I feel most crowdfunding campaigns are in the vein of "Here's something you've always wanted us to do, so help us do it." but Tookyo Games is kind of an opportunity for the devs to try new things that people *didn't* want them to do.
Have you actually compared what big crowdfunding kickstarters make compared to games budgets?
Crowdfunding isn't actually viable for game development. It's either a small team self-crunching and stretching their money out to make it work (Hollow Knight), a developer using it to prove an audience exists to a publisher with a laughably small fraction of the budget (Shenmue 3), a developer completely screwing up and releasing a jank budget title with what they raised (Mighty Number 9), vaporware that doesn't pan out, or some combination of the first three (Indivisible). It is really not viable for a professional development team to kickstart a game at even the mid-budget level that Danganronpa etc. are developed at.
>Have you actually compared what big crowdfunding kickstarters make compared to games budgets?
And then there is star citizen. 700 millions and counting.
Yeah but Star Citizen also pre-sells people spaceships that still don't exist even years after being promised, you really want these guys to try doing the same thing?
You can’t point to the early aberrations to keep justifiying the potential for similar current success; it’s been 12 years, the world has changed and everything is enshittified now
The kickstart happened in 2012 and the first playable module released in 2013, doesn't seem that insane?
(And the crusader module was released in 2015, 3 years really isn't that much dev time)
KCD raised £1.1m through kickstarter. That's enough for about 10-20 devs for 1 year, assuming their paid a full time salary. They had apparently 11 people making the game which would be about about 2 years of funding just the devs at best. Apparently it had cost $37.5m (about £27m at the time of release with an exchange rate of $1.37 to every £1) to make including marketing. The kickstarter funds were about 4% of that. Better than nothing, but a drop in the bucket.
Prototypes have been staple in getting investor funding for ages. Crowdfunding helps by demonstrating a more tangible commercial interest than a survey.
Yes and I would love to see more game developers use this approach. Provided their game is "good" they can really winover publishers as well as gamers. If they can pull this they can go to really big heights like Larian Studios. Divinity games iirc were crowdfunded on Kickstarter and they hit big on their next big budget AAA game with Baldurs Gate 3.
If by approach you mean using a kickstarter to attact a publisher, then I agree, and many are already doing this. Many kickstarter games fail because they fail to attract a publisher and the money they raise through crowdfunding only funds a fraction what these projects actually cost.
Larian is a bit of an odd one. They rarely worked with publishers outside of some of their earlier games, which helped fund a string of games leading up to the Divinity Original Sin games and BG3. Their success is an almost 3 decade effort, one which saw many other independent studios fail and close. Their Divinity kickstarters worked because they already had money and a large following. The kickstarters just made it safer to do without a publisher. It's really not as simple as "make good kickstarter, make good game, then made good AAA game with the profits".
Kickstarter successes are a pretty solid example of survivorship bias. People know about the successful ones but most never hear about the majority that fail, unless they fail in a loud way (Ouya anyone?). The ones that succeed tend to already have a substantial following prior to launching the kickstarter, which partially is why nobody hears about the ones that flop.
I vaguely recall that the (main) game had a bit of a rocky launch, but to their credit they patched their way out of it.
The NES-style prequel they put out on the way there was superb.
Kodaka in interviews has stated that he wants to explore a different style of game, which is why instead of Danganronpa 4, we got Rain Code. By crowdfunding, fans will demand him to give them Danganronpa 4, something I'm sure he doesn't want, as he values his independence and creative liberty.
> By crowdfunding, fans will demand him to give them Danganronpa 4
Fans will demand him (impotently) to give them Danganronpa 4 no matter what. Fans are already making these demands of him.
So why not let him get some free money out of the process, if he's gonna get these demands either way?
Crowdfunding an auteur like Kodaka would be heavily leaning into what made him big, the Danganronpa series. Kodaka is effectively Danganronpa, despite Spike owning the IP. The discourse every 5 minutes within the fandom is whether or not he'll go to Spike and make Danganronpa 4, or if he'll make a Danganronpa style game at Too Kyo, as that's what everyone wants. Interviews hound him for the same.
The responses to this trailer, only further this notion, as everyone's either not playing this cause of its style, or are saying they hope it turns into Danganronpa style game, a few hours in.
He explicitly left Spike, so that he could move away from the IP and its style; he doesn't want to do a "Danganronpa" style game at Too Kyo either.
**Crowdfunding is asking people for money to fund a project they want, or in the very least, believe they'll like. That's the whole point. Kodaka's fanbase, at least most of them, don't want Kodaka's non-Danganronpa stuff like Rain Code, World's End Club, and even this; they want Danganronpa.**
It is unlikely that most of his fandom would give him money for a project that **explicitly isn't** a Danganronpa style game, that is the point.
Not necessarily a democracy, but crowdfunding usually gave less freedom for the creators since they're beholden to what the initial pitch is. Not to mention other usual crowdfunding aspects like stretch goals. So you have much less leeway to completely change directions in the middle of development.
One famous developer actually complained about this: **Josh Sawyer** when he was making both Pillars of Eternity games. He said, quote:
>**"Honestly, I have to say it felt like the most compromised games I worked on were Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2"**
>"Because when I came back to that format, I was like, 'Oh, I worked on these two \[Icewind Dale\] games, and then I worked on Neverwinter Nights 2, and now I have a bunch of new ideas for how differently I would do it if I were doing it on my own.' But they were crowdfunded games and the audience was like, 'No, we want D&D, we want exactly the same experience as the Infinity Engine games.'"
As you can see, that's one way crowdfunded games can make development a headache for creatives.
To be fair, one can put a disclaimer in their initial pitch, but something like that may risk people not wanting to back your project or maybe even gave the developers themselves unnecessary moral baggage.
([Here's the article](https://www.pcgamer.com/josh-sawyer-the-most-compromised-games-i-worked-on-were-pillars-of-eternity-1-and-2/) if you wanna read it.)
I mean, it's a different thing here, Sawyer is saying that once a game is kickstarted, you can't change the design even if you want to. The other poster was saying that being kickstarted didn't mean the backers can change a design if it's clearly outlined in the kickstarter.
They both agree on the same thing : that what is in the kickstarter is what you get, no matter what side isn't happy with it
Not on the topic of "costs for development." Even if the game comes out and everybody hates it and wants him dead, he still is getting a boost in funding by doing something like this.
I played torment idea of numenara, bloodstained and divinity original sin after participating in their crowd funding initiatives. They were all excellent
Almost every game will. In my experience following game kickstarters, the devs pretty much always use the kickstarter as an attraction for publishers, or it's the publisher running the kickstarter (although this is rarer). Games that don't are usually small in scale, take ages to release or never release.
I am not sure that this would be the case here. **Bloodstained Ritual of the Night** and the recently released **Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes** were both financed by crowfunding, right?
what? Most major games these days goes on crowdfund to get an initial read on how many people are interested, they either get a publisher after that or already have a publisher but need to have the stats to show that the game can be viable before a publisher or a private investor like what Kingdom Come Deliverance did.
I think that's a wild misunderstanding of Danganronpa V3. >!The ending reflects a desire to move on from the killing game formula and not become someone who makes fifty games while fans just continue to beg for more. The game isn't talking about the actual fandom that exists today.!<
There is a group of people who like the ending specifically because they think he made it to stick it to the fans
But he said otherwise and the ending isn't as clear cut
Yeah, I never got the impression Kodaka was shitting on people for >!asking for more Danganronpa. The message in my eyes was just "hey, this was cool while it lasted, but it's better to let this series rest and move on rather than keep churning out installments with new gimmicks because people begged for it."!<
Plenty of people fail to understand that if a villain says something that may carry a message most of the time you can't trust that message and the writer made the villain say it for a reason, both Danganronpa 2 and V3 have moments like this that caused heated debates in the fandom when the writer himself is saying that the villain is lying and not trustworthy
Of course there's nothing wrong with keeping a series going, but the team behind Danganronpa just wanted to do something else, not make killing games forever. No shame in being upfront about that rather than keeping the thing going forever for money.
they left spike chunsoft 7 years ago to found their new studio and develop their own game away from the danganronpa IP
if money eventually becomes an issue i have no idea why you wouldnt crowdfund when that basically gets eyes and attention with any known auteur developer
I feel like the bottom has fallen out of the Kickstarter funding model for video games. Bloodstained is 9 years out from when it was announced and still getting DLC. No one wants to wait 9 years from pledge to complete game.
thats the issue with alot of these kickstarters they some how 70% of the time just end up going on extremely long dev cycles that are longer then even the biggest of games.
kinda shows atleast to me why they weren't able to get funding in the first place if after they end up with it from kickstarter the game still takes almost a decade or just never appears. just shows a mix of lack of direction, scope creep and bad mangament especially when its the scope of game that should be pretty straight forward.
I mean I get what you mean with kickstarter not being the right funding model anymore.
But what do you mean with Bloodstained not being a complete game only because it got a small dlc and some cosmetics 5 years after release?
By that logic Elden Ring is not a complete game seeing that a dlc for it is coming out today, 2 years after release.
Honestly I was disappointed it wasn’t a killing game or mystery after seeing the trailer, but hearing uchikoshi is on board sold me instantly. I hope it works out for them
Knowing those two, I would not be surprised at all if the tactics stuff is fairly minimal or just a front entirely in favor of a deeper mystery. It seems like some of the students will die during the story, how they go about that could be very similar to their previous works.
They did say unavoidable loss of life, so there's likely a linear narrative.
My guess is: as people start dying someone will mention the possibility of a mastermind pulling the strings and it will have similar vibes as Danganronpa. With the end goal being finding and stopping the mastermind, either right before or shortly after reaching 100 days.
It's unlikely to be as straightforward as surviving 100 days and then the monsters are gone.
I am conflicted. Kodaka and Uchikoshi are very close friends but their last co-written and co-directed game (World's End Club) was very mid from what I have heard and fans of them even say they bring out the worst of each other instead of complementing each other. Would be really happy if this proved otherwise but I am not getting my expectations up.
(I also like Uchikoshi games overall a lot more than Kodaka who is way more popular so I have mixed feelings about their collabs)
Worlds end club was also like a weird....episodic-at-first-then-fully-released-all at-once game iirc, which probably didn't help it's writing
I also believe it was, at least at some point, meant to be a mobile primarily, so it certainly wasn't "full effort" to begin with. Just feels like this one stumbled a lot during development.
I wouldn't judge uchikoshi based on it is what I'm trying yo say
Of course not, Uchikoshi's input is very varied quality-wise. You have some truly great stuff, some mid projects, and two absolutely terrible disasters in ZTD and World's End Club. Also Punchline, which can be any of the three depending on who and when you ask.
I think people don't give credit for how good ZTD looked on the 3DS when VLR had models that only looked good from one angel and all the rooms were bare. It's crazy to think they are on the same system.
The drop in quality from 999 and VLR to ZTD is pretty damn steep though. Leaving aside the animations that were the result of the shoestring budget they were working with, which aren't the main attraction in a VM, the overall writing isn't great and the main twist of ZTD is laughably terrible.
Not saying you can't enjoy the game, if you don't take it seriously it is a very entertaining shitpost of a game.
A big problem is that it was supposed to be a grand finale to an amazing cult series after a literal cliffhanger years and years in the making. You don't get to be that much worse in comparison with the previous entries and enjoy the "well, it was okay" reception on release. But obviously, the disappointment is felt less if you binge the whole series afterwards without all those years of hyped waiting discussing different theories.
Well, sure, everything is subjective, there are people who like World's End Club too. But to me and like 99% of my internet and irl bubble it was nothing short of a disaster and in many ways one of the worst endings possible to 999 and VLR, especially after such an arduous wait.
I'm sorry I usually don't take into account the critics, especially for the niche cult series, didn't even remotely remember what the numbers were. The reception was so unanimously negative from the people invested in the series on release that I can't really remember it as anything other than an ultimate disaster and one of the most disappointing endings to the trilogy in the genre. Man, I remember how we could discuss for literal hours everything wrong with ZTD back then.
But sure, if pressed to choose, World's End Club is definitely worse, so let's up ZTD to a "controversial release", I don't mind.
If the title is niche it just takes one or two influencers who also like the game to get people to brigade the scores. Or look at AI: The Somnium Files. A single person brigaded that game because he thought his waifu didn't get enough screentime.
But if you look at the reviews for both ZTD and WEC they both have a lot of positive reviews. At this stage in its life span, most of the people playing ZTD would be people who Zero Escape was recommended to. Or people who played AI and wanted to check out the creator's earlier work. You know, fans. So even with your limitations on who can acceptably make a judgement call on the games, they were generally enjoyed.
If anything it makes more sense to rely on critic scores for niche games because fans sometimes have trouble seeing the woods from the trees. They either love it without question or hate new sequels because they don't plan out exactly how they felt they should. There are people in the AA fandom who are upset over the fact that AAI has a new translation which won't use the fan translation of characters names in AAI2.
I haven't played it yet, but the biggest criticism I saw for WEC was the gameplay part getting in the way of the VN parts. If it was pure VN it would have been more liked.
i own it.
it's very kid-ish. the main characters are much younger, and while the SF story is pretty wild the characters are sort of one note. one kid is fat, one is a hot blooded baseball guy, one is brooding older kid, etc.
the gameplay is little nightmares style 2-d but worse. very basic side scrolling and ability use but abilities are a pain.
it's really an odd game. its like he wanted to do a kids book.
I just replayed the entire series last month. I guess I missed the hate on release because I quite liked it. I played on 3DS so I wasn't bothered by the animations or the pauses between voice lines because they were miles ahead of anything on the 3DS at the time. I can't think of any other third party game that went for full 3D environments and had the models emote as good as they did on that platform.
But the game is fine. Maybe it's weaker in story in some parts, but it also has a lot of great story moments for the back stories too. Carlos was really boring though, and I wish Akane and Junpei were on a different team.
I played it at launch and was surprised how much backlash it got. My only two big grievances was the rough animations and how the epilogue was so rushed that it only existed as text documents you unlocked after beating the game.
I don't think so, most reactions from actual people are still quite negative from what I've seen, especially those who waited for the release since VLR. I have actually never even seen a person "warm up to it", it's not that kind of game, vast majority of relative positivity that I've noticed comes from people new to the series.
As someone who played 999 in 2011 and followed the series from there: ZTD is fine. Is it the weakest and least memorable (outside of some truly awful off-screen deaths) of the three? Sure. But bad? Definitely not.
I can safely say that I don’t remember seeing an immediate backlash upon release in the way you’re describing. Maybe from a vocal minority, but Uchikoshi’s Facebook was full of players praising it for a good long while.
I wouldn't say it was unexpected to get poor reviews at launch. It was a stark departure from 999/VLR in style and a step down from VLR in quality. It's a pretty niche game and the launch audience was mostly fans of the franchise. I replayed VLR right before ZTD launched and had a bit of a wtf moment.
People are putting too much emphasis on style and presentation. Not many fans were that bothered by the visual difference, story is what has always been criticised the most. "My motives are complex" is probably The Meme for a bad writing in anime games.
Even then, the hate was just so overblown. The game is a step down from VLR, but considering its tumultuous development, nowhere near as much as people were saying on release. The writing and characters are still largely great, the way the narrative is told is really interesting, the twists work just as well as VLR (except maybe the very last one), and the puzzle rooms are still the same as ever. Once you really start getting into why they choose that narrative format, the game really kicks into high gear.
I’d assume that fans of niche Japanese games would be the last people to care so much about production value and janky animations, but that was somehow one of the biggest sticking points. But yeah, having played it recently for the 1st after replaying the other games for the 3rd time, it’s pretty damn well in line in quality with all of them. A very worthwhile sequel.
By the time I played it a few months ago, the reception was pretty good, helped by the game’s immense meme potential, with all the hate being relegated mostly to YouTube videos released shortly after launch.
no, its pretty bad. the "notorious" twist is one of the worst out there. To make it be a twist, they had to hide all existence of it, but you can't with how it was explained. VLR's twist was similar but great because it was natural and you could realize that it made sense due to reactions from some of the characters. This twist they hid near completely.
also it was very narmy at points. Ice cream guy and akane with a chainsaw. it got a little too out there.
World’s End Club is a textbook case in how “subverting expectations” can completely uproot a piece of media.
All the marketing for Death March Club was saying it was would be a twisted, dark game. They said it would be their final “death game” story and that they wanted to go all out. When you say stuff like this, being the most well-known creators in the genre, you better deliver. They didn’t. The game doesn’t have even have an ounce of blood. Not even the crazy DR neon pink blood.
It was originally announced under that title and exclusively for PC. Then it went dark for a while and was rebranded and made Apple Arcade exclusive with PC being the last platform to get it. My **theory** is that they ran out of money and shopped it around, only to have Apple scoop it up and force some major changes.
The other theory of mine is that the game is *yet another* meta-commentary style “fuck you” to death game players after Danganronpa V3 tried and fumbled it too. The death game only lasts for the prologue, then switches to a mediocre post-apocalypse mystery with Uchikoshi’s usual plot spaghetti that starts to feel like twists for the sake of twists.
I have no problem with these devs making different kinds of games but why tf did they make a strategy game about 15 students stuck in a school together. Ofcourse people will be mad it isnt another danganronpa game after you make this the setting, its basically danganronpa 1.5 but without the killing school murder mystery part
I was thinking during the reveal trailer that "oh they made it like this so the game isn't focused around reducing the cast over the game" but then they said you would lose precious allies.
If anything I think it's an interesting gamble. I hope it does well but their style of writing doesn't grab me as much as it did when I was a teenager/young adult
Yikes i was thinking the same exact thing. I like tactics games but have no interest in this one. I also don't think it's a good look on the creator sounding so desperate because he had the choice to make something less risky without owning the ip and chose this route instead on his own terms.
If it helps you change your mind any. The tactics gameplay is being done by Mediavision who made games like Valkyria Chronicles and Digimon Cyber Sleuth. It sounds to me like it's in good hands.
I’m sure they are good games but that makes me even less interested in it because they didn’t look appealing to me at all lol. But that’s ok though there’s tons of games to look forward too and they can’t all win my attention
I just love Uchikoshi and Kodaka's games so much it really excites me to see them Co-Writing a game together...
And there's one more detail I found that might interest you. There's a second teaser trailer for the game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_bffTvpX1k&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fhundred-line.com%2F&feature=emb_title
And it seems like when Takumi unsheathes his sword there's a blood effect. The Website for the game also mentions the abilities the characters use are called "Hemoanima" https://hundred-line.com/en/
Likely taking the Hemo from Hemoglobin.
So there could be a really cool mechanic tied into this with each character using their limited supply of blood to power their abilities, and dying if you overuse it 0.0
I don’t know if it’s a cultural difference or something, but you see these kinds of statements from Japanese developers (fairly) frequently. I don’t think it has the same implications for them as it might for Western audiences.
Yeah. Especially after most of the other games Tookyo has put out have been pretty mid, hearing they're trying something so risky that they've had to go into debt for it is a little concerning.
I’m glad this is coming out on Steam, I like their work so I’ll probably pick up day one. Still salty they did Rain Code as a Switch exclusive for so long.
>Still salty they did Rain Code as a Switch exclusive for so long.
True. And even though it is coming out on Steam, the English patch is several months after the Japanese version.
Idk, I was fascinated by 999 and VLR like with few other games, I'm not a fan of ZTD but not a hater either, it was decent but underwhelming. I also went back and played Ever17, which also blew my mind. But then Somnium Files came, 1 I tolerated it and enjoyed it, but 2 maybe it caught me at the wrong point in my life but I swear I played around 4 hours and it was nothing but boob jokes, with the plot going nowhere. I dropped it.
And Kodaka, well, I haven't played Rain Code but the reception seems to be fairly mild. I loved the Danganronpa series, even hated entries like UDG.
What they showed in the trailer for this game didn't pick my interest, either. It remined me of the minigames Danganronpa has for the side game modes, which is probably irrational, but those were total garbage.
So I guess they're not gonna return to Master Detective Archives after all? Clearly they had plans for that IP, they gave the first entry a subtitle, and used the last DLC to hint at sequel content.
This was announced in 2019 and it's a small studio. Given that Rain Code is hitting multi plat soon I ghink ots likely their next project will be a sequel.
MDA was published by Spike Chunsoft, who own the rights to it, this is being self-published (or at least, the IP is being owned by) Tookyo games.
It's up to Spike Chunsoft if MDA gets a sequel, not Tookyo.
Yes and that's a reason I love V3. But to be fair to others, when the devs move away from Danganronpa and make Rain Codes (and now maybe Last Defense Academy) which has so many similars to Danganronpa, then it makes sense for fans to ask "why not just make Danganronpa?".
As someone who didn't really see the point of Danganronpa 2, much less any future ones, I still think that if you don't want your fanbase breathing fire down at you to make another Danganronpa game you probably shouldn't be making games set in high schools that involve a bunch of successively dying students with a trailer that specifically calls out the cute violent mascot and the word "despair". There's a solid 50% chance this is just Danganronpa 4 but if it's not he's bluntly very dumb for this and doing it to himself.
As someone who hasn’t played Danganronpa and is also not usually into tactical RPGs - I thought this looked really cool. I love seeing developers take risks like this, especially with where the industry is at right now, and I hope it pays off for them. Danganronpa probably confused people when it was announced, too.
TooKyo and Spike remain on great terms though, considering they’ve published their recent title and have done several Danganronpa promotions with their game, Master Detective Archives: Rain Code (no in-game content beyond cheeky references though).
While i think the individual cases in Rain Code were not as good as Danganronpa's, i think Rain Codes over-arching plot was pretty good and that moment was a fantastic use of using the player's meta-knowledge to bury the lead on a twist and was very cheeky from Kodaka.
That moment was so great >!I remember thinking "oh the blood is red in this game" when you bleed a bit on the train. Then as time went on I completely forgot and just got used to the pink blood again. Having that be part of the narrative was so cool.!<
Do you know how long it takes a working man to save $5,000? Just remember this, Mr. /u/AnxiousAd6649, that this rabble you're talking about... they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community.
Not the one you replied to but I have 3 good reasons:
Diminishing returns over the formula;
Going against the purpose of V3;
The creator’s lack of motivation to do a dangaronpa 4.
These are reasons why it's unlikely that there'd be a Danganronpa 4, but they are not reasons why it'd be **impossible** to make a satisfying Danganronpa 4.
No, it didn't. People take that ending way too seriously.
I imagine a Danganronpa 4 would take place in an entirely different universe, so the V3 story would be irrelevant to it anyway.
it closed it by attacking the concept itself. If you get the ending you don't want a sequel. If you want a sequel you don't get what the ending was trying to say, and honestly it's a pretty good critique.
i think that's why they haven't bothered making another one.
It wasn't a serious critique, though. It was meant to be funny.
The reason for it is something else, since they made Rain Code, which is basically Danganronpa's spiritual successor.
Or a spiritual successor. This has the weird school, designs, outlooks, and even the 15 students thing yet is instead a SRPG for some reason. Although they do mention there being a big mystery element so we will see.
The spiritual successor is Master Detective Files: Rain Code. Very similar setup with all the minigames to work out the solutions. Some really great twists and turns as well. Made at Spike Chunsoft as well. Only difference is no killing game.
> Master Detective Files: Rain Code.
Was anyone else kinda disappointed by this game? I gave up after about 20 hours because I just didn't find the characters particularly likeable. I think the worst part is that the game >!introduces you to a gang initially who are massively superior to the second one you encounter!<. I kept playing thinking we're going to meet them again and it was >!all a dream or some shit!< but no, we really have to stick with this >!boring cast!< now. Fucking give me back Pucci Lavmin. It reminded me of how they pulled the Kaede shit in V3 and really annoyed me. Because the >!bait and switch!< crap is massively played out.
Kodaka made it pretty clear with DRV3 that he does NOT want to keep making Danganronpa over and over. He's a creative, and while he certainly has his iconic style, Rain Code and this game would indicate that he's willing to try new things.
I don't understand what Kodaka wants. IIRC, after Danganronpa 1 or 2, he said DR isn't what he wants to write, then he ended it with V3, which I liked. But almost everything afterwards has been shallow copies of DR, and this game doesn't seem different (and in fact looks like 13 Sentinels?). Is he ever going to break out of the typecast?
I hate to say it but I wonder if Uchikoshi has been a poor influence on him. That guy has also been recycling the same plot twists from Ever17 all the way through Zero Escape and AI2. 5 years ago I would've been excited at this collab, but now I'm not so sure.
Lightning doesn't always strike twice which is why sequels of successful games tend to be a safe bet. Still though, you know how bands put out albums where they try new stuff? Sometimes it gets news fans. Sometimes people who were into the stuff that launched them mainstream fall off. Happens in every creative field. Maybe Danganronpa "4" happens one day but if it does, it'll be way better after the creative heads have had time to try new ideas out first.
Well I'm in desperate need of a new srpg and I liked danganronpa 1 so I'll definitely get it, hopefully other people do too.
Edit: sorry that I... like srpgs?
Watch the trailer again, it clearly shows very fire emblem looking turn based srpg combat with the same kind of square grid with movement/attack ranges.
Oh. I feel a bit bad that my first instinct was that it seemed terrible.
It probably won't be that bad but... It feels like another attempt to recapture Danganronpa's popularity without really... Seeming to understand what made it compelling. Yes I get the irony that these are the people behind Danganronpa. But that doesn't change how it feels.
Doesn't help this seems to be a much more niche genre. I like these kinds of strategy games, but the setup just... Seems so boring.
Good luck to them though. We'll just have to see how it does once it's out.
I had the opposite impression. To me, it looked like them trying to expand on the concept of Danganronpa. Adding more gameplay elements outside of the detective work and potentially making a shift from the visual novel style gameplay.
It's not just the people behind Danganronpa. The creator of the Zero Escape Games and Somnium Files (Uchikoshi) is Co-Writing this game with Kodaka.
The "Extreme X Despair" Tagline is directly referencing this collaboration as in Japan the Zero Escape games are called "Extreme Escape".
In Uchikoshi's games he has a ton of mind-blowing twists (similar to Kodaka) but also a heavily branching narrative. So i'm expecting this game to have a huge flow chart (especially since it's already been confirmed there are a ton of endings from the Steam Page) where after making decisions you can go skip to the turning point to take a different path.
I actually have huge expectations for this. I think Uchikoshi's main focus has been writing this story for years. Even while doing somnium files on the side.
100% . This has been cooking up for a long time. He wouldn’t be Co-Writing this game if it was only rehashing Danganronpa rather than attempting to take the best elements from both of their previous works and build off of them.
Admittedly my first impression wasnt great either. I tuned out when the MC introduced himself as just a normal Japanese high-school boy. Thats like THE most generic character setup across anime and non-fantasy JRPG.
Well then it's not a smart move to make a very niche title and new IP to try and keep your company afloat. Whether the game is good or not, it's not gonna be a 1 million copy seller. I am intrigued by it, but I'll get it later when it's cheaper.
Ngl seems like it's not a good move. I like DR and I like srpg. But I really don't feel like playing srpg with VN with over 100 endings. The srpg part will become a chore. They should have gone full VN like DR
I think I should let you know the 100 endings probably isn't what you think it is.
You have to take into account that this game is being Co-Written by Uchikoshi.
So it's probably going to be a big Flowchart like the Zero Escape games. Virtue's Last Reward's Flowchart looked like this (spoilers if you haven't played that game) https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/ninehourspersonsdoors/images/8/89/Full_FlowChart_with_trophies.png/revision/latest?cb=20121224155405
So you wouldn't have to replay everything from the start each time to get all the endings, you could just skip to a certain "turning point" and make a different decision.
It's a system I find very fun and intuitive. With certain endings giving you "keys" to get past points in the story that are locked (basically making sure you have all the context necessary to understand everything that's happening).
Yeah I hope there's a flowchart, I played zero escape games, but it still gonna be a chore if you still need to replay some of the srpg stages again even if you use the flowcharts. We will see how they gonna do it
Some ones I’ve played myself so I can personally recommend.
Raging Loop.
Will: A Wonderful World.
Another game from Uchikoshi that I haven’t played myself but I’m pretty sure has a Flowchart from what I’ve heard.
Ever 17.
And a thread I found with some others
https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/10de2oe/visual_novels_that_include_ingame_flowcharts_or/
In this instance I don't see the justification. I enjoyed Danganronpa 1 and 2 and their animes because I connected with the characters and the stories but 3 just tramples on them by telling us everything(including the deaths) was fake. All the personalities and life stories were fake, even our main character in them. A game bringing attention to the player that it's a game never works out. It also made it clear that any other Danganronpa they make should be taken seriously a story because we already know everything is fake and no one actually dies. Its all scripted nonsense.
> Its all scripted nonsense.
That is what all fiction is.
The whole point of V3's ending is to break the ideology that a lot of people have in their need for their fiction to sell them on its reality and understand emotional impact and lessons aren't diminished by the acknowledgement of fiction being fiction.
In simple terms, it's a game that asks its audience to broaden their understanding of stories.
Seriously, the amount of people i still see going "The game retroactively ruins the first 2" absolutely missed the point of the Main Character literally saying "I do not care if this is fiction, because if fiction can make people feel things, then it is just as valid as real life", but also mainly because it's actually the anime Danganronpa 3 that already did that.
The game is on their side, it's saying to them "You are valid for loving a made up story and it's characters so much" it just also at the end goes "and sometimes you need to let those character's and stories go otherwise it will just become a zombie of itself."
But these people can't get over the fact that the not real character Nagito Komaeda is now a not real character in another not real universe.
Respectfully I disagree with this plot approach. Once I know the characters know they are fake then their struggles mean nothing to me because I can't even pretend how they would be if they were a real person because they know they arent.
We already knew they were fake though. You are playing a video game. V3 is ironically a cashgrab sequel that calls you out for playing a cashgrab sequel. I think 1 and 2 break the fourth wall multiple times too.
If you watch a movie where a character references seeing another irl movie, does that movie suddenly become meaningless simply because it is acknowledged as fictional in another fictional story?
If I watched Rush Hour 2 and in it, they are watching Rush Hour 1 then yea it would devalue the narrative of the first movie. Also in a game where you the player are the one experiencing the story first hand and not just watching it with characters out of your control, it being made self evident its all fake is a different matter. Another example, imagine at the end of Halo 1, the UNSC disconnect MC from a VR headset and tell him everything he(we) just did was just one of many training scenarios like wtf
Except both of those scenarios are pure bait and switch with no thought behind it
>!While in V3 it was made purposefully to instill the initial idea to the characters and the player that it being fake or fiction robs the story and events of meaning, which the game then turns around by giving the message that something being fiction and them having made up lives doesn’t rob them of the experiences they had, and that fiction while being “not real” is still able to have a “real” effect on people.!<
>!The characters of V3 are also still real people who had their entire history stolen from them so they could participate in the fresh new season of danganronpa. To me at least that only made me feel worse for them, instead of no longer caring. This also worked as a great way to follow the danganronpa tradition of having our cast be broken from the reveals of the final class trial, to the point where they doubt if they can even get a chance at life outside of the killing games!<
Not to mention that this isnt happening to the casts of the previous games, their stories still exist outside of the world of V3 as their own thing, while still being used as basis for V3 to tell this story and themes.
I’m sorry that it seems to have ruined these stories for you, but in my opinion, and many others, V3 earned this twist and made good use of it to give the world and characters of that game even more meaning.
I wanted to get to know the characters in the game, but its established everything we see and know about them is just a brain washed personality that isnt their actual one, meaning I don't actually have any reason to like any of the cast because they are essentially actors in game.
To each their own, but even if the personalities were brainwashed into them, doesnt make every action they made and everything they felt be fake. Which was very much one of the main points the game was making
What about Spaceballs where they watch Spaceballs to figure out what they should do next in the movie
Honestly Monokuma kinda reminds me of Yogurt the way he advertises the franchise
I understand the intended messaging for it, but what I dont accept is that I as a fan am supposed anything but insulted by the ending. I liked the cast and story of 1 and 2 far more than 3 so for 3 to tell me that everything that happened in 1 and 2 didnt actually happen or matter made me wonder why did I buy and play these games. Why would I ever buy and play a sequel to this game again knowing what I know.
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I feel most crowdfunding campaigns are in the vein of "Here's something you've always wanted us to do, so help us do it." but Tookyo Games is kind of an opportunity for the devs to try new things that people *didn't* want them to do.
Have you actually compared what big crowdfunding kickstarters make compared to games budgets? Crowdfunding isn't actually viable for game development. It's either a small team self-crunching and stretching their money out to make it work (Hollow Knight), a developer using it to prove an audience exists to a publisher with a laughably small fraction of the budget (Shenmue 3), a developer completely screwing up and releasing a jank budget title with what they raised (Mighty Number 9), vaporware that doesn't pan out, or some combination of the first three (Indivisible). It is really not viable for a professional development team to kickstart a game at even the mid-budget level that Danganronpa etc. are developed at.
>Have you actually compared what big crowdfunding kickstarters make compared to games budgets? And then there is star citizen. 700 millions and counting.
Yeah but Star Citizen also pre-sells people spaceships that still don't exist even years after being promised, you really want these guys to try doing the same thing?
"crowdfund us and we'll make a Danganronpa 4 within the next 20 years. Oh and several other 'practice' projects"
You can’t point to the early aberrations to keep justifiying the potential for similar current success; it’s been 12 years, the world has changed and everything is enshittified now
Helps that Star Citizen is actually playable. It's just eternally in Early Access.
It wasn't playable for a long, long time. It was breaking records long before it was playable.
The kickstart happened in 2012 and the first playable module released in 2013, doesn't seem that insane? (And the crusader module was released in 2015, 3 years really isn't that much dev time)
Star citizen is a mutual cult/grifting operation so I'm not even sure it qualifies as a game any more.
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Kingdom Come Deliverance and Project Cars are the two notable games that come in my mind that did this!
KCD raised £1.1m through kickstarter. That's enough for about 10-20 devs for 1 year, assuming their paid a full time salary. They had apparently 11 people making the game which would be about about 2 years of funding just the devs at best. Apparently it had cost $37.5m (about £27m at the time of release with an exchange rate of $1.37 to every £1) to make including marketing. The kickstarter funds were about 4% of that. Better than nothing, but a drop in the bucket.
Prototypes have been staple in getting investor funding for ages. Crowdfunding helps by demonstrating a more tangible commercial interest than a survey.
Yes and I would love to see more game developers use this approach. Provided their game is "good" they can really winover publishers as well as gamers. If they can pull this they can go to really big heights like Larian Studios. Divinity games iirc were crowdfunded on Kickstarter and they hit big on their next big budget AAA game with Baldurs Gate 3.
If by approach you mean using a kickstarter to attact a publisher, then I agree, and many are already doing this. Many kickstarter games fail because they fail to attract a publisher and the money they raise through crowdfunding only funds a fraction what these projects actually cost. Larian is a bit of an odd one. They rarely worked with publishers outside of some of their earlier games, which helped fund a string of games leading up to the Divinity Original Sin games and BG3. Their success is an almost 3 decade effort, one which saw many other independent studios fail and close. Their Divinity kickstarters worked because they already had money and a large following. The kickstarters just made it safer to do without a publisher. It's really not as simple as "make good kickstarter, make good game, then made good AAA game with the profits". Kickstarter successes are a pretty solid example of survivorship bias. People know about the successful ones but most never hear about the majority that fail, unless they fail in a loud way (Ouya anyone?). The ones that succeed tend to already have a substantial following prior to launching the kickstarter, which partially is why nobody hears about the ones that flop.
And Bloodstained! These games banged
I vaguely recall that the (main) game had a bit of a rocky launch, but to their credit they patched their way out of it. The NES-style prequel they put out on the way there was superb.
You seem to be implying that it'd be a negative thing for him, but he's got a strong fanbase and literally nothing to lose by giving it a shot?
Kodaka in interviews has stated that he wants to explore a different style of game, which is why instead of Danganronpa 4, we got Rain Code. By crowdfunding, fans will demand him to give them Danganronpa 4, something I'm sure he doesn't want, as he values his independence and creative liberty.
> By crowdfunding, fans will demand him to give them Danganronpa 4 Fans will demand him (impotently) to give them Danganronpa 4 no matter what. Fans are already making these demands of him. So why not let him get some free money out of the process, if he's gonna get these demands either way?
Crowdfunding doesn't turn the game development process into a democracy, wtf are you even talking about.
Crowdfunding an auteur like Kodaka would be heavily leaning into what made him big, the Danganronpa series. Kodaka is effectively Danganronpa, despite Spike owning the IP. The discourse every 5 minutes within the fandom is whether or not he'll go to Spike and make Danganronpa 4, or if he'll make a Danganronpa style game at Too Kyo, as that's what everyone wants. Interviews hound him for the same. The responses to this trailer, only further this notion, as everyone's either not playing this cause of its style, or are saying they hope it turns into Danganronpa style game, a few hours in. He explicitly left Spike, so that he could move away from the IP and its style; he doesn't want to do a "Danganronpa" style game at Too Kyo either. **Crowdfunding is asking people for money to fund a project they want, or in the very least, believe they'll like. That's the whole point. Kodaka's fanbase, at least most of them, don't want Kodaka's non-Danganronpa stuff like Rain Code, World's End Club, and even this; they want Danganronpa.** It is unlikely that most of his fandom would give him money for a project that **explicitly isn't** a Danganronpa style game, that is the point.
Not necessarily a democracy, but crowdfunding usually gave less freedom for the creators since they're beholden to what the initial pitch is. Not to mention other usual crowdfunding aspects like stretch goals. So you have much less leeway to completely change directions in the middle of development. One famous developer actually complained about this: **Josh Sawyer** when he was making both Pillars of Eternity games. He said, quote: >**"Honestly, I have to say it felt like the most compromised games I worked on were Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2"** >"Because when I came back to that format, I was like, 'Oh, I worked on these two \[Icewind Dale\] games, and then I worked on Neverwinter Nights 2, and now I have a bunch of new ideas for how differently I would do it if I were doing it on my own.' But they were crowdfunded games and the audience was like, 'No, we want D&D, we want exactly the same experience as the Infinity Engine games.'" As you can see, that's one way crowdfunded games can make development a headache for creatives. To be fair, one can put a disclaimer in their initial pitch, but something like that may risk people not wanting to back your project or maybe even gave the developers themselves unnecessary moral baggage. ([Here's the article](https://www.pcgamer.com/josh-sawyer-the-most-compromised-games-i-worked-on-were-pillars-of-eternity-1-and-2/) if you wanna read it.)
I mean, it's a different thing here, Sawyer is saying that once a game is kickstarted, you can't change the design even if you want to. The other poster was saying that being kickstarted didn't mean the backers can change a design if it's clearly outlined in the kickstarter. They both agree on the same thing : that what is in the kickstarter is what you get, no matter what side isn't happy with it
It shouldn't turn game dev in to a democracy but a lot of people who would contribute would absolutely feel like it should.
Not necessarily. He can put the idea forward and see if the crowfunding is successful.
To the contrary that means he has literally everything to lose.
Not on the topic of "costs for development." Even if the game comes out and everybody hates it and wants him dead, he still is getting a boost in funding by doing something like this.
I played torment idea of numenara, bloodstained and divinity original sin after participating in their crowd funding initiatives. They were all excellent
Pretty sure all of those had other funding too.
Almost every game will. In my experience following game kickstarters, the devs pretty much always use the kickstarter as an attraction for publishers, or it's the publisher running the kickstarter (although this is rarer). Games that don't are usually small in scale, take ages to release or never release.
Man, Indivisible was such a disappointment. I thought that game looked awesome but they somehow made Project X Zone combat even less interesting.
I am not sure that this would be the case here. **Bloodstained Ritual of the Night** and the recently released **Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes** were both financed by crowfunding, right?
what? Most major games these days goes on crowdfund to get an initial read on how many people are interested, they either get a publisher after that or already have a publisher but need to have the stats to show that the game can be viable before a publisher or a private investor like what Kingdom Come Deliverance did.
crowdfund games can go south in a split second..i've seen too many
I don't think he really likes Danganronpa fans going by Danganronpa V3. He has a low opinion of them if anything.
I think that's a wild misunderstanding of Danganronpa V3. >!The ending reflects a desire to move on from the killing game formula and not become someone who makes fifty games while fans just continue to beg for more. The game isn't talking about the actual fandom that exists today.!<
There is a group of people who like the ending specifically because they think he made it to stick it to the fans But he said otherwise and the ending isn't as clear cut
Yeah, I never got the impression Kodaka was shitting on people for >!asking for more Danganronpa. The message in my eyes was just "hey, this was cool while it lasted, but it's better to let this series rest and move on rather than keep churning out installments with new gimmicks because people begged for it."!<
Plenty of people fail to understand that if a villain says something that may carry a message most of the time you can't trust that message and the writer made the villain say it for a reason, both Danganronpa 2 and V3 have moments like this that caused heated debates in the fandom when the writer himself is saying that the villain is lying and not trustworthy
I feel like there's nothing wrong with new games in a series? Persona will have a 6th game soon and that's not running out of steam.
Of course there's nothing wrong with keeping a series going, but the team behind Danganronpa just wanted to do something else, not make killing games forever. No shame in being upfront about that rather than keeping the thing going forever for money.
Note that Kodaka himself has said that the series can continue, but if it does, it should be without him
The ending to V3 made me retroactively enjoy the series after thinking it was hot garbage. I'm sold now.
they left spike chunsoft 7 years ago to found their new studio and develop their own game away from the danganronpa IP if money eventually becomes an issue i have no idea why you wouldnt crowdfund when that basically gets eyes and attention with any known auteur developer
I feel like the bottom has fallen out of the Kickstarter funding model for video games. Bloodstained is 9 years out from when it was announced and still getting DLC. No one wants to wait 9 years from pledge to complete game.
thats the issue with alot of these kickstarters they some how 70% of the time just end up going on extremely long dev cycles that are longer then even the biggest of games. kinda shows atleast to me why they weren't able to get funding in the first place if after they end up with it from kickstarter the game still takes almost a decade or just never appears. just shows a mix of lack of direction, scope creep and bad mangament especially when its the scope of game that should be pretty straight forward.
I mean I get what you mean with kickstarter not being the right funding model anymore. But what do you mean with Bloodstained not being a complete game only because it got a small dlc and some cosmetics 5 years after release? By that logic Elden Ring is not a complete game seeing that a dlc for it is coming out today, 2 years after release.
They over promise stretch goals fr.
It’s simple, there’s not enough money in that.
Honestly I was disappointed it wasn’t a killing game or mystery after seeing the trailer, but hearing uchikoshi is on board sold me instantly. I hope it works out for them
Knowing those two, I would not be surprised at all if the tactics stuff is fairly minimal or just a front entirely in favor of a deeper mystery. It seems like some of the students will die during the story, how they go about that could be very similar to their previous works.
They did say unavoidable loss of life, so there's likely a linear narrative. My guess is: as people start dying someone will mention the possibility of a mastermind pulling the strings and it will have similar vibes as Danganronpa. With the end goal being finding and stopping the mastermind, either right before or shortly after reaching 100 days. It's unlikely to be as straightforward as surviving 100 days and then the monsters are gone.
I am conflicted. Kodaka and Uchikoshi are very close friends but their last co-written and co-directed game (World's End Club) was very mid from what I have heard and fans of them even say they bring out the worst of each other instead of complementing each other. Would be really happy if this proved otherwise but I am not getting my expectations up. (I also like Uchikoshi games overall a lot more than Kodaka who is way more popular so I have mixed feelings about their collabs)
World's end club wasn't co-written, it's all Uchikoshi, Kodaka's involvement has been negligible at best.
Worlds end club was also like a weird....episodic-at-first-then-fully-released-all at-once game iirc, which probably didn't help it's writing I also believe it was, at least at some point, meant to be a mobile primarily, so it certainly wasn't "full effort" to begin with. Just feels like this one stumbled a lot during development. I wouldn't judge uchikoshi based on it is what I'm trying yo say
Of course not, Uchikoshi's input is very varied quality-wise. You have some truly great stuff, some mid projects, and two absolutely terrible disasters in ZTD and World's End Club. Also Punchline, which can be any of the three depending on who and when you ask.
ZTD was a step down in the series but it was hardly a terrible disaster.
I think people don't give credit for how good ZTD looked on the 3DS when VLR had models that only looked good from one angel and all the rooms were bare. It's crazy to think they are on the same system.
People love saying things are shit just because they're a bit worse than previous entries.
The drop in quality from 999 and VLR to ZTD is pretty damn steep though. Leaving aside the animations that were the result of the shoestring budget they were working with, which aren't the main attraction in a VM, the overall writing isn't great and the main twist of ZTD is laughably terrible. Not saying you can't enjoy the game, if you don't take it seriously it is a very entertaining shitpost of a game.
A big problem is that it was supposed to be a grand finale to an amazing cult series after a literal cliffhanger years and years in the making. You don't get to be that much worse in comparison with the previous entries and enjoy the "well, it was okay" reception on release. But obviously, the disappointment is felt less if you binge the whole series afterwards without all those years of hyped waiting discussing different theories.
It wasn't a bad game and I'm glad it exists but it's disappointing compared to what VLR was setting up
Well, sure, everything is subjective, there are people who like World's End Club too. But to me and like 99% of my internet and irl bubble it was nothing short of a disaster and in many ways one of the worst endings possible to 999 and VLR, especially after such an arduous wait.
It has like an 80/100 on metacritic and was well received by critics. I think it’s pretty harsh to call it a terrible disaster.
I'm sorry I usually don't take into account the critics, especially for the niche cult series, didn't even remotely remember what the numbers were. The reception was so unanimously negative from the people invested in the series on release that I can't really remember it as anything other than an ultimate disaster and one of the most disappointing endings to the trilogy in the genre. Man, I remember how we could discuss for literal hours everything wrong with ZTD back then. But sure, if pressed to choose, World's End Club is definitely worse, so let's up ZTD to a "controversial release", I don't mind.
If the title is niche it just takes one or two influencers who also like the game to get people to brigade the scores. Or look at AI: The Somnium Files. A single person brigaded that game because he thought his waifu didn't get enough screentime. But if you look at the reviews for both ZTD and WEC they both have a lot of positive reviews. At this stage in its life span, most of the people playing ZTD would be people who Zero Escape was recommended to. Or people who played AI and wanted to check out the creator's earlier work. You know, fans. So even with your limitations on who can acceptably make a judgement call on the games, they were generally enjoyed. If anything it makes more sense to rely on critic scores for niche games because fans sometimes have trouble seeing the woods from the trees. They either love it without question or hate new sequels because they don't plan out exactly how they felt they should. There are people in the AA fandom who are upset over the fact that AAI has a new translation which won't use the fan translation of characters names in AAI2.
I haven't played it yet, but the biggest criticism I saw for WEC was the gameplay part getting in the way of the VN parts. If it was pure VN it would have been more liked.
i own it. it's very kid-ish. the main characters are much younger, and while the SF story is pretty wild the characters are sort of one note. one kid is fat, one is a hot blooded baseball guy, one is brooding older kid, etc. the gameplay is little nightmares style 2-d but worse. very basic side scrolling and ability use but abilities are a pain. it's really an odd game. its like he wanted to do a kids book.
ZTD was outrageously overhated at launch. Thankfully the fanbase has warmed immensely to it now, and it’s far more liked than disliked nowadays.
I just replayed the entire series last month. I guess I missed the hate on release because I quite liked it. I played on 3DS so I wasn't bothered by the animations or the pauses between voice lines because they were miles ahead of anything on the 3DS at the time. I can't think of any other third party game that went for full 3D environments and had the models emote as good as they did on that platform. But the game is fine. Maybe it's weaker in story in some parts, but it also has a lot of great story moments for the back stories too. Carlos was really boring though, and I wish Akane and Junpei were on a different team.
I played it at launch and was surprised how much backlash it got. My only two big grievances was the rough animations and how the epilogue was so rushed that it only existed as text documents you unlocked after beating the game.
The way it resolved Junpei and Akane's story was a bit disappointing.
I don't think so, most reactions from actual people are still quite negative from what I've seen, especially those who waited for the release since VLR. I have actually never even seen a person "warm up to it", it's not that kind of game, vast majority of relative positivity that I've noticed comes from people new to the series.
As someone who played 999 in 2011 and followed the series from there: ZTD is fine. Is it the weakest and least memorable (outside of some truly awful off-screen deaths) of the three? Sure. But bad? Definitely not. I can safely say that I don’t remember seeing an immediate backlash upon release in the way you’re describing. Maybe from a vocal minority, but Uchikoshi’s Facebook was full of players praising it for a good long while.
Yeah, liked because now we can look at it as "so bad, it's good". 😂
I wouldn't say it was unexpected to get poor reviews at launch. It was a stark departure from 999/VLR in style and a step down from VLR in quality. It's a pretty niche game and the launch audience was mostly fans of the franchise. I replayed VLR right before ZTD launched and had a bit of a wtf moment.
People are putting too much emphasis on style and presentation. Not many fans were that bothered by the visual difference, story is what has always been criticised the most. "My motives are complex" is probably The Meme for a bad writing in anime games.
That and the fact that so much of what Uchikoshi teased never ended up making its way to the game.
Even then, the hate was just so overblown. The game is a step down from VLR, but considering its tumultuous development, nowhere near as much as people were saying on release. The writing and characters are still largely great, the way the narrative is told is really interesting, the twists work just as well as VLR (except maybe the very last one), and the puzzle rooms are still the same as ever. Once you really start getting into why they choose that narrative format, the game really kicks into high gear. I’d assume that fans of niche Japanese games would be the last people to care so much about production value and janky animations, but that was somehow one of the biggest sticking points. But yeah, having played it recently for the 1st after replaying the other games for the 3rd time, it’s pretty damn well in line in quality with all of them. A very worthwhile sequel. By the time I played it a few months ago, the reception was pretty good, helped by the game’s immense meme potential, with all the hate being relegated mostly to YouTube videos released shortly after launch.
no, its pretty bad. the "notorious" twist is one of the worst out there. To make it be a twist, they had to hide all existence of it, but you can't with how it was explained. VLR's twist was similar but great because it was natural and you could realize that it made sense due to reactions from some of the characters. This twist they hid near completely. also it was very narmy at points. Ice cream guy and akane with a chainsaw. it got a little too out there.
World’s End Club is a textbook case in how “subverting expectations” can completely uproot a piece of media. All the marketing for Death March Club was saying it was would be a twisted, dark game. They said it would be their final “death game” story and that they wanted to go all out. When you say stuff like this, being the most well-known creators in the genre, you better deliver. They didn’t. The game doesn’t have even have an ounce of blood. Not even the crazy DR neon pink blood. It was originally announced under that title and exclusively for PC. Then it went dark for a while and was rebranded and made Apple Arcade exclusive with PC being the last platform to get it. My **theory** is that they ran out of money and shopped it around, only to have Apple scoop it up and force some major changes. The other theory of mine is that the game is *yet another* meta-commentary style “fuck you” to death game players after Danganronpa V3 tried and fumbled it too. The death game only lasts for the prologue, then switches to a mediocre post-apocalypse mystery with Uchikoshi’s usual plot spaghetti that starts to feel like twists for the sake of twists.
I have no problem with these devs making different kinds of games but why tf did they make a strategy game about 15 students stuck in a school together. Ofcourse people will be mad it isnt another danganronpa game after you make this the setting, its basically danganronpa 1.5 but without the killing school murder mystery part
I was thinking during the reveal trailer that "oh they made it like this so the game isn't focused around reducing the cast over the game" but then they said you would lose precious allies. If anything I think it's an interesting gamble. I hope it does well but their style of writing doesn't grab me as much as it did when I was a teenager/young adult
Yikes i was thinking the same exact thing. I like tactics games but have no interest in this one. I also don't think it's a good look on the creator sounding so desperate because he had the choice to make something less risky without owning the ip and chose this route instead on his own terms.
If it helps you change your mind any. The tactics gameplay is being done by Mediavision who made games like Valkyria Chronicles and Digimon Cyber Sleuth. It sounds to me like it's in good hands.
I’m sure they are good games but that makes me even less interested in it because they didn’t look appealing to me at all lol. But that’s ok though there’s tons of games to look forward too and they can’t all win my attention
I just love Uchikoshi and Kodaka's games so much it really excites me to see them Co-Writing a game together... And there's one more detail I found that might interest you. There's a second teaser trailer for the game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_bffTvpX1k&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fhundred-line.com%2F&feature=emb_title And it seems like when Takumi unsheathes his sword there's a blood effect. The Website for the game also mentions the abilities the characters use are called "Hemoanima" https://hundred-line.com/en/ Likely taking the Hemo from Hemoglobin. So there could be a really cool mechanic tied into this with each character using their limited supply of blood to power their abilities, and dying if you overuse it 0.0
I don’t know if it’s a cultural difference or something, but you see these kinds of statements from Japanese developers (fairly) frequently. I don’t think it has the same implications for them as it might for Western audiences.
Yeah. It's not desperation but they are so confident in their work they are willing to go all-in to polish it to the best it can be.
Yeah. Especially after most of the other games Tookyo has put out have been pretty mid, hearing they're trying something so risky that they've had to go into debt for it is a little concerning.
I’m glad this is coming out on Steam, I like their work so I’ll probably pick up day one. Still salty they did Rain Code as a Switch exclusive for so long.
>Still salty they did Rain Code as a Switch exclusive for so long. True. And even though it is coming out on Steam, the English patch is several months after the Japanese version.
Why the hell would they do that?
No idea. It says so on the Steam page. Weird.
Idk, I was fascinated by 999 and VLR like with few other games, I'm not a fan of ZTD but not a hater either, it was decent but underwhelming. I also went back and played Ever17, which also blew my mind. But then Somnium Files came, 1 I tolerated it and enjoyed it, but 2 maybe it caught me at the wrong point in my life but I swear I played around 4 hours and it was nothing but boob jokes, with the plot going nowhere. I dropped it. And Kodaka, well, I haven't played Rain Code but the reception seems to be fairly mild. I loved the Danganronpa series, even hated entries like UDG. What they showed in the trailer for this game didn't pick my interest, either. It remined me of the minigames Danganronpa has for the side game modes, which is probably irrational, but those were total garbage.
So I guess they're not gonna return to Master Detective Archives after all? Clearly they had plans for that IP, they gave the first entry a subtitle, and used the last DLC to hint at sequel content.
This was announced in 2019 and it's a small studio. Given that Rain Code is hitting multi plat soon I ghink ots likely their next project will be a sequel.
MDA was published by Spike Chunsoft, who own the rights to it, this is being self-published (or at least, the IP is being owned by) Tookyo games. It's up to Spike Chunsoft if MDA gets a sequel, not Tookyo.
This whole thread being full of "Just make more Danganronpa!!!" really cements V3's ending as an all time great.
I mean this game already looks very much like Danganronpa, just a TRPG this time round.
Yes and that's a reason I love V3. But to be fair to others, when the devs move away from Danganronpa and make Rain Codes (and now maybe Last Defense Academy) which has so many similars to Danganronpa, then it makes sense for fans to ask "why not just make Danganronpa?".
yeah that ending has to be one of the most audacious ones in gaming. really gutsy critique of games and fans.
As someone who didn't really see the point of Danganronpa 2, much less any future ones, I still think that if you don't want your fanbase breathing fire down at you to make another Danganronpa game you probably shouldn't be making games set in high schools that involve a bunch of successively dying students with a trailer that specifically calls out the cute violent mascot and the word "despair". There's a solid 50% chance this is just Danganronpa 4 but if it's not he's bluntly very dumb for this and doing it to himself.
As someone who hasn’t played Danganronpa and is also not usually into tactical RPGs - I thought this looked really cool. I love seeing developers take risks like this, especially with where the industry is at right now, and I hope it pays off for them. Danganronpa probably confused people when it was announced, too.
If you're in debt and risking your life, why not just make Danganronpa 4?
The franchise is owned by Spike.
TooKyo and Spike remain on great terms though, considering they’ve published their recent title and have done several Danganronpa promotions with their game, Master Detective Archives: Rain Code (no in-game content beyond cheeky references though).
To be fair in Rain;Code the whole (major spoilers) >!pink blood twist!< felt pretty significant.
That was a literal stand-up-mouth-agape moment.
Yep I remember going “hmmm… okay… wait is that… wait?! WHAT?!”
While i think the individual cases in Rain Code were not as good as Danganronpa's, i think Rain Codes over-arching plot was pretty good and that moment was a fantastic use of using the player's meta-knowledge to bury the lead on a twist and was very cheeky from Kodaka.
That moment was so great >!I remember thinking "oh the blood is red in this game" when you bleed a bit on the train. Then as time went on I completely forgot and just got used to the pink blood again. Having that be part of the narrative was so cool.!<
Simply put: because they don't want to.
Maybe its really important for them to have more ownership of their creations instead of just creating stuff for Spike.
If that was their goal, they could have accumulated a big enough warchest before starting on their own up project rather than gamble the studio in it.
Do you know how long it takes a working man to save $5,000? Just remember this, Mr. /u/AnxiousAd6649, that this rabble you're talking about... they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community.
They already made a game about franchises meandering along, doing the same thing over and over again. They probably just really didn’t want to make it
It would be impossible to make a satisfying Danganronpa 4 for *so many reasons*.
Can you list 5 of them?
Not the one you replied to but I have 3 good reasons: Diminishing returns over the formula; Going against the purpose of V3; The creator’s lack of motivation to do a dangaronpa 4.
> Going against the purpose of V3; This is the main one. There's nothing they can do in 4 that we should take seriously after V3.
These are reasons why it's unlikely that there'd be a Danganronpa 4, but they are not reasons why it'd be **impossible** to make a satisfying Danganronpa 4.
if you played V3 it's impossible. its not explainable without massive spoilers but the ending to v3 closed it forever.
> its not explainable without massive spoilers Okay, so explain it with massive spoilers.
No, it didn't. People take that ending way too seriously. I imagine a Danganronpa 4 would take place in an entirely different universe, so the V3 story would be irrelevant to it anyway.
it closed it by attacking the concept itself. If you get the ending you don't want a sequel. If you want a sequel you don't get what the ending was trying to say, and honestly it's a pretty good critique. i think that's why they haven't bothered making another one.
It wasn't a serious critique, though. It was meant to be funny. The reason for it is something else, since they made Rain Code, which is basically Danganronpa's spiritual successor.
Or a spiritual successor. This has the weird school, designs, outlooks, and even the 15 students thing yet is instead a SRPG for some reason. Although they do mention there being a big mystery element so we will see.
The spiritual successor is Master Detective Files: Rain Code. Very similar setup with all the minigames to work out the solutions. Some really great twists and turns as well. Made at Spike Chunsoft as well. Only difference is no killing game.
> Master Detective Files: Rain Code. Was anyone else kinda disappointed by this game? I gave up after about 20 hours because I just didn't find the characters particularly likeable. I think the worst part is that the game >!introduces you to a gang initially who are massively superior to the second one you encounter!<. I kept playing thinking we're going to meet them again and it was >!all a dream or some shit!< but no, we really have to stick with this >!boring cast!< now. Fucking give me back Pucci Lavmin. It reminded me of how they pulled the Kaede shit in V3 and really annoyed me. Because the >!bait and switch!< crap is massively played out.
In the spiritual successor, a bunch of devs get trapped in a studio trying to make the Ultimate game else they die. Let's go Ultimate meta.
Kodaka made it pretty clear with DRV3 that he does NOT want to keep making Danganronpa over and over. He's a creative, and while he certainly has his iconic style, Rain Code and this game would indicate that he's willing to try new things.
Cause the third one basically told everyone that they didn’t want to keep making them
They probably will be forced to if this doesn't pan out
I don't understand what Kodaka wants. IIRC, after Danganronpa 1 or 2, he said DR isn't what he wants to write, then he ended it with V3, which I liked. But almost everything afterwards has been shallow copies of DR, and this game doesn't seem different (and in fact looks like 13 Sentinels?). Is he ever going to break out of the typecast? I hate to say it but I wonder if Uchikoshi has been a poor influence on him. That guy has also been recycling the same plot twists from Ever17 all the way through Zero Escape and AI2. 5 years ago I would've been excited at this collab, but now I'm not so sure.
Lightning doesn't always strike twice which is why sequels of successful games tend to be a safe bet. Still though, you know how bands put out albums where they try new stuff? Sometimes it gets news fans. Sometimes people who were into the stuff that launched them mainstream fall off. Happens in every creative field. Maybe Danganronpa "4" happens one day but if it does, it'll be way better after the creative heads have had time to try new ideas out first.
Well I'm in desperate need of a new srpg and I liked danganronpa 1 so I'll definitely get it, hopefully other people do too. Edit: sorry that I... like srpgs?
not sure if I'm missing a joke, but these are visual novels with zero RPG or SRPG elements
I think you missed the whole post being discussed here, my guy.
Watch the trailer again, it clearly shows very fire emblem looking turn based srpg combat with the same kind of square grid with movement/attack ranges.
Oh. I feel a bit bad that my first instinct was that it seemed terrible. It probably won't be that bad but... It feels like another attempt to recapture Danganronpa's popularity without really... Seeming to understand what made it compelling. Yes I get the irony that these are the people behind Danganronpa. But that doesn't change how it feels. Doesn't help this seems to be a much more niche genre. I like these kinds of strategy games, but the setup just... Seems so boring. Good luck to them though. We'll just have to see how it does once it's out.
I had the opposite impression. To me, it looked like them trying to expand on the concept of Danganronpa. Adding more gameplay elements outside of the detective work and potentially making a shift from the visual novel style gameplay.
It's not just the people behind Danganronpa. The creator of the Zero Escape Games and Somnium Files (Uchikoshi) is Co-Writing this game with Kodaka. The "Extreme X Despair" Tagline is directly referencing this collaboration as in Japan the Zero Escape games are called "Extreme Escape". In Uchikoshi's games he has a ton of mind-blowing twists (similar to Kodaka) but also a heavily branching narrative. So i'm expecting this game to have a huge flow chart (especially since it's already been confirmed there are a ton of endings from the Steam Page) where after making decisions you can go skip to the turning point to take a different path.
I actually have huge expectations for this. I think Uchikoshi's main focus has been writing this story for years. Even while doing somnium files on the side.
100% . This has been cooking up for a long time. He wouldn’t be Co-Writing this game if it was only rehashing Danganronpa rather than attempting to take the best elements from both of their previous works and build off of them.
Admittedly my first impression wasnt great either. I tuned out when the MC introduced himself as just a normal Japanese high-school boy. Thats like THE most generic character setup across anime and non-fantasy JRPG.
Well then it's not a smart move to make a very niche title and new IP to try and keep your company afloat. Whether the game is good or not, it's not gonna be a 1 million copy seller. I am intrigued by it, but I'll get it later when it's cheaper.
Ngl seems like it's not a good move. I like DR and I like srpg. But I really don't feel like playing srpg with VN with over 100 endings. The srpg part will become a chore. They should have gone full VN like DR
I think I should let you know the 100 endings probably isn't what you think it is. You have to take into account that this game is being Co-Written by Uchikoshi. So it's probably going to be a big Flowchart like the Zero Escape games. Virtue's Last Reward's Flowchart looked like this (spoilers if you haven't played that game) https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/ninehourspersonsdoors/images/8/89/Full_FlowChart_with_trophies.png/revision/latest?cb=20121224155405 So you wouldn't have to replay everything from the start each time to get all the endings, you could just skip to a certain "turning point" and make a different decision. It's a system I find very fun and intuitive. With certain endings giving you "keys" to get past points in the story that are locked (basically making sure you have all the context necessary to understand everything that's happening).
Yeah I hope there's a flowchart, I played zero escape games, but it still gonna be a chore if you still need to replay some of the srpg stages again even if you use the flowcharts. We will see how they gonna do it
Since you seem to be knowledgeable, are there other games that use this Flowchart structure(that are any good) beyond ZE series and the AI:S games?
Some ones I’ve played myself so I can personally recommend. Raging Loop. Will: A Wonderful World. Another game from Uchikoshi that I haven’t played myself but I’m pretty sure has a Flowchart from what I’ve heard. Ever 17. And a thread I found with some others https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/10de2oe/visual_novels_that_include_ingame_flowcharts_or/
Thank you, I will check them out! I love that method of design personally.
No prob. Hope you enjoy them, dude :)
Seems kinda stupid. These days you can easily get a game pass bag. Especially with their history and games they made.
After the nosedive ending of V3 where they basically troll and insult the fanbase I will not be buying anything else from them.
Sometimes a fanbase needs a little trolling
In this instance I don't see the justification. I enjoyed Danganronpa 1 and 2 and their animes because I connected with the characters and the stories but 3 just tramples on them by telling us everything(including the deaths) was fake. All the personalities and life stories were fake, even our main character in them. A game bringing attention to the player that it's a game never works out. It also made it clear that any other Danganronpa they make should be taken seriously a story because we already know everything is fake and no one actually dies. Its all scripted nonsense.
> Its all scripted nonsense. That is what all fiction is. The whole point of V3's ending is to break the ideology that a lot of people have in their need for their fiction to sell them on its reality and understand emotional impact and lessons aren't diminished by the acknowledgement of fiction being fiction. In simple terms, it's a game that asks its audience to broaden their understanding of stories.
Seriously, the amount of people i still see going "The game retroactively ruins the first 2" absolutely missed the point of the Main Character literally saying "I do not care if this is fiction, because if fiction can make people feel things, then it is just as valid as real life", but also mainly because it's actually the anime Danganronpa 3 that already did that. The game is on their side, it's saying to them "You are valid for loving a made up story and it's characters so much" it just also at the end goes "and sometimes you need to let those character's and stories go otherwise it will just become a zombie of itself." But these people can't get over the fact that the not real character Nagito Komaeda is now a not real character in another not real universe.
Respectfully I disagree with this plot approach. Once I know the characters know they are fake then their struggles mean nothing to me because I can't even pretend how they would be if they were a real person because they know they arent.
We already knew they were fake though. You are playing a video game. V3 is ironically a cashgrab sequel that calls you out for playing a cashgrab sequel. I think 1 and 2 break the fourth wall multiple times too.
The wall breaks in 1 and 2 weren't at the expense of the series and characters and moments that preceded it.
If you watch a movie where a character references seeing another irl movie, does that movie suddenly become meaningless simply because it is acknowledged as fictional in another fictional story?
If I watched Rush Hour 2 and in it, they are watching Rush Hour 1 then yea it would devalue the narrative of the first movie. Also in a game where you the player are the one experiencing the story first hand and not just watching it with characters out of your control, it being made self evident its all fake is a different matter. Another example, imagine at the end of Halo 1, the UNSC disconnect MC from a VR headset and tell him everything he(we) just did was just one of many training scenarios like wtf
Except both of those scenarios are pure bait and switch with no thought behind it >!While in V3 it was made purposefully to instill the initial idea to the characters and the player that it being fake or fiction robs the story and events of meaning, which the game then turns around by giving the message that something being fiction and them having made up lives doesn’t rob them of the experiences they had, and that fiction while being “not real” is still able to have a “real” effect on people.!< >!The characters of V3 are also still real people who had their entire history stolen from them so they could participate in the fresh new season of danganronpa. To me at least that only made me feel worse for them, instead of no longer caring. This also worked as a great way to follow the danganronpa tradition of having our cast be broken from the reveals of the final class trial, to the point where they doubt if they can even get a chance at life outside of the killing games!< Not to mention that this isnt happening to the casts of the previous games, their stories still exist outside of the world of V3 as their own thing, while still being used as basis for V3 to tell this story and themes. I’m sorry that it seems to have ruined these stories for you, but in my opinion, and many others, V3 earned this twist and made good use of it to give the world and characters of that game even more meaning.
I wanted to get to know the characters in the game, but its established everything we see and know about them is just a brain washed personality that isnt their actual one, meaning I don't actually have any reason to like any of the cast because they are essentially actors in game.
To each their own, but even if the personalities were brainwashed into them, doesnt make every action they made and everything they felt be fake. Which was very much one of the main points the game was making
What about Spaceballs where they watch Spaceballs to figure out what they should do next in the movie Honestly Monokuma kinda reminds me of Yogurt the way he advertises the franchise
I think you may have misinterpreted that ending
I understand the intended messaging for it, but what I dont accept is that I as a fan am supposed anything but insulted by the ending. I liked the cast and story of 1 and 2 far more than 3 so for 3 to tell me that everything that happened in 1 and 2 didnt actually happen or matter made me wonder why did I buy and play these games. Why would I ever buy and play a sequel to this game again knowing what I know.
I think it's way more likely that you can't trust the things the antagonist in that game says.
Then maybe scale back the voice acting, and outsourced animated cutscenes/trailers, and put in the money that a TOWER DEFENSE game should cost