This November, Spike Chunsoft’s wildly popular murder-mystery visual novel game Danganronpa will celebrate its tenth anniversary. The first title in the series, subtitled Trigger Happy Havoc, was released in Japan on November 25, 2010, with an American release first coming on February 11, 2014.
Playing like Phoenix Wright with a sick sense of humor, the story centers around a group of exceptional high school students trapped in a killing game, proctored by the bewildering bear, Monokuma. The only way to escape the game and “graduate” the ironically-named Hope’s Peak Academy is to kill a classmate, enter a class trial of one’s peers, and get away with the murder. Be correctly named as the “blackened,” and face punishment devised by the perverse ursine himself. Escape a guilty verdict and graduate, at the expense of the rest of the class being punished.
Developers Spike Chunsoft have promised a new “Dangan TV” series of updates coming on the third Thursday of every month, during which new developments in the anniversary celebration will be addressed. The first such update was the announcement of English-language mobile versions of all three titles in the main series: Trigger Happy Havoc, Goodbye Despair, and Killing Harmony. No release date has been set for the mobile ports at this time.
The next livestream, slated for May 21st, will feature special guest Megumi Ogata, the Japanese voice actor for Trigger Happy Havoc’s protagonist Makoto Naegi and Goodbye Despair’s Nagito Komaeda. Titled “Danganronpa and I,” the chat will see Ogata discussing the impact of the game on her life and on the gaming world at large.
All of the games are currently available on PC, Playstation Vita, and Playstation 4.
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