anyway so i see we had a discussion of danganronpa! the answer is that v3 is the only good danganronpa game and the other two are case studies in how to completely and utterly squander every aspect of a compelling premise and trash everyone’s goodwIll through the sheer offensiveness of a lot of the writing
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i cannot forgive danganronpa 1 because case 1-2 is both an absolutely atrocious murder mystery and deeply offensive to like five social groups for no good reason
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v3 is also offensive to be clear but it’s less egregiously homophobic, transphobic and ableist than the first two games, and at least it has an actual story with a message that isn’t just “some people are ontologically evil”, which fully is the message of the first two danganronpa games
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it’s honestly a fascinating phenomenon, because DR as a premise is literally bsaed around the notion that any person could commit murder if the circumstances were apt, but the only explanation they can provide as to why those circumstances would ever arrive is “there is an ontologically evil woman who thinks that anguish is Good for No Reason”
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it’s like the writers feel the need to pull their punches and instead of making a story about how there’s no such thing as a person who is fundamentally good or fundamentally evil, only how people react to the circumstances they’ve been put in. a story about how the competitive nature of schools pits our young against one another. a story about how anyone could do the unthinkable if they believed that otherwise freedom and happiness would be taken from them forever.
that’s a pretty radical premise! a well-written Danganronpa game would necessarily have to ask the audience to forgive every one of the murderers. but what’s fascinating is that the writers are so unwilling to confront that it is the actions of other people that create those circumstances, that this fundamental olive branch would have to extend, to an extent, to the people who organised the killing game.
and then suddenly we’re back to the only reason why someone would do something bad is because they’re crazy.
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also the second case in the series is an explicitly and visciously transphobic murder that is played almost entirely for laughs. which is only even a mystery because it relies on the most important witness destroying evidence for no justified in-character reason whatsoever
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don’t even get me started on the Remnants of Despair. Everyone views that plot point as pure shock value, and yeah, it’s mostly that, but there’s so many more reasons why that shit sucks
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danganronpa is in a continual war against its’ own premise due to the reactionary values of its’ writers. if i’m well enough to finally get to actually writing i’m going to write an essay about that at some point, because i have so much to say about it
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I remember Byakuya says after the fact that he saw the murderer leaving the scene and that he would’ve brought it up if the group decided to vote him.
Which, as we all know, is the best way to convince people to believe you.
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me when i have a red check but i only out it when i’m getting cfd’ed at eod
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And in ELo, no less.
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There are so many plotholes in how did we get from X to Y that I pity the characters for being designed that way.
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I heard the term “debate and switch” recently to describe the trope of having a villain that has a compelling motivation and takes actions that are consistent with that motivation until the back third where the writers don’t want to actually answer the difficult questions asked, and instead have the villain start twirling their mustache and laughing maniacally.
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A similar term that applies to serials was “status quo and switch” where they do something similar of asking big and complicated questions, but because one answer would require the status quo to change, the side that maintains the status quo must be the side that wins and its victory will be contrived if it has to be. Or it’ll just remain unanswered and it’ll stop being mentioned because it’s inconvenient and everyone forgot about it.
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No, I don’t. That was the point of my inquiry.
my current top 5 are (in order)
NOIDZ Starlivht
ENA: Dream BBQ
Half Life Alyx
Rhythm Heaven Fever
Celeste
my least favorite game of all time is
Hey! Pikmin
bc i hate everything that game stands for
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I do not.
That said, my only experience was attempting to play it on my parents’ Tesla and having my guy collapse from exhaustion on the first day.
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https://sudokupad.app/1b5cbkdv10
24:25
https://sudokupad.app/vr66xu0u8o
06:52 | Site to check solution.
danganronpa is a creative writing exercise into how many interesting concepts one can simultaneously fumble the execution on
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I guess more detailed thoughts below:
Ash Rants About Games He Likes
Link’s Awakening was very much a “right time of life” kind of game. Its themes about change and Link’s refusal to live in a dream hit very hard for 10th grade me, especially during COVID.
RDR2 is my contender for “greatest video game of all time”. Just an absolute masterpiece of a game.
Persona is just my kind of series. I like Metaphor’s story better, but P5R’s social calendar system is better and thus beats it out.
The Last of Us games are very good. Part I is extremely well-executed, and Part II takes some insane risks that really worked for me. I don’t think I can compare them all that well? Gun to head, Part II over Part I.
I am normally a story gamer. Neon White is the biggest exception to this. Story is not my thing, but the gameplay is just cocaine. Such an amazing game.
The Case of the Golden Idol takes Return of the Obra Dinn’s trailblazing formula and sharpens it to near perfection. Play this game.
A Piece of Blue Glass Moon is very, very good. I really like this game. I should replay it at some point.
Baba is You is made by an evil man. Some of these puzzles are pure evil.
Pokemon Black and White V2 was my first Pokemon game and thus has a lot of good memories for me. But upon reflection, I think Pokemon X&Y beats it out for me? That game is objectively worse but makes up a significantly larger section of my Pokemon obsession.
Honkai Star Rail is a weird game to talk about. I have an enormous number of issues with the game, but I’ve also sunk enormous amounts of time into it, more than…probably any other game I’ve ever played? It draws inspiration from a lot of things I really enjoy and has a lot of passion put behind it, but it fails to reach its full potential at many turns and is undercut by the looming shadow of its monetization system.
On one hand, it feels like it shouldn’t be near my top list, but on the other hand, it feels like I’d be horrifically remiss not to keep it somewhere up there.
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