Review: Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony

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!