Top Ten Reasons Why Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is Better Than Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair
While I believe that DR2 is better than DR1 in general, they both have their own aspects which are better than the other. I have released this list at the exact same time as one that will be titled Top Ten Reasons Why Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair is better than Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc.As always, spoilers everywhere since it's talking about Danganronpa.
The second game being on a gigantic tropical island kind of took away from the urgency and importance of the situation for me. On the other hand, the first game really felt like you NEEDED to get out this minute. This was also aided by Monokuma constantly talking about the outside world etc. Your characters can't even see the sun inside Hope's Peak Academy.
While the second game had its own charm, the first game is what I consider to be one of the most stylish games ever. Everything has been made to look like some kind of weird, psychedelic comic book, with bright, vibrant colors everywhere, including in the main school halls. The second game had a much more generic feel to it.
Every time a class trial ended or I found a new area, I would get extremely excited about what new clues I would uncover as I slowly pieced together the overall mystery. The second game didn't give me this same sort of feeling when I found something new.
I found many of the motives in the second game to be stupid as it forced people to kill rather than giving them the choice. If not this, it felt a lot like each motive was built for a specific person, making it feel much more targeted. The game from the second trial is an example of stupidity in the latter category, as only a select few people would actually be affected. The despair disease was also total garbage on essentially every level.
In the second game, Monokuma could get quite annoying at times. In the first game, there was never a time where Monokuma didn't say something golden.
In this game, when I was told that the entire school had been opened, I was unbelievably excited. I could finally go to all of these places that remained locked for so long. The gradual drip-feeding of the clues also was much better paced than the massive exposition wall that the second game had.
I honestly think that some of the SDR2 executions suck. For example, Teruteru's execution is slightly comical and makes use of the island setting, while an execution like Leon's or Kaede's is brutal, shocking, and completed with great scenery that makes sense.
The executions were much better designed, both in terms of making them horribly brutal and being ironic. The second game had a lot of them where it would be a single blow, and they were dead.
The library was used many times for its archive. The pool area was both a central part of trial 2 and where Hiro was found in chapter 3. The Rec room was both where a fake-out attack in chapter 3 occurred and where the death of chapter 4 took place. Even the garbage room was used more than once. All in all, the school building felt much more connected than the islands did.
Simply put, I really dislike Monomi. I found her extremely annoying, and she added nothing to the story other than cheap gags.
A small point that annoyed me in DR2 was the 2D side-scrolling navigation. As said, small, but still annoying.
Yeah, Hiyoko is the worst. Just the fact that she isn't in this game makes it a lot better.