Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony (spoilers)

I think DR characters in general overcomplicate things for no reason. Half of these people would never have been caught if they just beat their victim over the head with some random heavy object and walked away.

Edited by WikiWanderer on Jan 6th 2020 at 2:43:54 PM

So, I actually just finished this game now (I'd been wanting to play it for about 2 years or so but didn't have a PS 4/Vita/good enough PC, but now I did and with the quarantine going on I had a lot of time to do it).

I'm....not sure how to feel about it, to be honest.

I have to confess that while not really bad and with multiple moments I enjoyed, I wasn't really as invested in most of these cases or the cast as a whole as I was DR 1 and DR 2. Of DR 1, the only chapter I really thought was weak was chapter 3, and I think chapter 4 in DR 2, but that was more because of how confusing it was than the ultimate emotional payoff which was good. I didn't really start getting into v3 until around chapter 4, which is a long time for a VN like this to ramp up.

I also personally felt the FTE's were a little underwhelming, or at least the ones I did. Mostly because it felt like there were too little of them - maybe I'm factually wrong on this but it felt to me like DR 1 and 2 had more FTE's per character which let them be a bit more satisfying, v3's all felt like they resolved way too quickly.

I normally really enjoy metanarrative stuff, but I feel like v3 got a bit too indulgent. The last trial is obnoxiously long and drags really hard after Tsumugi is revealed as the mastermind, it felt like I was playing the last segment of MGS 2 all over again with that absurd cutscene that lasted for like 2 hours.

I can respect the intention and creativity Kodaka and the rest of Chunsoft put into the ending, but I still think I enjoyed DR 1 and 2 more in the end.

I like how people complain a ton about DRV 3's final trial being too long, and yet 2-2 is almost as long and everybody is cool with it.

Well, V3’s final trial is definitely more emotionally draining, and after a certain point, it’s less figuring out what happened and more just reacting to what you’ve been told. So I can see why people would feel that it drags more.

Personally, trial one (v3) pissed me off. Namely the whole lead the player by the nose and force them into the wrong solution thing. Could we have at least got an alternate path reward for players smart enough to figure it out at that point?

Before the trial even began, I had already figured out the following:

1. The security camera feeds were involved in the how dunnit.

2. The posistion of the wound indicates an attack from behind. ( From above was impossible given the angle.))

3. Had the identity of the mastermind already down to three people by then.

Probably not the first time through, but it might have been interesting if you could get an alternate ending for figuring it out on a second playthrough.

Or hell, let you choose between Shuichi or Kaede.

Wasn't Rantaro leaning forward when the ball dropped?

Edited by Druplesnubb on May 20th 2020 at 4:27:53 PM

I like Shuichi fine but it stings a bit that we got teased with a female MC for the first time only for the game to say "HAHAHA YOU WOULD HAVE THOUGHT".

DR AE is all about playing Makoto's younger sister, though its a TPS akin to RE 4.

Though generally when people want something out of a franchise, they mean in the mainline series not spin-offs.

So yes Despair Girls has playable female main characters but it’s also a spin-off side-story not one of the numbered headline titles.

If the trap had killed him, the wound would have been on the middle or front part of the top of his head.

Rantaro’s head was not bent down either.

The shot put was also too far away for a natural roll (those things are heavy and would not roll far given a high friction surface such as the library floor) if the trap was the murder weapon.

Goes to show how incompetent Shuichii was when compared to Kyoko. She would have quickly caught Kaede’s confession as wrong.

Edited by magnum12 on May 20th 2020 at 1:54:26 AM

Technically Danganronpa already had a female protagonist before the second game. And Danganronpa/Zero can dodge the "numbered title" argument, unlike Ultra Despair Girls.

You also have to consider that, while Another Episode is a spin-off instead of a main installment, it's an action game instead of a visual novel, so Komaru had to participate in physical fights (whereas the (generally male) protagonists of the main games had to use their brains to solve the problems they encounter).

Edited by sleeping-in-bloom on May 21st 2020 at 5:27:13 PM

The guy who did the Boob size of the DR girls talks about the boi's dicks now. its great.

What I think about the ending is that the truth about this game is that the boundaries are so vague that the game itself may be acting or virtual reality. Neither the thing that the final three(it never went to two, fortunately) were survived and to escape and that student actually died on this place couldn't be believed by me. The only way to prove it is to reconfirm all the elements in the game and clarify their meanings.

What is Team Danganronpa actually? Why Rantaro went to the library? Because of Who Shuichi wore his hat? What the Hell Kokichi is talking about? Why (and how) Keebo went rage mode? Isn't there any missing clues about the crime and execution scene? What is all of the meaning of all of the killing game?

I think the intention of this game is for the player to find plot holes in this game on their own. So I've been doing my own research, and sooner or later I'll start analyzing my results.

Okay, I can explain the second one.

Rantaro knew the door to the MM lair was there, so presumably he was looking for it to end the killing game. And. .then he gets attacked from behind from within said lair.

That's not the only weird part of Rantaro's death. How did Tsumugi frame Kaede so effectively?

With the knowledge Tsumugi had at the time she "went to the bathroom", all she should know is that either Kaede or Shuichi (maybe specifically Kaede depending on timing) is planning to throw something down the vent, and Rantaro could potentially be hit by it.

If Rantaro dies from the trap, she's compromised her position as the mastermind for no reason. If Miu's camera catches her in the act of killing Rantaro, she's outed as both the killer and the mastermind. And if the intended murder weapon isn't specifically a shot put ball, same thing.

So we're expected to believe that Tsumugi knew it was a shot put ball and knew about the camera intervals?

Yep.

Why would the staff fail to inform her about super major movements that were caught on camera?

As much as I like Case 5, there are two irritatingly confusing aspects about it that I can't shake off.

1. The fact the footage was paused doesn't prove that the bodies were switched. At all. This is even brought up in the trial by Kaito's script. And here's the confusing part: If the game didn't make a mistake and presented the murder video footage correctly, then Shuichi would actually have solid evidence that the switch occurred. If you look at the crime scene in the investigation, or even the bird's eye view of the Exisal hangar seen in one of the spot selection mini-games, you'll notice an oversight that the blood trail connects to the blood splatter caused by the press, which is inconsistent with what is displayed in the video.

Why would this be important? Because if the camera was angled in such a way that viewers of the video would have no idea whether there's a connecting blood trail or not, with only the splatter being visible, then that would serve as proof that Kokichi, who caused the trail and not Kaito, must have been under the press at some point (since when Kaito's lying there, there's no blood trail visible). Having the video deliberately obscure that, and prompting the player to pick the "Swipe Pattern Bloodstain" Truth Bullet to expose this deceptive trick is a missed opportunity that would have nicely resolved a major mystery of the trial.

2. Even if the "victim switching" took place, that does not necessarily mean Kaito would be the blackened. Since Ouma was under effects of the poison, Kaito could have just left him there without lowering the press, waiting for him to succumb to it, thereby setting up Maki for execution. The corpse could have just been crushed afterwards. Now of course, this completely runs counter to what the others know about Kaito, that he would never deliberately kill Maki and would even sacrifice himself to protect her, as his arm wound shows. But this is character evidence and therefore merely circumstantial. Hell, the trial before this one corroborated the idea that believing in someone isn't always reliable. This case is ultimately unsolvable through and through, in line with what Ouma intended.

And yet Kaito doesn't take advantage of this and turns himself in at the end, even when Shuichi shows a willingness to play along to confound Monokuma. Kaito claims that he doesn't want the students to make the wrong choice that would kill them, even though whoever's the occupant of the Exisal does not matter in the slightest, only narrowing down the suspects to him and Maki. His decision to give in makes one of the longest trials in the game entirely pointless, although I guess that's in-character for him; he's not exactly the brightest of bulbs. Though his failure to stop the mastermind in their tracks is a bit of a Diabolus ex Machina situation if we're being honest. Kokichi's plan was too perfect for Danganronpa.

Edited by Neoshi on Dec 22nd 2023 at 12:20:54 PM

it because its on how monokuma operates, as if he doesn't know who did what he can't do anything but if it was down to two with evidence he can work as attended.

Kokichi didn't just create a murder Monokuma couldn't solve; he very nearly created a trial the other participants couldn't vote their way out of, which was supposed to be impossible until the very end.

Team Danganronpa probably wet themselves when they figured out what he and Kaito had done.

Unless it was a part of the script, unlikely as it is.

There's no way Team DR would script that.