Game Review | Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls

You first wake up as Komaru Naegi, a self proclaimed normal girl, in a normal looking apartment. However, you immediately find out that she’s a prisoner behind these walls and she’s used to it. As a ritual, she gets fed through a slot adjacent to the front door with a tray full of food, and repeatedly bangs on the door hoping anyone outside can hear her to let her out. No one ever does, until this particular day. After hearing a sound outside, a glimmer of hope races throughout the inside of her body. She quickly runs to the front door and feverishly makes noise, hoping that stranger can hear all the racket. What Komaru doesn’t know is that she isn’t being rescued, she’s about to run for her life. Three Wolverine-like claws pierce through the door coming inches to her eyeballs. A panic sets in as she sees her attacker, a monokuma. A two to three foot robotic bear, black and white, split down the middle, with a red stripe for a left eye, and an evil smile. Like a weirdly adorable terminator. Just like Komaru, I would be confused at first, right before the terror set in.

Let me back track for bit because this is my first Danganronpa game, so in a sense I feel like Komaru because I have no idea what’s going on in this series, as she has no idea what’s going on in her outside world. So while I’ll definitely miss references to previous games, being thrust into this chaos does bring intrigue and mystery to the series as I copiously asked questions from past and present events.

World of Despair

As the story unravels throughout the course of around eighteen hours, in this island town of Towa City, you find out that the children are killing all the adults and they are led by a group called The Warriors of Hope, a name in contrast to the very malicious acts they carry out. There are five of them, each with their own unique personality, but their leader, the green haired Monaca, who sits in a wheelchair, is the most diabolical. Let’s just say, the others are small potatoes compared to Monaca. About an hour in, we find out that they’re in direct control of all the monokumas rampaging throughout the city. These robots attack with reckless abandon violently making mincemeat of any adult in their way. There are bodies and blood everywhere, and even though they are stylized with shades of purple and blue, it’s still a gruesome scene to encounter when you see adults pinned to walls with spears.

The story is told through a hefty amount of cut-scenes. And when I mean hefty, I mean the game is around 60% cut-scenes, all told through traditional anime style, CGI, in-game scenes with dialogue, and painterly sequences that look like cardboard cut-outs in a colorful diorama. Having these different kinds of styles might seem a bit overboard (too many styles), but their placing throughout the course of the game felt just right for each important event that occurred.

The Hacking Gun

Almost at the beginning of the game, Komaru is given what’s called a Hacking Gun by Byakuya Togami, a member of the Future Foundation, who are trying to stop the city’s destruction. The gun essentially resembles a bullhorn, but it shoots out program codes with electro magnetic waves that can disrupt the merciless monokumas. At first, the these waves, known in the game as “truth bullets”, come in the form of break. A damage dealing bullet that will stop a monokuma dead in its tracks, even more so if the shot is placed directly on its weak spot, the red left eye.

As the story progresses, Komaru will be given access to different kinds of bullets that appear on her weapon wheel. For instance she’ll acquire the knock back bullet that are excellent against certain types of monokumas you’ll encounter, in this case, monokumas that carry shields. There’s also the move bullet that manipulates certain objects in the environment like panels, slot machines, and cars. You also have the dance bullet that that let’s the monokumas get their boogie on. There’s a variety of bullets that have different effects, but there is one more interesting “weapon” that helps out Komaru tremendously.

After the Warriors of Hope decide they want to hunt Komaru, placing a bracelet on her that will explode if she tries to leave, she meets a friend on top of a hospital rooftop named Toko Fukawa. She has a split personality named Genocide Jack, and this other half of her is the weapon. At any time in the game after you meet Toko, you can switch to her more scissor-friendly violent side as she cuts up monokumas and hysterically, gives them haircuts using her super move. You might say that Genocide Jack is over powered, and she is, but there’s a limit to her use in the form of a depleting battery. Personally I switch to her when there are more powerful enemies or when they get too close to Komaru.

Puzzles and Upgrades

Once you get to know Toko, it’s time to get into the meat of the game and everything revolves around the hacking gun, even each of the chapter’s bosses. Not only does Komaru use it to destroy monokumas, as she explores the different levels, she also uses it solve puzzles and challenges. Every so often you enter an arcade room adorned with velvety red drapes along the walls, a puzzle room. When Komaru shoots the arcade cabinet with the move bullet, an overhead camera with the room ahead, displays, letting you think up a forthcoming strategy. These rooms have a specific objective that you must follow to successfully complete it. However, you don’t have to follow these objectives. Simply destroying the monokumas in the room one by one is enough, but it will affect your grade at the end of each chapter.

Here’s an example of a puzzle room. One objective was to destroy all the shield monokumas with an explosive monokuma. In order to do that I had sneak behind the explosive monokuma, then use the knockback bullet to catapult it to the shielded ones. Boom, objective complete. There are also challenges scattered about where Komaru must find passwords or keys to get to the next area, which uses your brain a little more, but the puzzle rooms are more prevalent, and more fun personally speaking.

As Komaru’s kills accumulate, she will level up, adding another layer to player progression. You acquire skills by certain books sprinkled across the levels which include more health and precision aiming. The bullets for the hacking gun, along with Genocide Jack, can also be upgraded through stores, curiously owned by kids. Shot power and bullet capacity are some of the attributes affected on the gun side. Battery consumption and longer combos are some upgrades on Jack’s side.

A Crimson Sky

Graphically, Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls, is fairly clean. Yes, there are some dull wall textures here and there and not much detail when it comes to characters, but I honestly enjoy the simple look. It runs really well and that’s what’s most important to me. Throughout Komaru and Toko’s dark journey, they’ll visit ominously empty construction sites, crumbled subway systems, shaky bridges, decrepit sewers and more. Most the game does take place in corridors where sometimes, monokumas jump out at you when you least expect it, along with bodies of slain adults. Some of these bodies are gruesomely displayed, but they’re stylized in shades of purples and blue as I mentioned earlier, so it won’t reach a certain level of gore that might make you turn away. I do have to say though that the blood red sky in the areas where Komaru is exploring outside is phenomenal. Blood has been spilled in these city streets and the fast moving clouds and crimson shade reflect that.

Final Verdict

Danganronpa Another Episode Ultra Despair girls is a dark game. You have an army of monokumas killing adults, with kids showing no remorse for playing with their deceased bodies, characters you meet whose lives are brief, and an almost choking atmosphere of no hope. But throughout it all, the story of Komaru, Toko and the Warriors of Hope are intertwined, and it kept me going. I wanted to know how the duo would fight this ordeal, and after finding out why The Warriors of Hope began this campaign, I did start to feel sympathy for what happened to them, but their response to their pain, became twisted.

Overall Ultra Despair Girls is a pretty entertaining game, there’s just enough meat in there, from weapon upgrades, to character skills that gave it some depth, plus the pacing with the action, and puzzles is nicely balanced, except for a few spots, mainly chapter four that felt like all puzzles. If you enjoy a dark story, competent third person controls and puzzle elements, give the game a shot. I know for me, I’ll definitely try out the previous Danganronpa games because of this one.

The copy of Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls used for this review was supplied to us by its publisher NIS America.