A Danganronpa Nicotine Patch
HIGH Does a decent job of both copying and iterating on the series it’s inspired by.
LOW A weak and poorly-explained centerpiece minigame.
WTF The zombie girl. Sure, why not!
This has gotta be my first time reviewing anything resembling a ‘fan game.’ I find it especially disconcerting because I didn’t expect Kumitantei: Old School Slaughter to be one! From the few screenshots I saw before I booted it up for the first time, I expected it to be a ‘Killing Game,’ in the vein of something like Danganronpa – but I didn’t expect it to literally be Danganronpa. As a result, I was slightly unsure how to go about critiquing Kumitantei. I decided to evaluate it based on how successfully it mimics (or slightly iterates on) the series it’s based on.
As a certified former Danganronpa obsessive, I can say that this visual novel-type experience does a decent enough job, though with only one episode of Kumitantei released so far (with more planned for the future), it’s hard to say whether all of its ideas will end up panning out. At the very least, Kumitantei nailed both the setup and the atmosphere — mostly by borrowing both the setup and the principal location from the first Danganronpa game and shifting a few of the proper nouns around.
In this universe, for example, students who are exceptionally skilled at something are called ‘Absolutes,’ rather than ‘Ultimates.’ The protagonist Himari is one such Absolute (the Absolute Barista, to be specific) and she’s set to attend the Janus Institute (instead of Hope’s Peak Academy) until she awakens in a mysterious bunker with no way out. She is then forced, along with a cast of 15 other students, to participate in a deadly Killing Game. Just like in Danganronpa, one of the students must murder one of the others without getting caught during the subsequent group trial in order to escape.
The bunker itself resembles Hope’s Peak Academy quite a bit, which I certainly didn’t mind, as I maintain that the first Danganronpa game (set in the Academy) had the best grasp of atmosphere. The lack of exteriors or even windows, along with the muted architectural color palette provided a constant sense of unease, which Kumitantei copies and re-deploys to good effect.
Even beyond its Danganronpa elements, though, Kumitantei provides enough original texture to justify itself. Most notably, there’s the overarching familial theme — Himari is actually stuck in the bunker with her estranged twin brother Moichiro, who has become the Absolute Prosecutor, and their arguments, secrets, and attempts to understand one another act as a constant throughline during the first chapter of Kumitantei. As a result, the bunker feels less isolating compared to Hope’s Peak Academy, while being wearying and heartbreaking in an entirely different way.
The other characters are a collection of exaggerated traits, some of which are more novel than others. Takara, for instance, resembles Danganronpa’s Aoi in both talent and mannerisms. However, a few of the faces feel a bit more inspired and memorable, being neat extrapolations of the Danganronpa formula. My favorite is probably Tsubaki, the Absolute Paleontologist, who seems to be a resurrected zombie (?) with no memory of her past. Her quirky characterization, look, and speech pattern would feel right at home in a real Danganronpa iteration, as she’s the perfect mix of broad archetypes with oddball specificity.
Bonding with the characters is made easy through Kumitantei’s take on Danganronpa’s Free Time system. Similar to Danganronpa, the player is given opportunities during each in-game day to interact with a character of their choosing, increasing their bond through conversations and giving gifts. Again, like Danganronpa, increasing bonds with characters will eventually lead to the player earning additional abilities in the after-a-murder-happens Trial sections. However, Kumitantei also allows the player to increase their bond level with characters via other optional conversations and main story moments as well. I enjoyed this extra tweak to the formula, enhancing how narrative beats inform the gameplay.
For the most part, in fact, I was happy with all of the original ideas in Kumitantei… apart from the Card Battle system, which is Kumitantei’s centerpiece.
The tutorial for this minigame is provided to the player at the very beginning of Kumitantei — it’s actually hours before they’ll encounter it during play. I confess, when I reached the Trial segment and actually had to engage in this minigame, I started a new game multiple times just to see the tutorial again!
Luckily, it comes down to the player summoning cards that are numerically stronger than their opponent’s cards, doing damage to the opponent’s gauge until they are given the opportunity to present evidence to refute their opponent’s statement. The player can study the tutorial and learn about combos and elemental weaknesses (yes, it has a JRPG-style elemental weakness system) but I found that the most efficient strategy was to spam cards as fast as possible and hope they proc combos. This strategy screeches to a halt when the player runs out of cards, though. Drawing more cards takes up an entire turn, so oftentimes both the player and the AI will run out of cards and spend multiple turns drawing back and forth, resulting in total dead air on screen.
I could see this mode becoming more complex in later chapters once the player has collected more bonus cards from Free Time events which provide small effects, like ‘redrawing the cards you played four turns ago’. As of the first chapter, the player will only have around three cards, so they’ll get few opportunities to play any special or exciting cards during a given battle.
Card combat aside, Kumitantei nails so many of Danganronpa’s core qualities and attributes that it will feel like a worthy successor to most fans. For those who love to see the memories of their favorite art externalized on the screen, there’s a lot to love here!
Final Score: 6.5 out of 10
Disclosures: This game is developed by Mango Factory and published by Akupara Games. It is currently available on PC and Switch. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 7 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.
Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood, Sexual Scenes, Strong Language and Violence. The ‘Strong Language’ and ‘Sexual Themes’ are, to my knowledge, almost entirely referring to the dialogue. The ‘Blood’ and ‘Violence’ relate to elements of the mystery — this violent material is in the past tense, or happens off-screen.
Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles cannot be altered and/or resized. All the dialogue is subtitled, and none of the gameplay components require sound cues to complete. As such, the game is fully accessible.
Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.
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