The celebrated author Stephen King once wrote that “Murder is like potato chips: you can’t stop with just one.” This is certainly true in the case of the Danganronpa series, where the aim of the game is to find the guilty individuals who try to commit the perfect kill. The first two games in the Danganronpa series have been ported several times over the years since their initial PlayStation Portable release, and now for the first time the series has arrived on PlayStation 4. Regardless of the reason for the high definition upgrade, it is great that Spike Chunsoft have given more people the chance to experience two of the best visual novels of the last decade, ahead of Danganronpa V3’s English release in September.
Danganronpa 1.2 Reload was originally released on the PlayStation Vita in Japan, but like with Digimon World Next Order, it was given a high definition facelift for Sony’s current home console upon its localisation, instead of a simple translation of the portable double pack. This compilation includes both Danganronpa Trigger Happy Havoc and Danganronpa 2 Goodbye Despair, which were previously released separately for the PlayStation Vita and PC, as it was unclear if the games would find an audience outside of Japan. The sales figures and critical reception proved that there was indeed a place for the quirk filled battle of hope and despair, which we at VGU discovered for ourselves when we reviewed both games in February 2014 and September 2014 respectively.
In Trigger Happy Havoc, you are thrust into the role of Makoto Naegi, an ordinary high school student who is chosen to be part of a group of fifteen individuals who are especially talented at one particular activity. Things take a wrong turn when they are locked inside the school and taken hostage by a robotic toy bear by the name of Monokuma. In order to escape, one of the students must commit the perfect murder. If they do, they can “graduate”. If they are discovered, they will be executed for both their crime and their failure to succeed.
