I just finished playing Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony and have to admit that it has, unexpectedly, become one of my favorite games ever.
The first trial absolutely devastated me. I cried for a good half hour while mindlessly pressing "A" on my controller. It's genuinely one of the most crushing twists I've ever come across in fiction, and that dreadful angst stayed with me for the entirety of the game's duration. The stakes are unexpectedly high throughout the entirety of the game and, thanks to the amazing cast and the thorough development it received, it constantly made me acknowledge and ponder the precise circumstances I was finding myself in. I felt truly immersed at every stage of the game.
Now, for the parts I enjoyed a tiny bit less…
The investigations and trials, after the first one, are nothing more than telegraphed. I hardly ever felt any form of catharsis during the culprit reveals, case-relevant mystery unveilments or punishments… they are all relatively straight-forward. Thank goodness for the excellent writing, if not for that, it would've probably gotten humdrum quite fast.
Unfortunately, I cannot freely express my feelings concerning the ending without spoiling anything, just know that the people who claim that the epilogue is badly rendered have most likely missed its point; it's supposed to make you feel conflicted. But that's all I'm going to say.
NOW GO BUY THE GAME AND START PLAYING IT RIGHT NOW
Well then, now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk business. Spoilers from here on out.
[spoiler] Tsumugi's reveal was by far the weakest part of the story. The moment I grasped the fact that she was the mastermind was during the second trial, where she literally makes a bear pun. Then, considering the fact that she made some pretty grim and out-of-context remarks during the first 3 trials while being completely useless for the fourth one, anyone paying the least amount of attention could deduce that she's the one, even though the game cleverly makes you doubt yourself during certain instances.
Also, aside from the Flashback Lights intricacies (which were ultimately the main point, but still), the non-case relevant mysteries were all pretty superficial and void of any meaningful spannung (I guess that Rantaro's backstory was pretty cool, but that's pretty much it).
The final trial though, holy cow…
You start by being engulfed by despair, then slowly you're climbing up towards hope, then… it's all for naught. For a while. But it doesn't end there. Hope and Despair, Truth and Lies, Reality and Fiction, all start entwining and coalescing together into a wonderful Clair de Lune symphony. Even though nothing matters, even though everything is fake, you can CREATE REAL MEANING, and that is simply beautiful.
Not only does DRV3 play harmoniously with these agathokakological themes, but it's also the only piece of media where I've experienced a real 3,5D narrative rendition, which doesn't hedge onto banal metafiction, but boldly breaks that barrier, gifting the players an unparalleled emotion. I'm convinced that the people who disliked this ending have completely misunderstood it, or simply dismissed it as overly pretentious.
While I still find myself overall preferring DR2, DRV3's emotional ending is unmatched and comes very close to its prequel. [/spoiler]
