Best Class Trials in Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

This one was great one many different levels. The various reveals and twists was great, and having 2 red herrings also got me. Genocide Jack makes her first appearance here, which can't be anything but amazing. The twist about Chihiro being a boy was something that made my jaw drop and Mondo's execution was tragic thanks to the motive. I wasn't even close to guessing who the killer was until near the end.

Despair the whole way. First of all, Chihiro died. Second of all, we learned all of Chihiro's backstory, which explains why he died. Third, Mondo's motive also increased my depression level. Lastly, you have Ishimaru's reaction, which makes everything worse. He was trying to get himself executed instead of Mondo. How is that not sad? Trial 2 just made me cry the whole way.

While a lot of people seem to hate this trial, I found it mostly great with very little wrong. My main issue is the fact that I couldn't care less about Hifumi, so the emotional impact was non existent. Unfortunately for me, they made up for that by killing off Taka about 20 seconds later. The trial itself was great once the obvious part of Hiro not being the killer was taken care of. Celeste really stole the show here and I give props to her voice actor for her performance. The double killing was well thought out in general.

Oh boy, this was intense. The entire trial felt off from the start, with questionable suspects, the disappearance of Kyoko, this new character appearing out of the blue and then dying, everything surrounding it didn't sit right, which is why I love it. Furthermore, the conclusion with the choice was the best moment in the game. Kyoko's execution felt extremely wrong for the sole reason that it obviously wasn't her, and the bad ending you get from it is equal parts off putting and hilarious (Hiro's prediction being right). The fact that the case is also cut short surprised me.

In terms of emotional impact, this case is only beaten by trial 2. The mystery was well thought out and I appreciated the sheer number of suspects. Hina trying to kill everyone is something that surprised me, but at the same time didn't make me hate her. The only issue I had with the trial is that I guessed that it was suicide about a minute into the investigation. If they made it harder to figure out what had happened, I would probably find this to be the best or second best trial, but I guessed it very quickly.

While this was essentially exposition, I found Junko to be an extremely entertaining person to dump all the information. The reveal of the tragedy was something that I had mostly worked out, but the reason for being locked up in the school was a nice moment of realization. The final moments with giving everyone hope, while sort of cheesy, were absolutely awesome. My only problem is that this is mostly exposition with very little else.

I found this to be extremely easy, the characters who got killed off were ones that I really didn't care much about at that point, even if Sayaka's death surprised me. My main issue with this is how easy it was to determine the killer, even if you didn't realise what 11037 meant (I somehow didn't notice until a bit later), you still could easily figure it out thanks to the method of disposal. The other thing about the 11037 was that it could have easily been a red herring by having someone else write the message with Sayake's finger after she died, making the case more complex. That said, it does set the stage for the rest of the game and Leon's execution is one of my favourites in the game.