Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls

For every Oscar winning epic drama that hits the big screen, there's some cheesy B-movie flick that's just a blast to watch for no real discernable reason. Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls is the gaming equivalent of that B-movie. Make no mistake about it, the graphics and animations aren't the sharpest or the most fluid, the dialogue and acting is corny at best, and the story is likely to leave most people scratching their heads. It's messy, confusing, twisted, strange, and so far out in left field that you almost need to send a search party to find any sense to it. On paper, nothing about Ultra Despair Girls should work. And yet somehow, despite all of this, it does.

Ultra Despair Girls is one of those games that knows not to take itself too seriously, but still stops just short of being the punchline of its own joke. It's an oddball offshoot of an already quirky series, but it feels like it belongs. It doesn't hurt that the game's controls are easy to pick up and play, or that the division of gameplay elements and story progression are balanced out surprisingly well. Even though the story is warped and often confusing, it's got enough substance to get you invested in the characters and their adventures, leaving you waiting to see what crazy direction the plot will take next. And before you start to forget that this is an actual video game, there's a new action sequence that puts you right in the thick of things and keep you feeling like you're an active part of the craziness. Ultra Despair Girls is like an insane ride through a carnival sideshow. It's weird, it's warped, and it's rough around the edges, but at the end of the ride you still leave entertained, even if you can't exactly explain why.