Of those 5 million units shipped, more than half (roughly 3 million) have sold on PC. Of those 3 million, Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc and Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair have each sold over a million units on the platform.

With Danganronpa Decadence launching for the Nintendo Switch on December 3, that number will likely see a boost in the near future. The collection will include the three mainline games, alongside the new board game-style title Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp. Upon launch, all four games can also be purchased separately via the Nintendo Switch eShop.

Spike Chunsoft also says it plans on “further expanding the Danganronpa franchise with games in various genres and more.”

Master Miller – Metal Gear Solid

Infiltrating deep into Shadow Moses Island was never a one man operation, since Solid Snake had help from a whole team of support. Though not all of them were what they seemed either, the point of focus here is the memorable moment in the middle of the classic tactical espionage action game where Master Miller, the one you call for gameplay tips suddenly disappears. The trick is that the antagonist of the game, Liquid Snake, had killed Master Miller before the events of the game had even began, and had infiltrated your mission from the start to see every move you made.

The excellent PlayStation Vita exclusive visual novel, DanganRonpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, may be coming to PC soon, as the official Spike Chunsoft account is teasing a Steam release for the game. Given the incredible increased support Steam has seen in the last few years when it comes to Japanese games, and especially visual novels, this seems to be a pretty good move, on the whole.

DanganRonpa is excellent- it’s a story with an outlandish premise, and characters who can come off as caricatures, but with far more to it than these initial impressions may suggest. It pulls the player in with some incredible atmosphere, and a premise for storytelling that is irresistible. It’s basically Persona meets Ace Attorney meets Zero Escape– and it is every bit as good as that description makes it sound.

Hopefully, the release of this one is followed up by the launch of the (infinitely superior) sequel, too. DanganRonpa 2 is in every way an incredible sequel, which also manages to fix a whole lot of problems that exist with the first game’s narrative, and PC players would be missing out if they didn’t get that one, too.

Attention class. Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is about to get steamy! pic.twitter.com/T3QdJ6UzGl

— Spike Chunsoft, Inc. (@SpikeChunsoft_e) January 15, 2016

Considering the incredible story that 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward tell, as well as the high pedigree involved with Danganronpa, you might just trick yourself into expecting something as staggeringly incredible as one of those two games. In that case, you would be very, very disappointed. Danganronpa is good, you see. It’s very good, as a matter of fact. It’s just, considering we’ve had what might just be the very best this genre has to offer, it does feel a little flat after that. Comparing any game to the absolute best in its genre is always a bad idea- after all, shouldn’t each title be assessed on its own merits? But when one considers that this game too is from the same folks who got us the amazing Zero Escape games, the comparison stops being so unfair, and makes a little more sense.

"Danganronpa takes a welcome leaf out of Persona 4's book, by allowing the player to use a handy quick travel system to any part of the school that they might want to. For those who want the immersion that comes with walking around to each part of the school individually, that option is offered too, and you can explore the school fully in a well realized first person mode."

It’s not a favorable comparison to Danganronpa, per se. If you are expecting a story that hits you as hard with some ‘holy fuck!’ moments as Virtue’s Last Reward, and especially 999, did, then you will consider the money spent on buying Danganronpa to be money wasted. But if you just go in expecting something similar, but different enough to at least be appreciated on its own merits, you will enjoy what Danganronpa has to offer.

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is a murder mystery. It uses a trial system similar to Phoenix Wright, and although the anime trope characters and the over the top humor with which it deals with the situation at hand might seem to make light of it, the subject matter the game deals with can often get very serious, very dark, and even very disturbing. In every single case, the only thing between the truth coming out, and it being lost forever, is you and your ability to prove and convey it, and a lot of cases raise the stakes to make it a literal matter of life and death, so that you feel a legitimate pressure on you as the proceedings continue.

Not all of the cases actually carry that kind of weight- notably, the first case, when resolved, will elicit a cry of exclamation from you, and not the good kind either. But by and large, the cases all feel serious and sombre enough, and you feel the weight of the proceedings on you, as you, the ‘Ultimate Lucky Student,’ are charged with investigating what is going on.

Said investigation is carried on by exploring and investigating parts of the Hope Peak Academy, the school where the game takes place. Danganronpa takes a welcome leaf out of Persona 4’s book, by allowing the player to use a handy quick travel system to any part of the school that they might want to. For those who want the immersion that comes with walking around to each part of the school individually, that option is offered too, and you can explore the school fully in a well realized first person mode. As you solve more and more cases, more and more portions of the school open up for you to explore (and these portions need to be investigated for the cases you are confronted with then) in an almost Metroidvania type gated access/reward system.

"On the whole, though, Danganronpa works. It's a unique blend of Persona, Phoenix Wright, and Zero Escape, and while there were instances where I was cringing or rolling my eyes, there were other instances where I felt legitimately invested in the story."

Solving murders is not the only thing you’re doing either. Danganronpa puts a huge emphasis on character interaction and development, allowing you, the player, to buy gifts for people all around the school and unlock what, to use another Persona 4 analogy, can be best termed as ‘Social Links,’ optional sequences that let your character get closer to theirs. All of this character interaction and development is ultimately meaningful and enriches the game experience- you see, in this game, anybody is fair game, and a character that you had come to be close to and appreciate might be found dead the next day. Whereas ordinarily, you would at most feel a detached sense of shock, in Danganronpa, you can feel legitimately sad when someone dies based on how well you knew them.

It’s just as good that the murders and the trials around them are interesting, because the actual school life is rather boring and banal, and if it were all that the game was about, would easily lose your interest. The star of the show in Danganronpa is the character interaction, and the murder trials themselves- I want to say that the murders themselves are exciting, but it’s a very mixed bag there. Some of them are legitimately chilling, but others feel highly contrived. Some of them feel almost insulting to the intelligence (the first batch is particularly guilty of that). And as a rule, how much the murders impact you as a player depends on just how invested you were in the characters involved to begin with.

On the whole, though, Danganronpa works. It’s a unique blend of Persona, Phoenix Wright, and Zero Escape, and while there were instances where I was cringing or rolling my eyes, there were other instances where I felt legitimately invested in the story. I cannot honestly say Danganronpa is the best in its class at all- whether you chose to club it with Phoenix Wright, Persona, or Zero Escape- it’s not, and next to those three behemoths, it even feels rather average. But then again, I don’t think it should be compared to those three to begin with, except as a point of reference. All said and done, it provides for an entertaining, fun visual novel experience, and anyone who wants an exposition heavy title on their Vita would be best served by picking this one up.

This game was reviewed on PlayStation Vita.