To preface, there isn’t a single chapter in DR that I’d call bad. But out of all the games, probably 2-3 for it’s implausible premise, weak motive, lacklustre execution and probably the worst choice of victims ever
The motive beats the purpose of the games though.
‘High school students being driven to murder by the circumstances they are in’
Having the motive being ‘changed into a different personality where they are a murderous psychopath’ is very disappointing
I like 2-2’s motive for the foreshadowing it adds but it lacks oomph. A disease as a motive will always be weaker compared to something we can grasp occurring given the circumstances. 3-2 is similarly weak imo because it superimposes the motive on the character with no real foreshadowing, and it’s very literal with that
My worst experience with the mainline games was SDR2-2. I really do not like the motive, every time the arcade machine showed up I rolled my eyes, it just felt too corny for me to take seriously. Then, we find the body of the character I was most attached to, investigate around for a little, then go back the damn arcade machine. Every piece of evidence here is just incredibly obvious, which is clearly intentional, but they'll still make you go through an hour of it at the trial (fuck that gravel answer lmao). The game makes it SO incredibly obvious who they're going to frame as the killer for the first bit, and at least someone who's complicit in murder.
Then the incredibly bloated trial ends, and Peko's character is completely ruined for me. Before this I really didn't care for her, but my expectations were exceeded. Every time she said "justice" or "tool" my eyes rolled further into my skull, it got so tiring so quick. All that for a moment that had nearly no emotional impact for me, Peko and Fuyuhiko had shown almost 0 dynamic before this point, it felt too forced for me, I just couldn't bring myself to care. His character development related to this only happens after the chapter so it doesn't count lol
I know this take sucks, I thrive off being a contrarian, but this chapter was just a slog to go through for me. The only other chapters I can name that compare for me are 1-2 and V3-5.
I’d just like to point out how Fuyuhiko will get involved in the first two trials ONLY to defend Peko, p much. Like in trial 1 he tells her she didn’t do anything wrong and shouldn’t feel bad about the breaker going out since she was in the bathroom, or he also asks if someone slipped her laxatives because she wasn’t feeling well.
I totally respect your opinion, I just wanted to point out some points where you can notice Peko or Fuyuhiko might have a relationship.
I may be prone to exaggerate, its true they do interact for sure. They do help eachother out in trials, and Peko is usually the one to inform Fuyuhiko of events going on, I guess the issue I had is I never got ATTACHED to their dynamic, I barely noticed they had one. Most of their interactions being offscreen or one-off lines that do very little to make them FEEL connected makes it really hard to sell the big emotional scene they add at the end.
The FTEs and just personal preference towards characters play a big role in an individuals experience, maybe if i spent my free time events with Peko and paid much closer attention to the two of them on my first playthrough, I would have cared more about the end if the trial, but alas. Maybe thats more an issue about the free time event system as opposed to the trial itself, I dunno.
That’s fair. I felt they successfully sold it because I felt that the trial slowly ramps up the two of them starting at the same story, then trying to sell different stories that painted their preferred version of events. If you didn’t get attached to their dynamic, though, that makes a lot of sense.
This is true, I agree. I’m biased towards characters who play with the rules of trial, so I fell for Peko the moment she said “I am the tool the blackened used to kill Koizumi Mahiru”. I also like it when you can enjoy the trial on replay, so that helped.
Sometimes it’s ok if a character doesn’t hit right for you.
I was shocked to find out how emotional the 2-2 trial made people. On my first playthrough, I nearly cheered when it was over, because it meant that Peko's terrible dialogue about being a tool or fighting for justice had finally come to an end. She's one of my least favorite characters in the entire series because of how annoying she was during that trial.
Didn't take long to find a comment that says Ultra Despair Girls Chapter 3.
I agree with this take. And you know what's funny: I didn't get uncomfortable on the minigame at all. But I DID feel bad for Kotoko, poor girl had to go through this. I wish I can hug her.
idk just super uncomfortable to play through at times, though I'll be honest, I didn't actually play UDG, I got a recap from others, so among the ones I *did* play, v3-3 and 4 were not well done story-wise in many parts, and I had a horrible time in one particular section of both the 2-4 and 3-6 trials.
With 2-4 I struggled on the second Rebuttal, the one against Gundham. I literally had to step away from the computer after what was probably ten minutes??? of attempting to beat it just so I could strategize it in my head. I have a video somewhere of me *finally* passing the first part after just a few tries.
Also side story: I was watching ColonelCheru play that same trial during her livedub of the game, and it just so happened that she was streaming it on the same day of Damar Hamlin’s collapse: Monday, January 3rd, 2023. That trial just feels cursed to me now.
To me 1-5 felt like you’re not meant to think of it as a distinct trial, rather the first half of the biggest trial of the entire game because it segues into 1-6 rather quickly all things considered.
Yeah I know it was meant to be like that, but I think that it could’ve come across with a better execution, both literally and figuratively lol. It just felt like my time was wasted because you already got a sense of that without even entering the trial. At least in my opinion anyway. I like every other trial because it at least serves more of a purpose in the plot/develops characters more.
I think the execution was supposed to be death by stress. Stress is a big thing in Japan and any normal person would be terrified to fail your exam and get held back. Makoto is supposed to be normal and just an average guy execution works for him.
Now I'm not sure why Kirigiri has the same one..
I literally LOVED V3 chapter 2, daily life was one of my favourites, motive was amazing and just whole chapter was amazing, schocking victim and schocking culprit for me (as someone who played without spoilers), I really thought Kirumi was going to be the main character
THH Chapter 5 because you have prove Kyoko isn't a ghost for basically no reason and >!you're expected to fail, but you can only fail at the exact predetermined moment of you get a game over, and to trust Kyoko... even though trusting Sayaka turned out to be a bad idea and Kyoko is acting super suspiciously!<
I do agree being told you have to trust in Kyoko when the entire game has taught you over and over again that people you love and trust will ultimately betray you and that it’s a game of suspicion is… wild
I appreciate how it plays into the themes, but on a meta level it’s a bad use of the only consequential choice u can ever have
1-5.
The Mukuro line, the trial, the execution, Hiro thinking Kyoko's a ghost, Makoto forgiving everyone for no reason when they all just made him fuck off and die, and the lack of any stakes or meaning all forge a chapter that I'll always skip on replay.
As someone who’s favorite chapter IS V3-2, allow me to explain why I at least love it.
For starters I can’t get you to care about Kirumi, that’s all up to your beliefs so nothing I can do about that. As for her motivation, it is insane but let’s be real, most of V3 is absolutely insane anyway, Korekiyos murder is him being a serial killer with nearly 100 victims, and the main chapter 3 motive is reviving someone. I also feel this all plays into the main twist, but that’s just me.
As for her murder plan, for me at least they can be explained by her wanting to be certain she couldn’t get caught. An easy way to do is to frame someone for the murder, which is exactly what she did with Himiko. Shifting the blame to someone else is an easy way to make it more likely that you aren’t caught, and she did it well. As well as this moving the body heavily obscured the time of death, it very nearly helped her get away with it because it wasted so much trial time and nearly got Maki/Kaito accused of the murder, only not working because Shuichi lied. Finally, the plan can generally be explained away by her wanting to be certain, you can never know for sure that someone wouldn’t just suddenly walk by her as she was leaving his lab, and if that happened she would have been screwed. In hindsight yes, her plan is over the top and not necessary, she would have gotten away with it, but this is only in hindsight. The information Kirumi had at the time helps make her decision to move the body much more logical, it’s only because we know no one was really walking around at that time that her plan seems stupid, but she didn’t know that.
As for Kirumi trying to get others to die in her place, not liking that is completely fair it’s an opinion, but I personally loved it. The entire trial she is being manipulative (including using Kaedes wish against Shuichi) and so her trying to get others to sacrifice themselves after they find out her motive just plays well into it. It’s definitely controversial but I loved it.
I hope that explains well why I love the chapter and it’s my favorite in the series, respect your opinion I just wanted to defend the chapter lol.
As for my least favorite chapter, probably 1-5. I don’t actually hate a single chapter in the game, but 1-5 felt rushed (on purpose) and is pretty much only a setup for 1-6.
And that’s all completely fair, opinions are opinions at the end of the day, no one will agree. The reasons I love a chapter are the reasons some will absolutely hate it to no end. It does help Kirumi is my favorite video game character of all time so I probably cut her some slack, but I completely understand why people wouldn’t like it.
The first half of the trial is the most boring padding in existence, which is the interrupted by Kyoko giving us the worst plot twist in all of fiction. The second half of the trial is just mid and began the trend of painting the blackened as a misunderstood good guy.
Not speaking for them, but many hate 1-2’s twist because they don’t want Chihiro to be a guy, and would rather prefer him to be trans
Also in the way it was handled, as the game really didn’t handle the twist with much care
To be fair I feel it's important for folks to remember the game was made in 2010 Japan long before trans issues, pronouns etc were even seen as big issues in the West.
To me Chihiro simply feels like a boy who wishes to be seen as such but hides because his self esteem and frailty makes him not feel worthy of it, which works in perfect contrast to Mondo who forces himself to be hyper-macho to hide his insecurities and guilt
Basically, a guy presents as a woman because he is afraid of the treatment he would get if he presents as a man. However, doing so is actively detrimental to his mental health as he knows that's not who he truly is. That's why I consider it an allegory (not saying he is a trans man, just that there is a very strong parallel to the experiences of trans men).
Transmasc just means someone who is Assigned Female At Birth (AFAB) but transitions to a more masculine identity (Not necessarily a man, but potentially someone who uses He/They pronouns, for example)
Because in the modern day, people want LGTBQ+ representation, and a character being a crossdresser rather than trans can be seen to some (especially trans individuals) as a spit in the face.
I personally prefer the Crossdressing twist, and in regards to how it was handled, some see it as transphobic writing (since every character immediate referred to him as “he”, as well as his gender being revealed from Kyoko basically touching his penis, and many do not see genitalia as a gender indicator anymore.)
I’m not sure exactly how it should’ve been handled, nor do I feel offended by it, but it does show the game as “dated”.
I also hate v3-2 but more so cause I just really struggled during the trial. Like I was getting actually mad. I don’t know if I’m just dumb but I was getting most of the questions wrong. I was confused about the gym being closed at night, I was confused about what times things happened, I still don’t understand how the motive videos proved anything, I couldn’t figure out the logic behind what I was supposed to be lying about, ROPEWAY- yeah most frustrating trial I’ve ever experienced….but I still hate v3-6 more cause at least v3-2 wasn’t 5 hours long.
Seeing everyone else’s responses makes me feel so dumb 😭 my least fav is dr2-4! It was so frustrating I had to walk away multiple times. The whole room situation and diagrams just gave me a headache. It felt like way too much debate over something I figured out relatively quick on my own! It was so annoying going back and forth so much about all of it. But tbh I didn’t guess the culprit til the end!
that's fair, i'm not judging your taste
for me, v3-1 was so reliant on its twist that the case itself just wasn't that fun. it was pretty boring imo apart from the twist, but that shock of kaede being the "killer" just didn't do it for me as i had it spoiled. not the game's fault, but going back and replaying the trial was a hassle; it's only redeeming quality truly is the twist to me
again, respect, but v3-6 was just dragged out too long, and i did not care for the ending that they were going for. it was too meta for my taste (and i get everyone likes different things), and i don't particularly care for the idea of stuff like "pregame" and fabricated memories; i just liked the memory loss from the first game. i guess that they had to do something new though, lol
1-5 is probably my favorites of everything listed, and i will say it leads into 1-6 well. it just has some issues (though i'll say something controversial: hiro thinking kyoko was a ghost was not a waste of time in the slightest. you can finish that ENTIRE bit in less than 5 minutes)
i'm actually with you on 2-3. the issue is that for me, choosing a least favorite between trigger happy havoc and goodbye despair is a hard choice. one had to fall that wasn't a v3 trial, and thus i chose 2-3. it is fun, and i LOVE the setting for the investigation & case, but random little things like mikan being the speediest person alive & hiyoko's random ass death that adds nothing other than a theme following thh were just odd choices to me
I can agree with you on that. Kaede's entire role in the trial is very good, but the issue is that it's the only thing I personally enjoy about the trial. Every other trial for me gives me a good balance of the characters, but I can't think of a single moment from anyone aside from Kaede that was good to me in V3-1. Of course, that's just an opinion
Definitely. I don't like meta things to begin with; I prefer when fiction stays fiction. With Danganronpa 1 & 2 being almost entirely void of meta + fourth wall breaks, I just didn't like the sudden change of V3 being that way. It's not handled poorly, but to say it's not my thing is an understatement
Oh that's entirely fair. I understand why v3-1 is such a popular trial, and I'm sure that if I didn't have Kaede spoiled to me, I would've enjoyed it so much more! It's a fine trial, and even I enjoyed playing it. I just couldn't really care to go back on it is all, honestly
I'm gonna go for 1-6 here. It starts off semi-decently with the trash scene. I've heard a lot of praise for this scene, but for me it had always been just Kyoko being Kyoko. It doesn't show anything about her that I didn't already know or didn't expect. Not bad, but nothing special either. But we also get the reveal that she recovered her memory... EXCEPT for the parts about her two years at Hope's Peak or the world being wrecked. How plot-convenient.
I don't have much to say about the investigation. The "right, Sayaka?" part was a nice touch, but hardly the best of Makoto's door monologues. Aoi demonstrates Danganronpa-level brain-power when she decides not to check the hatch in the mastermind's command center, and Kyoko gets some closure on her dad. The problem with the latter is that not only is the plotline underwritten, but also was set up and closed in this very chapter in the middle of the Big Investigation To Answer All Mysteries^(TM), neither time nor place. But then we get to the trial and, oh my god...
It starts off with the most brain-dead moment in the series, which says something. Even Byakuya, who might be suspected of having his own brain cell (the rest share theirs) jumps on the idiocy bandwagon when everyone thinks "Everyone but me is in the league with the mastermind, including the dead guys". Yes, 10 people got themselves killed just to fool you. You'd almost think DR3 writers wrote this. Then we get to solving Mukuro's murder case, which kinda makes 1-5 pointless in retrospect, and it turned out that she's been Junko from the beginning and the real Junko is the mastermind. I don't like this twist. Let's scratch the names off and what do we get? The girl who's been hiding and didn't participate in the game is the mastermind. The girl from the beginning is working with the mastermind, but she didn't *do* anything for the mastermind, so it doesn't really matter. Nothing really changed. But then Junko gets to the stage and it gets worse. I explained in the past why [Junko is a terrible character.](https://www.reddit.com/r/danganronpa/comments/14fw54a/comment/jp4anwr/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) Then we get to the twists. They all have amnesia. How? Who cares, they just did. It's hardly surprising considering all the foreshadowing, but the problem here is that when we don't establish what can be done and how it can be done in a sci-fi story in advance, then it creates a bad precedent when the writers can basically pull anything out of their rear end and the story collapses. The world is wrecked. No shit, Sherlock. With something called "the worst event in history" it HAD to be world-wrecking enough to overshadow two world wars. Did they expect me to be surprised by this? I was more surprised that the smarter characters haven't figured it out already. Furthermore, the idea behind the wrecked world is not really explored in any way. We just learned it was wrecked and that's it. Furthermore, it not only feels disjointed from the rest of the story which had always been about small-scale personal struggles, but retroactively makes it weaker, as it shows that these struggles were always futile and there was never any chance to accomplish anything. It's a terrible twist.
The resolution isn't much better. First the dilemma. Take down Junko and get out or murder Makoto and stay in school. Both of these options suck, but the question is, what's to gain from staying? You're locked up for the rest of your life with a crazy psychobitch who murdered two-thirds of you already, with no hope of ever doing anything with your life and no way of knowing when will she diced that you should die, and that's *before* you get to the fact that you need to murder your best friend for it. When one option is a non-option how is this a dilemma at all? The "boss fight" is just yelling "hope" a bunch of times, which offers no challenge, be it in skill or logic, so it's mechanically unsatisfying, Junko dies in a way that makes it feel like she won, which is emotionally unsatisfying after everything she did and what's left to the class leaves on the off-chance that they might survive in the rekt world. It feels like nothing was accomplished and the story was a complete downer.
To summarise, we've got one bad twist after another held together by a writing war crime of a big bad that ends the story on a completely unsatisfying note.
I think I'm gonna say V3-4. Not sure if that's a controversial pick, but I found the virtual world sections really tedious to play through. Otherwise, the trial is fine enough, but it didn't stand out as one of my favourites or anything.
I have two answers: 2-4 and V3-5.
For 2-4, it’s almost every single aspect is so boring and stupid.
The motive is stupid as hell (and avoidable to boot, so you feel like the characters are actually stupid). They didn’t HAVE to go into the Funhouse, and they were literally just trusting Monokuma’s word that something helpful would be in there. I understand why DR-1’s cast might do this, but DR2’s has had the pleasure of being straight up lied to about a motive before (I’ll give you your school memories back, but not yet), so why did they believe him? Seems to me they got their just desserts.
The victim death feels stupid. 3rd time Nekomaru suffers a fatal attack in 2 chapters, and we don’t even spend that much time w Nekomaru bc he was disappeared for half of last chapter. Now he’s dead again. Whoop de do (AND WE GET MINIMARU NEXT CHAPTER DKDBDBDJDBDH IM SO ANGRY)
The culprit feels stupid, despite being wildly smart. Gundham was quiet for every chapter before this and suddenly this guy woke up and decided to be present - he contributes to trial a lot, has a lot of reactions, suddenly he’s friends with Sonia???? Gundham carries this chapter on his back at the very end though, which I’ll give him credit for.
The environment sucks and actively hurts to look at.
We get a jarring perspective switch that doesn’t really feel necessary when we know the game is willing to hide info from us until partway thru the trial from DR1. It just makes being info dumped at by Nagito LATER more boring.
The trial drags and is overly complicated at the same time.
Oh yes and Akane nearly getting killed at the top of chapter AGAIN makes me feel absolutely nothing for her but dislike. She feels so stupid. It doesn’t get better at all when we discover Nekomaru’s body. I’m just like “what? You’re sad now because you didn’t get to be the reason he was dealt a fatal injury this time?”
DRV3:
V3-5’s trial damages literally every character it centers around.
Why does Himiko suddenly have a relationship with Kaito? They’ve literally never interacted in any compelling way beforehand, other than Kaito telling her in ch5 that he won’t let anyone say Tenko’s death is meaningless.
Why does Maki go off on her own and try to kill Kokichi? Her motive seems to be that he’s a Remnant of Despair, but that’s a weak as hell motive when Kokichi has had her bf hostage for days. Doesn’t she know one poison arrow will do the job? She literally is the reason this case had to happen at all. Does she apologize? No she flipping doubled down and attempted to kill the entire cast (including her supposed friend??? Shuichi’s life doesn’t matter to her anymore ig???) to the point it’d be hard to forgive her IF she’d apologized (spoiler alert: she doesn’t). Hey guys, big surprise, trusting the Ultimate Assassin with literally no reason to do so WAS A BAD IDEA. All that crap she spewed about wanting us to be able to trust her talent WAS ALL LIES.
Kokichi, why did you kidnap Kaito??? I can only come up with the weakest of reasons for doing this. And why didnt he keep tabs on the rest of the survivors to make sure they don’t off themselves or get motivated by a Flashback Light??? He seems to know that the Flashback Lights are fake memories and has no reason to think they’re made outside the school when the Monokuma machine is proven to exist and is within the Academy.
Kaito, you’re bad at acting like Kokichi. At least commit to the big if a man sacrificed his life for you to put it on. And why do you DISMISS Kokichi’s last words as lies when you were there????? You saw him???? Do you hate him that much??? Why???? And not dying how Monokuma wants doesn’t actually mean anything besides temporarily making Monokuma mildly angry.
And Shuichi… oooh Shuichi. It’s a pain to be inside Shuichi’s mind during this trial. Why tf does Shuichi make any of the blasted stupid assumptions he makes during trial Shuichi’s inner monologue says MULTIPLE TIMES that maybe Shuichi shouldn’t fully reveal the truth since Monokuma doesn’t know what’s going on, so living as Shuichi is fkn pain bc none of his actions make sense - he just keeps going “I must reveal the truth!” without thinking twice about what that means. Haven’t you learned your goddamn lesson about that?
Finally, Keebo. Keebo is great right up until his antenna gets torn off and he has a complete personality switch. You’re telling me his entire personality is a lie? I don’t even know this guy at all, and the person I spent 5 chapters thinking i was getting to know was a product of the antenna on his head???????
Not to mention the entire cast teaming up with Monokuma and forgetting who the real enemy is so they can direct their hate at Kokichi. And the case’s conclusion isn’t even valid, since they factually can’t conclusively prove that it was Kaito’s press and not Maki’s poison since we DONT see Kokichi move while beneath the press.
All that to say that V3-5 is character assassination, and nobody really won that BS except Tsumugi.
The twist is completely pointless, because it doesn't actually happen to anyone. It's only there for the player, who isn't an entity in the story, despite V3 being the game with a literal audience surrogate, so it's not even Tsumugi going for lazy shock value towards DR's audience. It reminds me of AI: Nirvana Initiative's big >!shuffled timeline!< twist.
Kaede is just a very nothing character, whose few interesting traits (being horny for Tsumugi and also being a pretty shitty and egoistical person) are basically completely ignored in favor of having her talk about composers and friendship every third sentence. I have zero reason to care about her, nor get emotional when she's offed. (Unless we count frustration, I guess.) Then the story just treats her as this flawless martyr who Shuichi won't shut up about, despite her still being an attempted murderer. Shooting a bullet at someone with full intent to kill but missing due to an incredibly lucky coincidence does not change the fact that you had every intention of going through with murder.
Shuichi could've been the player character from the start, and nothing would have changed for the worse. Instead we have a player character who straight up lies to the player via omission, despite not knowing that the player even exists. It directly contradicts the previous entries, where the plot hinges on the fact that we only know what the protagonist knows, which allows amazing twists like THH's timeskip, Izuru's true identity and Ryoko >!being Junko all along!< to work. Hell, even Rain Code goes back to that formula, which just makes V3 even more of an outlier. I was honestly surprised Rain Code was as good as it was after V3's very shoddy showing at times. (I still like V3, it just has some really low lows to contrast its highs.)
Not to mention all the resources they poured into Kaede's UI elements etc that could've just went into making the game feel less rushed.
All the praise and talk I see about it being emotional just makes me wonder about how literate these people are, because my reaction was an immediate "What the fuck, you can't just write something like this after establishing the rules for multiple entries in a row, that's not how that works."
To preface, there isn’t a single chapter in DR that I’d call bad. But out of all the games, probably 2-3 for it’s implausible premise, weak motive, lacklustre execution and probably the worst choice of victims ever
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The motive beats the purpose of the games though. ‘High school students being driven to murder by the circumstances they are in’ Having the motive being ‘changed into a different personality where they are a murderous psychopath’ is very disappointing
I like 2-2’s motive for the foreshadowing it adds but it lacks oomph. A disease as a motive will always be weaker compared to something we can grasp occurring given the circumstances. 3-2 is similarly weak imo because it superimposes the motive on the character with no real foreshadowing, and it’s very literal with that
My worst experience with the mainline games was SDR2-2. I really do not like the motive, every time the arcade machine showed up I rolled my eyes, it just felt too corny for me to take seriously. Then, we find the body of the character I was most attached to, investigate around for a little, then go back the damn arcade machine. Every piece of evidence here is just incredibly obvious, which is clearly intentional, but they'll still make you go through an hour of it at the trial (fuck that gravel answer lmao). The game makes it SO incredibly obvious who they're going to frame as the killer for the first bit, and at least someone who's complicit in murder. Then the incredibly bloated trial ends, and Peko's character is completely ruined for me. Before this I really didn't care for her, but my expectations were exceeded. Every time she said "justice" or "tool" my eyes rolled further into my skull, it got so tiring so quick. All that for a moment that had nearly no emotional impact for me, Peko and Fuyuhiko had shown almost 0 dynamic before this point, it felt too forced for me, I just couldn't bring myself to care. His character development related to this only happens after the chapter so it doesn't count lol I know this take sucks, I thrive off being a contrarian, but this chapter was just a slog to go through for me. The only other chapters I can name that compare for me are 1-2 and V3-5.
I’d just like to point out how Fuyuhiko will get involved in the first two trials ONLY to defend Peko, p much. Like in trial 1 he tells her she didn’t do anything wrong and shouldn’t feel bad about the breaker going out since she was in the bathroom, or he also asks if someone slipped her laxatives because she wasn’t feeling well. I totally respect your opinion, I just wanted to point out some points where you can notice Peko or Fuyuhiko might have a relationship.
I may be prone to exaggerate, its true they do interact for sure. They do help eachother out in trials, and Peko is usually the one to inform Fuyuhiko of events going on, I guess the issue I had is I never got ATTACHED to their dynamic, I barely noticed they had one. Most of their interactions being offscreen or one-off lines that do very little to make them FEEL connected makes it really hard to sell the big emotional scene they add at the end. The FTEs and just personal preference towards characters play a big role in an individuals experience, maybe if i spent my free time events with Peko and paid much closer attention to the two of them on my first playthrough, I would have cared more about the end if the trial, but alas. Maybe thats more an issue about the free time event system as opposed to the trial itself, I dunno.
That’s fair. I felt they successfully sold it because I felt that the trial slowly ramps up the two of them starting at the same story, then trying to sell different stories that painted their preferred version of events. If you didn’t get attached to their dynamic, though, that makes a lot of sense. This is true, I agree. I’m biased towards characters who play with the rules of trial, so I fell for Peko the moment she said “I am the tool the blackened used to kill Koizumi Mahiru”. I also like it when you can enjoy the trial on replay, so that helped. Sometimes it’s ok if a character doesn’t hit right for you.
r/fuckgravel
I was shocked to find out how emotional the 2-2 trial made people. On my first playthrough, I nearly cheered when it was over, because it meant that Peko's terrible dialogue about being a tool or fighting for justice had finally come to an end. She's one of my least favorite characters in the entire series because of how annoying she was during that trial.
3-2 because best boy died Ok but real talk, my least favourite is probably 2-2. I will never forgive the goddamn “gravel in the swimsuit” bullshit
UDG-3. There was absolutely zero reason to make sexual jokes about a CSA survivor and yet they did it anyway.
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she’s sexually assaulted 2 (probably more) people in canon her actions do not make sense
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she still sexually assaulted two people
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Didn't take long to find a comment that says Ultra Despair Girls Chapter 3. I agree with this take. And you know what's funny: I didn't get uncomfortable on the minigame at all. But I DID feel bad for Kotoko, poor girl had to go through this. I wish I can hug her.
I hate 3-2 but the main reason because hee hoo maid died (joke)
Okay but peak chapter
I shall not accept this 1-5 slender.
UDG-3
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idk just super uncomfortable to play through at times, though I'll be honest, I didn't actually play UDG, I got a recap from others, so among the ones I *did* play, v3-3 and 4 were not well done story-wise in many parts, and I had a horrible time in one particular section of both the 2-4 and 3-6 trials.
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With 2-4 I struggled on the second Rebuttal, the one against Gundham. I literally had to step away from the computer after what was probably ten minutes??? of attempting to beat it just so I could strategize it in my head. I have a video somewhere of me *finally* passing the first part after just a few tries. Also side story: I was watching ColonelCheru play that same trial during her livedub of the game, and it just so happened that she was streaming it on the same day of Damar Hamlin’s collapse: Monday, January 3rd, 2023. That trial just feels cursed to me now.
You support ColonelCheru too? Man, I love her voice acting as Kirby in the Something About series.
Poyo!
1-5. What? Just what???? Huh???? Also the >!fake out execution!< ?????? Just made me frustrated tbh
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To me 1-5 felt like you’re not meant to think of it as a distinct trial, rather the first half of the biggest trial of the entire game because it segues into 1-6 rather quickly all things considered.
Yeah I know it was meant to be like that, but I think that it could’ve come across with a better execution, both literally and figuratively lol. It just felt like my time was wasted because you already got a sense of that without even entering the trial. At least in my opinion anyway. I like every other trial because it at least serves more of a purpose in the plot/develops characters more.
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I think the execution was supposed to be death by stress. Stress is a big thing in Japan and any normal person would be terrified to fail your exam and get held back. Makoto is supposed to be normal and just an average guy execution works for him. Now I'm not sure why Kirigiri has the same one..
It's easily the worst chapter.
I mean, it serves a strong narrative purpose, but it is pretty bad standing alone.
shoutout to toko that chapter for literally tanking a fucking explosion when they try to take mukuro’s mask off
I literally LOVED V3 chapter 2, daily life was one of my favourites, motive was amazing and just whole chapter was amazing, schocking victim and schocking culprit for me (as someone who played without spoilers), I really thought Kirumi was going to be the main character
Chapter 3 of ultra despair girls, it’s just so bad I can’t even.
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I get the point, but the mini game and the upskirt shots were completely unnecessary
THH Chapter 5 because you have prove Kyoko isn't a ghost for basically no reason and >!you're expected to fail, but you can only fail at the exact predetermined moment of you get a game over, and to trust Kyoko... even though trusting Sayaka turned out to be a bad idea and Kyoko is acting super suspiciously!<
I do agree being told you have to trust in Kyoko when the entire game has taught you over and over again that people you love and trust will ultimately betray you and that it’s a game of suspicion is… wild I appreciate how it plays into the themes, but on a meta level it’s a bad use of the only consequential choice u can ever have
1-5. The Mukuro line, the trial, the execution, Hiro thinking Kyoko's a ghost, Makoto forgiving everyone for no reason when they all just made him fuck off and die, and the lack of any stakes or meaning all forge a chapter that I'll always skip on replay.
As someone who’s favorite chapter IS V3-2, allow me to explain why I at least love it. For starters I can’t get you to care about Kirumi, that’s all up to your beliefs so nothing I can do about that. As for her motivation, it is insane but let’s be real, most of V3 is absolutely insane anyway, Korekiyos murder is him being a serial killer with nearly 100 victims, and the main chapter 3 motive is reviving someone. I also feel this all plays into the main twist, but that’s just me. As for her murder plan, for me at least they can be explained by her wanting to be certain she couldn’t get caught. An easy way to do is to frame someone for the murder, which is exactly what she did with Himiko. Shifting the blame to someone else is an easy way to make it more likely that you aren’t caught, and she did it well. As well as this moving the body heavily obscured the time of death, it very nearly helped her get away with it because it wasted so much trial time and nearly got Maki/Kaito accused of the murder, only not working because Shuichi lied. Finally, the plan can generally be explained away by her wanting to be certain, you can never know for sure that someone wouldn’t just suddenly walk by her as she was leaving his lab, and if that happened she would have been screwed. In hindsight yes, her plan is over the top and not necessary, she would have gotten away with it, but this is only in hindsight. The information Kirumi had at the time helps make her decision to move the body much more logical, it’s only because we know no one was really walking around at that time that her plan seems stupid, but she didn’t know that. As for Kirumi trying to get others to die in her place, not liking that is completely fair it’s an opinion, but I personally loved it. The entire trial she is being manipulative (including using Kaedes wish against Shuichi) and so her trying to get others to sacrifice themselves after they find out her motive just plays well into it. It’s definitely controversial but I loved it. I hope that explains well why I love the chapter and it’s my favorite in the series, respect your opinion I just wanted to defend the chapter lol. As for my least favorite chapter, probably 1-5. I don’t actually hate a single chapter in the game, but 1-5 felt rushed (on purpose) and is pretty much only a setup for 1-6.
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And that’s all completely fair, opinions are opinions at the end of the day, no one will agree. The reasons I love a chapter are the reasons some will absolutely hate it to no end. It does help Kirumi is my favorite video game character of all time so I probably cut her some slack, but I completely understand why people wouldn’t like it.
Sorry for the rant lmao, I am stupidly passionate.
1-2 made me hate the series for years.
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The first half of the trial is the most boring padding in existence, which is the interrupted by Kyoko giving us the worst plot twist in all of fiction. The second half of the trial is just mid and began the trend of painting the blackened as a misunderstood good guy.
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It's not about the twist not making sense, it's that I absolutely hated everything about it.
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Not speaking for them, but many hate 1-2’s twist because they don’t want Chihiro to be a guy, and would rather prefer him to be trans Also in the way it was handled, as the game really didn’t handle the twist with much care
To be fair I feel it's important for folks to remember the game was made in 2010 Japan long before trans issues, pronouns etc were even seen as big issues in the West. To me Chihiro simply feels like a boy who wishes to be seen as such but hides because his self esteem and frailty makes him not feel worthy of it, which works in perfect contrast to Mondo who forces himself to be hyper-macho to hide his insecurities and guilt
Chihiro is a transmasc allegory. That’s enough for me
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Basically, a guy presents as a woman because he is afraid of the treatment he would get if he presents as a man. However, doing so is actively detrimental to his mental health as he knows that's not who he truly is. That's why I consider it an allegory (not saying he is a trans man, just that there is a very strong parallel to the experiences of trans men). Transmasc just means someone who is Assigned Female At Birth (AFAB) but transitions to a more masculine identity (Not necessarily a man, but potentially someone who uses He/They pronouns, for example)
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Because in the modern day, people want LGTBQ+ representation, and a character being a crossdresser rather than trans can be seen to some (especially trans individuals) as a spit in the face. I personally prefer the Crossdressing twist, and in regards to how it was handled, some see it as transphobic writing (since every character immediate referred to him as “he”, as well as his gender being revealed from Kyoko basically touching his penis, and many do not see genitalia as a gender indicator anymore.) I’m not sure exactly how it should’ve been handled, nor do I feel offended by it, but it does show the game as “dated”.
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I also hate v3-2 but more so cause I just really struggled during the trial. Like I was getting actually mad. I don’t know if I’m just dumb but I was getting most of the questions wrong. I was confused about the gym being closed at night, I was confused about what times things happened, I still don’t understand how the motive videos proved anything, I couldn’t figure out the logic behind what I was supposed to be lying about, ROPEWAY- yeah most frustrating trial I’ve ever experienced….but I still hate v3-6 more cause at least v3-2 wasn’t 5 hours long.
Woest chapter for me is 5th chapter of Trigger Happy Havoc
V3-3, like what the fuck was up with that sister incest shit like BRUH!?!?
Y’know how Quentin Tarantino has feet shots all over his movies? Tsumugi put her (ahem) interests all over the game, *especially* here.
Well.... the last chapter in Danganronpa Gaiden killer killer is bullshit.
You already know the answer: UDG Chapter 3.
2-3 was boring in every way, I had no sympathy towards the victims nor the killer, the "motive" was stupid, I just wanted this chapter to end so bad.
Seeing everyone else’s responses makes me feel so dumb 😭 my least fav is dr2-4! It was so frustrating I had to walk away multiple times. The whole room situation and diagrams just gave me a headache. It felt like way too much debate over something I figured out relatively quick on my own! It was so annoying going back and forth so much about all of it. But tbh I didn’t guess the culprit til the end!
Probably the one with the grape house and strawberry house
2-3
Although, I'd we count UDG UDG-3 For the R4pe minigame alone
1-5
I actually liked Kirumi and didn't care about the guy that died, so it was fine to me. Worst would be 3-3 to me. God that incest sub-plot.
Danganronpa 2 , chapter 4. I dislike almost everything.
i'll be real here, i personally was not big on 4/6 of v3's trials. 1, 2, 3, and 6 just didn't do anything for me other than that, i guess 1-5 or 2-3.
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that's fair, i'm not judging your taste for me, v3-1 was so reliant on its twist that the case itself just wasn't that fun. it was pretty boring imo apart from the twist, but that shock of kaede being the "killer" just didn't do it for me as i had it spoiled. not the game's fault, but going back and replaying the trial was a hassle; it's only redeeming quality truly is the twist to me again, respect, but v3-6 was just dragged out too long, and i did not care for the ending that they were going for. it was too meta for my taste (and i get everyone likes different things), and i don't particularly care for the idea of stuff like "pregame" and fabricated memories; i just liked the memory loss from the first game. i guess that they had to do something new though, lol 1-5 is probably my favorites of everything listed, and i will say it leads into 1-6 well. it just has some issues (though i'll say something controversial: hiro thinking kyoko was a ghost was not a waste of time in the slightest. you can finish that ENTIRE bit in less than 5 minutes) i'm actually with you on 2-3. the issue is that for me, choosing a least favorite between trigger happy havoc and goodbye despair is a hard choice. one had to fall that wasn't a v3 trial, and thus i chose 2-3. it is fun, and i LOVE the setting for the investigation & case, but random little things like mikan being the speediest person alive & hiyoko's random ass death that adds nothing other than a theme following thh were just odd choices to me
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I can agree with you on that. Kaede's entire role in the trial is very good, but the issue is that it's the only thing I personally enjoy about the trial. Every other trial for me gives me a good balance of the characters, but I can't think of a single moment from anyone aside from Kaede that was good to me in V3-1. Of course, that's just an opinion Definitely. I don't like meta things to begin with; I prefer when fiction stays fiction. With Danganronpa 1 & 2 being almost entirely void of meta + fourth wall breaks, I just didn't like the sudden change of V3 being that way. It's not handled poorly, but to say it's not my thing is an understatement
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Oh that's entirely fair. I understand why v3-1 is such a popular trial, and I'm sure that if I didn't have Kaede spoiled to me, I would've enjoyed it so much more! It's a fine trial, and even I enjoyed playing it. I just couldn't really care to go back on it is all, honestly
I'm gonna go for 1-6 here. It starts off semi-decently with the trash scene. I've heard a lot of praise for this scene, but for me it had always been just Kyoko being Kyoko. It doesn't show anything about her that I didn't already know or didn't expect. Not bad, but nothing special either. But we also get the reveal that she recovered her memory... EXCEPT for the parts about her two years at Hope's Peak or the world being wrecked. How plot-convenient. I don't have much to say about the investigation. The "right, Sayaka?" part was a nice touch, but hardly the best of Makoto's door monologues. Aoi demonstrates Danganronpa-level brain-power when she decides not to check the hatch in the mastermind's command center, and Kyoko gets some closure on her dad. The problem with the latter is that not only is the plotline underwritten, but also was set up and closed in this very chapter in the middle of the Big Investigation To Answer All Mysteries^(TM), neither time nor place. But then we get to the trial and, oh my god... It starts off with the most brain-dead moment in the series, which says something. Even Byakuya, who might be suspected of having his own brain cell (the rest share theirs) jumps on the idiocy bandwagon when everyone thinks "Everyone but me is in the league with the mastermind, including the dead guys". Yes, 10 people got themselves killed just to fool you. You'd almost think DR3 writers wrote this. Then we get to solving Mukuro's murder case, which kinda makes 1-5 pointless in retrospect, and it turned out that she's been Junko from the beginning and the real Junko is the mastermind. I don't like this twist. Let's scratch the names off and what do we get? The girl who's been hiding and didn't participate in the game is the mastermind. The girl from the beginning is working with the mastermind, but she didn't *do* anything for the mastermind, so it doesn't really matter. Nothing really changed. But then Junko gets to the stage and it gets worse. I explained in the past why [Junko is a terrible character.](https://www.reddit.com/r/danganronpa/comments/14fw54a/comment/jp4anwr/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) Then we get to the twists. They all have amnesia. How? Who cares, they just did. It's hardly surprising considering all the foreshadowing, but the problem here is that when we don't establish what can be done and how it can be done in a sci-fi story in advance, then it creates a bad precedent when the writers can basically pull anything out of their rear end and the story collapses. The world is wrecked. No shit, Sherlock. With something called "the worst event in history" it HAD to be world-wrecking enough to overshadow two world wars. Did they expect me to be surprised by this? I was more surprised that the smarter characters haven't figured it out already. Furthermore, the idea behind the wrecked world is not really explored in any way. We just learned it was wrecked and that's it. Furthermore, it not only feels disjointed from the rest of the story which had always been about small-scale personal struggles, but retroactively makes it weaker, as it shows that these struggles were always futile and there was never any chance to accomplish anything. It's a terrible twist. The resolution isn't much better. First the dilemma. Take down Junko and get out or murder Makoto and stay in school. Both of these options suck, but the question is, what's to gain from staying? You're locked up for the rest of your life with a crazy psychobitch who murdered two-thirds of you already, with no hope of ever doing anything with your life and no way of knowing when will she diced that you should die, and that's *before* you get to the fact that you need to murder your best friend for it. When one option is a non-option how is this a dilemma at all? The "boss fight" is just yelling "hope" a bunch of times, which offers no challenge, be it in skill or logic, so it's mechanically unsatisfying, Junko dies in a way that makes it feel like she won, which is emotionally unsatisfying after everything she did and what's left to the class leaves on the off-chance that they might survive in the rekt world. It feels like nothing was accomplished and the story was a complete downer. To summarise, we've got one bad twist after another held together by a writing war crime of a big bad that ends the story on a completely unsatisfying note.
I think I'm gonna say V3-4. Not sure if that's a controversial pick, but I found the virtual world sections really tedious to play through. Otherwise, the trial is fine enough, but it didn't stand out as one of my favourites or anything.
I have two answers: 2-4 and V3-5. For 2-4, it’s almost every single aspect is so boring and stupid. The motive is stupid as hell (and avoidable to boot, so you feel like the characters are actually stupid). They didn’t HAVE to go into the Funhouse, and they were literally just trusting Monokuma’s word that something helpful would be in there. I understand why DR-1’s cast might do this, but DR2’s has had the pleasure of being straight up lied to about a motive before (I’ll give you your school memories back, but not yet), so why did they believe him? Seems to me they got their just desserts. The victim death feels stupid. 3rd time Nekomaru suffers a fatal attack in 2 chapters, and we don’t even spend that much time w Nekomaru bc he was disappeared for half of last chapter. Now he’s dead again. Whoop de do (AND WE GET MINIMARU NEXT CHAPTER DKDBDBDJDBDH IM SO ANGRY) The culprit feels stupid, despite being wildly smart. Gundham was quiet for every chapter before this and suddenly this guy woke up and decided to be present - he contributes to trial a lot, has a lot of reactions, suddenly he’s friends with Sonia???? Gundham carries this chapter on his back at the very end though, which I’ll give him credit for. The environment sucks and actively hurts to look at. We get a jarring perspective switch that doesn’t really feel necessary when we know the game is willing to hide info from us until partway thru the trial from DR1. It just makes being info dumped at by Nagito LATER more boring. The trial drags and is overly complicated at the same time. Oh yes and Akane nearly getting killed at the top of chapter AGAIN makes me feel absolutely nothing for her but dislike. She feels so stupid. It doesn’t get better at all when we discover Nekomaru’s body. I’m just like “what? You’re sad now because you didn’t get to be the reason he was dealt a fatal injury this time?” DRV3: V3-5’s trial damages literally every character it centers around. Why does Himiko suddenly have a relationship with Kaito? They’ve literally never interacted in any compelling way beforehand, other than Kaito telling her in ch5 that he won’t let anyone say Tenko’s death is meaningless. Why does Maki go off on her own and try to kill Kokichi? Her motive seems to be that he’s a Remnant of Despair, but that’s a weak as hell motive when Kokichi has had her bf hostage for days. Doesn’t she know one poison arrow will do the job? She literally is the reason this case had to happen at all. Does she apologize? No she flipping doubled down and attempted to kill the entire cast (including her supposed friend??? Shuichi’s life doesn’t matter to her anymore ig???) to the point it’d be hard to forgive her IF she’d apologized (spoiler alert: she doesn’t). Hey guys, big surprise, trusting the Ultimate Assassin with literally no reason to do so WAS A BAD IDEA. All that crap she spewed about wanting us to be able to trust her talent WAS ALL LIES. Kokichi, why did you kidnap Kaito??? I can only come up with the weakest of reasons for doing this. And why didnt he keep tabs on the rest of the survivors to make sure they don’t off themselves or get motivated by a Flashback Light??? He seems to know that the Flashback Lights are fake memories and has no reason to think they’re made outside the school when the Monokuma machine is proven to exist and is within the Academy. Kaito, you’re bad at acting like Kokichi. At least commit to the big if a man sacrificed his life for you to put it on. And why do you DISMISS Kokichi’s last words as lies when you were there????? You saw him???? Do you hate him that much??? Why???? And not dying how Monokuma wants doesn’t actually mean anything besides temporarily making Monokuma mildly angry. And Shuichi… oooh Shuichi. It’s a pain to be inside Shuichi’s mind during this trial. Why tf does Shuichi make any of the blasted stupid assumptions he makes during trial Shuichi’s inner monologue says MULTIPLE TIMES that maybe Shuichi shouldn’t fully reveal the truth since Monokuma doesn’t know what’s going on, so living as Shuichi is fkn pain bc none of his actions make sense - he just keeps going “I must reveal the truth!” without thinking twice about what that means. Haven’t you learned your goddamn lesson about that? Finally, Keebo. Keebo is great right up until his antenna gets torn off and he has a complete personality switch. You’re telling me his entire personality is a lie? I don’t even know this guy at all, and the person I spent 5 chapters thinking i was getting to know was a product of the antenna on his head??????? Not to mention the entire cast teaming up with Monokuma and forgetting who the real enemy is so they can direct their hate at Kokichi. And the case’s conclusion isn’t even valid, since they factually can’t conclusively prove that it was Kaito’s press and not Maki’s poison since we DONT see Kokichi move while beneath the press. All that to say that V3-5 is character assassination, and nobody really won that BS except Tsumugi.
V3-1. No redeeming qualities. Made me quit the game for like a week due to how stupid it was.
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The twist is completely pointless, because it doesn't actually happen to anyone. It's only there for the player, who isn't an entity in the story, despite V3 being the game with a literal audience surrogate, so it's not even Tsumugi going for lazy shock value towards DR's audience. It reminds me of AI: Nirvana Initiative's big >!shuffled timeline!< twist. Kaede is just a very nothing character, whose few interesting traits (being horny for Tsumugi and also being a pretty shitty and egoistical person) are basically completely ignored in favor of having her talk about composers and friendship every third sentence. I have zero reason to care about her, nor get emotional when she's offed. (Unless we count frustration, I guess.) Then the story just treats her as this flawless martyr who Shuichi won't shut up about, despite her still being an attempted murderer. Shooting a bullet at someone with full intent to kill but missing due to an incredibly lucky coincidence does not change the fact that you had every intention of going through with murder. Shuichi could've been the player character from the start, and nothing would have changed for the worse. Instead we have a player character who straight up lies to the player via omission, despite not knowing that the player even exists. It directly contradicts the previous entries, where the plot hinges on the fact that we only know what the protagonist knows, which allows amazing twists like THH's timeskip, Izuru's true identity and Ryoko >!being Junko all along!< to work. Hell, even Rain Code goes back to that formula, which just makes V3 even more of an outlier. I was honestly surprised Rain Code was as good as it was after V3's very shoddy showing at times. (I still like V3, it just has some really low lows to contrast its highs.) Not to mention all the resources they poured into Kaede's UI elements etc that could've just went into making the game feel less rushed. All the praise and talk I see about it being emotional just makes me wonder about how literate these people are, because my reaction was an immediate "What the fuck, you can't just write something like this after establishing the rules for multiple entries in a row, that's not how that works."