You play as Komaru Naegi, younger sister to the main protagonist in Trigger Happy Havoc, Makoto Naegi. The game opens with her apparently living on her own, though we learn soon that she's been a prisoner in her room for over a year. Having no idea of what happened to the world outside, she lives in an apartment alone, going about her daily life and trying to stay sane. Unfortunately, her life is suddenly turned upside down (again) when the door to her prison is destroyed by none other than Monokuma, one of the main villains in the series. After escaping, we are introduced to a surviving member of the previous game, who gifts Komaru a megaphone that can apparently destroy the Monokuma robots that are suddenly attacking the city. After learning about some about the city, as well as being introduced to our partner for the majority of the game, we are treated to a chilling introduction to the Warriors of Hope, the true villains of this particular game. These children are controlling the Monokuma attacking the city, in the hopes of creating a paradise for children by killing all the adults - who are dehumanized by being called 'Demons' - and ridding the children of their influence. We learn over the course of the game that the Warriors of Hope are haunted by events in their past - effectively trapping them with their own 'Demons' who they are attempting to destroy.
There is a lot more story to it, but expounding anymore will take much longer than I feel is appropriate for this review, as well as spoiling major plot points from both the previous and subsequent game. Suffice it to say it's a very well-crafted game that holds many twists and turns before the finale.
The graphics are very similar to the games it's spun off from, though with added 3D models since a good portion of the last few games were 2D. I'm glad they stayed true to the previous games in terms of graphics, though the game gained a lot with the introduction of the 3D modeling. The controls are, sadly, somewhat finicky at times, making it very troublesome to hit the moving target at times. I don't believe I found any way to fine-tune the aiming, but I jumped right into the action without really spending time in the settings so I might have simply missed the option to make aiming easier. At any rate, I've yet to really run into any issue with the fine-tuning, so it's not really a complaint.
