Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony

Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, also known as New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing (NEWダンガンロンパV3 みんなのコロシアイ新学期 New Dangan Ronpa V3: Minna no Koroshiai Shin Gakki) is a visual novel game and the third main title in the Danganronpa series developed by Spike Chunsoft. According to the developers, the "V" in the title stands for "victory".

Like the word "New" implies in the title, the game has a completely different storyline, characters, and environment from the first three games, with only the series' mascot Monokuma returning.

The overall theme is "psycho cool", unlike the "psycho pop" and "psycho tropical" themes of the first two games. The visual style will have a "cool adult-like image" and the Class Trials will have "high-speed reasoning action".

It was released for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita on January 12, 2017 in Japan and will later be launched on September 26, 2017 in North America and September 29, 2017 in Europe by NIS America.

A demo was released in Japan on December 20, 2016, with Makoto Naegi, Yasuhiro Hagakure, and Hajime Hinata returning as guest characters. It was released in North America, Europe, and Australia on August 25th, 2017.

Development
Danganronpa V3 is produced by Yoshinori Terasawa, and planned and written by Kazutaka Kodaka, while the character design is done by Rui Komatsuzaki. Terasawa and Kodaka described developing it as being difficult, since it was being developed at the same time Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School was being made. Both also described the game's production level as being significantly higher than that of the previous games in the series.

When deciding whether to create a sequel or something new for the third installment, Spike Chunsoft settled on both, since there was divided opinion among the studio.

The game was first teased in the first trailer of Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls, followed by another teaser and a full reveal of the game during the Sony Computer Entertainment Japan Asia press conference on September 15, 2015. It was then released in Japan on January 12, 2017.

Localization
The game is one of the biggest, most complex games NIS America has localized, with over 400 pages of text, 2.4 million Japanese characters, 96,000 English lines, and 12,000 voiced lines. Because of its immensity, NISA had to redistribute the work among multiple members of their localization team.

Four translators individually paired with an editor were chosen to work on the game. The characters were evenly distributed to each pairing to localize, which allowed the team to work on the entire story and maintain consistency of tone and voice for each character.

Gameplay
The gameplay is similar to the previous main games, with each chapter divided into two parts: School Life, in which the player can explore the academy and interact with other characters until a murder occurs (Daily Life), where the player can then investigate and gather evidence (Deadly Life), and the Class Trial, in which the player can debate with other characters on who the culprit of a murder is.

Notable improvements have been made to the Class Trial. Unlike the previous games, the player can now have the option to lie at certain parts of the Nonstop Debates using fabricated truth bullets. Improved versions of the Rebuttal Showdown and Hangman's Gambit also appear in the game.

New minigames have also been added to the Class Trial: the Debate Scrum, Mass Panic Debate, Mind Mine, Psyche Taxi, and Argument Armament. In the Debate Scrum, two groups of characters fight against each other, requiring the player to use remarks from their side to use against the other side's statements. In the Mass Panic Debate, multiple characters talk at once, making it harder to find a contradiction in their arguments. In Mind Mine, the player must solve a question by destroying blocks that cover images, each representing a possible answer. In Psyche Taxi, the player drives down a road where they pick up words and phrases to form a question that they must answer. Lastly, the Argument Armament is a rhythm game in which the player should press certain buttons in time with the music to destroy an opponent's statements.

Synopsis
High school student Kaede Akamatsu is kidnapped and awakens in the "Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles", where she meets fellow student Shuichi Saihara and 14 others. Trapped inside with no escape, they are forced into a killing game by a robotic bear named Monokuma, accompanied by his Monokuma Kubs. The only way to escape is to successfully kill another student and get away with it in a subsequent Class Trial. If nobody is killed within two days, Monokuma will prematurely end the game by killing all of the students.

Merchandise
On the 14th December 2016, Sony announced the release of 3 special edition Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony themed consoles in the lead-up to the release of the game. A Monokuma themed PlayStation 4 and two engraved PlayStation Vita consoles were released on January 12, 2017. Each console came in a Danganronpa V3 themed box and with a pre-installed Danganronpa V3 theme.

Videos
Opening
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Trivia

 * Completing the demo rewards the player a skill, a present (which unlocks a special event in Chapter 1), and 333 Monocoins once they start up the main game.
 * This is the first game in the series to be localized in French.
 * In the NIS America Press Event 2017, Kodaka said that the game's English title was changed without him knowing, but also said that he didn't mind "Killing Harmony" and thought it was cool.

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