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keltenaI've finished Chapter 4 of Danganronpa V3! My opinion is as follows:
Whoa.
Like last time, my reactions while playing are under the cut, somewhat paraphrased for all our sakes.
Someone pointed out to me that the chapter titles in this game also correspond to songs on the soundtrack, just more loosely than DR1's, which is neat. I feel like I should be trying to guess the last two chapter titles based on this knowledge. (Chapter 6: DANGANVEGAS. ...No, but really, please give me this.)
Oooh, mysterious Rantaro hints! This is really interesting. #confirmed that this isn't his first killing game. Which means that yeah, murdering real people for The Hit Anime Danganronpa (I'm assuming that's its exact title) didn't start just now. Unless, I guess, they completely fabricated that backstory too, but that seems really anticlimactic.
Even more interesting:
(Rantaro remains very pretty, incidentally.)
Followed by: "The killing game will continue until only two people are left. The important part of that rule is—" No bright ideas so far on what the important part is, unfortunately, but. Evidently, he was a survivor of his previous game if he's here now. (Or was here now.) And evidently, he didn't get to go free once it was over. So either no one gets to go free, or he was given the choice and he chose to do it again. Or he was given a "choice" and felt his best/only option was to play again. Same difference between the last two, mostly; the point either way is that he had some incentive to choose to try his luck at winning a second (...or maybe more than second? who knows) murdergame.
The mysterious writing is suddenly fully readable! (RIP
Well, I'm glad that someone finally stood up for Gonta to Kokichi for the very first time, TWO WHOLE CHAPTERS AFTER THE FACT. Man, all of these kids are assholes. Like, I'm fond of them! And they are also terrible to each other at nearly all times. (More importantly, I'm glad that Gonta actually said "yeah no". The way Kokichi treats him makes a lot of story sense, but I was kind of frustrated when Gonta didn't seem to have much of any reaction to it in Chapter 2; I'm glad I was wrong about that!)
Haha yeah, okay, Kokichi's definitely laying it on thick for the camera here. Noticeably more than he was before, in fact. (He's not a model participant, the camera just turned on!)
"Gonta wanna be useful to everyone too." Gonta, no, don't say things like that! I mean, abruptly beginning your personal character arc right at the beginning of a new chapter after being part of the ensemble cast for the game so far is never smart, but it's especially worrying when you're the big buff character in Chapter 4 of a Danganronpa game.
You know, we've never found a character's lab after they died, have we? Aside from Rantaro, who's too mysterious to have an accessible lab, everyone who's died so far has had their labs open. ...Had their labs open the exact chapter they died in, even. Maybe I should be factoring that in when making predictions. :Y Based on the labs we've found so far, that would suggest that Kaito, Keebo, Kokichi, and Tsumugi are all guaranteed safe for the moment, I think? (After finishing exploring, it looks like just Kaito and Kokichi now.)
...Oh, that's interesting. So... Does this serve as documentation of the exact point at which someone started kidnapping real people for their murdergame stories?
*stares directly at the camera like I'm on a secretly-reality TV show*
...Man, when you make a practice of going around talking to everyone at every Free Time slot, it really hits you all of a sudden how many people are gone. I love the moments when that kind of thing just sinks in for the player.
Shuichi, in his room at night: "I feel like I haven't done it in a long time..." Well, not with Kaito, that's for sure. First he starts bringing Maki, then he ditches completely... But hey, you've got like five keys of love. I think you're set.
(I feel like I should apologize for endlessly hammering on this one joke, but good god, the game keeps walking so perfectly into it that I'd feel bad if I didn't.)
Gonta, please don't stay up late at night just to say death flags to passers-by. :< ...Honestly, it does something strange to character arcs when you know at least half of them are a signal that the character in question dies this chapter. That's a normal genre thing, I mean, giving characters the spotlight for the arc where they die, but V3 broadcasts it extra hard with the way it follows that formula like clockwork. Literally every character who's died so far, with the exception of Kaede, has fit that exact pattern. Not a single other character has; every other character who's had more than momentary prominence has gotten it in the form of either general "main character"-ness not tied to a specific arc (Shuichi, Kaito, Kokichi before Ch.4), or an arc paced too slowly to finish by chapter end (Maki, Himiko, Kokichi in Ch.4). And it's not exactly subtle when a new character steps up to the Single-Chapter Spotlight; some of them, I swear there's almost an audible click as they slot into place.
Mostly, I'm realizing that it starts to feel very weird once you're far enough into the game to be legitimately invested and interested in the characters. Because every time a supporting character suddenly gets to be relevant, my first reaction is "oh okay, I guess they're the next victim or culprit", practically before I have time to think "nice, ___ finally gets an arc!" It doesn't detract from the character arcs themselves, but it definitely distracts from them, and at this point it increasingly feels less like clever guessing to call the deaths before the murder and more like the game spoiling itself. Obviously I don't consider following reasonable, potentially-predictable narrative conventions to be a flaw—often it's a sign of good writing—but V3 seems exceptionally formulaic even for a DR game.
I really do like the Maki-Shuichi dynamic a lot. Also, okay, this is definitely an OT3 happening here. I'm a fan of it, I think. Not sure how to reconcile that with my decidedly less positive feelings about Maki/Kaito, but I'm sure I'll work something out.
One particular friend has been hoping very hard every time I go to the love hotel that I'll roll Tsumugi.surskitty has informed me that they'll be disappointed in me if I fuck Tsumugi. I feel like I'm getting mixed messages here, but either way, it's up to the RNG.
The two characters I rolled this chapter were Gonta and Maki, and holy shit Gonta's scene is adorable. I'm still smiling thinking about it. (Every interaction Gonta and Shuichi have makes me ship it, honestly. I've only seen their first FTE and now this, but all their interactions are really cute? ...I suddenly want to adjust my Free Time plans last minute to do the rest of Gonta's; I should have just enough slots left to finish them within the chapter!)
Incidentally, I'm perpetually disappointed that they give you that whole speech about how if you break character, you'll ruin the other person's whole night, only to never give you any dialogue choices in the scenes themselves. Why can't I live out my fantasy of being the Ultimate Moment Destroyer? If you get to learn about your classmates' turn-ons in uncomfortably intimate detail, you should also get to learn about their turn-offs!
I was not at all expecting Himiko to casually become the best character overnight, but I'm very okay with this. New Himiko is a delight.
I'm glad Miu knows what's up:
Huh, that's a new Kokichi sprite. It looks, like, legitimately angry? (I'm sure he isn't actually, I mean, but it's a pretty striking difference.) ...So, okay, what exactly is Kokichi doing here? This is a serious shift from the rest of the game so far, so he must have something special up his sleeve here.
Hahaha oh my god. Oh my god. He even bolds evil, jesus christ. Amazing. I don't know if evil (the bold is important) is a meme in fandom at large or not, but it is absolutely a meme for me, now and forever.
(On a side note, I love how Kokichi never seems to run out of new over-the-top stylized creepyfaces. Like, they didn't need to do that! Normally I'd expect a character to have just one, maybe two or three if they need to escalate from there, but I swear Kokichi's whipped out at least one totally new one each trial. It's great.)
Well, I'm glad Kokichi isn't too evil to be willing to hang out with me, at least! I mean, I'm not because I only have just enough time to finish Gonta, but I appreciate it.
...I only just properly processed that Miu is the other focus character this chapter, aside from Kokichi and the usual suspects (which, incidentally, is the name of my band). Welp, guess she's gone too. :( ... Seriously, though, Miu, of all the people to go after, Gonta?? What did he ever do to you?
Ooh, avatars? Can we set our avatars to the stupidest things possible? Please tell me yes. I need to know what everyone's personal brand of bad avatar choices is. (As it turns out, the avatars are in fact amazing as they are, but I still want the AU where we see what everyone does when given access to a character creator.)
Keebo, I am extremely concerned about your inner voice. You should really get that checked out.
...Welp. Judging by that whole speech about the wires, someone's already messed with them somehow, haven't they. (That, or less likely just "Gonta gets it wrong by accident", but I doubt it. Miu and Kokichi both had convenient access to them beforehand, and Miu's presumably the chapter's killer at that; either of them could easily have tampered with something.)
Kaito, I don't think being in VR stops your physical body from dying slowly on its own. I mean, I sympathize, but... I don't think that actually helps much.
... It only just occurred to me now, but. Considering Kaito seems to be actually physically ill, did the masterminds just... give some guy a terminal illness at the start of the killing game?? Or did they just give him a handful of symptoms somehow and he only thinks it's a terminal illness he's had all along? The latter seems less fucked up and therefore less likely, but then again, it does have extra potential for cruel irony...
(A friend replied to this by joking about him being a Make-a-Wish kid whose wish was to be in a killing game before he died, which is the single best thing I've ever heard. This is now my headcanon forever, possibly even if/when it gets soundly jossed.)
...Everyone's avatar is specifically programmed to have the same strength stat. Seriously, Miu, why do you want to kill Gonta. D: The whole "objects are unbreakable" thing sounds very promising as a mystery element, though.
You know, with most of the character's, there's this inherent humor factor in seeing their expressions all reduced to simplistic chibi model approximations of how they'd usually look. ...And then on the flip side, it turns out Kokichi with exaggerated chibi anime faces is actually just the purest and most accurate expression of Kokichi possible.
(After playing a while longer, I have to say, Shuichi as expressed through chibi avatar is by far my favorite kind of Shuichi. Like, legitimately, I find myself liking him a few full notches better as a character in the VR scenes? With everyone else the avatars are just a cute and funny gimmick, but somehow Shuichi specifically is just improved by being a tiny chibi model instead of a normal teenage anime boy.)
Everyone keeps worrying about leaving Kokichi to go off and be suspicious, and yet no one does anything about it! I swear I spent the whole time from entering the virtual world up until the investigation yelling WHY AREN'T YOU EVEN TRYING TO WATCH KOKICHI at my screen. Damn it, guys.
I'm very pleased that we just got here and we're already establishing that toilet paper is a potential murder weapon. If we don't literally strangle someone with toilet paper, though, I'll be very disappointed. (I mean, good odds it just gets used as a normal rope and not a murder weapon, but still.)
Ooh, and there's a map boundary, complete with loading time! This is going to be a fun case, all right. Since it blacks you out for a moment in addition to blocking your perception of the other side, I'm guessing the murder plan will involve someone being deliberately made to cross the boundary somehow? (The river passes right through it and we've specifically commented on the current being fast enough to sweep you away, so that seems likely to be part of it.)
Shuichi keeps ending his description of everything I examine with, "...But this isn't the secret of the outside world." How would you know, Shuichi? It's a secret! For all you know, it could be Monokuma's surprisingly classy taste in furniture! (They don't even let me examine anything in the kitchen myself! >:( )
Huh, it's not Gonta who died? Hrm. ...His death feels so telegraphed, I'm honestly finding it hard to imagine he won't still be the killer, especially given the past track record of Gonta hanging out with Kokichi and Kokichi being more suspicious than ever this chapter, but... Hm.
... Wait. They don't call attention to it because it's not in the middle of an open area, but the roof and indoors areas must be separate maps too, right? There's loading screens between them, after all—
No, wait. The binoculars still let you see the whole outside area up to the map boundary, so they must actually be on the same map.. ...And you can even see the examine sparkles on the binoculars from outside, yeah. Damn, I was excited about the possibility of extra loading screen shenanigans for a second. :<
Oh, the river wraps around! Nice. I love all the video game logic.
...Kokichi, why is now the best time to suddenly start flirting with me. Come on, dude.
Would you strangle them with toilet paper, though. I mean, I have standards. I'm not settling for just any old strangling. (Also, that is a blatant lie, because Kokichi is demonstrably the "provoke them into strangling you" type, not the "strangle them" type.)
Assistant Kokichi! Well then.
So, everyone heard both the crash and Keebo's voice from nearby, despite being on opposite ends of the map. Is that because the whole thing wraps around? If so, wow, that makes it really easy for the two outdoors parties to get at each other. Miu's the one who told us there were walls around the edges, so that holds up perfectly—she hid the wraparound feature intentionally so she could use it secretly.
Kaito being logged out... I forget the exact instructions, but I wonder if it has to be your own voice speaking into the phone, or just anyone saying your name?If it does have to be your voice, maybe you could just hold the phone out the window while Kaito's on the roof and wait for him to inevitably yell the phrase "KAITO MOMOTA, LUMINARY OF THE STARS" sooner or later
...Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck, what the hell happened?
So. Despite my earlier thinking, there clearly isn't any kind of map boundary between any of the rooms or inside/outside areas, just the one line down the middle of it all. So my first thought on the involuntary logout thing is that the rooms are defined solely by their coordinates on the map from a top-down view, with no consideration of height, and being on the roof directly above the salon actually counts as being "in the salon". If that's true, then I think the only remaining issue is whether you can speak someone else's name into the logout phone. If you can, then we've got that mystery solved.
...Or you can just remotely log people out with mod powers, I guess. That does make more sense as a plan for Miu, sure! But jeez, I thought I was clever.
...Kokichi, look. I get why you wouldn't consider this, but most people's preferred time for being flirted with actually isn't "right after the person flirting has probably killed two of their friends". I understand that that's probably a less irreconcilable distance from your own ideal romantic circumstances, but I really don't think Shuichi is into it.
Ah, okay, there was a wall—that's a relief, since they let you literally walk into it if you explored. And only Miu could pass through, so, perfect. Which... also means that Kokichi/Gonta couldn't get close to the chapel themselves after killing her. So she must have been transported—flung somehow?—in some ridiculous
...
The literal first thing Miu mentioned as an example of unbreakable objects was rubber bands, wasn't it.
I can't believe Kokichi didn't open the trial by immediately confessing to the crime himself. It was the perfect opportunity! How could you miss that one? I'm not mad, just very, very disappointed.
...Oh god I'm slow. I only just put together that Gonta doesn't remember anything that happened at all. He's been repeatedly telling us, I already knew Kokichi could easily have messed with the cords in advance... Like, I think I just thought the writers were deliberately keeping Gonta's screentime during the investigation sparse to avoid raising suspicion, with the "he's so upset you don't get the chance to talk much" thing to justify it, but. In retrospect I should have just gone straight to "wait, it's really weird and unnatural that Gonta of all people doesn't show any indication he presumably just killed someone", not made the writers' handwaves for them. (He even kept calling the virtual world a dream, even though if anything, he doesn't understand that it's not a real physical location.)
It occurs to me as I play all these that I have no idea what it's like playing these games on console. I feel like some of these minigames must be on easy mode in comparison just by virtue of my playing with a mouse. Maybe I should turn my action difficulty up after all to compensate.
My favorite truth bullet/lie bullet pair of the chapter: Signpost Used as a Bridge → Signpost Used as a Sign. I want to see the hypothetical situation where every single one of these joke bullets is actually useful.
Noooooo, I didn't think fast enough to click the "Miu wanted to use the hammer to confess her love to Kokichi" option. ;__; I want to see it!
This has been true all game, but for the record, V3's version of "Class Trial - Odd Edition" is really excellent.
...Honestly, why exactly is Kokichi doing this whole "hammer on the fact that Shuichi's the protagonist" angle, along with everything else... I mean, he's doing some of it to get Kaito's goat, but that doesn't seem like it could account for all the sudden fixating on Shuichi... Hm.
Okay, guys, I realize the wraparound thing is this case's big clever eureka reveal, but you are all really slow. C'mon Shuichi, if I can guess it before the investigation even starts and you can drop a bunch of pointed hints to it during the investigation, you should probably be aware of it by now!
—Game, please. If you have to do the "Tell them, Shuichi" thing, couldn't you at least do it with a different twist? Literally any other twist than the most obvious one in the case.
(As an aside, Kokichi's voice actor is clearly having a ball throughout all of this, and I am also having a ball with his having a ball.)
Kokichi: "But we solved this mystery, thanks to Shuichi! All hail our savior!" Excuse me, Shuichi? Shuichi took twenty minutes, with heavy prompting, to figure out the most obvious twist in the case! Thanks to Shuichi. Thanks a lot, asshole.
(A friend said, "To be fair, he doesn't know you exist." Are you sure. Are you quite sure that Kokichi "If there were an audience, I bet they'd get a huge kick out of watching this! :)" Oma doesn't know I exist and isn't doing this knowingly.)
Ahahahaha, corpse sled. Excellent. Even if I'm slightly disappointed no bodies were flung with an indestructible rubber band after all. (Also hey, Kokichi, the "Tell them, Shuichi" thing is actually not any less obnoxious when my favorite character does it. It's just inherently obnoxious, and unlike most what what you do, not the kind of obnoxious I like. Cut it out.)
Four-color Mind Mine is a huge difficulty jump, jeez. Here I thought I was pretty good at the game; I'm going to have to learn the strategy all over again to get the hang of it. (The first time I've dropped below A-rank on a minigame, it turns out! I'm curious how Mind Mine's scoring works now; I definitely sucked at that round, but I could have sworn I sucked way more the first couple times I played it in the beginning.) Also, it is really fucking funny to me that the devs were apparently so desperate to do this one specific question in the form of a Mind Mine, they resorted to making you uncover images of text. They had to use Mind Mind for this specific choice, of all the options!
Are we going to have to do a Debate Scrum just for Kaito and Kokichi screaming at each other. Please tell me yes. And please have its contents be completely pointless. (Seriously, "Debate Scrum where instead of anything resembling relevant or meaningful arguments, everyone is just going NO U back and forth and you still have to play it exactly like the serious ones" is a gag that obviously needs to get used, because Debate Scrum is the best-suited minigame to that gag they've ever had. It's entirely super-intense cinematic drama!)
Kokichi, please. This is Danganronpa, not Umineko.
(...Now that I say that, though, I do really want to see what would happen if you subjected Kokichi and Erika to each other.)
Jesus is that an effectively-executed punch to the gut. Wow.
Ohhhh god we're at this part.
...
Did Kokichi just initiate a Rebuttal Showdown just to activate the split-screen for a dramatic monologue? Wow.
I have now hit the point where Kokichi gets so extra he adds a ridiculous triple-image screen overlay to his creepyface for impact. I was going to make a joke about how that must mean he's finally run out of new faces, but I couldn't bring myself to even start the sentence because hahaha no of course he hasn't. That's too blatantly absurd for me to even pretend.
The completely silent correct answer cut-ins for Shuichi are a really good touch. And, of course, incredily effective job using the interactive culprit selection as an awful emotional gut punch.
Shuichi, no, the error did not magically change Gonta's personality. Come on, this one isn't even a mystery. Gonta wanted to protect everyone. Miu was trying to kill Kokichi. That's, like, the one obvious way to get around Gonta's unwillingness to listen to Kokichi. Of course he would want to do anything he could to protect him if he was in danger.
...oh goddammit apparently it's even worse than that somehow. What the hell did Kokichi pull here?
Kokichi: "So I told him. If he wants to save everyone, he should put everyone out of their misery." OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE, KOKICHI
That is the most simultaneously awful and utterly inane thing I've ever heard, which essentially means it's exactly what I should have expected from Kokichi, but still. For fuck's sake.
Well, I appreciate their killing off both remaining Monokubs, at least. Thank god for small mercies?
Jeez, Kokichi keeps reusing that one creepy face. He can't actually be out of new ones, can he? That would be boring.
(...Apparently he was saving his creepy smile sprite budget to splurge on five creepy ominous smile CGs. I guess that's understandable.)
D:
This is deeply upsetting and not okay.
So. That was Chapter 4.
Wow.
I liked most of it (aside from that one weirdly dragged-out question), really, but the whole second half of the trial specifically was knocked out of the park. Just... flawlessly paced and executed, honestly. I'm kind of stunned.
I think my only real disappointment is that I... feel almost cheated, on some level, that it didn't emotionally devastate me on more than an intellectual level, because they did a legitimately great job earning that emotional punch to the gut. But, well, I'd been expecting Gonta to die tragically all game and then been certain he'd die since almost the start of the chapter, so... Ah, well. I can still appreciate it.
Earlier this week I found myself matching wolfpupy tweets to DR characters, and that's how you know I'm in this too deep. Maybe once I finish this game, I'll sit down and pull a full set together to post. (It may also be time to admit I have a wolfpupy problem in general—but to be fair, it's a really fun problem.)
Anyway, no time to talk. I have to play Chapter 5!
Whoa.
Like last time, my reactions while playing are under the cut, somewhat paraphrased for all our sakes.
Someone pointed out to me that the chapter titles in this game also correspond to songs on the soundtrack, just more loosely than DR1's, which is neat. I feel like I should be trying to guess the last two chapter titles based on this knowledge. (Chapter 6: DANGANVEGAS. ...No, but really, please give me this.)
Oooh, mysterious Rantaro hints! This is really interesting. #confirmed that this isn't his first killing game. Which means that yeah, murdering real people for The Hit Anime Danganronpa (I'm assuming that's its exact title) didn't start just now. Unless, I guess, they completely fabricated that backstory too, but that seems really anticlimactic.
Even more interesting:
(Rantaro remains very pretty, incidentally.)
Followed by: "The killing game will continue until only two people are left. The important part of that rule is—" No bright ideas so far on what the important part is, unfortunately, but. Evidently, he was a survivor of his previous game if he's here now. (Or was here now.) And evidently, he didn't get to go free once it was over. So either no one gets to go free, or he was given the choice and he chose to do it again. Or he was given a "choice" and felt his best/only option was to play again. Same difference between the last two, mostly; the point either way is that he had some incentive to choose to try his luck at winning a second (...or maybe more than second? who knows) murdergame.
The mysterious writing is suddenly fully readable! (RIP
horse.) So... has Kokichi actually been writing this himself for some reason, or are the masterminds/someone else putting it here for... some purpose I can't remotely imagine yet?Well, I'm glad that someone finally stood up for Gonta to Kokichi for the very first time, TWO WHOLE CHAPTERS AFTER THE FACT. Man, all of these kids are assholes. Like, I'm fond of them! And they are also terrible to each other at nearly all times. (More importantly, I'm glad that Gonta actually said "yeah no". The way Kokichi treats him makes a lot of story sense, but I was kind of frustrated when Gonta didn't seem to have much of any reaction to it in Chapter 2; I'm glad I was wrong about that!)
Haha yeah, okay, Kokichi's definitely laying it on thick for the camera here. Noticeably more than he was before, in fact. (He's not a model participant, the camera just turned on!)
"Gonta wanna be useful to everyone too." Gonta, no, don't say things like that! I mean, abruptly beginning your personal character arc right at the beginning of a new chapter after being part of the ensemble cast for the game so far is never smart, but it's especially worrying when you're the big buff character in Chapter 4 of a Danganronpa game.
You know, we've never found a character's lab after they died, have we? Aside from Rantaro, who's too mysterious to have an accessible lab, everyone who's died so far has had their labs open. ...Had their labs open the exact chapter they died in, even. Maybe I should be factoring that in when making predictions. :Y Based on the labs we've found so far, that would suggest that Kaito, Keebo, Kokichi, and Tsumugi are all guaranteed safe for the moment, I think? (After finishing exploring, it looks like just Kaito and Kokichi now.)
...Oh, that's interesting. So... Does this serve as documentation of the exact point at which someone started kidnapping real people for their murdergame stories?
*stares directly at the camera like I'm on a secretly-reality TV show*
...Man, when you make a practice of going around talking to everyone at every Free Time slot, it really hits you all of a sudden how many people are gone. I love the moments when that kind of thing just sinks in for the player.
Shuichi, in his room at night: "I feel like I haven't done it in a long time..." Well, not with Kaito, that's for sure. First he starts bringing Maki, then he ditches completely... But hey, you've got like five keys of love. I think you're set.
(I feel like I should apologize for endlessly hammering on this one joke, but good god, the game keeps walking so perfectly into it that I'd feel bad if I didn't.)
Gonta, please don't stay up late at night just to say death flags to passers-by. :< ...Honestly, it does something strange to character arcs when you know at least half of them are a signal that the character in question dies this chapter. That's a normal genre thing, I mean, giving characters the spotlight for the arc where they die, but V3 broadcasts it extra hard with the way it follows that formula like clockwork. Literally every character who's died so far, with the exception of Kaede, has fit that exact pattern. Not a single other character has; every other character who's had more than momentary prominence has gotten it in the form of either general "main character"-ness not tied to a specific arc (Shuichi, Kaito, Kokichi before Ch.4), or an arc paced too slowly to finish by chapter end (Maki, Himiko, Kokichi in Ch.4). And it's not exactly subtle when a new character steps up to the Single-Chapter Spotlight; some of them, I swear there's almost an audible click as they slot into place.
Mostly, I'm realizing that it starts to feel very weird once you're far enough into the game to be legitimately invested and interested in the characters. Because every time a supporting character suddenly gets to be relevant, my first reaction is "oh okay, I guess they're the next victim or culprit", practically before I have time to think "nice, ___ finally gets an arc!" It doesn't detract from the character arcs themselves, but it definitely distracts from them, and at this point it increasingly feels less like clever guessing to call the deaths before the murder and more like the game spoiling itself. Obviously I don't consider following reasonable, potentially-predictable narrative conventions to be a flaw—often it's a sign of good writing—but V3 seems exceptionally formulaic even for a DR game.
I really do like the Maki-Shuichi dynamic a lot. Also, okay, this is definitely an OT3 happening here. I'm a fan of it, I think. Not sure how to reconcile that with my decidedly less positive feelings about Maki/Kaito, but I'm sure I'll work something out.
One particular friend has been hoping very hard every time I go to the love hotel that I'll roll Tsumugi.
surskitty has informed me that they'll be disappointed in me if I fuck Tsumugi. I feel like I'm getting mixed messages here, but either way, it's up to the RNG.The two characters I rolled this chapter were Gonta and Maki, and holy shit Gonta's scene is adorable. I'm still smiling thinking about it. (Every interaction Gonta and Shuichi have makes me ship it, honestly. I've only seen their first FTE and now this, but all their interactions are really cute? ...I suddenly want to adjust my Free Time plans last minute to do the rest of Gonta's; I should have just enough slots left to finish them within the chapter!)
Incidentally, I'm perpetually disappointed that they give you that whole speech about how if you break character, you'll ruin the other person's whole night, only to never give you any dialogue choices in the scenes themselves. Why can't I live out my fantasy of being the Ultimate Moment Destroyer? If you get to learn about your classmates' turn-ons in uncomfortably intimate detail, you should also get to learn about their turn-offs!
I was not at all expecting Himiko to casually become the best character overnight, but I'm very okay with this. New Himiko is a delight.
I'm glad Miu knows what's up:
Huh, that's a new Kokichi sprite. It looks, like, legitimately angry? (I'm sure he isn't actually, I mean, but it's a pretty striking difference.) ...So, okay, what exactly is Kokichi doing here? This is a serious shift from the rest of the game so far, so he must have something special up his sleeve here.
Hahaha oh my god. Oh my god. He even bolds evil, jesus christ. Amazing. I don't know if evil (the bold is important) is a meme in fandom at large or not, but it is absolutely a meme for me, now and forever.
(On a side note, I love how Kokichi never seems to run out of new over-the-top stylized creepyfaces. Like, they didn't need to do that! Normally I'd expect a character to have just one, maybe two or three if they need to escalate from there, but I swear Kokichi's whipped out at least one totally new one each trial. It's great.)
Well, I'm glad Kokichi isn't too evil to be willing to hang out with me, at least! I mean, I'm not because I only have just enough time to finish Gonta, but I appreciate it.
...I only just properly processed that Miu is the other focus character this chapter, aside from Kokichi and the usual suspects (which, incidentally, is the name of my band). Welp, guess she's gone too. :( ... Seriously, though, Miu, of all the people to go after, Gonta?? What did he ever do to you?
Ooh, avatars? Can we set our avatars to the stupidest things possible? Please tell me yes. I need to know what everyone's personal brand of bad avatar choices is. (As it turns out, the avatars are in fact amazing as they are, but I still want the AU where we see what everyone does when given access to a character creator.)
Keebo, I am extremely concerned about your inner voice. You should really get that checked out.
...Welp. Judging by that whole speech about the wires, someone's already messed with them somehow, haven't they. (That, or less likely just "Gonta gets it wrong by accident", but I doubt it. Miu and Kokichi both had convenient access to them beforehand, and Miu's presumably the chapter's killer at that; either of them could easily have tampered with something.)
Kaito, I don't think being in VR stops your physical body from dying slowly on its own. I mean, I sympathize, but... I don't think that actually helps much.
... It only just occurred to me now, but. Considering Kaito seems to be actually physically ill, did the masterminds just... give some guy a terminal illness at the start of the killing game?? Or did they just give him a handful of symptoms somehow and he only thinks it's a terminal illness he's had all along? The latter seems less fucked up and therefore less likely, but then again, it does have extra potential for cruel irony...
(A friend replied to this by joking about him being a Make-a-Wish kid whose wish was to be in a killing game before he died, which is the single best thing I've ever heard. This is now my headcanon forever, possibly even if/when it gets soundly jossed.)
...Everyone's avatar is specifically programmed to have the same strength stat. Seriously, Miu, why do you want to kill Gonta. D: The whole "objects are unbreakable" thing sounds very promising as a mystery element, though.
You know, with most of the character's, there's this inherent humor factor in seeing their expressions all reduced to simplistic chibi model approximations of how they'd usually look. ...And then on the flip side, it turns out Kokichi with exaggerated chibi anime faces is actually just the purest and most accurate expression of Kokichi possible.
(After playing a while longer, I have to say, Shuichi as expressed through chibi avatar is by far my favorite kind of Shuichi. Like, legitimately, I find myself liking him a few full notches better as a character in the VR scenes? With everyone else the avatars are just a cute and funny gimmick, but somehow Shuichi specifically is just improved by being a tiny chibi model instead of a normal teenage anime boy.)
Everyone keeps worrying about leaving Kokichi to go off and be suspicious, and yet no one does anything about it! I swear I spent the whole time from entering the virtual world up until the investigation yelling WHY AREN'T YOU EVEN TRYING TO WATCH KOKICHI at my screen. Damn it, guys.
I'm very pleased that we just got here and we're already establishing that toilet paper is a potential murder weapon. If we don't literally strangle someone with toilet paper, though, I'll be very disappointed. (I mean, good odds it just gets used as a normal rope and not a murder weapon, but still.)
Ooh, and there's a map boundary, complete with loading time! This is going to be a fun case, all right. Since it blacks you out for a moment in addition to blocking your perception of the other side, I'm guessing the murder plan will involve someone being deliberately made to cross the boundary somehow? (The river passes right through it and we've specifically commented on the current being fast enough to sweep you away, so that seems likely to be part of it.)
Shuichi keeps ending his description of everything I examine with, "...But this isn't the secret of the outside world." How would you know, Shuichi? It's a secret! For all you know, it could be Monokuma's surprisingly classy taste in furniture! (They don't even let me examine anything in the kitchen myself! >:( )
Huh, it's not Gonta who died? Hrm. ...His death feels so telegraphed, I'm honestly finding it hard to imagine he won't still be the killer, especially given the past track record of Gonta hanging out with Kokichi and Kokichi being more suspicious than ever this chapter, but... Hm.
... Wait. They don't call attention to it because it's not in the middle of an open area, but the roof and indoors areas must be separate maps too, right? There's loading screens between them, after all—
No, wait. The binoculars still let you see the whole outside area up to the map boundary, so they must actually be on the same map.. ...And you can even see the examine sparkles on the binoculars from outside, yeah. Damn, I was excited about the possibility of extra loading screen shenanigans for a second. :<
Oh, the river wraps around! Nice. I love all the video game logic.
...Kokichi, why is now the best time to suddenly start flirting with me. Come on, dude.
Would you strangle them with toilet paper, though. I mean, I have standards. I'm not settling for just any old strangling. (Also, that is a blatant lie, because Kokichi is demonstrably the "provoke them into strangling you" type, not the "strangle them" type.)
Assistant Kokichi! Well then.
So, everyone heard both the crash and Keebo's voice from nearby, despite being on opposite ends of the map. Is that because the whole thing wraps around? If so, wow, that makes it really easy for the two outdoors parties to get at each other. Miu's the one who told us there were walls around the edges, so that holds up perfectly—she hid the wraparound feature intentionally so she could use it secretly.
Kaito being logged out... I forget the exact instructions, but I wonder if it has to be your own voice speaking into the phone, or just anyone saying your name?
...Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck, what the hell happened?
So. Despite my earlier thinking, there clearly isn't any kind of map boundary between any of the rooms or inside/outside areas, just the one line down the middle of it all. So my first thought on the involuntary logout thing is that the rooms are defined solely by their coordinates on the map from a top-down view, with no consideration of height, and being on the roof directly above the salon actually counts as being "in the salon". If that's true, then I think the only remaining issue is whether you can speak someone else's name into the logout phone. If you can, then we've got that mystery solved.
...Or you can just remotely log people out with mod powers, I guess. That does make more sense as a plan for Miu, sure! But jeez, I thought I was clever.
...Kokichi, look. I get why you wouldn't consider this, but most people's preferred time for being flirted with actually isn't "right after the person flirting has probably killed two of their friends". I understand that that's probably a less irreconcilable distance from your own ideal romantic circumstances, but I really don't think Shuichi is into it.
Ah, okay, there was a wall—that's a relief, since they let you literally walk into it if you explored. And only Miu could pass through, so, perfect. Which... also means that Kokichi/Gonta couldn't get close to the chapel themselves after killing her. So she must have been transported—flung somehow?—in some ridiculous
...
The literal first thing Miu mentioned as an example of unbreakable objects was rubber bands, wasn't it.
I can't believe Kokichi didn't open the trial by immediately confessing to the crime himself. It was the perfect opportunity! How could you miss that one? I'm not mad, just very, very disappointed.
...Oh god I'm slow. I only just put together that Gonta doesn't remember anything that happened at all. He's been repeatedly telling us, I already knew Kokichi could easily have messed with the cords in advance... Like, I think I just thought the writers were deliberately keeping Gonta's screentime during the investigation sparse to avoid raising suspicion, with the "he's so upset you don't get the chance to talk much" thing to justify it, but. In retrospect I should have just gone straight to "wait, it's really weird and unnatural that Gonta of all people doesn't show any indication he presumably just killed someone", not made the writers' handwaves for them. (He even kept calling the virtual world a dream, even though if anything, he doesn't understand that it's not a real physical location.)
It occurs to me as I play all these that I have no idea what it's like playing these games on console. I feel like some of these minigames must be on easy mode in comparison just by virtue of my playing with a mouse. Maybe I should turn my action difficulty up after all to compensate.
My favorite truth bullet/lie bullet pair of the chapter: Signpost Used as a Bridge → Signpost Used as a Sign. I want to see the hypothetical situation where every single one of these joke bullets is actually useful.
Noooooo, I didn't think fast enough to click the "Miu wanted to use the hammer to confess her love to Kokichi" option. ;__; I want to see it!
This has been true all game, but for the record, V3's version of "Class Trial - Odd Edition" is really excellent.
...Honestly, why exactly is Kokichi doing this whole "hammer on the fact that Shuichi's the protagonist" angle, along with everything else... I mean, he's doing some of it to get Kaito's goat, but that doesn't seem like it could account for all the sudden fixating on Shuichi... Hm.
Okay, guys, I realize the wraparound thing is this case's big clever eureka reveal, but you are all really slow. C'mon Shuichi, if I can guess it before the investigation even starts and you can drop a bunch of pointed hints to it during the investigation, you should probably be aware of it by now!
—Game, please. If you have to do the "Tell them, Shuichi" thing, couldn't you at least do it with a different twist? Literally any other twist than the most obvious one in the case.
WORLD LOOPS is a passable Hangman's Gambit solution rather than a memetically terrible one, but possibly more annoying to me by virtue of that. It's fine, I mean, but boy that was a lot of damage taken guessing the first letter of a phrase for something I already knew. (Hangman's Gambit does seem like an absolute nightmare to localize, in fairness, but some of the other solutions have managed above-and-beyond levels of bad even for that.)
... Seriously, Kokichi, what the hell is this accomplishing
I... I mean, okay, no one was ever going to trust him again after this no matter what, so I guess he's not actually hurting his case per se
But
Hm
Like, okay, what exactly is the theoretical endgame that going full ham on the cartoon-villain-to-Shuichi's-hero shtick accomplishes?
In a vacuum, I could understand it as a personal coping mechanism, but he's been doing this since the very start of the chapter so obviously it's not
Like... okay, so, what is the result of Kokichi doing this, compared to if he didn't?
For starters, the result so far has been "everyone is now super suspicious of Kokichi, more on edge and freaked out in general because of it, and ultimately someone tries to kill him"
That seems the opposite of productive.
And, terrible as Kokichi's judgment may be, he at the very least should have known perfectly well that deliberately making people more tense and paranoid would make them more tense and paranoid, so that can't be accidental.
So that either a) was his goal, b) was intended to be a step towards a larger goal somehow, or c) was a seemingly-unavoidable byproduct of his efforts towards a larger goal.
a) seems unlikely; I can't think of much good that could do him or anyone in and of itself (aside from, of course, his deep and abiding love of evil)
So, something in the vein of b) or c) it is, I think.
He thinks making people tense and paranoid and suspicious of him is a means to some end, or he feels he has to risk it in order to do whatever he's trying to do.
I know I was theorizing earlier that Kokichi was deliberately trying to make himself appealing and therefore unsuspicious to the masterminds/audience—the ideal participant, basically, someone totally on board with playing the game exactly as it's intended and making it more exciting and fun to watch, and therefore the last person they'd consider was actually trying to accomplish the opposite?
Something like that would fit under c)
But... Kokichi also abruptly started going way harder on that whole thing right at the start of this chapter
That's the thing I keep getting stuck on, actually
Did something change? Did he find out something new that prompted that? Or did he end up in a position to do something different than what he'd been doing before that?
Hm.
I think I'm ignoring the writing on the stone too much.
It probably is in fact him doing the mysterious writing
I kinda wavered on that because, like, why even would he, but
I mean, if the question is "Why would Kokichi randomly choose to incriminate himself, just because"
Well
What else has he been doing all chapter?
It would be pretty consistent
Which.
Would mean this has to be a long-term plan.
The writing has been being built up very gradually
If it is, then the logical conclusion is that Kokichi's behavior this chapter was planned long in advance, not triggered by something
So
He's. Deliberately derailing the plot by fabricating foreshadowing and clues that he's been the mastermind all along?
Which
...Results. What are the results of that, and how do they compare to the alternative...
The results are, obviously, that people turn against him.
But—that doesn't help anyone.
I mean, the best-case scenario is people want answers and their freedom from him. Which he presumably has no way to give. That... doesn't seem like it solves much.
The more likely outcome is people try to kill him. Which, hey, happened! And the result is more people dying. Which is to say, the result is the killing game proceeding exactly as intended.
If someone successfully kills him, he and they die, or possibly everyone but them does. If someone fails to kill him, apparently he deals with it by killing them first—hey, two more people dead! If someone tries to kill him and he averts it in a sane, none-lethal manner ... well, I guess that actually could theoretically be worth something, if you thought of it in terms of "people will definitely go after him instead of someone else, and he's expecting it and prepared to deal with it so no one gets hurt", but that is very obviously not what he's doing, so.
Like. The intuitive place for my mind to go is that this is meant to somehow... lure the mastermind out or undermine them, by hijacking the plot, but.
I don't really see the exact cause-and-effect thread for how that would work out, so. :|a
Monokuma is evidently not pleased with it, but.
Hrm.
I should just play more and stop talking to myself, probably.
(As an aside, Kokichi's voice actor is clearly having a ball throughout all of this, and I am also having a ball with his having a ball.)
Kokichi: "But we solved this mystery, thanks to Shuichi! All hail our savior!" Excuse me, Shuichi? Shuichi took twenty minutes, with heavy prompting, to figure out the most obvious twist in the case! Thanks to Shuichi. Thanks a lot, asshole.
(A friend said, "To be fair, he doesn't know you exist." Are you sure. Are you quite sure that Kokichi "If there were an audience, I bet they'd get a huge kick out of watching this! :)" Oma doesn't know I exist and isn't doing this knowingly.)
...
You know.
There actually is at least one thing that people believing Kokichi is the mastermind would accomplish.
In theory, anyway. In practice, I think it's very unlikely you could keep a plan like that from potentially spinning out of your control in any number of ways.
But in theory it's actually very clever.
Passing Kokichi off as the mastermind is the most immediate and effective way imaginable to discredit the mastermind.
You need to commit murder to escape, because your loved ones on the outside are in trouble and need you?
You need to perform this shady ritual because it will bring someone back to life?
You need to commit murder, because we promise we'll let you go if you do?
Who would ever believe any of that, coming from Kokichi?
The motives are probably just lies.
The entire premise of the killing game could be a lie.
Hell, even these memories might be lies somehow. It's the mastermind feeding them the information, after all.
Why dance on the mastermind's strings when he's probably just jerking you around, like always?
Ahahahaha, corpse sled. Excellent. Even if I'm slightly disappointed no bodies were flung with an indestructible rubber band after all. (Also hey, Kokichi, the "Tell them, Shuichi" thing is actually not any less obnoxious when my favorite character does it. It's just inherently obnoxious, and unlike most what what you do, not the kind of obnoxious I like. Cut it out.)
Four-color Mind Mine is a huge difficulty jump, jeez. Here I thought I was pretty good at the game; I'm going to have to learn the strategy all over again to get the hang of it. (The first time I've dropped below A-rank on a minigame, it turns out! I'm curious how Mind Mine's scoring works now; I definitely sucked at that round, but I could have sworn I sucked way more the first couple times I played it in the beginning.) Also, it is really fucking funny to me that the devs were apparently so desperate to do this one specific question in the form of a Mind Mine, they resorted to making you uncover images of text. They had to use Mind Mind for this specific choice, of all the options!
Are we going to have to do a Debate Scrum just for Kaito and Kokichi screaming at each other. Please tell me yes. And please have its contents be completely pointless. (Seriously, "Debate Scrum where instead of anything resembling relevant or meaningful arguments, everyone is just going NO U back and forth and you still have to play it exactly like the serious ones" is a gag that obviously needs to get used, because Debate Scrum is the best-suited minigame to that gag they've ever had. It's entirely super-intense cinematic drama!)
Kokichi, please. This is Danganronpa, not Umineko.
(...Now that I say that, though, I do really want to see what would happen if you subjected Kokichi and Erika to each other.)
Jesus is that an effectively-executed punch to the gut. Wow.
Ohhhh god we're at this part.
...
Did Kokichi just initiate a Rebuttal Showdown just to activate the split-screen for a dramatic monologue? Wow.
I have now hit the point where Kokichi gets so extra he adds a ridiculous triple-image screen overlay to his creepyface for impact. I was going to make a joke about how that must mean he's finally run out of new faces, but I couldn't bring myself to even start the sentence because hahaha no of course he hasn't. That's too blatantly absurd for me to even pretend.
The completely silent correct answer cut-ins for Shuichi are a really good touch. And, of course, incredily effective job using the interactive culprit selection as an awful emotional gut punch.
Shuichi, no, the error did not magically change Gonta's personality. Come on, this one isn't even a mystery. Gonta wanted to protect everyone. Miu was trying to kill Kokichi. That's, like, the one obvious way to get around Gonta's unwillingness to listen to Kokichi. Of course he would want to do anything he could to protect him if he was in danger.
...oh goddammit apparently it's even worse than that somehow. What the hell did Kokichi pull here?
Kokichi: "So I told him. If he wants to save everyone, he should put everyone out of their misery." OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE, KOKICHI
That is the most simultaneously awful and utterly inane thing I've ever heard, which essentially means it's exactly what I should have expected from Kokichi, but still. For fuck's sake.
Well, I appreciate their killing off both remaining Monokubs, at least. Thank god for small mercies?
Jeez, Kokichi keeps reusing that one creepy face. He can't actually be out of new ones, can he? That would be boring.
(...Apparently he was saving his creepy smile sprite budget to splurge on five creepy ominous smile CGs. I guess that's understandable.)
D:
This is deeply upsetting and not okay.
So. That was Chapter 4.
Wow.
I liked most of it (aside from that one weirdly dragged-out question), really, but the whole second half of the trial specifically was knocked out of the park. Just... flawlessly paced and executed, honestly. I'm kind of stunned.
I think my only real disappointment is that I... feel almost cheated, on some level, that it didn't emotionally devastate me on more than an intellectual level, because they did a legitimately great job earning that emotional punch to the gut. But, well, I'd been expecting Gonta to die tragically all game and then been certain he'd die since almost the start of the chapter, so... Ah, well. I can still appreciate it.
Earlier this week I found myself matching wolfpupy tweets to DR characters, and that's how you know I'm in this too deep. Maybe once I finish this game, I'll sit down and pull a full set together to post. (It may also be time to admit I have a wolfpupy problem in general—but to be fair, it's a really fun problem.)
Anyway, no time to talk. I have to play Chapter 5!
