Developer: Spike Chunsoft
Publisher: NIS America
Platform: PS Vita, PS TV
Tested on: PS TV
Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls – Review
A world where children control the masses might sound like a paradise with lots of candy, no more work and naptimes all around. The only catch is that no adults are allowed, well truth be told, they will be horribly murdered, cut into pieces, shot to death and so on. Now this idea might sound a tad less attractive, especially if you’re one of those poor adults. Let’s carefully visit Towa City, where (nearly) all adults have been exterminated by amusing looking ‘teddy bears’, called Monokumas.
Story
Komaru Naegi, a young high school student has been locked up in a small room for over one and a half year, for no apparent reason. At first she virtually gave up on everything, living in a constant state of desperation, but as time crawled by, she accepted her ‘fate’, albeit reluctantly. Her daily routine consists out of getting up, yelling at the door to let her out, enjoying her breakfast and pretty much doing nothing after that. Suddenly, out of the blue, her routine got messed up, when her door got barged in and she found herself staring in the eyes of a homicidal teddy bear. She did her best to escape and during her run to freedom she bumped into Byakuya Togami, one of the most important members of the ‘Future Foundation’. This mysterious foundation seemingly knows how to kill the mechanical killer bears and promises Komaru to handle things in the building, when she has to escape to the local diner to talk to another member of the Future Foundation.
Sadly, it seems the entire town is overrun with the Monokuma bears, who are rapidly butchering all adults in sight. Komaru still tries to get away, but in several turn of events, she gets captured to become part of a game that is currently being played in Towa City. This game involves young adults who have a chance to survive a bit longer, if they manage to beat the Monokumas that come after them. Even worse is that young children, who call themselves the ‘Warriors of Hope’, are behind the awful massacre and they are not really open to reason. Komaru gets thrown into the messy game as well, as the children just want good entertainment value and actually don’t care that much about the lives they are taking. Luckily Komaru doesn’t have to endure the ordeal on her own, as shortly after her first misadventures, the schizophrenic Toko Fukawa joins the fray. Sadly, Toko Fukawa isn’t the most pleasant person to be around, as her other personality is that of a serial killer named Genocide Jack. Nonetheless, her aggressive personality does wonders in battle. From here on out the struggle to escape the city begins, but it seems they have to win the game first, as Komaru was equipped with a non-removable bracelet, that will explode when leaving the city without the blessing of the Warriors of Hope.
Overall the story progresses at a decent pace, with the help of many cutscenes, which are either illustrated, done with ingame graphics or anime sequences. It’s fun that the developers did their best to combine different styles to portray the story. That being said, the story has a lot of ‘useless’ conversations that actually become quite bothersome, if you’re looking to play through the core story, instead of all the useless banter that comes with it. Nonetheless, most of the ‘extra’ conversations still have a decent amount of wit and humor in them.
Graphics
The graphical quality when you’re actually in control leaves us with mixed feelings. Whilst the characters and the enemies look rather detailed and remain very true to the style of the other Danganronpa games, the environments are rather bland and empty. The same items are scattered throughout all of the different areas and they lack details. Nonetheless, for a Vita title, the game looks decent, albeit with the lack of ‘clutter’ in the environments you will be roaming through.
What the areas lack, the anime and illustrated sequences make up for quite a lot. Throughout the game you will be treated to a decent amount of small anime scenes, which make the experience slightly more immersive and the other illustrated sequences are simply very nicely done. These are simple, yet very nice touches, that add a lot to this type of game.
Sound
As always many of the NIS America published games have topnotch voice acting, and Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls is no exception. Again we get many properly voiced intermezzos, which add a lot to the overall atmosphere of the game. Sadly, there is no real structure as to which events are fully voiced and which ones are not. Some key moments are only accompanied by text, while they would have been a lot better with some fun voice acting. Nonetheless, the game offers quite a bit of voiced scenes and these are very nicely done.
The music in the game is somewhat repetitive at times but overall it’s fairly decent. As you’ll be paying attention to your surroundings a lot, the music is hardly noticeable and thus the game can do without an ‘epic’ soundtrack.
Gameplay
Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls is a third-person adventure game/shooter, with a decent amount of RPG elements and puzzles scattered around the place. The main goal of the game is that Komaru and Toko escape from the horrible Towa City .
Everything feels quite straightforward, except for the rather clunky controls and the original quirks the developers implemented in the otherwise very common formula. Even though you’ll often have to ‘shoot’ your enemies, your weapon is quite original, as it has very amusing bullet types (Truth Bullets) for you to mess around with. You’ll first start off with the ‘Break’ bullet type, which exactly does as it states, namely break the evil Monokumas, after you’ve fired several shots at them. Other options are ‘Detect’, which detects hidden clues, Dance, which makes the Monokumas dance, and so on.
If the Monokumas overwhelm you, you’ll have the option to switch with Genocide Jack, who uses her scissors to dispose of the bears from hell in a more rapid pace. Overall she will serve you well, if you have to dispose of several bears at once. That being said, you can’t call upon Genocide Jack whenever you feel like it, as she has an energy meter (the batteries on your HUD) which depletes over time.
As you progress through the different chapters of the game, you’ll be able to upgrade your weapons, even though the upgrades are not always that clearly explained. Sometimes you’ll buy an upgrade, with your hard-earned Monocoins from slaying all different kinds of Monokumas, that in retrospective, feels as if it did not do anything at all. The upgrade system sometimes felt like a trial and error system, where you might just have to get lucky in order to find something useful. In reality you’ll just have to experiment with upgrades, as some will have to be equipped in combination with another one, to present you with a proper effect.
As you kill more and more enemies, you’ll earn experience points, which will allow you to level up. When you level up, you will receive SP, which will, in turn, allow you to equip new skills. That being said, these character skills can’t be bought, but have to be found by exploring all of the different areas, uncovering hidden books. These books will present you with skills, but each skill will consume a specific amount of SP, which means you will have to choose which skills you’ll actively equip and use.
During your playthrough, you will always have to move from one location to another, sometimes forcing you to backtrack. The exploration options are quite limited, but it is advised to look in all of the small ‘sidetracks’, as they can offer you some fun goodies to help you on your way. Other than that the game changes its pace from time to time by forcing you to play the ‘Monoku-Man’ arcade game, which you’ll have to do in order to progress to another area. The arcade cabinet will always give you an overview of the evil bears in the next room, which you’ll have to dispose of. Thanks to the Monoku-Man game, you’ll be able to devise a strategy in order to overcome your foes in the best way possible.
One thing that bothered us at the beginning of the game is the fact that, for a handheld title, the game offers a very low amount of save points. This means that you already have to spend a reasonable amount of time playing through the beginning of the game, before you can actually save your progress. This makes it hard to play the game in shorter bursts, as it’s quite time consuming without being able to save on many occasions.
Conclusion
Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls is a welcome spin-off that depicts itself in the Danganronpa universe. As you’ll be playing with two ‘known’ characters, it makes the game very fun for those who have been following the franchise for quite some time. Whilst the controls sometimes prove to be clunky, the setting and the original quirks the game has to offer make you forget about that. Certainly a fun game to pass your time with.
Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls - Review,
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[…] hasn’t been too long since we’ve reviewed this title for the PS Vita and NIS America has announced that Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair […]