Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair Review (Spoilers)

Sequels are hard. I don’t envy a team of creatives, fresh off the success, both financially and critically, of their new work of art are commissioned to make a follow up. Whether they had envisioned one or not, they are bound by financial responsibilities to do so, artistic integrity isn’t always a realistic offer in the crushing reality of the industrial complex. Catching lightning in a bottle once again with the intention of making the sequel feel distinct but not overly similar to it’s predecessor, all the while carrying the soul and feeling of the original with the same level of quality sounds an impossible expectation. Both by those creating it and by those anticipating the finished work. Across the various mediums of art in our modern world, there are many such examples of those that did their previous works justice as are there many such examples that did not.

Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, written by Kazutaka Kodaka, is not only a sequel that for much of its runtime feels inessential, it is one in the medium of video games, a space where “The Law Of Sequels” isn’t just an option, but an expectation. Is bigger better? Is it smarter? Do the big pieces fit together the same as when they were smaller? The audience and publishers of video games often don’t bother to ask these questions. It’s an unfortunate expectation that has existed within its medium for decades as technology rapidly improved, budgets grew further, it only made sense both creatively and financially.

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc was a laser focused game. A masterclass in audio design and narrative intrigue, the story of Hope’s Peak Academy’s killing game, with sadistic remote-controlled teddy bear Monokuma trapping gifted students in the academy and pitting them against each other in a “murdering-for-freedom” spectacle was not only an artistic triumph in many regards but was also a global cultural phenomenon. It could be taken as self-contained brilliance, leaving enough open for interpretation with it’s many narrative threads, but with success like this a sequel was all but inevitable.

Danganronpa 2 is conceptually a smart idea for the type of sequel that would work in a series such as Danganronpa. Rather than a pure narrative sequel focusing on the survivors in the aftermath of the original killing game, a new killing game, a new protagonist, new students, in a brand new location set within the universe of the original. In this case, Hajime Hinata, who finds himself and his peers stranded on the uninhabited Jabberwock Island after arriving at Hope’s Peak Academy. But not by Monokuma, and not to kill each other rather by the pink and white, cheerier and kinder stuffed rabbit Monomi, with the expectation that they will live in harmony and work together.

Of course this is all just a false flag set up to allow Monokuma a dramatic re-entrance and begin the killing game as we remember from the original. Memories wiped, prior relationships between students erased as a result, and the intrigue can begin.

The original Dangranronpa was conveyed through first person view, with the exception of the class trials and certain cutscenes, which not only lended itself well to the immersion of the kind of story Dangranronpa wants to tell it also enhanced the environmental atmosphere and feeling of seclusion and austerity of the circumstances creating a sense of suffocation, being held against your will in the enclosed space of Hope’s Peak Academy. 

Concessions had to be made as the impossibility of rendering the entire Jabberwock Island and its surrounding areas in a first person exploration environment were just not possible on the technology available and budget allocated. So only certain areas are explorable in this perspective with the rest of the island being traversable through a side scrolling perspective with each major location and sub location being available as you pass by. Not only does this damage the personal inhabitation of Hajime as a character, it also makes it feel less like an area and more like a menu you select from, and as stylized as that menu might be, it is of genuine harm to the experience and fantasy.

The size of Jabberwock Island damages the emotional direction of the experience by being too big to ever feel like it has a sense of cohesive place and by not spending enough time in each respective location before the story and tenets of game design dictate that you must move on. We never get a chance to feel connected to a certain area with the exception of the hotel and restaurant area. Hope’s Peak Academy was a singular connective location that not only felt lived-in with its own personal history but also felt like it was being lived in by the participants of the killing game with enough revisitation to previous rooms and areas to allow its presence and personality to be felt. Jabberwock Island feels as large as an ocean and as deep as a puddle, without the soul and pain of its forebear to feel important as a location.

It is entirely possible that Masafumi Takada, the game’s composer, was busy with other work at the time and could only contribute a few new tracks for Danganronpa 2. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that the sequel reuses almost all of the tracks from its predecessor. Musical overlap in series is understandable to a degree as it helps to create a cohesive identity for the soundtrack of a series. But to the extent that Danganronpa 2 borrows from its older sibling, not only does this rob Jabberwock Island of having its own unique soundscape, it cheapens the impact that many of those songs had in relation to Hope’s Peak Academy as a setting. The original Danganronpa had a very consistent direction with when to deploy its music and subverting those expectations created with the previous consistency for narrative stingers and twists to brilliant effect. The haphazard implementation of the tracks in Danganronpa 2 contributes to the scattered feel of the game as a whole.

The overarching narrative does go for a different suspenseful direction which is much appreciated. Rather than the “who is the mastermind” drive of the original, Danganronpa 2 tries to create a larger focus multiple smaller-scale tensions in other ways with the relationships between students and their forgotten pasts, restrictions in environments and communications. But there is no real over-arching mystery until the final third of the game. The original had a sinister, sadistic, downright creepy tone to it. The desperation of the characters to not only unmask Monokuma but to get back to the outside world was a constant driving force. There was constant sneaking around the academy, sworn to secrecy, speaking in hushed tones, lest the mastermind see or hear us and see us through the ever-present surveillance cameras. Each discovery peeling back a layer of the mystery. That sense of mystery is something that Danganronpa 2 just doesn’t seem interested in. Focusing more on the class trials themselves than the identity of Monokuma/Monomi, their ultimate motives, or what Jabberwock Island is. The class trials themselves being twice as long, including new mini games, some of which are great (skateboarding), others of which are not (Hangman’s Gambit “Improved”). 

The Future Foundation and the shadowy “World Ender” organization allegedly responsible for the killing games isn’t even kept from the students themselves. A huge secret of the original Danganronpa uncovered by the survivors of the original killing game, is information just given to the new students that they wouldn’t have known otherwise. It almost feels like it’s given for the sake of the player rather than the students themselves. Other than Monomi who feels like she is just there to be a punching bag for Monokuma both physically and verbally the new students are all well written and well-realized for the most part. A wider-range of people for a different kind of exploration than previously done. They interact with each other in a unique manner amongst each other with complexity and individuality.

My interpretation of Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair is that it is about how art imitating life should not be a pillar for a healthy society. Certain sects of society are predisposed to utilize artistic creation in the most surface level and unintended ways, contrary to the artists original intent. Rather than seeing the morals and messages art wishes to convey, they boil it down to its most surface level explorations and base depictions. These are vessels and modes of exploration, not encouragement of the acts that we see in our art that is denoted as “cool” and “fun” while being applied to a fantasy with no consequences within their respective fictions. The more we try to emulate the most misanthropic elements of art the more miserable we will be.

And with all of that being said, I like Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair and think you should play it. Huh? Didn’t expect that? Was it something I said? 

Even as I objectively look at it as inferior to its predecessor, it’s hard not to see what it does well, what it does better than any other game series I’ve yet played. Even a “lesser” Danganronpa still has me on the edge of my seat, wanting to see what’s next, what it all means, constantly scratching at that “one more episode” itch we all know. Kazutaka Kodaka’s ability to create intrigue and suspense is a special talent. Slipping in a piece of narrative dessert when you least expect it. Getting to a new location after finishing a class trial is done with equal anticipation and dread as the characters try to figure out what it is, why it’s here, and what it means as it pops into the screen. The strength of its concepts and conventions give it a quality that very few first experiences of works of art could ever hope to match.