(Wrote on episode 1 realease. Might or might not update after other episodes release)
Gameplay:
In addition to usual debate mechanic it borrows from DR, there's also a card game from editable deck that you can also manage outside of trials and enhance with cards you get from relationships. My real problem with the card game is that I got rules explained at start of the game - hours before I needed to really use it - and I don't see any option to reference them ever since. I understand DR's concept of game-ifying winning a heated argument, but these card games just make it a bit too grindy and seemingly RNG-heavy to fulfill same function well. They're getting you out of flow of the discussion. I feel it'd serve well if these games were rebalanced to be winnable much faster, but maybe I should just change difficulty here (I was on normal). I find it rather amusing yet annoying that color matching is a big part and weakness are the opposite of what you expect from most games (Red beats Blue, Green beats Red etc.) but maybe that's on purpose and reference is on screen.
Unexpectedly some other minigame got a bit worse. There's a Donkey-Kong like which seems fine but rather pointless, and there's the "Hangman Gambit"-alike which was horrible in DR games as well. Here it takes form of Galaga-like minigame which I was hopeful for, but I took 2 5-minute attempts to spell a word I knew just because ship with one letter wouldn't ever spawn, and when it spawned it flew away immediately - that's horrid. HG is a bad idea and always has been but if it has to be here it should be adjusted to not leave player with ever having option to close everything within a minute. After this struggle next Galaga game I cleared in 30 seconds just because letters were coming, so it's not just me being unable to aim.
Game desperately needs a compendium to reference for rules of card game at least, possibly for other tutorial info and summary of events leading up to the trial.
Audio:
Music is great! Ambient adds a bit to the horror of game which seems to be vibe it aims for. I can't judge voice acting that well, but it feels competent to me as well.
Story:
I'm not going to spoil mystery of first trial as I can't put spoiler tags here, so suffice to say it's comparable to other first-trial-mysteries of DR games. I did enjoy worldbuilding much more than these games though - it's a bit easier to take this game seriously, with it being unafraid to make analogies to real world countries and happenings. After listening to few analog horror like materials them incorporating real events grounds the story and makes it way more engaging, at least for me. At least I don't have to listen about hope and despair. So far. That said game gives you lot of interesting plot hooks about what is happening, so I'm a bit concerned if it won't be predictable in the long run.
Technical:
On technical side of the things. I might be playing on out of date version at the time of writing, for sure things are being patched now:
- I actually got stuck in a wall twice and unable to move. Once I was next to NPC I could start dialogue with and it freed me. Other time it was without any NPCs and I had to reload.
- Saves don't save in the moment, they save from latest checkpoints. It's easy to get to that point by spamming space, but still.
- Not sure if it's even possible to save in trial except in mid when it prompts you. If it is , game should be clearer about it.
- Log doesn't seem to contain debate text. It's also rather slow to scroll up.
- Weird controls. In the way, it supports mouse for pointing stuff, but doesn't really support mouse for ie. menus.
- Dialogue continuing after I get to menu. I think this is fixed on steam already, but in general, it'd be nice to get chance to pause debate and look at evidence, which I couldn't.
Also, think it should be clearly marked as "Early access"/"In development" GOG flag, dev is transparent about it but I don't see it marked like ie. on Scarlet Hollow page. It's a must have because of only prologue and episode 1 being there at time of writing.
Finishing thoughts:
I wouldn't say it's worse than Danganronpa as judged right now - episode to episode - but it sure is super super super similar to it. If DR was a nintendo franchise I'd expect them to start acting like with Palworld. Not that I believe it'd be in any way fair or justified, by it's really similar in both aesthetics and gameplay and partially story (not so much in worldbuilding, so far). Round trial room with cardboard cutouts as characters, annoying sadistic mascot, identical debate mechanic, group of narrowly talented weirdo kids in closed circle death game. I'd say this game changes from DR games a bit more than they change from each other, but only when it comes to story/worldbuilding part. Otherwise it could be easily part of DR franchise.
But, if you like Danganronpa-s and extra analog horror part is an appeal, then nothing wrong with it in the end. Formula works, and copyrighted designs are not part of it. I just hope it fixes technical issues (maybe even actually cover some of DRs weaknesses here) and strikes out to surprise us with things DR never did, and my bet's on the story part.
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