This isn't the best Danganronpa game, but it's still surprisingly good. it's definitely not going to be some AAA top tier shooter action game - but i find the gameplay to be quite enjoyable and really liked running around looking for scraps to read and solving the puzzle arcade rooms.
As background, Ultra Despair Girls is set, timeline wise, between Danganronpa 1 and 2, but I think it's crucial to play it in the order it was released instead, which is Danganronpa 1, 2, and then Ultra Despair Girls. This game definitely spoils major plot points of the first game, and by just terminology and hints, as well as certain characters, gives away a some of the mystery in the second game. Since this game was meant to target audience who played Danganronpa 2 at this point, I think it's safe to assume that this game is meant to be played third in line.
Although the gameplay is incredibly different from main titles, this game follows in the same footsteps with the ultra dark humor all around. In certain parts of the story, this game is actually MORE shocking. Certain topics are touched on (though never in detail, this series in general is really amazing at hinting at horrible things without ever actually showing anything), such as sexual and physical abuse of children, that i think may be tough to stomach even with the small amount of hints provided, so beware. This game is NOT for anyone underaged, and i would say not for people who don't know danganronpa's history and the kinds of things that the writers are willing to put in. If you don't think you can handle it, please don't play it!
Like the previous two games, there are tons of cutscenes and dialogue scenes, sometimes 20+ minutes at a time. I would imagine anyone who are thinking of buying this are familiar with the first two games, so you should be well aware of the never ending story cut scenes.
Oh, huge reminder - the base game does NOT come with Japanese voice with english subtitle. However you can download the free Japanese language dlc, which allows you to change to Japanese at the title screen (use Triangle button). That scared the crap out of me because I did NOT want to play a Danganronpa game without original Japanese voices, but thankfully I found out from amazon's question section that there's a dlc to dl. I will say, though, that of the 20 min or so i was forced to listen to the english voice, the main character, Naegi Komaru's english voice was actually surprisingly great, including the little screams that sounded super natural. I did not get far enough to hear Fukawa Toko/Genocide Jack's voice in English though, so i can't say much on that one, but I think for those who really don't want to play it in Japanese (too much reading? for example while running around shooting stuff they're talking, some people may not want to try to read while doing action stuff), the English version may be decent. Still, I'd recommend Japanese voice for sure. :)
The story is great and full of plot twists as per danganronpa, but I'm not sure if the mystery is just less complicated here or if I've gotten used to the mind twistingness of the series in general, but it was relatively easy to figure out what was going on before i got to the ending. Still, I find it very solid and even main plot twist aside, there were all kinds of smaller scale plot twists that I did not see coming. I would rank it third in terms of story in the series, but still really great. Best is obviously danganronpa 2, followed by 1.
Note that the game also comes with an Easy mode for people who just wanted to play for story. I fell in that category (esp as I'm not much of an action shooter horror player myself), and it was fairly easy to get through for the story. I know people commented how easy the game is, especially since you can just switch to Genocide Jack whenever, but I'm honestly very appreciative of having that option. For many people who normally play mystery visual novels (ie danganronpa 1 and 2), the action shooter element may have seemed like a turn off or just very daunting. In my case I played it on easy and was able to make through it without any trouble, so yay! There is also normal and a hard mode, for those who are better at shooter horror-esque games lol.
This isn't the best installment in the series, but i still like how it follows the style and story of the series faithfully. I enjoyed being able to fill in some of the holes between games 1 and 2, and i particularly enjoyed seeing more of Fukawa Toko from game 1, who I didn't like much in game 1, but this game really developed her characterization.
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