Microsoft swallowed up all of Tuesday's attention with their plan to buy Activision Blizzard for $69 billion, drowning out even good news of their own. Along with surprise, concern, and bafflement, yesterday brought Game Pass news. Yes yes they do plan to add Actiblizz games to Game Pass while they can, but there's more: 1) the service now has over 25 million subscribers across PC and Xbox; 2) cult classic Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is now on Game Pass. You know, the one with the weird bear and the murdergames.
]]>For those of us who love gaming and reading, visual novels represent the best of both worlds, which is why we've put together this list of the 10 best visual novels you can play on PC right now. The term "visual novel" is a broad church. You can tell almost any story in this medium, which means most visual novels are a lot like regular novels in that sense. Romance and mystery are among the more popular genres, but search for "visual novel" on your favourite PC gaming storefront and you'll find a bit of everything, really (especially once you've filtered out all the adult games). So sit back and relax with one of our best visual novel recommendations. The only critical damage you're likely to take from these games are to your emotions — but that can be painful too, so don't say I didn't warn you!
]]>It's the first day of Golden Week in Japan, and while that may not mean much to those in English-speaking territories, it's one of the nation's biggest holidays. As Valve never miss an excuse for a sale, that means that there's some great deals on games from Japanese developers and publishers. If visual novels, fighting games or JRPGs are your thing, there's some good stuff at slashed prices today. Here's the official sale highlights page, you can see all the current week-long deals here, and a handful of personal picks below.
]]>It translates, roughly, as ‘bullet refute’. Danganronpa, that is. Which makes more sense than it sounds, as the game is about taking part in murder trials and literally shooting truth bullets at lies as they spill out of suspects’ mouths. It’s not enough to say “If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit”; the glove has to be loaded into the chamber and fired through a tangle of distracting words to hit the fib you want to destabilise. It’s a bizarre hybrid of Ace Attorney and Time Crisis, then; a game that feels life-and-death murder trials aren’t already exciting by default. It is quite odd.
]]>When you hear the words “battle royale”, most people in 2018 immediately think of the trigger-happy Plunkbat or the cheery Fortnite. But a decade ago, those same words only evoked bleak battles between crying teens, fought on the black-and-white pages of a manga -- a Japanese comic.
Art doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Creators absorb ideas and translate them to different mediums, in a web of cross-influences and contaminations. That’s why to understand the rise of battle royale games, we must start from the cult manga Battle Royale.
]]>Villain monologues: forever a trope to make the eyes roll. I tend to skip through them as quickly as I can, waiting my inevitable escape. I don’t enjoy self-aware villain monologues either; they’re even worse because the villains know that they’re clichéd yet they do it anyway. I'd prefer it if they just immediately murdered me instead.
Danganronpa, a visual novel/detective adventure in which a sadistic cyber-bear drives teenagers to murder each other, takes this trope and spins it on its head. Ursine villain Monokuma’s monologue doesn’t occur during the climactic scene of the game; instead, it occurs throughout, in segments known as “Monokuma Theater”. Ever wanted to know what chatting with a psychopath over drinks would be like? Monokuma Theater is for you.
]]>Bear with me if you've heard this one before: Danganronpa [official site] is a game about teenagers locked in a high school, driven to murder one another by a robotic bear. A tale as old as time. The eye-catching premise partly explains how the series has captured the attention of even those who would shy away from the majority of visual novels.
The third game comes to Steam today, having a simultaneous console and PC release for the first time, and its predecessors are rated 'overwhelmingly positive' by PC players. But what is the secret to the success of these bizarre hybrids of social sim and murder investigation? Class is in session and today's lesson is Danganronpa 101.
]]>That rapscallion robot bear Monokuma is at it again, imprisoning more schoolchildren in a school and forcing them to play a life-and-death game of murder and mystery-solving in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony [official site]. Developers Spike Chunsoft have now confirmed that yup, the next in their adventure-o-visual novel will indeed be coming to PC too. While past Danganronpa PC versions have followed a while after their western console releases, this one will arrive on the very same day: September 26th. Peep this trailer:
]]>Both of Spike Chunsoft's Danganronpa wacky horror visual novels arrived on PC earlier this year, escaping through the portal from Consoleland, and now their spin-off is following too. Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls [official site] is quite different to those other two, mind. While they were murder mysteries with trapped students investigating killings incited by a robobear, Ultra Despair Girls is more of a third-person shooter. It may be even weirder? If you consider a city overtaken by an army of murderous robobears so children can live without adults weird.
]]>Danganronpa 2 [Steam page] is a game about students killing one another because a teddy bear tells them to. They're on an island rather than in a locked-down school building because this is a sequel. New game, new environment. If you've played the first game, you'll have a good idea of what to expect - lots of conversations, occasional investigation scenes when someone does a murder. Think Phoenix Wright but replace the judicial system with a bizarre and sinister setup that's more like And Then There Were None than Battle Royale. It's out now.
]]>It feels like just last month we were telling you about the PC release of Spike Chunsoft's part murder mystery, part visual novel spectacle Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, doesn't it? Hang on a second, it was just last month! Despite having been previously released on both the PSP in Japan in 2012, and on the PS Vita in 2014 in the west, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair [official site] is now scheduled to arrive on PC on April 18 - just two months after its forerunner touched down on Steam. Here's a trailer:
]]>Fifteen students are trapped inside a school and told they may only leave if they murder another student and can get away with it. As one of the students, Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc [official site] will have players investigating each murder, searching for clues, interviewing people, and trying to win folks over to catch the killers. That's a fine premise that, isn't it? Then people see the evil anime teddy bear and are often a bit put-off. But wait! I've heard great things about Danganronpa from folks who played it on PlayStation Vita, and today the game arrived on PC.
]]>Whenever I hear someone talking about the bizarre brilliance of the Danganronpa games [official site] I'm tempted to stick my fingers in my ears and run as far away as possible. The only current English language release is on the PlayStation Vita, a device just below pocket spiraliser on the list of things I'm likely to buy at any point in the near future, but the first game in the series is coming to Steam next month. Hurrah! Part visual novel, part crime scene investigation, the game is about an elite academy in which the only way to survive is to murder a fellow student, cover your tracks and escape justice.
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