The year is 2007. A dedicated video game company gathers in the board room at the rise of HD Era in October. This company by the name of Spike has made a majority of their income through sequels and adaptations of already existing franchises, and they have gathered here to come up with something new they can call their own. A new franchise that can become a flagship of their up and coming company. Over a two year development period, the product was a PlayStation Portable release by the name of DISTRUST, a murder mystery visual novel.

The story focused around a group of sixteen students trapped inside of a school and confronted by a mysterio

us robotic entity known as Monokuma. The character tells them that the only way to escape the school is to get away with killing another student, through a set of discussions and interrogation called a Class Trial. When not investigating murders, the player was granted “Free Time”, a mode where the players browsed the numerous areas and spent time talking with the other students, building trust and even affecting the story in who would live and who would die. The gameplay came in during the aforementioned Class Trials, where the player attempted to gain trust in the other students and convict the true killer. Once the killer is voted upon by majority vote, they are sentenced to death by execution, with each student having a special punishment exclusive to them, example below. The execution will make much more sense later on when I explain.

Despite the unique concept, the BETA wasn’t very well received due to its red blood and gruesome imagery. Not only that but it wasn’t all that marketable, as well as appealed to a niche market leading to indecent sales figures as a general problem for PSP games. Also, the primary reason it was released on PSP was because the development costs were lower so they wouldn’t go bankrupt should the game bomb (which it did). Due to this, DISTRUST was a scrapped project and later evolved into one of the influential and popular visual novel franchises ever. Certain aspects of the original DISTRUST would find its DNA implanted in its spiritual successor released a solid four years later, in October of 2013 under a new name: Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, developed by Spike and published by Spike Chunsoft for the PlayStation Vita, the sequel console to the PSP. This first installment became a huge phenomena among gamers, as you still went about your days as a student trapped in a school solving murders, however the game took a lean far more towards the narrative aspect, the primary cast below. You took up the role of Makoto Naegi, an average boy who has become classmates with Ultimates (other students who have been scouted by the prestigious, elite school of Hope’s Peak Academy, known for educating the most talented of high-schoolers). Soon after he arrives, he must solve mystery after mystery as lines are crossed and secrets are revealed. The game took the world by storm with its incredible twist concerning the outside world that the Ultimates want to return to so much. Not only that, but the reveal of the true antagonist was another war horse that led the charge for Danganronpa becoming a smash hit, amassing a huge fanbase, including an animated series (which most fans dismiss as an abomination) and a few live action play adaptations.

 

After the initial success of Trigger Happy Havoc, Spike Chunsoft released a sequel on Vita in 2012. Now the reason why the timeline might seem a little iffy is because THH was released as a remaster of the original game, which explains why some bonus features of the first game were actually carried over from the sequel. In America and Europe it was released in 2014, titled Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair. This sequel to Trigger Happy Havoc served as a canonical continuation of Danganronpa’s story, where it was revealed in the first game that the entire world outside the school known as Hope’s Peak Academy has become an apocalyptic, scarcely populated shell of its former self. Goodbye Despair plays just like Trigger Happy Havoc, except here you take up the role of Hajime Hinata, a mysterious boy who is students with his own batch of Ultimates, even though no one recalls his own talent. Just like THH, this game is riddled with logic puzzles, character interaction, and mastefully crafted narrative. Most fans even regard Danganronpa 2 as a better installment of the original Danganronpa in every category. It didn’t receive an anime, though no one complained about that.

At this point, Spike Chunsoft was making so much bank from their new flagship series it was ridiculous. The next main release wouldn’t come out until approximately three years later titled Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, which releases in America September of this year. Before that release, Spike Chunsoft had heralded and sponsored numerous light novels, stage plays, and manga written as adaptations and new additions meant to add on to the Danganronpa timeline before the apocalyptic catastrophe and even events occuring between the two main games. One of the most influential and biggest budgeted examples of this was the spin-off game Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls. This game, set between Trigger Happy Havoc and Goodbye Despair, focuses on Komaru Naegi, the younger sister of Makoto from the first game. This game differs in that instead of a focus of puzzle solving, it also included an emphasis on point and click third-person shooter mechanics using a special weapon made for taking out robotic Monokumas. The story also focused around her budding friendship with Toko Fukawa, the Ultimate Writer and survivor from Trigger Happy Havoc.

From a dejected BETA to a visual novel conglomerate, Danganronpa’s road is quite the tricky one, though one that has had smooth sailing so far. The primary, flowing theme throughout the series is the prospect of HOPE overcoming the curshing aura of DESPAIR, and Spike Chunsoft’s struggle to create a unique and smash hit intellectual property is a mirror of this vision, though I believe that Danganronpa’s primary theme is inspired from Spike’s attempts in the past with DISTRUST. And this isn’t including the more significant light novels like Danganronpa Zero, Killer Killer, and the other anime series that was made to bring a close to the Hope’s Peak Academy storyline with Danganronpa 3 and its three different yet connected storylines: the Despair Side, focusing on the origin story of Hajime Hinata and the Tragedy that destroyed the world; the Future Side, based on Makoto and his plight through one last killing game set up by Monokuma; and the Hope Side, which brings the series to a final ending. Danganronpa V3 has been revealed to be a story completely separate from the Hope’s Peak timeline, set around a new batch of Ultimates placed in a juvenile prison setting with the theme of “psycho cool”, however Monokum will be involved in whatever chaos will ensue. The game has already been released in Japan, and thus I’m trying my best to avoid spoilers from Japanese players and impatient diehards in America who imported the game, as I will be playing this game myself and/or watching someone else on YouTube play it