Danganronpa 2x2 and Mystery Game Remakes
How remakes can both help and hurt a mystery game series
Danganronpa 2x2 was announced in the Nintendo Direct last Friday. The game is both a remaster of Danganronpa 2, as well as a new scenario exclusive to this version. From the game's Steam store page:
"Relive the chilling and thrilling story in greater beauty and comfort than ever before. Two complete experiences in one package with an entirely new scenario plus the fully revamped original!"
Regarding the new scenario:
"The original setting and cast of characters are back, but a single incident sets off a completely different chain of events! New victims, new culprits, and brand-new tricks await. The new scenario offers the same volume of content as the original, delivering a complete and immersive experience."
I was actually playing Danganronpa 2 for the first time earlier this year, primarily for some mystery game research. I had played the first game and was familiar with this one when they first came out over a decade ago, but never got around to finishing it. And I noticed, compared to the many other mystery games I’ve also been playing for research purposes, the graphics really did appear to be outdated. So I'm personally glad this is happening, because the game is going to be a lot nicer to look at when I finally get around to playing it next year.
There has also been some speculation as to whether the new scenario will simply be an alternate story or a canonical 4th game, since two times two (2x2) equals four. But whether or not this is a 4th game veiled in disguise, today I'd like to discuss the idea of mystery game remakes in general.
What is a remake vs. a remaster?
It's interesting when you actually try to look up the definition of a remake vs. a remaster. A remaster is just taking the original, polishing the graphics and so on, while keeping the story and gameplay exactly the same. A remake, on the other hand, actually changes the content that the player experiences. Danganronpa 2x2 appears to be both at the same time: a remaster of the original game, alongside a remake that takes the same concept and characters but explores them in a new way.
I'm always paying attention to ways that mystery gamedevs can shorten the development lifecycles of their games. Remastering an old game seems like an obvious choice that I actually don't see too often. And remaking an old game with new content seems even less used. So I'm wondering if Danganronpa 2x2 will effectively show how to approach taking an old game and making it feel like new.
Personally, I think it's a smart move to bundle both together. There are fans like me who would just appreciate a technically improved and polished version of the original, while others fans might be starved for more Danganronpa content. With the option to play both in a single game, the developer has easily captured both potential audiences. It would have been disappointing to have only one or the other.
The benefits of remaking a mystery game
Although the developer’s exact reasoning for creating this game has not been revealed, I speculate it has a lot to do with the recent success of The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy. That game had a clear resemblance to Danganronpa in everything but name, so it has proven many people are hungry for more Danganropa, and that it would be a business mistake not to do something in that direction. So the easiest thing one could do is take Danganronpa's existing story and characters and create a new game from them.
I actually did something similar with my own game, Detective Butler: Maiden Voyage Murder. The game had been freely available since 2013, with a completely linear story. In 2020, I added paid DLC that allowed for choices that branched the story out in different directions, including various “what-if” scenarios that let the story play out differently.
One of my design goals for that game was to not commission any new assets, and rely purely on what I already had available to me at the time. It worked out well since many photos I had taken of the cruise ship had gone unused in the original game, so I was able to pull from my existing resource pool in order to show off new areas of the world and elaborate on the backstories of each existing character.
I've often wondered since then if more mystery games should take that kind of approach. Not only are game assets initially expensive to produce, but you're sitting on valuable intellectual property that also took a lot of time and effort to create. Having to restart with a new setting and new characters every time makes you redo a lot of work and costs a lot of money. But reusing existing IP, assets, and systems allows you to efficiently create new games quickly.
Of course, in the case of a remaster like Danganronpa 2x2, there is still time, effort, and money going into the improvement of each asset, so it's not exactly a free ride. But the hardest parts of game design are coming up with good ideas in the first place. So if all you need to do is create a higher resolution version of something that already exists, that's significantly easier work than coming up with an entirely original design. The existing design is already proven to be popular and worth the effort, while any original ideas are potential failures. Great game design is always going to involve striking a balance between reusing what works in combination with new improvements.
When is the right time for a remake?
I would say that this kind of remake can only be justified under three important conditions:
First, your original game must have actually been good. Nobody wants a remake of a bad game. You might argue that a remake could fix the issues with your original game, but in today's age, you should just apply those fixes as a patch or update. If your game becomes successful after doing that, then you can consider making a full remake some years later. But the point is that you already have an existing fanbase that wants more of an already-good product.
I don't think the size of the fanbase necessarily matters, since the job of the remake is to also bring in new fans by leveraging what you've already made. Also, it's often better to just focus on making a new game that is better received than continually trying to turn a bad game into a good one.
Second, enough time must have passed for a remake to actually make sense. Think primarily in terms of changes in technology. Detective Butler was initially released at an 800x600 screen resolution, but four years later when I ported the game to Steam, it only made sense to make the screen resolution 1280x720. Even that is low these days -- 1920x1080 would have been better, and now I'd need to make the game a full 4K resolution to really stand out.
Also think in terms of animations: look at how Danganronpa 2x2 has every character sprite animated instead of the static images it used before. Other graphics quality features like textures, light, and water (seriously, don't underestimate the complexity of rendering water!) can improve the user's experience and immersion. Enhanced sound quality can result in similar improvements.
You can even think in terms of budget or skill. Perhaps when you first started out, you had no money and no idea how to do certain things. But over time, you now have the means to make the game you actually wanted to make. Improved graphics and sound are likely to be a side effect from this change, so it works out fine. The point is that you don't need to wait for an arbitrary number of years to pass. If you can do something now that you couldn't do before, you can always revisit your game and release a new and improved version.
And third, your game should be designed around having a remade story in the first place. Not every mystery game can get away with this. Danganronpa makes this quite easy since all of the characters have their own unique motives, and usually only commit the crime based on an event that forces the character to take action. If the event doesn't occur, the character wouldn't feel forced into a position to commit the crime. So, you can very easily take that setup and replace old events with new events that force different characters to become the new villains.
Umineko has a similar setup, with each character being a "piece on a gameboard", such that the game plays out differently each time it is run, though still according to a predefined set of rules. Umineko has been remastered and re-released too many times to count, though the story remained unchanged each time, with the exception of the manga adaptation, which added more answers. Interestingly, the rules of the game were changed in the spin-off game Last Note of the Golden Witch, included in Umineko Saku, and identifying the rules that were changed actually became part of the puzzle.
Similarly, instead of changing an existing story you can just add a new side story. Ace Attorney did this when it was remade for the Nintendo DS in 2005 by adding a fifth case that utilized the console's touch-screen controls as part of the gameplay. (The 2001 Game Boy Advance version was only released in Japan, so the first version that North Americans would played was actually a remake.) So you can really think outside the box when it comes to remaking an existing mystery game.
The hidden dangers of remakes
I don’t think remakes are an inherently bad idea, but you have to be careful about them as well. You just have to make sure that they improve more than they detract from the original.
Last year I finally played through Zero Escape: 999 on the Steam version, and although I loved the game, I was utterly confused by the final puzzle. It turns out it had been completely changed from the original, which to me seemed to fit better thematically with the story than its replacement. Also, some technical changes defaulted the text to ADV mode instead of NVL mode, resulting in me missing out on a lot of relevant story context and ultimately hurting the endgame.
I was similarly disappointed in the Higurashi “reboot” in 2020 — it had been marketed as a reboot, but a few episodes in was revealed to be a continuation of the 2006 anime, thus spoiling many pivotal twists and turns for unsuspecting viewers. It also went on to change the characterization of a few notable characters in a way that I personally didn’t like, detracting from my investment in the series.
There was also the disastrous remake of The Portopia Serial Murder Case, a classic mystery game from 1983 that literally defined the visual novel genre. The original game built for the PC-6001 utilized a text-parser, but without a keyboard the Famicom version needed to replace that system with a command-select interface. The 2023 PC remake opted to return to the text-parser input system, now using modern AI-powered NLP technology. But the result was a staggering amount of negative reviews citing a very poor user experience.
So, there’s always a risk of taking a great game and accidentally making it worse with a remake. You have to be careful!
Conclusion
Ultimately, there are pros and cons to remaking old mystery games. They could be seen as low-risk for developers, but potentially high-risk for fans who enjoyed the originals as they were designed. The real risk for devs comes with the potential to ruin a great game for the sake of expedience, and at the cost of the dev’s reputation.
But if you stick to what made the original game great and simply improve upon it in a way that you know fans will enjoy, then to me it seems like a no-brainer. There’s always room for improvement, and there are always ways to expand upon an existing game’s universe. Finding the right balance is necessary for developers to properly use their intellectual property, and for fans to consistently appreciate it.
Thanks for reading!
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