Not the summer camp I want to go to.
What They Say:
With an all-star dream lineup of characters from each Danganronpa game, gather Hope Fragments at a tropical resort. Explore Jabberwock Island and develop your Dangan characters. Gather money through battle and upgrade your equipment, then defeat bosses and move on to the next island!
Content:
A new Danganronpa is a momentous occasion for one of the best visual novel series of all-time, but, unfortunately, Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp is not quite the game to cut it. A spin-off title that takes the main characters of the three mainline games as well as Ultra Despair Girls, it had all the chances to be a fantastic alternate storyline.
My main issue with the game is the fact that it focuses on a board game aesthetic that is both its main asset and its most obvious issue. The general idea is to take away all of the gritty, pink-blooded murders and courtroom battles, and give us a story that is all about these characters finally having the relaxing summer vacation they deserve.
However, not really as the characters have to contend with a board that is filled with enemies to take down on the Danganronpa 2’s setting of Jabberwock Island. Players roll the dice each turn and, in a nice little bit of quality-of-life, allows the player to choose how they progress across the board.
There are various squares all over the island, including squares with enemies to fight, leveling squares for leveling up your current character, event squares, and more. There is a nice variety of squares to land on, with the event squares being the most lucrative as it brings about the strongest part of the game: the characters.
Seeing golden opportunity moments like Junko chatting about random things with Tsugumi, or Naegi meeting up with Nagito are awesome, but extremely brief scenes that are nice fan fiction at least. That said, the brief but numerous event scenes are few and far between at times in the board game.
Outside of landing on those, players will continuously do seemingly endless turns of rolling the dice and fighting in the very simplistic turn-based battles. It gets old really fast and that was before I was done with even the second character in the lengthy list. Grinding through all of them is quite the intense chore and the worst part is that the events do not necessarily make it all worth it since the novelty runs out quickly.
The main story, too, is light and not something that will even slightly compare to what the past games were able to accomplish. It does not help, either, that the art for the characters and environments are fairly old at this point and starting to show their age. With all of that said, though, diehard fans looking for something to satiate their appetites or fuel some new fanfics online, it might be worth checking out.
Though much of the content is repetitive and simplistic, there is no doubting the sheer breadth of content that is available. From grinding the levels and event scenes for every single main character across the four games in the series to the other side game modes, there is a lot to keep you busy, which is fantastic given the fairly cheap price.
Other Danganronpa Decadence Games:
While this review is focused on Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp, it is worth mentioning that Danganronpa Decadence is a collection on Nintendo Switch with the previously mentioned game as well as the three mainline titles. These three games are still iconic, even if, again, the art and characters are showing a bit of lack of detail these days, especially with the first two.
Even still, the original Danganronpa is a gateway into this wild and interesting world of ultimate high schoolers trying to off one another and get away with it. Danganronpa 2, on the other hand, ups the ante with a better selection of characters, bigger twists, and the single greatest case in the history of the series. And then there is Danganronpa 3, which will likely stand the test of time as the best in the series and one of the greatest visual novels to ever come out. With the consistently fantastic and best group of characters and truly brilliant twists, it is well worth checking out for the first time or once again in this collection.
In Summary:
Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp is not quite the triumphant return to this series that I wanted to play. Set in a far too happy alternate storyline that is mainly focused on creating fan moments, it does not do enough to be a worthy new game. While the fan moments are quite interesting when they happen, they do little to help with the repetitive nature of the boardgame that is the crux of the title and the too simplistic turn-based battles. That said, if you enjoy the series and want more, you will certainly find it here with an impressive amount of content for its price tag.
Grade: D+
Developer: Spike Chunsoft
Publisher: Spike Chunsoft
Age Rating: 17+
Release Date: December 3, 2021
MSRP: $19.99 (Standalone) $59.99 (Danganronpa Decadence collection)
Platform: Switch (reviewed)
This review was done with a review copy provided by the publisher. We are grateful for their continued support.
