So now Johnny and Gabor have to fight 1 and 3/4 Valkyries.  Should be fun.

This weekend, I finished Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair for the Vita.  For those unfamiliar, the original Danganronpa is a visual novel that follows a class of high school students with special abilities (Ultimate Baseball Player, Ultimate Programmer, Ultimate Delinquent, etc) and finds them trapped in the school, only allowed to leave if they successfully “graduate,” which can only be done if they successfully murder another student and manage to not be found out in the subsequent trial.  The premise hooked me right away, and I had a lot of fun with the original game, but the ending didn’t sit well with me–my main issue being that the reveal at the end raised a lot more questions than it answered.

The second game follows pretty much the same track, plotwise–without going into spoilers, I feel like the second game had a more satisfying ending, though it still doesn’t quite have that eye-opening moment that some of my other favorite visual novels like 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors or Virtue’s Last Reward had.

The gameplay of the trials can get a little frustrating at times–you occasionally run into the issue of knowing what the next logical inconsistency in the case as presented is, but having no idea how the game wants you to present it, but as a veteran of the Phoenix Wright series, I’ve gotten used to this quirk enough for it not to be a game-breaker.

Overall, if you’re one of the six or so people that actually own a Playstation Vita, I’d recommend this game–there’s not much like it in the Western market, and if people don’t support this kind of thing, it might not make it.  For further reading if you’re interested in visual novels that are available Stateside, my top recommendation goes to 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors (available on DS or iOS devices), its sequel Virtue’s Last Reward (available on 3DS and Vita), and if you want something a little bit quirkier, I really loved Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (available on DS or iOS devices).  Next up on my gaming list, I’m gonna finish up Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy, then move on to Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright.  If you guys have suggestions for stuff I may not have heard of, give me a shout in the comments, I love hearing about new stuff.