Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair

A feminine character with multicoloured hair called 'Ibuki Mioda' is winking to the camera. The dialogue box below her says 'Welcome to the world of girl love! It's slippery when wet!'
Did you get through the first Danganronpa and feel like you wanted more death? More heartbreak? More gross sexist language and transphobic undertones? Then I have some good news for you! The sequel has all of these things!

I have such a complex relationship with this series. Solving murders is great fun, I love investigation, and there are some clever plot twists and genuinely relatable characters. But there’s also just… so much sexism. In this game, even more than in its precursor, there’s a whole slew of male characters who seem intent on making me feel endlessly uncomfortable due to their objectification of women. They make lewd comments (and no, not funny lewd comments), they literally drool over women in compromising positions, and then there’s the guy that’s obsessed with yelling about pooping? To be fair, that has nothing to do with women, it’s just uncomfortable. A few of the characters make comments that imply they’re interested in multiple genders, which is why this makes it onto QRM, and the problematic issues surrounding a character from the first game pop up again, so there’s… that. But overall, despite my love for a few of the characters (and there are some really, really great ones) there was too much grossness here for me to recommend this overall.

You should play this if…

You have a high tolerance for sexist comments, or can distance yourself from them enough to truly appreciate the rest of the content? There are a few really stellar characters, one of whom many of us would probably relate to, but there are also some less-than-stellar characters that harass women (and guys, just less so) but are still supposed to be sympathetic characters. It is worth saying that I know a lot of this is based in differences between Japanese and western culture, but I think this takes it a little far. Many will disagree, but I personally can’t overlook the issues.