Jibanyan

All I've seen is a clip of the question with the lady eating the hot dog and another clip with that FUCKING pizza, as well as what I presume is the gang's reaction to the ending with Vinny slowly sliding out of frame and Alex/Dan looking downright appalled.

Can't wait.

Shoji Meguro is the absolute master of composing battle tunes that never get old. Last Surprise is awesome, and just like Reach Out to the Truth, I'll probably be able to listen to it over and over again for years to come and still never get tired of it.

When the game first came out in Japan, I knew I wouldn't be able to hold off on listening to the soundtrack for six whole months, so I dived right into it. I haven't actually reached the point in the game where it plays yet, but I think Rivers in the Desert is my favorite track in the game (and I don't even have the context for when it plays, which I imagine'll make it that much more rad)! And, of course, the instrumental version of Life Will Change is also fantastic; I get so incredibly pumped whenever the calling card is sent.

A lot of the more casual tracks that play during daily life segments are also great, but the game's soundtrack really shines when it comes to dungeon and battle themes.

Nobody. Romance is something I've never had interest in pursuing in these games.

I'd date Ryuji, Yusuke, or Mishima if the game actually had the guts to let you date a dude. The game lets you date your teacher, for crying out loud.

Danganronpa V3 came out in January in Japan (and doesn't come out until September over here!), but I've been listening to the OST a buuuuuuunch ever since its release. Masafumi Takada's work on the DR series specifically is excellent, and he steps it up even more in V3. Those games have a sound that can't really be found in any other games, even other games that he specifically has worked on outside of the DR series. I originally got into those games largely because of the music, too, so it's great that those soundtracks just keep getting better.

I'd link tracks, but I'm trying to stay relatively unspoiled leading up to the game's release, and YouTube is a spoiler minefield; tracks for stuff like the Monokuma Kubs' theme and Brain Driver do a great job of just making the game as a whole more quirky/fun/bizarre. The Scrum Debate theme is also really good.

If you use Third Eye, the specific spots where you can take cover should be highlighted, but I think you may still be at a point where you can't take cover (I don't know why it takes the game until later in the dungeon to actually introduce the mechanic). I'm not entirely sure when exactly it is, but you get the ability to take cover later in the dungeon, once Ann joins your party.

@kestrelpi: As soon as Atlus/Japanese media in general completely moves away from the "gays are icky!" and "we need our token pervert character!" trash, we'll all be better for it. Haven't gotten to those specific parts yet, but hearing about how this game continues that kind of trend is really disappointing, especially considering the game's theme. Here's hoping Persona 6 doesn't make the same mistake in, like, a decade when it comes out!

@bocckob: That the deadline countdown in the upper right doesn't show the actual amount of days you have left is poop, but you can also check the calendar in the menu for exact dates on when you need to secure the route/send the calling card/etc. Also, using Third Eye will let you see which enemies are tougher (they're color coded), which can be super helpful in evading them (I'm trying to take down the second dungeon in the minimum number of days, and I kept getting into battles with Nue and promptly getting my ass handed to me). These kinds of things are outlined in tutorials pretty early on, so it's pretty easy to forget along the way in a 100+ hour game, lol.

Aside from Ryuji, all of my Confidant ranks are hell of low (my Guts are still too low to actually start even Takemi's Confidant), but I usually go for ranking up Social Links/Confidants as much as I can between dungeons. You're right, though, everyone's gonna manage their time differently!

General rule of thumb, though; don't worry about not being able to do things after a dungeon if you beat it early; the game would never punish you for being expedient on that front. If you do manage to get to the end of the dungeon early, you may as well take care of it instead of trying to dance with the deadline.

@ajamafalous: I mean, yeah, I'm not gonna act like it's perfect, but I can at least see the general rhyme and reason for why it happens at times. We're all going to an art exhibit tomorrow for some investigating? Sure, it makes sense to go to bed early in that case. This really applies whenever people in your group are talking about any plans that pertain to the main story; you sort of just have to expect that entire day to be devoted to that thing because it's planned around it! Not super hard to grasp, at least for me, being 20-ish hours in. In-between dungeons, there's just always gonna be a certain stretch of days where you're gathering information for a dungeon and are, as a result, gonna be too busy to do much else. It works pretty similarly in Persona 4, but maybe it's not as noticeable because you really didn't have that much to do in the evening in that game. Maybe it's because I've played a lot of Persona/SMT games, but it's something that really doesn't bother me all that much.

I can see how first-timers could get screwed with the calling card business, for sure, though there's literally no advantage to waiting on a dungeon rather than just getting through it in as few days as possible. The only instance where I hold off is if I maybe want to fuse something and have an opportunity to level up the respective Confidant and get more EXP out of the fusion process, but this is stuff that only takes up one, maybe two days. I'm at the second dungeon and haven't had Mementos available for all that long, but I'll also probably get one solid day of grinding before fighting the boss. If you're already in the deadline sequence and devote, like, 5 days to non-dungeon stuff, then of course it's gonna be down to the wire (I kind of did this with the first dungeon and had 2 days left in the end). It is kinda fucked how they don't let you know about the calling card deadline for the first dungeon until it could potentially be too late, though.

I can't speak for the parts of the game I haven't gotten to yet, like that part around the fourth dungeon you're talking about, but again, this doesn't seem like a huge deal to me. If there is some story stuff that happens in a day, the process of trying to see if you can go out during the evening or whatever takes literally seconds! If you can do it for that day, cool. If you can't, OK. Guess I'll progress the game by sleeping! Of course, everyone's gonna react differently to that system, but getting used to it really doesn't feel like it should take that long.

Also, yeah, the 'blindly defending' thing's a bit much. I love the game, too (especially since I've waited over 5 years for it!), but that's really how I earnestly feel about that stuff.

@kknialler: Was just about to say something to this effect. You nailed it. I think people also want to kind of play it like they would an open world game or something when it absolutely is not that at all.

Also, if they really allowed you to have maximum free time in literally any given day, the average playthrough would probably be closer to 150 hours or more. If Morgana's telling you to go to sleep, just move on. That's how the game is designed. It's not a huge deal, especially when you're playing through almost an entire calendar year, day by day.

Just another insane thing that Dan'll be able to tell stories about when he's in his 80s.

Congrats, Dan!