Bombastic visual novel Danganronpa is an engaging set of mysteries, but its art, surprising writing and eccentric characterisation are its strongest points. Long-time mystery gamers might find the puzzles lacking, but those looking for lighter puzzling and a thrilling story will find a lot to enjoy.

Fifteen students have been assembled at a school for the gifted and talented, but they are soon coerced into taking part in a sort of battle royale. Any undetected murderers are allowed to leave, but if you're found guilty in a Class Trial, you die. It's all overseen by a horrible little teddy bear called Monokuma, whose only goal is to inflict as much misery on our heroes as possible. A malevolent, chubby cartoon bent on making life hard for society's "elites" is the kind of populist hero the West is crying out for, but cruelly painted as the villain in this Japanese game.

While Monokuma drums up motivation for the next murder, you explore the school in a first-person point-and-click fashion. In "Free Time" you can play the game's ironic Dating Sim element, revealing information about characters through the power of friendship. Dating is important because it adds some texture to the archetypes the students are introduced as, but you still can't get a full picture of most characters in a single run through the game. The object of your affections will likely up and die on you, but a left-field post-game mode will let you belatedly flesh them out. Some are more bearable than others - and some exhibit tropes which might get disapproving looks from a creative writing teacher - but all are highly memorable. While wildly different to each other, they interact in unexpected funny and dramatic ways that also play into the story. Especially in Class Trials, dialogue is supported by a good deal of variable-quality (at least in English) voice acting.

The surreal black comedy premise is a great vehicle for the writing, which is funny in a range of ways, as well as tense and moving when it wants to be. There's a genuine feeling of being trapped with a bunch of teenagers - not adults in teenagers' bodies, as you often find in anime. The writers aren't shy about tantalising their teenage target audience with some mostly cringe-inducing sexual humour, either. This produced a feeling of reading the comments underneath a dirty Reddit post instead, but these moments aren't too common.

When a dead body is discovered, the Mystery gameplay begins. In Investigations, you click around gathering evidence and crafting it into "Truth Bullets" for later use. Then the Class Trial begins. Here, you listen to students' arguments, then fire one of your Truth Bullets at a phrase which contradicts it. Spotting each contradiction pushes the trial forwards. (At this point, you'll have noticed that the OST is incredible - so catchy that I still put myself at grave risk of series spoilers by replaying it online.) Sometimes you'll need to create a "Flashback Bullet" from one phrase, and shoot it at a phrase which contradicts it. This might be due to the English translation, but it's often unclear which phrases contradict each other. Misleadingly, your Flashback Bullet may come from a phrase spoken later on in the discussion. It was never clear to me whether to "shoot backwards" or "shoot forwards" so even if I was right, it often took two attempts to move the trial on.

These are not the end of Danganronpa's strange creative decisions. Minigames can be confusing, but are introduced with dialogue box text rather than a much more helpful interactive tutorial. A "Re:Action" system interrupts one dialogue sequence with a different one, inducing FOMO about the original dialogue. You can't change difficulty without starting a new game. You need in-game coins just to watch second-long "cutscenes" you've already seen in the story, and they have to be farmed by replaying chapters you've beaten. The first-person camera is at crotch height. I won't spoil them all for you but I wish there was less fixing of game conventions that aren't broken.

The murder plots and surrounding events are inventive, but Investigations spell out 80-90% of how they happened, not leaving you much to think about in Class Trials. The remaining questions can be challenging to wrap up, and to breeze through these you'll need to be the Dating Sim player, remembering character details from sometimes even before the Investigation. All of the above applies to the game's overarching mystery, too. Whatever your selected difficulty, Danganronpa is very forgiving in that it simply restores your health if you run out, and lets you pause and save in 10 different slots at almost any point. Hints are hard to avoid and usually too generous, but I appreciated them in the tougher moments.

Danganronpa is surprising, stylish, accessible and highly enjoyable, ignoring some detrimental design decisions. I think it's earned its hit status and I'm looking forward to the next games.

Bombastic visual novel Danganronpa is an engaging set of mysteries, but its art, surprising writing and eccentric characterisation are its strongest points. Long-time mystery gamers might find the puzzles lacking, but those looking for lighter puzzling and a thrilling story will find a lot to enjoy. Fifteen students have been assembled at a school for the gifted and talented, but they are soon coerced into taking part in a sort of battle royale. Any undetected murderers are allowed to leave, but if you're found guilty in a Class Trial, you die. It's all overseen by a horrible little teddy bear called Monokuma, whose only goal is to inflict as much misery on our heroes as possible. A malevolent, chubby cartoon bent on making life hard for society's "elites" is the kind of populist hero the West is crying out for, but cruelly painted as the villain in this Japanese game. While Monokuma drums up motivation for the next murder, you explore the school in a first-person point-and-click fashion. In "Free Time" you can play the game's ironic Dating Sim element, revealing information about characters through the power of friendship. Dating is important because it adds some texture to the archetypes the students are introduced as, but you still can't get a full picture of most characters in a single run through the game. The object of your affections will likely up and die on you, but a left-field post-game mode will let you belatedly flesh them out. Some are more bearable than others - and some exhibit tropes which might get disapproving looks from a creative writing teacher - but all are highly memorable. While wildly different to each other, they interact in unexpected funny and dramatic ways that also play into the story. Especially in Class Trials, dialogue is supported by a good deal of variable-quality (at least in English) voice acting. The surreal black comedy premise is a great vehicle for the writing, which is funny in a range of ways, as well as tense and moving when it wants to be. There's a genuine feeling of being trapped with a bunch of teenagers - not adults in teenagers' bodies, as you often find in anime. The writers aren't shy about tantalising their teenage target audience with some mostly cringe-inducing sexual humour, either. This produced a feeling of reading the comments underneath a dirty Reddit post instead, but these moments aren't too common. When a dead body is discovered, the Mystery gameplay begins. In Investigations, you click around gathering evidence and crafting it into "Truth Bullets" for later use. Then the Class Trial begins. Here, you listen to students' arguments, then fire one of your Truth Bullets at a phrase which contradicts it. Spotting each contradiction pushes the trial forwards. (At this point, you'll have noticed that the OST is incredible - so catchy that I still put myself at grave risk of series spoilers by replaying it online.) Sometimes you'll need to create a "Flashback Bullet" from one phrase, and shoot it at a phrase which contradicts it. This might be due to the English translation, but it's often unclear which phrases contradict each other. Misleadingly, your Flashback Bullet may come from a phrase spoken later on in the discussion. It was never clear to me whether to "shoot backwards" or "shoot forwards" so even if I was right, it often took two attempts to move the trial on. These are not the end of Danganronpa's strange creative decisions. Minigames can be confusing, but are introduced with dialogue box text rather than a much more helpful interactive tutorial. A "Re:Action" system interrupts one dialogue sequence with a different one, inducing FOMO about the original dialogue. You can't change difficulty without starting a new game. You need in-game coins just to watch second-long "cutscenes" you've already seen in the story, and they have to be farmed by replaying chapters you've beaten. The first-person camera is at crotch height. I won't spoil them all for you but I wish there was less fixing of game conventions that aren't broken. The murder plots and surrounding events are inventive, but Investigations spell out 80-90% of how they happened, not leaving you much to think about in Class Trials. The remaining questions can be challenging to wrap up, and to breeze through these you'll need to be the Dating Sim player, remembering character details from sometimes even before the Investigation. All of the above applies to the game's overarching mystery, too. Whatever your selected difficulty, Danganronpa is very forgiving in that it simply restores your health if you run out, and lets you pause and save in 10 different slots at almost any point. Hints are hard to avoid and usually too generous, but I appreciated them in the tougher moments. Danganronpa is surprising, stylish, accessible and highly enjoyable, ignoring some detrimental design decisions. I think it's earned its hit status and I'm looking forward to the next games.