Cole Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls Review

My fiancee and I tried to get through this after finishing DR1 in our effort to play (well, watch for her) through the entire series together, especially because she loved Toko in the first game, but after however many months it's been of me trying to force myself through this and finding any excuse not to pick it back up again every time I close it, I just... can't anymore. The story was interesting, I really did try to stick to it for the sake of that and the twists and the narrative connection to the series (I've never met Nagito before, for example, as I've never played the rest of the main games and am relatively unspoiled, so I wanted to see what was up with him here), but it's just not worth it. The controls are excruciatingly awful, as is the camera, the characters are exhausting, the combat is janky, most of the minigames are tedious and repetitive, and the graphics are distractingly bad. Every non-main NPC is just the same two featureless silhouettes copy-and-pasted across the map, and the handling of themes like child abuse, body/facial dysmorphia, mental illness, and sexual assault are cartoonishly offensive. And I didn't even get as far as all the pedophilia stuff. TL;DR Review: Graphics: 2/5 - Passable, but awkward. Any non-major character is simply a copy-pasted featureless silhouette. Characters: 2/5 - Toko is debatably interesting, and Komaru is likeable enough though not very complex, but almost everyone else is either written uncomfortably or pointless. Music: 1.5/5 - Largely ignorable, but some tracks felt actively intrusive and out-of-place. Gameplay: 1.5/5 - Some parts are fine, such as puzzle minigames, but aiming in combat is clumsy and inaccurate and movement is all over the place. Performance: 4/5 - No particular issues. The game felt slow at times, but I think it was just an unfortunate choice rather than unintentional lag. Replay Value: 1/5 - Honestly, it's painful to even think about. From what I can tell and have read, there are no multiple endings or choices to explore here, so regardless not much here.