Compared to the other games in the series, Danganronpa V3 easily has the best presentation and gameplay in the series - the introduction of Lie Bullets was cool, mid-trial minigames like Rebuttal Showdown were improved and new ones like the Scrum Debate and Psyche Taxi were introduced. The difficulty's at a good point as well - harder than the first game, easier than the second. It strikes a nice balance between them. That's all good.
But it also has one of the weaker casts. Compared to DR 2, which I think has the most well-rounded cast in the series, this one wasn't bad, but I couldn't latch onto them as hard as I could in the second game. That's not to say I didn't like them, far from it - Kaito is great, and I like pretty much everyone else outside of a couple outliers. But I ultimately never ended up caring about these folks in quite the same way that I did the characters from the second game. I'll say Shuichi is quite good as well, though, his development is good and believable even if it's been done before. This is also completely ignoring the Monokubs and that's on purpose, I didn't necessarily hate them but they ultimately don't add much of anything to the plot and I wouldn't mind if they weren't in it. The ultimate main villain also didn't end up being particularly interesting, or at least not as bombastically entertaining as DR 1's Junko.
The infamous final plot twist is something that pissed me off when I first read it, but I think that's mostly because I was overthinking it at the time. Once I had finished the final trial and had time to properly go back over everything in my head, I decided it was pretty good, and the idea of your characters having to come to terms with the fact that they'd been completely fabricated and nothing about them was real was super interesting, as was the way that you had to stop participating in the trial minigames by the end. Again, I don't think the game is as good as DR 2 in terms of story, but it's far from bad (and the writing never stoops to the level of DR 2's chapter 3).
The side modes are good too, although they're obviously not the main focus. I personally didn't mind the resource-gathering modes that the first two games had, but doing away with that in favor of focusing entirely on the character interaction was probably a good move. The Ultimate Talent Development Plan is fun as well, moreso to see the characters interact than anything else, and the Despair Dungeon... well, I haven't gotten through more than a few floors of it just yet, but I like dungeon-crawling RP Gs in general, so I'll probably end up enjoying this too.
Overall, the best parts of V3 are the gameplay and presentation. Because of the side modes, there's more to do in this game than any of the others, so if that's your cup of tea, go for it. But compared to the last few games, the story and characters are also weaker, and ultimately, that is one of the main reasons people play Danganronpa in the first place.
The game definitely has its merits, however, and if you liked the first two games, I'd recommend this one as well.
Pretty darn good
Compared to the other games in the series, Danganronpa V3 easily has the best presentation and gameplay in the series - the introduction of Lie Bullets was cool, mid-trial minigames like Rebuttal Showdown were improved and new ones like the Scrum Debate and Psyche Taxi were introduced. The difficulty's at a good point as well - harder than the first game, easier than the second. It strikes a nice balance between them. That's all good.
But it also has one of the weaker casts. Compared to DR 2, which I think has the most well-rounded cast in the series, this one wasn't bad, but I couldn't latch onto them as hard as I could in the second game. That's not to say I didn't like them, far from it - Kaito is great, and I like pretty much everyone else outside of a couple outliers. But I ultimately never ended up caring about these folks in quite the same way that I did the characters from the second game. I'll say Shuichi is quite good as well, though, his development is good and believable even if it's been done before. This is also completely ignoring the Monokubs and that's on purpose, I didn't necessarily hate them but they ultimately don't add much of anything to the plot and I wouldn't mind if they weren't in it. The ultimate main villain also didn't end up being particularly interesting, or at least not as bombastically entertaining as DR 1's Junko.
The infamous final plot twist is something that pissed me off when I first read it, but I think that's mostly because I was overthinking it at the time. Once I had finished the final trial and had time to properly go back over everything in my head, I decided it was pretty good, and the idea of your characters having to come to terms with the fact that they'd been completely fabricated and nothing about them was real was super interesting, as was the way that you had to stop participating in the trial minigames by the end. Again, I don't think the game is as good as DR 2 in terms of story, but it's far from bad (and the writing never stoops to the level of DR 2's chapter 3).
The side modes are good too, although they're obviously not the main focus. I personally didn't mind the resource-gathering modes that the first two games had, but doing away with that in favor of focusing entirely on the character interaction was probably a good move. The Ultimate Talent Development Plan is fun as well, moreso to see the characters interact than anything else, and the Despair Dungeon... well, I haven't gotten through more than a few floors of it just yet, but I like dungeon-crawling RP Gs in general, so I'll probably end up enjoying this too.
Overall, the best parts of V3 are the gameplay and presentation. Because of the side modes, there's more to do in this game than any of the others, so if that's your cup of tea, go for it. But compared to the last few games, the story and characters are also weaker, and ultimately, that is one of the main reasons people play Danganronpa in the first place.
The game definitely has its merits, however, and if you liked the first two games, I'd recommend this one as well.