guarded her "caregiver" lab, so noone discovers the awful truth. Plus you can't progress through her arc, which likely opens up later. That leaves Kirumi and Tsumugi. Could be either, i guess.

[commandercool]

So has anyone been playing the postgame content at all? I've been messing around with

Spoiler:

Talent Plan/Monokuma's Test

this afternoon and they honestly seem kind of really good? Maybe things will get

Spoiler:

super grindy

later but so far I'm pretty impressed with the mechanics.

Spoiler:

At first I assumed you could just grind a character through Talent Plan over and over to grind up your stats, but you have to reset from scratch each time which means it's not about repetition, it's about planning your route efficiently (and some luck). Presumably the higher-tier cards will change this up some, I don't have any yet so I don't know how they change the gameflow, but I like what I see so far.

I just can't help but wish that

Spoiler:

this was a mobile game... I don't think Danganronpa proper is well-suited to the Vita at all, but this mode sure is which is actually making me slightly second guess my PS4 choice.

[Conqueror]

Spoiler:

Higher rarity cards get double the fragment/level gain from each square for the second tier, and I'd guess the third tier is 3x or 4x. Also, you can improve the gacha rate after every 10 levels you get through the dungeon. It seems to be a pretty interesting mode, but I'm only up to around level 25 now in the dungeon.

[commandercool]

It seems like fun, and of course

Spoiler:

the fan service is amazing. Watching the different casts interact is adorable. It's morbidorable.

[Conqueror]

Spoiler:

Yeah, I really love all the cast interactions, and some of them are pretty hilarious too. Sorta reminds me of what some people expected to see in the DR3 Despair arc anime.

[CF7]

Finished chapter 2. Well... Trial was a clusterfuck of what, where and why. Kokichi's real talent should be Ultimate Troll.
Currently at Chapter's 3 Free Time.
Overall i am enjoying it a lot so far.

[commandercool]

On floor 41 of Monokuma's Test. The one S-rank card I don't have from DR1 is Chihiro. And I've pulled three U-rank Tokos somehow.

I have an absolutely insaneballs minmaxed Maki

Spoiler:

following a successful Monokub Surgery, the one time I've ever seen that event actually pop up

and she pretty much let me singlehandedly roll all of floors 31-40 barring the super obnoxious end boss.

[Conqueror]

imo the

Spoiler:

surgery

is absolutely essential for ez dungeon clearing, especially if you're a mage type who can't clear the yearly exams easily with scrub teammates. Pretty sure my Miu here received that treatment because iirc I only put her on one round of normal course and she's only S-rank.
Also included my Nagito because I built him as a meme but he did surprisingly well against the level 30 boss, critting for 600+ so the boss never got a single hit in. I imagine going full crit is only really effective at U-rank.

[commandercool]

Leveling U-rank characters actually takes a lot of planning because, at least assuming you get the surgery event (and I did the one time I've done it so far) you'll cap your level and end up with more shards than you can use. So balancing that out with events and friend encounters is necessary to not be wasteful. Probably means that getting an optimal-ish build for a U-rank character will tend to take a few tries.

Edit: Incidentally, Gonta specced around using Sacrifice is really good. Definitely seems to be what he's made for and makes running glass cannons a lot easier.

[CF7]

Cleared Chapter 3.

Spoiler:

Nods to DR 1 & 2 were kinda nice. Culprit was wholly unsurprising. And even more creepy than usual. Well, now the game killed pretty much all the characters that annoyed me, so that's good.

And i just finished Chapter 4 Free Time. So...

Spoiler:

Completed Maki's a.k.a. Ultimate Assassin's report card and the skill i get is a) expensive as hell (32) b) pretty much useless for the main game and only useful in the post game for grinding monocoins by clearing a trial repeatedly. WTF?

P.S.

Spoiler:

Kokichi is like Nagito 2.0 but minus all the creepy and with his troll throttle firmly stuck on FULL.

[commandercool]

Cleared Chapter 3.

Spoiler:

Nods to DR 1 & 2 were kinda nice. Culprit was wholly unsurprising. And even more creepy than usual. Well, now the game killed pretty much all the characters that annoyed me, so that's good.

Spoiler:

Yeah, from this point on you know it's only going to be characters you like who die...

And i just finished Chapter 4 Free Time. So...

Spoiler:

Completed Maki's a.k.a. Ultimate Assassin's report card and the skill i get is a) expensive as hell (32) b) pretty much useless for the main game and only useful in the post game for grinding monocoins by clearing a trial repeatedly. WTF?

Spoiler:

I had it equipped for most of the game after I got it. It's pretty useful. For buying stuff from the casino if nothing else.

P.S.

Spoiler:

Kokichi is like Nagito 2.0 but minus all the creepy and with his troll throttle firmly stuck on FULL.

Spoiler:

Kokichi is a hell of a character. I think he polled as second most popular in the game which isn't really surprising. I'm guessing he would rank fairly high in overall series popularity as well.

[CF7]

Oh, right speaking of...

Spoiler:

Either i am totally off track, but if you fill the gaps that mysterious tablet reads "This world is mine. Kokichi Oma". Unless there are some other letters that fit.

[Conqueror]

I can finally say I maxed out a gacha. So this is what being a whale feels like.

Edit: Also, minmaxing too hard in talent plan isn't ideal because you'll hit the 999 cap way too easily due to how the item bonuses stack. This won't be an issue most of the time but my Sonia hit the focus cap very early and just rammed into the Int cap. On floor 91 now, not sure how I'll handle the boss rush at 99/100 given I almost wiped on the floor 90 boss.

[CF7]

Hummm... Chapter 4 pre-trial thoughts.

Spoiler:

Miu wanted to kill Kokichi. She made a warp wall that let her move between 2 sides of the map, That same warp wall also moved signboard. So, she forcibly logged out Kaito, arranged for a meeting with Kokichi to bonk him on the head and uh... Then things kinda went weird. She somehow died. Also there was toilet paper, which is important, but i have no idea how yet.

[CF7]

So... Uh... Chapter 5 happened. I have no words beyond "HOLY SHIT".

[TresserT]

I've seen a lot of people compare

Spoiler:

Kokichi and Nagito

, but I genuinely don't see it at all, aside from the

Spoiler:

not quite a good guy not quite a bad guy anti-hero thing.

[CF7]

How

Spoiler:

delightfully... META

.

[commandercool]

So I just walked in the door and my roommate was playing (my copy of) V3. He was on the

Spoiler:

end of the first trial

and just walking past it bummed me out. Oof. I finished you game, quit bullying me...  :V

[Conqueror]

So...this is the power of the ultimate weapon. Just need to craft the highest tier armor so I can have 999 health as well. The second to last weapon basically sets your str/int/agi to 999 as long as your base is high enough.

Anyway, this is me on floor 100 right before the final final boss. That was a fun little diversion. I almost want to play a real rpg now.

Edit: It's over. Replaced Kirigiri with a cure/healbot Sayaka and combined with Angie that meant my other 2 carries were free to keep attacking nonstop. Huzzah.

[commandercool]

I'm definitely going to finish it once I dig myself out from under all the other recent new games. I haven't really spent much time with the other other traditional postgame mode either. This game does have a shocking amount of postgame content.

[Rin Kagamine]

Spoiler:

I don't think Danganronpa proper is well-suited to the Vita at all, but this mode sure is which is actually making me slightly second guess my PS4 choice.

I don't know why this is spoilered but the ability to shoot white noise with the rear touchpad makes the Vita the best console for DR

[Teewee]

Hey, spoilering stuff here just became a habit :v

Chapter 2:

Spoiler:

After hearing about what Kirumi's execution is supposed to symbolize, I'm led to believe it's just trolling on Monokuma's part, or maybe something to help alleviate the pain of someone like Kirumi getting executed. I mean, considering everything she did before she saw her motive video, I think it's very unlikely she betrayed the rest of the cast out of pure selfishness more than anything. She seemed too sincere about her stated duty (selfless devotion) to do that. Too sincere in more ways than one :v

[MatsuriSakuragi]

What the fuck did I just play.
(game end spoilers)

Spoiler:

I'm going to need a while to digest all of this. Even though I had been hit with some spoilers ("Kaede was the first culprit", "Gonta dies", "Tenko dies", "Tsumugi dresses up as Junko at some point") thanks to internet being internet, I was fully satisfied with the plot twists. Just.... that ending. There are so many layers of meta and irony on top of it that it makes my head spin, which is a good and bad thing. Good, because it's making me think and be introspective, but bad, because I didn't have a rush of feelings at the end like I did with SDR2. It was exhilarating in an exhausting way-- and I think the lack of true satisfaction at the end was absolutely intentional-- they put the epilogue in for closure so it's not entirely a feelbad bummer story, but the fact that the game was straight up calling out people who play it for finding joy in watching people, even if they're fictional, die and have to fight for hope over despair as emotional payoff-- and ending that game without the payoff... kind of feels right? It doesn't feel GOOD but it feels right.

And I really have to think that this may genuinely be the end of the Danganronpa series-- not just because of how the story plays out, but also because the producer (or one of them) left Spike Chunsoft recently. And honestly, I think I may be okay with that. This is a goddamn fantastic series and I'd hate to see it become overdone and overstay its welcome. And after an ending as surreal and absurd as this one, is it even possible to top it? I really don't think so.

Also: How do you get into that RPG game? Is it an extra you have to unlock after doing the Talent Plan or whatever? I'm not really feeling up to doing a bunch more right now, but I'll definitely poke at it later.
Also also: I have heard that

Spoiler:

That Kumasutra love house actually has a role in the game, but I never figured it out. What's that all about? I don't mind some light spoilers as to how to involve it. (I never messed with the casino much, for what it's worth.)

Also also also (endgame spoilers):

Spoiler:

Tsumugi actually drops an... interesting hint that I actually thought was an oversight but may be 100% intentional. In the first piece of her FTE, she says she's so plain, even her underwear is plain white. When you get her panties at the end of her FTE route, they're black and decorative, which means either the writers messed up, or it was a hint that she's a total liar and not who she claims to be. Also, can I just say I fucking love how she turned out? I think I may like her just as much as I like Junko.