Recent reviews by JavaSuave

Pouring one out for all my ESL homies out there

PROS:
The gas tanks explode big and fly around and that's pretty cool

Doing what EA hasn't been able to for a decade

Yeah

FEDERAL AGENT!!!!

Ultimately, I will never discourage someone from playing V3. I think if you are a fan of the franchise, you should absolutely play it for yourself. However... well let's just jump into it
(btw, I won't be spoiling anything that isn't presented to you in the beginning of the game until the latter half of this review)

What I liked

I believe that Team Danganronpa had some killer ideas in this one that were shown some serious love. In terms of game-play, Hangman's Gambit is finally decent, the addition of Mass Panic Debates is genuinely a pleasure, and you can LIE IN DEBATES!! How cool is that!? These make for some interesting non-stop debate segments that can truly make you experiment with different ideas and mechanics. From a design standpoint, this game looks absolutely brilliant imo. The environments are interesting, the addition of ultimate student labs is really cool, some of the characters are unique and fun to look at... there's a lot artistically that I love about this one.

Something that I'm not sure I could describe but that any fan of the games will know what I'm talking about is the charm these games have. There's something so lovingly cheesy and cliche yet new and fresh in this franchise. I couldn't put my finger on what precisely but this game has it (To a point).

Overall, I think V3 takes the best of what the Danganronpa series has had to offer and kicks it up a notch. Unfortunately, the reverse is true which means...

What I didn't like

Like I just said, while this game makes the best better, I believe it also makes the worst worse. Let me explain

This franchise has never been perfect by any means. There have been plot-holes in some of the trials, the dialogue can drag on for q u i t e a long time, resolutions not being as satisfying as they were built up to be, characters being unlikable or bland, and the list goes on. We see those flaws flourish in this title.

For starters, the trials REALLY drag on in this one. It makes you wish you could just yell the answer to the characters instead of waiting for everyone to spout repetitive dialogue and claim that "that's impossible!' for the 17th time. Not to say that the trials aren't engaging or even fun at times but they really could have been trimmed down in my opinion. As usual with these games, set aside anywhere from 90 minutes to nearly 4 HOURS for the trials. Ye be warned, save yer game.

Next up is the characters and I wanna clarify up front that there's a few characters I really truly enjoy in this game and that much of this is PURELY SUBJECTIVE. I believe Kokichi is perhaps one of the best written characters in the entire franchise. He, Korekiyo, Gonta, Keebo, and Rantaro (albeit brief in his appearance) make up the only characters I truly love in this game. The female cast in this one is super weak compared to the previous games, and Shuichi is by far the least enjoyable protagonist. Between his slow, slightly annoying writing to his voice actor (god bless the guy but he just was not doing it for me), I relished in the time I got to play as Kaede. The main crux of my issues with the majority of the cast in this one is that they come across as if the writers didn't have an idea for what they wanted a specific character to be past their talent/maybe one specific character trait (Tenko, Kirumi, Angie) or that they knew what they wanted but didn't commit to it hard enough (Ryouma, Himiko, Tenko again). This contrasting against a character like Kokichi or Korekiyo that was written SO well and voice cast PERFECTLY is really really weird to see play out, especially as they interact in the trials.

"Goodbye Danganronpa"

Finally I really really wanna talk about the ending to this game which is what most people go back and forth on. So the tl;dr of the ending is that everything across the entire franchise of games and anime was complete fiction, made to entertain the people of a very normal and peaceful Earth. Clearly this more or less takes a 'ol stinky doo doo on everything we've come to love up to this point. The true mastermind of this particular "Season" of Danganronpa (Which turns out is 53, the V in V3 actually being a 5) seems to be kind of a stand in for the writers and creative minds behind these games, with everything becoming extremely meta, extremely quick. On one hand, the dialogue can be interpreted to express an attitude of anger and resentment from the writers against the fans for practically forcing them to continue a franchise that they wanted to be done with. The big finale is a revolt against the "fans of Danganronpa". Kind of an ouchie. On the other hand, the ending dialogue and twist may be the only real way to throw another wrench into what we've already come to expect from these games. Thinking about it from the perspective of, "How are they going to top the two previous endings" makes the route they chose make a lot of sense. I believe it is a mix of both, actually. The writer's definitely seemed unhappy with the fact that they were forced to create another killing game, but seemed to use that very idea as the crux of their ending. Kind of cool from a writing perspective. In the end, this ending was the best way for the writers to elave the franchise behind and they chose to go with it regardless of what people thought about it. Was it good? Was it bad? I don't really know, to be honest. But it left me with enough thoughts that I wrote this review. So that's gotta count for something at least.

"So In the End"

TL;DR, this game improved on the things that were good about Danganronpa THH and GD and worsened the things that were bad. If you're a fan of the franchise, you definitely owe it to yourself to play it (but maybe wait for it to go on sale lmao). Cheers to the writers of this one for ending the series the way they wanted.

Fast animations are nice until your opponent suddenly has 26 attack and 14 crystals

An EXTREMELY faithful remake of an incredible classic for the PS2. Whether you played this game growing up or you've never played it before, I cannot recommend this game enough. Please give it a play if you EVER have the opportunity