North American release. If you have one for sale or trade please let me know.

So I ended up getting this. I heard it's a great game.

Bleh! Really? I would say it's OK at best, and dull, unimaginative, and cliche in general. I feel like the game was written by some angry Japanese adolescent boys. Supposedly the second game is better... which frankly is not saying much.

Put in spoiler tags if you must, but I am truly interested in knowing why you would make such a claim. Having played/beaten/platinum'd both games, I do not and cannot put together what your claim means, or perhaps what it is supposed to mean...?

I think the game is quite good. No, it's not on par with the Zero Escape series. But it's still a strong concept, and I have a strong appreciation for their demonstrable definitions of hope and despair.

Having recently played both games for the first time, I also rather enjoyed them - my only complaint wouldn't be writing that seems like "angry adolescent boys" but more "horny adolescent boys" because some of the fan service shots (especially a certain character "falling" in the second game) were a little too much.  Outside of that, Monokuma is pretty much the most fun video game villain since Kefka and his showing up is pure delight every single time.  Love the writing overall!

I don't know... I know you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover... but I can't help but feel that avatar's "angry Japanese adolescent boys" comment gives me all the info I need to know about this game. Granted western games are just as stereotypical as eastern games at this point so the entire industry is guilty of beating the same old drum.

I consider myself at least somewhat cognizant of what kind of stuff we find in Japanese pop culture.

And yeah ... some fan service. And some weird specific-to-character violent executions.

But Monokuma, and the person(s) behind him, are an interesting concept. Not NEW. But certainly interesting. Kefka is a perfect comparison. Despair, a dangerous mix of nihilism and sadism, drives the whole show. And when you see the "face" behind it all, and you start pulling back the story ... I'd be hard-pressed to find an angry teen boy with the sense and self-awareness to write such a villain that well.

And everything up to the ending too ... each of the murders and investigations ... not really the realm of angry teen. Horny 30y/o male who also knows his history&philosophy, maybe?

Well, I guess you and I have very different taste then. I thought Monokuma (the evil Bear) was OK, but hardly a unique villain. As to why is it angry adolescent boys, well let's see:

1)Fan Service? Check, lots of fan service in the worst possible way. Characters so cliche the game should start with "It was a dark and stormy night"...

2)Needless violence on women? Check, lots of that. To be fair, there is also violence against male characters, but it seems to me that the developers took special care when killing a female (you know, knife in belly, blood everywhere, impaled by numerous spikes...)

3)Lots of sexual innuendo? Check. Although your character is always called nothing but "average", he manages to get lots of dumb comments from the females such as "So, I'm still hot then, right?" And that's another thing, there's no option to play as a female. Clearly, this game was made with angry adolescent Japanese boys in mind.

4)Oh, and of course all the females are school girls? Check. To be fair, all the characters are high school students, but it certainly did not need to be such. The developers could easily have opted for different ages in a slightly different scenario, and frankly, that would likely have been much better.

In general, I would summarize the game as: boring fan service with needless violence. Characters so cliche that NPCs in Skyrim appear Shakespearean in comparison. Oh, and much of the time you just do the same thing over and over. Hey, you have free time! Go talk to some chick, give her a present, and repeat and repeat and repeat... Oh hey, someone just got murdered. Do the usual thing until you can move on. Then go to the trial slowly find the "lies" and play some asinine little mini-games. Oh, and to add insult to injury, the music is really quite dull.

Anyway, that's my opinion. I'm sure many would disagree since for some reason it's considered one of the better Vita games. Maybe it's because Vita has so few games?  To each their own of course. Also, I really am a fan of the visual novel as a game. However, this is hardly a visual novel. It tries to be like Ace Attorney but falls far in my opinion. For the record, I'm not saying everything about the game is terrible. I did think some (not the majority) of the writing was clever. The logic puzzles are fine in general, although again not as clever as Ace Attorney. Lots of promise in the game, but greatly disappointing. Again, to each their own, but if anyone asks for my opinion I say thumbs down.

Necrobump!

I finally got round to playing these games (they're on 1 Vita cartridge in Japan), and I played them both back to back, which I normally tend to avoid, but I did it anyway. Why?

Because they're awesome, that's why.

I cannot for the life of me see how anyone could consider this writing by "angry adolescent boys". I'm not saying it's Shakespeare, far from it, but I definitely do not see any angry adolescence in it. Maybe it's the localization that makes it seem so?

That said, it does have its problems. Don't know if I'd call the characters cliche (some of them maybe), but they ARE very two-dimensional. Not much development going on, and although I liked Monokuma, I was not very fond of the actual villain. Then again, I never liked Kefka very much either.
These characters remind me of the Joker from Batman (especially Kefka, for obvious reasons), but without the nuance or cleverness.

A couple of things:

The first game was fine IMO, but yeah, the second one had some dumb and unnecessary fan service, certainly. It was kind of grating, and it's one of the reasons I prefer the first game over the second.

This is REALLY reaching.
There's plenty of violence against male characters, and women don't have it notably worse.
Knife in belly is pretty tame by the standards of the rest of the killings, and yeah, there was the impalement, so what?
In the second game, one guy gets stabbed like 27 times, and don't even get me started on what Komaeda does TO HIMSELF.
I actually found the first execution in the first game to be one of the most shocking ones, and that one's hardly bloody at all, so this is a nonsensical point.

Also, I'd argue that some of the most kick-ass characters in these games are women.
The main character is usually just a regular schmo, but a lot of the women are strong and intelligent.

So any game that doesn't let you play as a girl is made with "angry adolescent boys" in mind?
Generalize much?

Also, for someone who seems so worried about how women are treated, you certainly use the noun "female" a lot, which I think you'll find most women don't appreciate. They're not animals.

BUT there was too much sexual innuendo in the second game, I do agree with that, even if I don't particularly remember the above quote.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion but I'm sticking to mine. I really enjoyed Ni No Kuni, and couldn't stand any of the DanganRonpa games. To each their own, and I do think my points are valid. For example, if you read what I wrote you notice I do say "To be fair, there is also violence against male characters". Nevertheless, I got the impression that the violence against women was particularly cruel. Of course I mercifully decided not to finish the games, so I didn't get the whole story. I did read about the ending of the first game. That has to be one of the dumbest stories I have ever read!! OK, maybe I'm biased because I can't stand the game, but it's fine to have trite plots (many great games do), and the plot of the game is fine. However the way the story plays out is just dumb. Overtly dumb ending.

"So any game that doesn't let you play as a girl is made with "angry adolescent boys" in mind?
Generalize much?"

I don't generalize more than most people, and perhaps less
However, that doesn't change the fact that I believe this game was built with high school Japanese boys in mind. Still, if you enjoyed it that's all that matters. I couldn't bear it, but again to each their own.