I am Mog Anarchy, and I like to play games. Whether they are old, new, retro, modern, online, offline, console, computer, critically acclaimed or notoriously bad. Here on my blog, I rant about, review, trash talk, praise and generally talk about all of my favourite and least-favourite games. I also write my own guides on how to accomplish tricky tasks, show off my creative endeavors and challenge myself with crazy in-game tasks. I also have a bunch of gaming merchandise which I am glad to show off. So drop me a comment, I love hearing your questions, criticisms, comments and general gaming discussions. :)
This review will remain as spoiler-free as humanly possible, as the true charm of the Danganronpa games is their murder mystery aspect. In addition, the footage used in this video was taken from the demo version - which is unrelated to the main narrative story wise but uses the same characters, settings and gameplay features. So, with that out of the way…
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony is the 3rd game in the Danganronpa series, not including the spin-off hack n slash title Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls. It also follows the same canon as the Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School series of anime, which chronologically comes after Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair but before Danganronpa V3 itself. It was released in September 2017 in Europe and North America on PS4, Playstation Vita and Steam.
The basic premise of all 3 Danganronpa titles is you assume a 1st person perspective of one of a group of high school students who are all gifted with some form of “ultimate” talent, basically they are one of the very elite in their chosen field or interest. Some of the “ultimates” included in Danganronpa V3 include ultimate pianist, ultimate magician, ultimate cosplayer, ultimate tennis pro and ultimate artist. These characters are tasked with carrying out a communal life together within their school - but the equilibrium is quickly disrupted when Monokuma, the series mascot and antagonist appears and forces them to take part in his twisted killing games.
Monokuma presents the students various motives and opportunities to kill one another throughout the storyline until somebody takes the bait and you stumble upon the corpse of one of your former classmates. This is where you are tasked with investigating the crime scene, collecting alibis, looking for clues and identifying the key points of the murder, such as time of death, cause of death and the murder weapon.
After enough time passes, you then take part in the class trial - which involves all remaining students standing in a circle in Monokuma courtroom and arguing their points. During the class trials you act simultaneously as potential culprits, lawyers, prosecutors and jury members and must use “truth bullets” to either agree with points made by the other students or destroy weak points, false alibis, lies and contradictions in their arguments.
As the Danganronpa games are, at heart, visual novels - the storyline progresses primarily through conversations between you and other characters with minimal action sequences. The class trials all feature full voice acting and you can choose to play with the original Japanese voice actors or the English dub - both have their strong points - but it's a matter of preference between players, it's an argument we shan't go into here.
The game is split up into Daily Life and Deadly Life, which are exactly as they sound, daily life is the usual routine before a murder occurs and deadly life involves the investigation and preparation for the class trial. Daily life also includes free time moments where you can choose which characters you can spend time with and give presents to improve your relationships and unlock new skills that can be used in the class trials.
Upon completion of the main story mode, you will unlock a variety of post-game modes, including a “what if” story scenario that doesn't involve any violence or murders and instead let's you focus on building your friendships. There is also a casino mode in which you can replay mini-games to earn coins and use them to buy items, skills and skins to customise your user interface. Monocoins, which are collected throughout the story mode can be used to buy presents to gift to the other students and used to unlock FMV movies, evenly scenes, background music and concept art in the gallery.
In order to maintain an M for Mature rating, Spike Chunsoft made the creative decision to change the blood colour from red to a neon pink - though the games still include graphic depictions of murder, suicide, death, loss and of course, Monokuma’s ridiculously creative yet simultaneously graphic and disturbing executions. These themes and storyline are made even harder hitting when you consider that all of the characters are of high school age, in their late teens and early 20s at the oldest.
The main selling point of the Danganronpa games in my opinion is the unique art style and the wide array of quirky characters - every player will have characters they identify with and characters they can't stand - and everyone will connect to the motives, struggles and themes differently. So I recommend not just Danganronpa V3, but the entire Danganronpa series to anybody who enjoys visual novels, solving murder mysteries or would always choose a less-action orientated game with a rich and immerse storyline than a mindless shooter or adventure title with no substance.
And for the love of God, do not Google ANYTHING while you're part-way through the game! The Internet is rife with game-ruining spoilers that can totally spoil entire sections of the game if you read ahead accidentally. And while Danganronpa V3 *can* stand up alone and doesn't have to be played following Trigger Happy Havoc and Goodbye Despair, I recommend you do try those out first so you can get as immersed as possible in the Danganronpa world - not quite drowning, but up to your neck in neon pink blood!
The 3rd level in Banjo-Kazooie is a half underwater cave and sewer system called Clanker’s Cavern. Inhabited by various crabs, fish and other aquatic life - and of course, the cavern’s namesake, Clanker himself.
It seems that Gruntilda’s Lair lacks the usual means of refuse disposal like garbage chutes or an incinerator, instead she employs the use of Clanker, who claims to be her “garbage grinder.” Presumably he functions as some sort of living trash compactor, or even darker, perhaps his home got turned into the whole castle’s refuse centre and Grunty just dumps all of her rubbish there and he's forced to eat it, either to survive or as a means to stop his home getting too overrun with it.
There's so many unanswered questions surrounding Clanker - but the one that springs to mind for me is, what IS Clanker anyway? Is he a robot? Or is he a living being? I've got a bunch of evidence that supports both theories, so allow me to go through them - and at the end you can make your own decision.
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Clanker is alive
The most obvious sign that Clanker is alive is the presence of organic tissue; namely the bloody wounds present on his exterior and the flesh and guts present in his interior. Clanker is clearly not impervious to injury, and the fact he is covered with wounds, rather than dents or scuffs, proves his exterior is more akin to skin than it is to sheet metal.
Clanker is clearly an aquatic being - although during Grunty’s Furnace Fun, he is referred to as a whale, Clanker can breathe air or he can breathe underwater via the use of his pair of gills. When raised above the water level however, he breathes through his blowhole. Clanker is an amphibian - he can breathe underwater or above the water.
Clanker is both sentient and capable of feeling pain and discomfort. He originally expresses to Banjo and Kazooie that he wishes to breathe the fresh air, as he is tired of living in dirty water. Once he is above the water level and breathing said fresh air, he complains of a toothache - his teeth hurt as a result of eating too much garbage - so Banjo and Kazooie employ a double tooth egg-straction in order to relieve his pain. Unless he has a very accurate AI, robots cannot feel or express pain.
Next is Clanker’s internals. Inside his stomach, there are clear skeletal structures visible - he appears to have both a spine and a ribcage. In addition, his stomach is filled with fluid, indicating stomach acid or some other gastrointestinal liquids used to aid digestion.
One of the hazards inside Clanker are these things - seemingly sentient fleshy protrusions that whip side to side and can hurt Banjo. I propose these are actually some form of parasite, what we see is their tail and body, as their head is buried into Clanker’s flesh in order to feed off of him. All of these point to Clanker being somewhat alive, having both flesh, organs and blood.
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Clanker is a robot
The most obvious sign that Clanker is a robot is his metallic appearance - even his name is a hint towards him not being a living creature. He clanks. Metal clanks. Rusty robots clank. His whole exterior and even some of his interior are made of metal - I presume steel, as he lives primarily in water and doesn’t appear to have rusted - as metals such as copper or iron would.
Next is the anvil and chain. Clanker is anchored in place, possibly so he can't escape his garbage grinding prison, by an anvil and a chain that protrudes from his stomach. Now if he were alive, the act of literally piercing an animal through the stomach, if they were to even survive it - as there's the risk of their vital organs being ruptured or dying from an infection - they would have visible scar tissue around the piercing. Clanker doesn't have anything like that. Also, with tethering a living creature, it would be more common to attach some sort of collar, or if they were to use a piercing, a ring through the nose, like we see in domestic bulls and bullocks.
Let's focus on Clanker’s diet - it seems he subsists primarily on garbage. And yes, while animals such as rats, mice and other vermin have flourished due to living on the refuse of humans, they only really eat our food scraps. Rats don't eat tin cans or scrap metal or anything really that we wouldn't eat. As there is clearly no excess refuse either floating in the water around Clanker or sunken to the bottom of the water, we can presume he eats pretty much anything - including things like metal, plastic and glass. This is unlikely to happen in living creatures as it would be likely to kill them.
Next is the way Clanker speaks. Notice how he starts his sentences? He says “bzzt,” an onomatopoeia for either an electric shock or a computer or robot malfunctioning. Clanker is clearly run down and wearing out due to being overused and probably poorly maintained - thus his speech pattern is broken and he's giving clear signs of being in disrepair. A living creature wouldn't make a sound like that.
Inside Clanker is a section filled with rotating saw blades. This is the section where Bottles the Mole teaches Banjo and Kazooie the Wonderwing ability. As Clanker is used for garbage disposal, I propose these blades are used to slice up larger pieces of waste or things made from metal in order to help Clanker dispose of them easier, akin to a trash compactor or sink disposal. A living creature clearly wouldn't have a mechanical digestion aid inside of them.
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So what do you think? Is Clanker alive, or is he a robot? I'm tempted to sit on the fence and stay in the middle and say he's actually both. He's a cyborg - as he clearly possesses sentience, intelligence and feelings and shows signs of having flesh, organs and blood - yet simultaneously has non-organic skin, mechanical parts and has a somewhat robotic way of speaking. Perhaps he was just an ordinary whale at first but fell victim to the experiments of the mad scientist Klungo. Maybe he was used as a test subject for Gruntilda’s magic - or maybe he simply adapted to his surroundings and had the Snippets build him a snazzy steel suit to protect him and he became more and more mechanical as he was used like a machine, locked up with no freedom and used as a garbage grinder - he eventually gave up and accepted his fate. Whew, Banjo-Kazooie is pretty dark sometimes huh?
This is a little guide for the Steam title Kindergarten - it's a great little puzzle/logic/interactive story game, costs only £3.99 and will keep you entertained and scratching your head for hours. Many of the puzzles and characters' storylines require strict timing and succession of events - and I recommend you try your hardest to figure out the puzzles on your own before consulting my guide below. With that being said, if you're pulling your hair out - here's the guide. Obviously, it contains SPOILERS. (Click on the screenshots to enlarge them!) ------------------------------------------------------------- Before school starts:
Withdraw $3.00 from your piggy bank.
Take Ms. Applegate's phone from your shelf. (You must've first completed Buggs' storyline for this to become available.)
Take the forged key to the Principal's office from your shelf. (You must've first completed Monty's storyline for this to become available.)
Take Billy's note from your shelf. (You must've first completed Nugget's storyline for this to become available.)
Playground:
Talk to Lily and tell her you do know what happened to her brother Billy while showing her Nugget's note.
Unfortunately neither you or Lily can read yet, so find someone who can - Monty! He will charge you $1.00 to decipher the note.
Return to Lily and tell her what you found out. Then show her the key you have to the Principal's office.
Talk to Monty and purchase the pack of cigarettes. ($1.00)
Talk to Nugget and follow the conversation branches until you are talking about Billy. Press Nugget for information until you are sent to the Principal's office.
When being interrogated by the Principal, agree that you have been feeling sad about Billy. He will give you some of Nugget's special pills.
When allowed to leave, go and check the suspicious and somewhat "out of place" rug - ta-da, it's the secret hatch!
Morning time:
Upon returning to the classroom, talk to Lily and tell her that you found the hatch.
Try to leave the classroom - Ms. Applegate will stop you. Ask her if you *may* use the bathroom and she will give you the bathroom pass. Use this to get past the hall monitor.
Inspect each toilet cubicle and the dirty toilet then tell the Janitor to do his job for a change and clean it up!
Inspect the bloody bags and take the severed finger...
Lunch:
Talk to Lily and tell her that you found a severed finger...
Talk to Monty and ask him if he has finished deciphering the note from earlier.
Take the note to Lily. Agree to team up with her and go to the bathrooms to deal with the hall monitor.
He is easily bribed with the pack of cigarettes you bought earlier from Monty. Lily will then use the phone to call the Principal in order to get him to leave his office. Go to his office and use your key to gain entry.
The hatch needs a code to access it, so inspect the drawer on the left-hand side of the Principal's desk and enter your code.
Ah! A secret underground laboratory with bio-organic weapons in cultivation tanks! How novel, what an original concept for a video game!
Ahem. Anyway, Billy is the creature suspended in the central tank. There is a specific order in which you must press the coloured buttons. Incorrect guesses will either result in monsters escaping or Billy being... liquidised.
Combo weapons were introduced to the Dead Rising series in Dead Rising 2 and have since become a staple gameplay element to the series. Being able to combine two ordinary items to create frankly nonsensical, overpowered or impractical methods of zombie massacring added to the overall silly and madcap theme Capcom began steering the series towards. In addition to providing you with tons of fun new ways to drench Fortune City in blood, combo cards were also introduced - adding a new collection element to the game and encouraging the more RPG elements in order to increase the damage and durability of these weapons as well as encouraging players to complete side quests and explore new areas. There are 50 combo weapons in total included with Dead Rising 2: Off The Record (which is incidentally my favourite Dead Rising title in the series) and not all of them are created equally. This is a top 10 countdown of my personal favourites, so grab your duct tape and let's begin. 10 - Fire Spitter At number 10 is the Fire Spitter - literally a children’s toy that has been altered to fire out flaming ping pong balls. One of few ranged weapons that is actually decent against large hordes of zombies - as the balls will bounce from head to head, spreading the flames as it goes. It’s also a very useful weapon when going for some of the gold medal challenges in Sandbox Mode. It’s not brilliant against psychopaths, but for those who don’t like getting up close and personal with melee weapons - it’s not bad.
9 - Paddlesaw Next we have the Paddlesaw - literally the poster weapon of Dead Rising 2 - it’s two chainsaws taped to each end of a canoe paddle - which you can swing side to side and around and around to cut through the endless hordes in seconds. The screen will be awash with blood in no time at all and all that will be left is a mountain of severed limbs. So why is it so low down on my list? Two reasons really - the first is that both chainsaws and paddles are relatively hard to find, so it’s not an easy weapon to make without planning ahead. And secondly, it’s one of those massive weapons that you can’t store in your inventory bar - try and swap it for something else, you’ll just drop it. Need to refill your health? You’ll have to drop it… Thus it’s not a very good choice for psychopath boss fights as more often than not you’ll be picking it up and putting it down again rather than actually using it...
8 - Weed Tendonizer At number 8 we have the Weed Tendonizer - unfortunately another massive weapon that cannot be stored in the players inventory. Created by combining a weed whacker with knives, Frank can pull on the cord and aim the rapidly rotating blades at the exposed ankles of any nearby zombies - slashing their arteries and causing them to bleed out on the floor. It has a fairly high durability and thus can be used to take out large groups or safely slice yourself a pathway through the more densely packed areas of Fortune City’s exterior. It's not ideal for use against psychopaths, as it's rather slow - but does come in handy during several of the Sandbox Mode challenges for racking up kills and PP quickly.
7 - Pole Weapon Next on the list is the Pole Weapon - a pretty run of the mill combo weapon created by taping a machete to a broom. These two items are fairly common, brooms being found in most janitors closets and machetes often being wielded by the looters - the Pole Weapon is an easy to make and easy to use weapon with a very long range - allowing you to attack hordes of zombies or psychopath bosses whilst keeping a comfortable distance from their attacks. I found it rather useful throughout the story playthrough and used it in multiple situations. It was one of a handful of weapons on this list I often kept in my inventory in reserve. At first glance it may seem boring, but it's actually pretty good.
6 - Tenderizers Next we have the Tenderizers - some pretty brutal and badass gloves you can make using MMA gloves and a box of nails. Frank literally pokes nails through the holes in his leather gloves in order to make extreme brass knuckles! In addition to pulling off some serious MMA-style jabs and punches, pressing button combos can also result in some satisfying kicks to finish off the new pincushion in front of you. Unfortunately they have a relatively short range and aren’t great against large hordes of zombies - but they do fairly well against a single psychopath or smaller groups of the undead. Fairly abundant materials for making them too - MMA gloves are found in sports stores and the gym and you practically trip over boxes of nails everywhere you go.
5 - Holy Arms At the halfway point is the Holy Arms - literally a toy sword and shield set that has been perforated with dozens of nails - ah, nails - you have so many uses, it seems. Instead of thinking of them as an offensive weapon and a defensive shield, the Holy Arms is actually two offensive weapons with defensive moves available - the shield manages to both block and batter at the same time while Frank waves the spiky sword around like a madman, severely puncturing anything that dares to get in his way. The downside, like many other combo weapons is the lack of training swords one can find in Fortune City - they can more or less only be found in the Atlantica Casino and the Slot Ranch Casino (and a few other awkward places) so if you’re a fan of using them like I am - I recommend stocking up when you next pass through.
3 - Laser Sword The laser sword feels odd getting the bronze medal in this list - as when is a blade made of solid light that can cut through flesh like butter a bad choice? Well, it’s not a *bad* choice - quite the opposite, they’re great weapons - fast, high damaging and they come in a variety of colours! The problem with them is that they’re fairly awkward to make - as one of their main components, flashlights are also in close competition for other combo weapons and items such as the Money Hacker. Gems are relatively easy to find in large quantities in jewellery shops - but flashlights can be harder to find, unless you frequently encounter looters. As the laser sword also attacks fast and deals damage fast, it often falls victim to the boss battle nerfing - the more consecutive hits you get in, the less damage you’ll do… It’s still awesome to slice zombies in two though.
2 - Defiler Coming in 2nd place we have the Defiler - the frankly obscenely overpowered weapon made by duct taping together a sledgehammer and a fire axe - creating a frankly unstoppable powerhouse that can simultaneously bludgeon and slash both zombies and psychopaths. The only downside is that it's quite a slow and bulky weapon and psychopaths with fast attacks and those who dodge a lot can be quite hard to strike consecutively. Plus - sledgehammers and fire axes are fairly uncommon items and are seldom found together. That aside, the sheer satisfaction on Frank’s face as he smashes a group of zombies into oblivion with a 50-pound swing is awesome.
1 - Knife Gloves And at #1 we have my personal favourite combo weapon, the knife gloves. Now, I've chosen these over the Defiler for three reasons. 1, they are a lot faster - yes the Defiler may do more damage overall but the longer wait time between swings leaves you vulnerable to attack. 2, they're easier to make, as boxing gloves are readily available in sports stores and gyms and knives, cleavers and other pointy objects are found in abundance pretty much everywhere. And 3, they're useful against both the horde and psychopaths - their speed is useful when dispatching groups of zombies or slicing yourself a path through - and you can easily get in several slashes in a row during the boss battles then run away to allow the damage nullifier time to wear off. Plus, what isn't there to love about going slash crazy with a pair of Goddamn boxing gloves with KNIVES sticking out of them? You're like a cross between Little Mac and Wolverine!
There are 50 combo weapons in total included with Dead Rising 2: Off The Record (which is incidentally my favourite Dead Rising title in the series) and not all of them are created equally. This is a top 10 countdown of my personal favourites, so grab your duct tape and let's begin.
At number 10 is the Fire Spitter - literally a children’s toy that has been altered to fire out flaming ping pong balls. One of few ranged weapons that is actually decent against large hordes of zombies - as the balls will bounce from head to head, spreading the flames as it goes. It’s also a very useful weapon when going for some of the gold medal challenges in Sandbox Mode. It’s not brilliant against psychopaths, but for those who don’t like getting up close and personal with melee weapons - it’s not bad.
