#saved a few ss from my last gameplay to draw
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Three Houses 100% Completion: The Joys of Spreadsheets
The idea that someone like me would ever write a gameplay guide to any Fire Emblem title is somewhat ludicrous on the surface. While I’ve finished nearly every mainline game in the series I also freely confess to being a filthy casual except ironically I ignore Casual mode because resetting/rewinding after death was ingrained in me back in the GBA era who only plays these games on their lowest difficulties, ostensibly because I find the lower challenge to allow for more flexibility in how I pick and develop units. This is of course entirely true, although it’s also no surprise that from a completionist perspective FE is much more approachable when you can make it as easy as possible. For most of the games 100% completion is nothing more than filling out a support log, music library, and other features of an Extras menu, and while there are certainly some tedious times to be had with that - I hope you like popping out the same kids over a dozen times for that many generic parent-child supports in Awakening and Fates - none of it is what anyone would call challenging. Shadows of Valentia has in-game achievements, but the worst of those involves weapons with low drop rates so it’s otherwise a manageable endeavor to get them all.
Three Houses, however, is something else altogether. In a stroke of brilliance that may presumably not be attributed to the developers who expected most people to only play through the game one time, this is the first in the series with a New Game+ feature. This allows you to carry over much of your units’ development over multiple playthroughs, and to catch up instantly where you left off by spending Renown to buy skills, supports, class masteries, etc. that you’ve obtained in previous runs. Thus it is possible to build up a NG+ file over many runs in which all of the game’s forty playable characters have all of their skill ranks maxed out and all their available classes mastered - or at least available for purchase. That’s how I’m defining 100% completion here, and I’m delighting in a very nerdy way to report that not since The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask has a game so tickled my love of efficient scheduling and careful management of available resources to achieve such a substantial goal. I wouldn’t call it hard per se, not in the same way as the built-in difficulty of Maddening or any number of self-imposed challenge runs, but there’s a lot of planning that goes into something like this - to say nothing of how well you need to know the relevant mechanics.
EDIT: After a lot of playtesting I’ve made quite a few updates to this guide, so some of the information here may now be outdated (or less efficient, more like). See here for the updates.
Parameters
New Game+ saves your units’ progress over multiple runs in its journal, although as this is limited - you can only see the progress of units currently in your army, and because of how availability works in this game you’ll never be able to see them all at once - I strongly recommend keeping a separate log of your own. Other than that the only other way the game records your investment is the timestamp on save files, and while that might be helpful if you’re interested in speedrunning this it’ll probably take around 300 hours minimum though so why bother I find it more useful to keep track of how many times you’ve run through the game. The least number of runs needed to fulfill this achievement, and therefore the number to shoot for as a goal, is 29. Why 29? That’s the number of characters who can be dancers, and of course you can only have one dancer per run.
29 runs sounds long but generous on paper. After all, when I did this more or less blind over the course of a year and with the DLC coming out progressively during that time I finished it in 35 runs which isn’t that much higher. It’s a tighter requirement than you might think however, particularly as I’m not accounting for the grinding on infinite skirmish maps that Normal allows for. I feel like the challenge, such as it is, of something like this comes in the form of plotting everything out and knowing how to use the limited time and resources the game gives you as effectively as possible, and grinding throws that out the window. I admit that during my first time doing this I did have to grind out some stubborn skill ranks with skirmishes in the last chapter, but optimally that shouldn’t be necessary and you should be able to work to avoid that.
I’m not including the support log, music library, or event library (i.e. the Goddess Tower events) as points of consideration. Strange as it sounds to exclude what is often the only draw FE presents for completionists, all of those save to the cartridge and not to individual files and are therefore irrelevant to the concept of building up a “perfect” NG+ file. None of them are particularly difficult as it stands - most S ranks can be bought with Renown after you’ve filled characters with enough furtive gay thoughts for the same-gender Byleth, the Goddess Tower can be save scummed, and for the soundtrack you just have to remember to switch the audio to Japanese at a few points to get every track - so I’m going to overlook them. I am however assuming DLC content, and that you already have a completed file of Cindered Shadows on the cartridge. Most notably this allows you to recruit the Ashen Wolves and access the DLC classes, but it has a very important third benefit I’ll get into a bit later.
Also, a final note on difficulty: this guide obviously assumes Normal (Classic vs. Casual is basically irrelevant with Divine Pulse). You might be able to do something like this on Hard, although I’m not going to attempt it. Maddening is completely out of the question, as you have to level every single character through suboptimal skill ranks and classes, both for themselves and in general.
Routes
Regardless of what you might think of all the controversial discourse surrounding it, Crimson Flower is by far the worst route for unit development. It’s a full three/four chapters and three/four calendar months plus one week and weekend (contrast CF Chapter 13 vs. non-CF Chapter 12) shorter than the others. Of the remaining three, Verdant Wind marginally edges out Azure Moon as the longest route as it has one extra instruction week and free weekend in the last chapter...because Dimitri and Edelgard take that entire week for their parley in AM. Silver Snow’s last chapter is as long as VW’s - but it infamously skips out on an entire calendar month (four free weekends, three instruction weeks, and the Gronder rematch) because your army is off having a drug orgy or something equally unproductive.
Still, despite this objective evaluation running through VW 29 times isn’t a possibility. This is mostly because all of the routes except SS have exclusive units who have to be accounted for, and also because other units have small but significant availability advantages on certain routes. On top of the perk of not having to spend Renown to recruit them, students in a route’s affiliated house get to appear in Chapter 1 (the mock battle) and non-CF Chapter 13 (the infamous bandit hunt map right after the timeskip). Seteth slightly favors SS as he appears in Chapter 13 in place of your house leader, while conversely Hilda, Catherine, and Cyril should be avoided on SS as they’re not available until much later than they are in VW and AM. Then there are, again, the route-exclusives: Claude for VW; Dimitri, Dedue, and Gilbert for AM; and for CF Edelgard, Hubert, and....ugh.
Do you hate Jeritza for his weird voice acting, terrible characterization that spills over onto all of his support partners, and the same tone problems from which all of CF suffers? Prepare to hate him all over again as a unit, because Jeritza single-handedly makes 100% completion in a timely fashion much harder. Not only does he have the worst availability in the game at a mere six chapters and essentially four calendar months, unlike his fellow Part 2 exclusive Gilbert he has skill weaknesses - and one of them is in authority, which as I’ll get to later is even more annoying. Compounding this, Jeritza being locked to CF means you have to run CF far more than you’d like, giving him a disproportionate share of time and resources in Part 2 at the expense of whoever’s being used alongside him. This is why a Gotoh unit just doesn’t work in conjunction with FE16′s core design philosophy.
With this in mind, my theoretical plan - and note that some of this guide is indeed still theoretical, and I’m plotting it out as I go along based on my first time through - for a 29 run 100% is 8 runs of CF and 7 of each of the other routes. This sounds counterintuitive in light of the objective ranking of route length, but Jeritza really is that much of a headache.
Cross-Run Planning and Renown
One of the most important points to maximizing efficiency for 100% is knowing what carries over between runs and what does not - or in other words, thinking more in terms of the overall goal of maxing out your units than of the individual needs of each run beyond what’s needed to finish the game with no deaths. This being Normal mode of course that’s not a high bar to clear, but it’s still worth noting that many of the traditional parameters used to measure the development of your army in FE outright do not matter in the grand scheme of things. This includes your units’ levels and stats, money, and your inventory.
Money isn’t too hard to come by particularly with auxiliary battles, increased earlygame money with auto-leveled professor rank (see below), and other sources. Stats only matter to the point that you have enough of them to finish the game, and standard leveling, certifications, and the +1 stat booster drops from auxiliary battles will take care of that for the most part. Getting specialized weapons and equipment can occasionally be useful, but it shouldn’t be a priority especially lategame when you’re not going to have much time to use what you get. In any case the quick pace of these runs means it’s unlikely that you’ll have much material for forging/repairing beyond the basic buyable ores, so forged silvers are usually the way to go unless you feel like breaking out a brave weapon or Relic or something similar if you need a really powerful hit. As for levels, other than the stat boosts they only matter insofar as different class tiers have different benchmarks for certification. The highest of these is 30, so after that point levels are all about the stats. That said however, with Normal experience being as high as it is your units will likely end the game in the 40s or even 50s, especially with the EXP boosts from the saint statues.
This brings me to Renown. Renown is the main resource for 100% completion, and is in fact what makes it possible in the first place. In a new game you can only spend Renown on restoring the saint statues, and while this is very important to do in your first two or three runs for the boosts it adds to EXP gain, skill points gained during instruction, and most crucially of all class mastery EXP (by far the top priority - drop 2000 Renown on the Saint Cethleann statue for this as soon as the statues become available in Chapter 5 of your first run) later runs allow you to spend Renown on the journal in Byleth’s room. This is how you save and continue progress on skill ranks, as well as how you can instantly max out your professor rank at the start of the game which is crucial for getting the most out of the monastery.
Now for some numbers...and here’s where that Cindered Shadows file comes into play. With a completed run of CS you unlock a reward that appears at the start of each run including 10000 Renown (as well as the very useful Chalice of Beginnings accessory - sword and gauntlet users love this thing earlygame). Each NG+ run starts you off with 10000 Renown multiplied by how many times you’ve completed the game, and each run you can get the CS reward again on top of however much Renown you had unspent from the previous run(s). You also get a small amount of Renown for completing battles and quests around the monastery, although this is minor compared to starting your second run with a minimum of 20000 Renown, your third with 30000, etc. By the last few runs you can expect to hit the cap of 999999 Renown, which is more than you could ever reasonably use at a time. So what to spend it on?
The saint statues: Each has a one-time cost of 10000 Renown to fully restore and can be done incrementally. This costs 40000 total and should be finished no later than your third run, because as mentioned almost all of the bonuses granted by these statues are absolute necessities for a fast 100%.
Professor rank: On the first free day after choosing your house, complete Sylvain’s quest to eat in the dining hall to instantly level up from E to E+ professor rank. After that it takes 4000 Renown to max out your rank at A+, easily manageable from your second run onward with the CS reward. This gives you ten activity points in exploration, seven instruction sessions, three points on battle weekends, the ability to assign up to three adjutants in battle, more flexible dining hall options (both neutral and liked dishes will restore full motivation), and access to master classes and high-end forging as soon as you unlock their other requirements. It’s an essential expense for every run.
Skill ranks: The value here is obvious, but as it costs 500 Renown per rank it’s important to be sparing and only spend on what you���ll actually be using in a particular run. The exception here is Byleth - see their section.
Supports: Mostly unimportant unless you’re recruiting a student from another house (just make sure to get these Byleth/student supports in a previous run first) or if you’re running CF and not using either Byleth or Edelgard in which case you’ll need to buy the Edeleth C(+). Supports cost 400 Renown per rank which is fairly cheap, although if you’re doing cross-house recruits it’s best to spend 1200 to get their A in which case they’ll always agree to join your house when asked. Note that non-student characters whose recruitment is dependent on Byleth’s level can have that requirement lowered with supports, but this is unnecessary - again, see Byleth’s section.
Class masteries and Crests: Ignore these. While the gameplay bonuses can be nice none of them are worth spending Renown on, especially in earlier runs. The class mastery menu is however what you’ll use to keep track of which classes units still need to complete, so bear that in mind. Incidentally, unlike the skill ranks menu the classes don’t update until you clear the game, so you’ll have to check your units’ status screens to see which classes they’ve mastered on the run you’re currently doing.
Abyss: Finally, Abyss has a few one-time Renown costs for its various facilities, similar to the saint statues. It’s only 8000 Renown to unlock everything (although for some of them you’ll have to wait until Part 2), but honestly only the pagan altar really matters at all so it’s not a huge priority. Generally speaking the weapons and equipment purchasable at the altar aren’t worth the Renown cost until you get multiple runs under your belt and have resources to burn, but Master Seals and Abyssian Exam Passes may be an exception as they’re limited in availability otherwise. Optimally though you should plot out your classes such that you shouldn’t have to spend Renown on seals.
Last but not least, a word on battalions. Battalions do carry over in NG+, as do their levels. It’s therefore important to build up a guild of strong max level battalions early on, mostly by completing paralogues. Assigning these to units in the earlygame gives them massive stat boosts, to an even greater extent than equipping silver weapons or high-level spells - which unsurprisingly come with serious weight issues early on, so best to stack with battalions for more OHKOs and better defensive parameters.
Building Your Army: Active vs. Classroom Units
It’s common knowledge for the games in the series (except FE5, because Fatigue is weird like that) that it’s rarely worth it to use all the deployment slots available to you, and that concentrating your resources into a smaller number of units will yield better results. This is true of FE16 as well, and I’ve determined that the best active army size for 100% completion runs is 5-6 units. This allows space for everyone you’re training to get the attention they need at the monastery and in the classroom, and it also dovetails nicely with how many runs it will reasonably take for each unit to master all of their classes. As I’ll go into in more detail later, it’s best to split each unit’s classes into four groups, and 40 characters x 4 = 160 which when divided by 29 runs works out to 5 active unit slots for about half of the runs and 6 for the other half. As regards composition, a core of two or three of the route’s house units and/or Byleth is important for Chapters 1 and non-CF 13, with the remaining slots free for the Wolves, non-students, and if absolutely necessary cross-house recruits although these are not optimal owing to the support costs. Recruitment should always be done as early as possible; this isn’t Maddening where it’s important to consider that auto-leveled growths sometimes make units better if you wait to recruit them. For the Wolves and students from other houses (except Hilda in SS, but don’t use her there) that means Chapter 2, with the non-students coming in at various points up through Chapter 13.
As is the case with every FE though you’re also going to have units in your army who you’re not using. I recommend recruiting everyone you can on each run except for cross-house students, for this reason: units not in your active army, hereafter called classroom units, can still be trained...in the classroom. Simply setting their goals appropriately when you first get them is all the effort you’ll need to put into them passively gaining valuable skill experience that can be put toward runs where you will use them, and between skill ranks and classes the former are going to take considerably more time and effort overall to max out. This is because class certification never asks for anything higher than A in a skill, but there are three additional ranks beyond that. Also, skill weaknesses are a thing, and while they cease to matter to class mastery once a unit is certified they’ll continue to be a problem on the long slog to S+. The thought of individually assigning classroom units goals may seem daunting, but in practice there’s a priority to skills that helps out considerably, as follows:
Authority: top priority for several reasons - it grants access to high level battalions which as mentioned makes earlygame a joke, it’s the only skill that can’t be leveled as an adjutant meaning that once a unit maxes it out they can be comfortably leveled in the back full-time, and it’s the skill that matters least to the class system so maxing it out won’t lead to any awkward situations, ex. a unit with S+ bows still needing to master sniper
Authority can be comfortably pushed to S+ solely in the classroom and rarely needs to be focused on as a goal by active units (Jeritza being a notable exception). The skills below however should only be raised up to A, A+, or S to allow room for some active training, and should be switched once a unit has reached a benchmark around that point so as to have more skills worked on overall. Also worth pointing out - it’s generally easier and more efficient for classroom units to train only one skill at a time.
Heavy armor: everyone who isn’t Edelgard only has three classes that boost it, and of these classes (including Edelgard’s) the only one without terrible movement is great knight
Flying for male units: except for Claude they have just two flying classes, although since wyvern rider and wyvern lord are pretty much the best physical classes in the game this isn’t as much of a hindrance as it is with heavy armor
Brawling for female units: there are only three unisex classes that boost brawling apart from f!Byleth’s enlightened one, and two of these (fighter and brigand) only give +1 putting a lot of pressure on war cleric to compensate
Skill weaknesses: this is where it gets more individualized, but as weaknesses slow down a unit’s progress in both the classroom and on the battlefield it’s very helpful to build up a good base when they’re not being actively used
To use Dimitri as an example, on AM runs where I’m not using him I would first max his authority, then boost up his flying or heavy armor (these two, or brawling and heavy armor for females, are about equal in priority and should be attended to with skill weaknesses/proficiencies in mind), then the other one, then either axes or reason as those are his weaknesses. If you want to really break it down bows, brawling (for males)/flying (for females), and riding take precedence over the remaining skills for having fewer classes, and faith is slightly more important than reason for the same, er, reason, but realistically classroom units aren’t going to be getting that far without much more substantial active growth taken into account.
Active units on the other hand can afford to be much more dynamic in what they learn during instruction, especially as they’ll be motivated to receive private instruction. Ahem. One thing to note is that if an active unit is working on a budding talent it should always be instructed enough to unlock as soon as possible, even if you plan on leveling the skill passively/in battle afterward. Gaining a proficiency really does pay dividends, and sometimes the ability is useful too. Group tasks are also important to keep in mind, and ideally you should plan each run to have at least two active units training the same movement skill to take advantage of the weekly boost.
On Byleth
Byleth is in many respects a special case. I frequently rail on their defects as a flat self-insert who makes every story they’re in worse because it has to accommodate their wooden presence, but here I’ve really only got good things to say. It should be pointed out that the journal treats Byleth as one character despite the gender difference, which is good as the male and female versions do not have to be worked on separately. Byleth can’t gain skill experience from instruction, but instead they gain it from faculty training which costs activity points but is on the whole a faster process. As noted below faculty training is the primary way of dumping excess activity points during exploration, because maxing out Byleth’s skill ranks is very high priority. Units receiving instruction get an extra +2 to their base skill growth if Byleth has a higher rank in the skill, hence it’s in everyone’s best interest for Byleth to max out their skills first. This is also the big exception to the rule about spending Renown only on skills you’ll be using in a run; Byleth’s ranks should always be topped out as high as you’ve gotten them at the start of the game, to give this bonus as often as possible. Admittedly you won’t be able to do this earlier on as it costs a hefty amount of Renown to get all of a unit’s skills up to S+, but in later runs it will pay off considerably.
Something else to consider about Byleth is their level. There are three reasons to level up Byleth even if they’re not an active unit in a run: recruiting non-student characters, the Proper Conduct Tournament, and making them less likely to die instantly if they get attacked in battle lategame since they’re force-deployed on every chapter map and paralogue. The highest level required to recruit anyone is 15 (if in AM or VW doing so in Chapter 4 gets you Catherine, but this might be unfeasible and it’s not a big deal if you have to wait a chapter for her), but you should aim for 20 by Chapter 8 in order to win the tournament. These levels are entirely manageable with Byleth soloing the Prologue and then spending the rest of the time as an adjutant, or playing a minor support role when they’re force-deployed (I favor giving them the Stride gambit personally). For the tournament I recommend certifying them as a fortress knight first for the massive DEF boost and then certifying and changing to swordmaster because they’re required to use a sword and therefore appreciate that class’s abilities. Winning gets you the usual quest rewards as well as a free brave weapon, not to mention the inherent humor of the game itself mocking people clutching their pearls over the teacher/student relationships.
What Matters and What Doesn’t at the Monastery
Learning how to streamline exploration is a key component to keeping these runs fast-paced and cutting down on real time spent. Bluntly, a fair bit of what goes on at Garreg Mach is irrelevant when you’re thinking on a cross-run level. Here’s what actually does:
Quests: should be done all the time as they increase Renown by small amounts, award resources and some inventory items, and in some cases unlock monastery facilities or other features like the White Heron Cup. Most of them also don’t take very long to complete, and once you’ve run this game enough you’ll develop a good rhythm for the quests in each chapter. Quest battles are also worth doing - see the calendar section.
Dining hall: the best way to increase your units’ motivation for instruction. Fishing and the greenhouse are for the most part wastes of time since you don’t need to manually grind out professor rank (important note: except on your first run, where it’s probably better to do them) and the rewards from them are either negligible or, in the case of the greenhouse’s stat boosters, can be replicated with auxiliary battles. However, you should get enough resources for meals from quests and such to be able to carry you through a run without much trouble, and if you do start to run out note that you can also buy poultry and wild game from one of the vendors.
Choir practice: comparable to group tasks for the faith skill, and as with those you should preferably plan to have two active units leveling faith each run to take the most advantage of this. Byleth also gains both faith and authority from choir practice, so you can make use of that as well.
Lost items: usually more trouble than they’re worth to remember where they are and when they appear, but technically they function as one-time liked gifts if you want to restore motivation without eating or spending money on regular gifts.
Faculty training: how Byleth raises their skills outside of battle. This is the main dump for activity points in earlier runs once the dining hall and sauna are taken care of, but it’s important to note which characters increase which skills and to spread your training out accordingly. This is a major reason why you should recruit non-student characters even if you don’t plan on using them, because they’re more reliable sources of this training than the student characters even into Part 2. Obviously once Byleth has maxed all their skills this can be dropped from your task list completely.
Special vendors: unrelated to activity points, but once you do the quests to unlock the NPC vendors and Anna’s secret shop at the monastery it’s important to stock up whenever you’re exploring since you can’t buy this stuff from other menus. Important items are gifts if you lack the activity points to feed your active units, Smithing Stones for basic forges and repairs, Arcane Crystals lategame for magic weapons if you’re using any, meat if you’re running low on dining hall provisions as mentioned, and Master Seals from Anna once you’ve exhausted the free one plus the five you can buy from the regular shop menu.
Saint Statues: see the above section on Renown.
Sauna: also starting in Chapter 5, provides an important boost to skill gained during instruction or faculty training that month: +2 for refreshed or +4 for very refreshed. Getting very refreshed is more a matter of RNG than anything as there’s only so much skill involved in this minigame, but most of the time you can at least aim for +2 on all your active units. This should always be done the first free weekend of the month, but if the sauna decides to be finicky with a unit and deny them a boost you can try again on a later weekend.
Mark Your Calendars
You’d think that the in-game calendar would be the centerpiece of my mania for scheduling and thus this entire guide, but in actuality it’s quite simple. Events like saints’ days and special meals cost you nothing to attend, but who joins you is totally random from among your current party so there’s no guarantee the associated boosts will go to characters you care about. Birthdays are negligible, but if you just have to have teatime for whatever reason it’s more efficient to do so in honor of a character’s special day than by wasting an activity point on a weekend.
I find that the most efficient way to spend your free weekends is that all but the last of each month should be used for exploration, to pick up and complete quests, recruit new characters, raise motivation for instruction each week, and do the sauna on the first weekend. The last weekend, the one before the chapter battle, should be used for battling. What kinds of battles depends on what’s available:
Quest battles should be gotten out of the way, especially those that bring new vendors to the monastery, but they scale poorly with your units’ levels and are generally very easy. A prominent exception exclusive to CF is a quest battle where you can only deploy Byleth and Jeritza, which Jeritza should always solo because he needs all the favoritism he can get.
Paralogues are hit or miss overall. Some are absolutely necessary - Sothis’s for a Knowledge Gem (see below), Dedue’s unless you’re completely finished with him and are also a heartless monster - but for the most part it’s up to your discretion. Some offer very good rewards and some have very good battalions to add to your guild, but on the flip side some paralogues are more annoying than others thanks to odd initial positioning, more level scaling issues, and/or fog of war. The cutscenes before each paralogue are also unskippable, so they cut into real time as well. Still, paralogues do have one benefit over every other type of battle available on weekends in that they restore full motivation to their non-Byleth MVPs, just like story battles. It’s therefore possible that if you have a bunch of paralogues available at once (common late in Part 1) you can do three of them on one weekend in place of exploration and come out of it with some extra combat experience as well as three characters with full motivation for the next week of instruction.
Auxiliary battles are DLC-exclusive and are distinguished by a yellow exclamation point on the menu. Compared to regular or red exclamation point skirmishes the enemies in them scale much better with your army (making them the best battles for grinding your units up to 30 for master classes), and they offer bonus gold and stat boosters that can sustain your army in the absence of facilities like fishing and the greenhouse. There are also only about half a dozen of them overall and each follows a quickly recognizable pattern of enemy placement, so they are by far the best source of regular, reliable unit development outside of story content.
Apart from Chapter 2′s month which is structured like a tutorial there is only one major hiccup to how you plan your weekends. If you’re planning to go CF then in Chapter 11 you’ll have to watch Edelgard’s coronation, but doing so takes up all the rest of the month up to the story battle. In order to skip the least amount of content you’ll therefore have to either forego a battle weekend entirely or else do one earlier in the month and accept that not all of your active units will be motivated the following week.
And Now for Some Actual Standard FE Gameplay
Skills may be the focus for long-term goals and development over multiple runs both in active armies and in the classroom, but it’s class progression that frames a unit’s development in a given run and is, relatively speaking, easier to plot out and manage. I say that...but the reality is rather messier than that, which I will prove with a live demonstration.
Before that though, the numbers: each unit can access 35-42 of the 52 total playable classes. As before mentioned four active runs is the number to aim for based on optimal army size, and that number of classes divided by four means that units will be expected to master 8-10 classes per run. One of the advantages to a four-way division is that it allows you to split up classes approximately according to the four beginner classes: each unit will have a myrmidon run, a soldier run, etc. As shown below however, these are very loose descriptions and are better thought of as a framework to aid development than as a set formula.
With regard to class and skill EXP gained in battle, the formulas are a lot more set in stone. Every time a unit engages or is engaged in combat, uses white magic or a gambit, or dances they gain 1 class EXP, increased to 2 with the bonus from the Saint Cethleann statue which you should definitely unlock early in your first run. There are two ways to increase this number further. The first is by equipping a Knowledge Gem, undoubtedly the most important item to 100% completion. You get one in a chest in Sothis’s paralogue, which should be obtained your first battle of Chapter 8 when it’s first available, and another after Chapter 11 provided you don’t let any enemies escape with Crest Stones. Equipping this item doubles the amount of class EXP gained, so 4 after the statue bonus. The second way to increase this the Mastermind ability, Lysithea’s personal ability as well as one in Jeritza’s starting list that he must equip in order to use. It has the same effect as a Knowledge Gem on its own, and if the two are combined they stack additively for a maximum of 6 EXP at a time.
Skill EXP has a few more parameters but is similarly straightforward. When dealing damage or using white magic units will gain skill EXP with the weapon/magic type they used, their movement type if their class boosts one (and they’re mounted in the case of riding or flying), and authority if they have a battalion equipped - and as mentioned, all of these except authority also apply to adjutants. The base depends on the unit’s proficiency in the skills in questions: 3 for strong, 2 for neutral, and 1 for weak. The Knowledge Gem and Mastermind work in the same way to increase this base: 6/4/2 using one of them and 9/6/3 using both. Then class boosts are added to this, with each class boosting affiliated skills by +1 to +3. Putting this all together, the most skill EXP that can be gained at one time is 12, if Lysithea or Jeritza w/ Mastermind equips a Knowledge Gem and raises a skill they are strong in in a class that grants +3 to that skill. Gremory!Lysithea with a battalion and a Knowledge Gem using her favorite meme Dark Spikes on Jeritza’s obnoxious serial killer ass would give her 6 class EXP, 9 authority EXP, and 12 reason EXP - and this is why Lysithea levels so fast.
Now then, to build some class sets. I’ll be using Hubert for this example, and for a different reason other than shameless favoritism mostly.
Logically a unit’s first run should play to their strengths as much as possible, to ease them into development with skills they’re naturally inclined toward. Hubert is a default magic user, so his monk run should be his first. To start:
Noble (this or commoner should always be a unit’s first mastered class because it’s so quick to get out of the way)
Monk
Mage
Dark Mage
...And here’s the first problem. As is contractually required for CF exclusives Hubert is an edgy atheist and is weak in faith, making the expected combination of a monk run difficult to pull off without prior investment as a classroom unit. But wait - Hubert has a budding talent in lances that a therapist could have a field day with, and his most feasible master class is easily dark knight. This encourages something like so:
Noble
Monk
Mage
Dark Mage
Cavalier
Warlock
Dark Bishop
Paladin
Dark Knight
There we go, nine classes which is entirely reasonable for Hubert’s total of 37. For his first run he can focus on reason, lances, and riding, safe in the knowledge that he doesn’t have to max any of those skills here as there are other classes that require them. Looking ahead to his second run, soldier might seem like a logical second pick...but if he spent some time working on his faith as a classroom unit there’s a better run of classes to knock out.
Myrmidon
Mercenary
Thief
Priest
Swordmaster
Assassin
Bishop
Trickster
Mortal Savant
Holy Knight
After this he’ll be done with all reason-boosting classes and should be comfortably finished with that skill, along with having high ranks in swords, lances, faith, and riding as well as with authority probably maxed out as he’s strong in it. Assassin might seem like an odd stretch here, but note that he’s strong in bows so it shouldn’t be hard for him to reach. With his third run it’s finally time to go back for soldier.
Soldier
Armored Knight
Archer
Dancer
Hero
Fortress Knight
Sniper
Bow Knight
Great Knight
Lances and bows frequently pair well together as they converge at the end at bow knight, and bows don’t have many classes overall and pair less with axes or brawling than those two do with each other. Axes are one of Hubert’s weaknesses, but at this point he should have built up his rank in them and in heavy armor to make this more manageable - but since these are far from the only axe classes heavy armor is the bigger priority along with lances, bows, and riding. Dancer seems rather random here, but I looked ahead to which run needed an extra and it’s a pretty flexible class anyway requiring effectively only 8 CHA (or 13 in some cases that will never apply to Hubert). Consider it one last chance along with hero for him to work on swords. And now for the last one.
Fighter
Brigand
Brawler
Warrior
Grappler
Wyvern Rider
War Monk
Wyvern Lord
War Master
Flying is Hubert’s other weakness, but as with axes he shouldn’t be starting from scratch with them. He might be with brawling, but he’s neutral in that skill and has lots of opportunities here to work on punching people to death. I wouldn’t recommend war monk/cleric to do any more work with his faith however, as both it and trickster have halved spell uses which makes them highly inefficient for raising magic levels.
That, by the way, is just one way to go about building these class sets. I went back and forth on a few of my own choices as I was writing that up. The thing about classes in Three Houses is that they don’t flow smoothly into one another, so there’s a lot of room for experimentation with different paths and a lot of variance based on each unit’s strengths and weaknesses.
Finally, a note on adjutants. Smart use of adjutants substantially increases overall unit development as it effectively doubles the amount of skill and class EXP your army can gain from each battle. Units who have 1) maxed authority and 2) are not in danger of falling behind the pre-30 leveling curve (units receive less regular EXP in the back) are prime candidates to be adjutants, and in later runs as more units finish authority it will become more common to have characters who’ll spend the majority of their time in the back. Of course you’ll always need two or three solid frontliners to actually complete the battles, but this is a useful way to play around annoyances like the bad movement of armors or the limited spell lists of most physically-oriented characters.
So About Those Spreadsheets
I know this is a ton of information to handle, and the game offers only the bare minimum for cross-run organization. This is where developing your own system comes into play if you’re aiming for a quick 100%. Personally I decide which set of units I’m going to be actively using on a given run, then plot out and write down which classes each is going to master and which skills they’re going to work on. I also note what skills classroom units will be building, and I keep separate track on overall maxed skills and mastered classes so I’m not dependent on the in-game journal to do that for me.
How rewarding is all this? That depends on how much you enjoy breaking down a game like this and really wringing the most of its mechanics to reach entirely personal goals. Just writing this guide has inspired me to attempt a 29 run 100% sometime in the near future, and it would be interesting if anyone else were to take on this excessive, overly meticulous process. I know there are other ways of approaching this concept, and even some things I could afford to improve myself especially for earlier runs as the first time I did this I was still getting a feel for the game and wasn’t playing at anywhere near as optimal a level. All the better for all the plot and characterization discourse I’ve gotten involved in over the past year, naturally, but there’s room to better my game.
And with that I am done...hmm, do Tumblr text posts have character limits? Only one way to find out, I suppose.
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Artbook Data - Writer Team Interview
I really saved the best for last with this one. This interview was a wild ride, with at least two big pieces of fandom common knowledge being proven wrong.
Interviewees:
Yoshinori Terasawa: The producer for the Danganronpa series. Tasked with the challange of organizing this ragtag band of weirdoes while fighting schedule and budget. This time his title on the credits changed.
Kazutaka Kodaka: The writer, and one of the series’ creators. He created this game in paralell with writing scripts for the anime. Also experienced in writing novels and manga.
Takayuki Sugawara: Involved with the series’ development since the first game. For V3, aside from giving the order for the game to happen and offering many ideas, he also wrote all the secret lie routes for the Class Trial.
Shun Sasaki: This game’s director. Kodaka’s right-hand man, with the important role of transmitting Kodaka’s thoughts to the staff. The many bonus modes were all made at Sasaki’s idea.
The inital theme was going to be Psychoamerican, with the game being set on a desert!?
Interviewer: It has been a month since the game was released (interview recorded in February 23, 2017), so how much have your thoughts changed since the game’s release?
Kazutaka Kodaka: Not much.
I: Then it must mean everything, including the fan reactions, was just as expected.
KK: Yeah. I was wishing for an unexpected reaction, but everything went just as expected, for better or for worse.
I: How about you, Terasawa?
YT: Kodaka says “just as expected”, but I was thinking the game would be a little bit more well received. You know, when I look at the timeline, I see more critical opinions than I imagined I would.
I: That said, I’m getting the impression that we’re getting more and more positive reviews, compared to how it was immediately after launch.
YT: We’re feeling this too. I’m very thankful that one month after launch, the positive opinion have been getting gradually more vocal.
I: How about you, Sasaki?
SS: Same as Kodaka, no big changes. I'm just still stunned that it’s over.
TS: I’m the opposite of Sasaki. We’ve always finished Danganronpa on the edge of the deadline, but this one we were REALLY improving everywhere we could until the very last second. I feel like the production is still not over even now. Maybe we’re all lying when we said we made it in time (laughs).
I: Was V3 really this hard? When did the project start?
KK: It was late into Ultra Despair Girls’ production. Sugawara called me about a new project and ...
I: So it was Sugawara, not Terasawa.
KK: For some reason, he never calls me directly. Always has someone relaying his message to me. Then me and Sugawara started coming up with some content and wrote the project pitch. It was completely different from what’s now.
YT: It was going to be set in a desert.
I: A desert!? Do deserts have schools?
KK: The design theme at the time was Psychoamerican, so we thought it should be in a desert.
YT: If I recall right, it was going to be a desert where a Future Foundation was stranded...
KK: And so we made the project pitch with loads of American-ish stuff, like Vegas neon lights. I can’t remember much of the details.
YT: But even back then, Kodaka already had the game’s direction and that ending in mind.
I: So the ending idea stayed the same through the how development cycle. Was it Terasawa or Sugawara who asked you to make the V3 project?
KK: It was more the company itself than Terasawa.
YT: Yeah. I was the one who directly asked for it, but the very company was pointing out that it was about time for a new number Danganronpa sequel. At the time, the DR:AE development cycle was approaching its climax, so everyone was at the mood of “What are making next?” and the next cycle started very naturally.
I: I see. Then, was moving away from the Kibougamine series also decide from the beginning?
KK: Yes. No one ever considered continuing the Kibougamine series with V3.
TS: The Future Foundation ship I mentioned earlier would be set up as the ship from the DR2 ending for a twist of “haha, it was a different ship all along”. It was a red herring planned to draw the fans’ interest.
I: And why did you change settings?
KK: We all know DR1 and 2 follow each other chronologically as the Kibougamine series, but at first I never said they did. When I say from the start that it’s a sequel, the fans start expecting characters from the previous games. But personally I’m not a fan of having a previous survivor in the killing game, having to experience the murders, investigations and Class Trials all over again. I thought that when I made the next numbered title I should reboot the setting and characters.
I: Let me get this right, all you had defined back at the project pitch stage was doing a reboot and the story’s ending. Yes?
TS: Yeah. We didn’t have a concrete idea of how we would present the ending, but it we were settled on the direction that it was something that would make the player part of the plot.
I: And how exactly did lies, one of the game’s main themes, entered the stage?
TS: We had decided from the start that we would have the lie mechanic. Lying was actually a gimmick I came up with for DR2 and I really wanted the chance to include it for real in a next game.
I: Any other elements decided from the start?
KK: I think we decided the true meaning of “V3” in our first discussion. Did we? I vaguely recall we see saying it would be clever if V3 actually meant 53.
I: I agree, I was impressed when I played it!
KK: It’s just the part that the first game were also fictional in-universe and that V3 was the 53rd Danganronpa game that we came up with later. At the time we just though of the initial clever curveball. This was back before we had the idea to make the DR3 anime. We went with the name V3 just for this joke, then later we thought “If this is DRV3, the anime should be DR3”.
I: The game was decided first, huh. And how exactly did the “New” and the “Everyone’s Killing Game New Semester” came about?
KK: When we had to present the game for the Sony Press Conference (September 15th, 2015), we thought we should add something before the title, like the Super in Super Danganronpa 2. So we went with “New”.
YT: But for the first logo we wrote “NEW” in English letters.
I: And you already had the subtitle back then.
KK: The subtitle was also put together on a rush for the Sony Press Conference. We basically just added the “Everyone’s” there because the ending was pretty much completely planned at that point.
YT: We need to have these big presentations like the Sony Press Conference, because otherwise we never settle on a title (pained laughter).
The design theme changes to Psychocool! The production finally starts for real.
I: Now I have several questions about the contents of the game. We know you have the decided on the title, then presented the game under the final design theme of “Psychocool”. For what reason did you decide against the “Psychoamerican” theme?
KK: To be honest with you, Psychoamerican was never a design theme I was really serious about...
TS: We just needed something to pitch a project with.
YT: Every good project pitch has a few bluffs on it.
KK: At the time I was busy with Ultra Despair Girls, so I decided to leave the theme decisions for later. But after watching Sugawara’s presentation at the project meeting, I may have regretted neglecting the subject (pained laughter).
TS: That’s because my project file on the meeting as a blank piece of paper (laughs).
I: (laughs) Suguwara, did you really explain the entire project with a blank paper?
TS: No, each page had a head title. “Scrum Debate” was one, for example. And did the explanations with just that. Judging by the participants’ reaction, the overall tone of the meeting was “What the heck is going on here...?” (pained laughter).
I: And after all these hardships, you settled on the Psychocool theme. What was the deciding factor here?
KK: We started putting some actual thought into it, notice how hard it would be to deal with a desert setting, and decided the American part wouldn’t work. At the time I was considering given a more adult image to it, so we decided on Psychostylish. But we didn’t go very far with this theme, did we?
SS: I don’t think we did.
KK: So, the players who experienced DR1′s Psychopop in their teens grew into adulthood with DR2′s Psychotropical, and now cooled down after their growth... That’s why V3′s theme became Psychocool.
I: So it had a more mature image.
YT: But us changing themes 2 or 3 times before made things hell for the graphics team, since we wouldn’t settle on a direction already.
SS: Because before we decided on the Psychocool theme, the designers had already started working with no design concept. Kodaka already some ideas in mind for a ruined school with growing vegetation and some machines in it, but without any concrete direction, they had to redo their work multiple times.
I: I’ll ask about the design concept in more detail in the designer team interview. The next question is about the story. Is “what could be a lie” something you think about in the earlier plot planning stages?
KK: Include some lie elements back in the plot planning, but there’s nothing that was always meant to be interpreted as a lie. It all started in a project meeting where Sugawara said “I want to use lies”, but without any concrete idea of would that be implemented into gameplay. Later, when I started planning the plot, I was looking back at the project file and the discussion notes, scavenging for content I could use and found that I could use lies to fill the gaps in my plot. And so was born my liar character, Kokichi Ouma.
I: Usually the characters make the plot, but sometimes the plot can make a character.
KK: They are just robots instead of characters, but the same goes for the Exisals. They came from a joke idea told in the project meeting.
TS: We mentioned the Exisal as a mascot replacement for Monokuma. “Next mascot should be a monkey” (laughs).
KK: But not having Monokuma as the mascot feels wrong to me. Yeah, we were rebooting the characters and the setting, but I think changing too much does more harm than good, so I decided to keep Monokuma as the mascot without a second thought.
I: About what you just mentioned about Ouma, did you create all the characters as you were planning the plot?
KK: Yes. I thought 16 was the perfect number of students, as it was in DR2. Before I had any plot, I asked Komatsuzaki for some designs based on his impressions. I was planning the plot as I was receiving the designs and came up with the details along the way, I think.
I: At what point did you decide on the dual protagonist scheme with Kaede Akamatsu and Shuuichi Saihara?
KK: I can’t remember when exactly I decided that it was doable, but I’ve been wanting to do it from very early on. I was thinking that if I could do it, it would make for an awesome chapter 1.
I: The Ikebukuro Namjatown had a poll to guess who would survive. Harukawa was first, Saihara was second and Akamatsu was third, so I thought the fans saw it coming.
KK: I was also weirded out by how high Saihara was, but then I heard about the unfortunate hatless Saihara sprite visible in the PV. Since the ahoge is the symbol of the Danganronpa protagonist, I’m pretty sure this spoiled the twist.
YT: You didn’t notice it when the PV came out?
KK: I didn’t. Sasaki told me about it later and I was like “Oh no, really...?” (laughs).
YT: I see, because it very early on in the video.
SS: It was. What a shame...
KK: That said, a lot of characters were predicted wrong. Our survivor Himiko Yumeno got the very last place.
YT: She reestablished balance.
I: Yeah. Just look at our presented protagonist Akamatsu. While there were a lot of people thinking she was safe because she’s the protagonist, there were also a lot suspecting even the protagonist could die.
KK: I think the majority was predicting Akamatsu would die. But I think that as they watched the PVs and play the demo, a lot of them noticed how we made all the Class Trial assets for her and started thinking “Yeah, of course she wouldn’t die”. At very least, I think not many people predicted she would be executed as the culprit in the Class Trial.
This is how the 16 students watching the new Class Trial were born
I: In this interview for Danganronpa 2, you mentioned that Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu was supposed to die along the way, but as you were finishing your plot he became a survivor. Did V3 also have a character like Kuzuryuu?
SS: I’m pretty sure no character was changed. Though I vaguely recall we changing the order in which they died as the murder tricks demanded.
TS: When Kodaka was thinking of the murder trick for chapter 1, he asked me “What SHSL should we kill off?”. I answered “Killing the detective would be a shocker”.
KK: For context, I wasn’t too sure if it was ok for Saihara to be the Super High School Level Detective. Because Detective Saihara would mean a protagonist title ripping off Kyouko Kirigiri’s. But I ultimately accepted the idea of him being a detective.
I: I see. So this didn’t have any big changes like DR2 had. Was there any student talent or character trait that you decided on based on their murder tricks?
KK: I always plan the characters and the tricks at the same time. And this time I planned part of the tricks along with Kitayama. Whenever we discussed, I just told him “This is the culprit, this is the victim and this is the type of case I want” and he would come up with the details for me. Otherwise none of us would know what to do with his murder tricks.
I: If any other character had their characterization changed along the way, like you said Ouma did, tell us about it.
KK: I changed Harukawa’s title after seeing the finished desing. I kept her title as Super High School Level Child Caregiver, but made her actually an assassin.
SS: I remember you going with Bounty Hunter Harukawa before you changed it to Assassin.
KK: You’re right. She looked so out of the ordinary in that illustration that I thought she would work out as assassin and changed it, if I recall right. I tend to change my plot points a lot, so that’s why it’s always better to do all part of my work at the same time.
I: Is Kodaka always this nonchalant when talking about major plot changes?
SS: Yeah, he just comes out of nowhere and “I made Harukawa an assassin”.
TS: The script still wasn’t finished at the time, so even I didn’t know the reason for the change, I could say is “Really?” (laughs).
SS: Though I like her a little better as an assassin than as a bounty hunter.
I: Yeah, that’s not a situation where you can say “no” for no reason (pained laughter). By the way, Ouma and Harukawa are super popular. Did you expect them to this many fans?
KK: Sure, Harukawa got a lot of attention on the first teaser visual, and she’s a tsundere character very easy to understand, so I thought she would be popular. And Ouma is remarkably “Danganronpa”. When he is doing so much work to get things his way and getting many big scenes in the process, it’s no surprise he would get popular.
I: I think Kaito Momota got even more big scenes than he did. Not to mention his story role was pretty important.
KK: Momota was a character I was much more unoptimistically hoping to be popular. Because in the previous games I never had any characters as super friendly as him and Gonta Gokuhara. When I was writing the script, Sugawara or Sasaki told “This cast is our tightest group of friends so far”. Now that I think about it, I guess this strongly influenced my decision to put Momota as the leader. Byakuya Togami from DR1 would be constantly on the edge if he was there.
I: He sure would (laughs). Opposite question now, what character did you think was less popular than you thought they would be?
YT: Less than expected? I guess Ryouma Hoshi? Just my personal opinion though, I understand it’s because he died too soon.
KK: A lot of people I know love Hoshi.
TS: I know lot of Hoshi fans too.
KK: To me, the most unexpectedly unpopular character was Korekiyo Shinguuji, not Hoshi. I mean, his uniform is awesome and his unstable relationship with his sister feels like a classic underground movie. Shinguuji is one of my personal favorites and I thought he would be popular. But the people playing the game called him “gross” (pained laughter).
I: Shinguuji, one-of-a-kind as he is, he’s really not for everyone.
KK: Meh, whatever, I don’t wriite characters trying to make them popular. Be it for Momota or for Shinguuji, I was thinking I would personally love if they became popular but that was not the goal. In fact, the only character I wrote with the popularity polls in mind was Miu Iruma, and the goal there was to get her the last place! I think this gave her strong character quirks, not mention that trying to make everyone popular makes the cast weird and lacking in variety.
I: I see. Speaking of Shinguuji, I felt that while his motive was quite unrelatable, most of the other students had sympathetic motives. Was that on purpose?
KK: For the motives, I was just trying to avoid a repeat of what happened with Mikan Tsumiki. Yeah, I know Shinguuji’s was close. But this time most of the motives were based on their murder tricks. The first thing I did was give a definite theme for each murder trick: chapter 1 is the protagonist being the culprit, chapter 2 was a fusion of murder trick and magic trick, chapter 3 was a new death during the investigation, chapter 4 was the culprit not knowing that he is the culprit, and chapter 5 was the culprit and the victim working together. That makes chapter 2 the only outlier. I just really wanted to use the twist that Kirumi Toujou was the Prime Minister. I also absolutely wanted to have piranhas in my story (laughs).
I: (laughs) Another big difference I notice is that I couldn’t predict the culprits based on the murder tricks.
KK: That part was very intentional. I really didn’t want any moments of “I don’t know the trick, but the culprit is this guy” the best I could. Chapter 3 was easy to figure out, but I think chapter 2′s clever hooks did a lot better.
Kodaka is Barack Obama!? The personality felt by Megumi Hayashibara.
I: Sayaka Kanda voicing Akamatsu was a highly discussed topic. How exactly did you decide that?
KK: The initial was to have (non-voice) actors playing the role of the two protagonists. After many twists and tuns, we had only Kanda voicing Akamatsu.
YT: She had a great performance as Junko Enoshima in Danganronpa THE STAGE. I invited her to the Akamatsu with high expectations, not only because she obviously a very talented actress, but also because she is so associated with Junko Enoshima that it would give the fans a lot to speculate about.
I: Another big surprise was the other protagonist Saihara being Megumi Hayashibara. Hayashibara is not someone most people would imagine voicing a boy...
KK: Hayashibara was my personal request. It looked difficult at first, but ultimately she accepted it. She might have been initially wary but then felt it was okay because she shares a lot of history with Ogata and Takayama, who voiced the previous protagonist.
I: I see. Not that you mention it, in a previous interview Hayashibara made a comment about you: “He’s like President Obama”. She didn’t elaborate on that, so please tell us why!
KK: When we were recording chapter 6, Hayashibara asked me “Does Danganronpa always ends like this?”. I answered “It’s not always like this.” and the conversation continued from there. After I created Danganronpa, many other stories with death games started appearing. I know death games are exciting and easy to employ, but so many of them didn’t think their endings through or were just the using the game as a sadistic system to kill characters. Then, as I was analyzing what it means to “truly escape the death game”, I reached the conclusion that it’s the characters upsetting the death game itself. As I explained to her how I made that ending because I had to take responsibility for creating Danganronpa, Hayashibara said “Wonderful!”...
I: And where does President Obama come in?
KK: Hayashibara talked about one time when President Obama dismantle bomb facilities in the US to say “It’s important to take responsibility for what you make”, so I answered “Then I’m Obama?” (laughs).
I: (laughs) What a conversation.
KK: Hayashibara seemed to be very convinced by this explation, seeing how she put even more power into her chapter 6 performance.
I: Saihara’s chapter 6 voice acting was indeed on fire. Speaking of chapter 6, I was really surprised by the twist of having the DR1 and 2 characters there. Was that decided from the start?
KK: I didn’t even considered it when I was planning the plot. The idea came to me only when I started writting chapter 6′s script.
YT: That’s pretty late into the process.
KK: I was thinking that just Tsumugi Shirogane’s cosplays would be too weak to express the mastermind’s threat level. As I was thinking on how could I make her a character on par with Enoshima, since the ending was going to be that, I had my epiphany: “She should cosplay every character before her!”. And if I want a perfect cosplay, I would need the real voices. When I talked to Terasawa about how awesome she would be if she could cosplay even voices, and how much of a visual punch it would be to have all previous characters, his reaction was “Wait a minute...”.
I: I can see how he wouldn’t be ready for that.
KK: I was doing the recordings for the DR3 anime at the time, so I was naive enough to believe asking for just a couple additional lines would be enough.
YT: Life is not that easy (laughs).
I: (laughs) But everything worked at the end.
KK: I have to admit, I did some emotional blackmail there. Saying “I already started the script, I can’t go with any other twist now”. I had already resigned to the fact that we couldn’t have everyone, but in the end, the entire cast came to the recordings.
I: Impressive work, Terasawa.
YT: After Kodaka’s blackmail, I had to do my part, too. The result was splendid and very meaningful to the game, but we can’t use that in promotional material, so, from a cost efficiency standpoint, it was really bad (pained laughter).
KK: But one problem I would want to fix if I had a chance is how this made her total dialogue really long. I could have made it all a lot more concise, but you know, leaving one character with only two lines who be such a waste.
I: That said, I think the result was splendid. Just as you wanted, it made Shirogane a lot more awesome, in my opinion. On the topic of Shirogane, was making Super High School Level Cosplayer the mastermind talent decided from the start?
KK: Yes. The mastermind being a cosplayer came first from that ending punchline where she asserts that their entire world is part of her cosplay. Also because I really wanted to have a cosplayer character somewhere.
The Love Hotel was born from a cancelled game mechanic!?
I: Our next topic will be the setting and the special scenes. Starting from how the Kibougamine Academy was rebooted into the Saishuu Academy. Tell us how the academy was created.
KK: I think didn’t put any school name on the project pitch. The thing is, V3 is a project initiated under the idea of being something of a culmination of the series, of putting an end into everything, so we went with the name Saishuu, which carries the nuances of both “final” and “talents being locked up”. Another neat detail I only noticed now is that it’s kanji form is pretty easy to write (才囚).
I: You’re praising yourself too much (laughs).
KK: I love Saishuu Academy’s name, but I like its emblem just as much. The design includes a subtle prisoner aesthetic and a Monokuma. Though I wonder, how will the localization handle this? (pained laughter).
I: That’s a good question (laughs). Then, how was the academy’s design decided?
KK: I only asked them to make the wall. The wall was my utmost priority.
TS: I remember that this wall got its birdcage style because I suggested to include a jail or birdcage motif. V3′s school has a prison atmosphere, but prisons still have sports grounds and whatnot, you know? Because of this, we decided to make the Saishuu Academy with explorable areas outside the school building.
I: The Saishuu Academy has a lot of strange areas. A casino is already bad enough, but it has even a love hotel...
KK: Whose idea was the love hotel again?
SS: It was based on Sugawara’s idea of nighttime raids, from the project pitch.
TS: Oh yeah, at the time we had a set rule where you could only solve the academy’s mysteries at nighttime. The idea was to explore the academy at night and investigate the mysteries, but you could also peek into the students’ rooms.
YT: Yeah, I was thinking of making an investigation game like this.
KK: The problem was that this was going to make the game too lenghty, so we left the parts where you enter the students’ for dialogue as the Love Hotel.
SS: Yeah, and since we thought it would be nice to have an element where you can flirt with the characters, they became those erotic scenes...
I: I see (laughs). Did you write the Love Hotel scenes, Kodaka?
KK: I gave the Love Hotel scenes to a substitute writer. Except their version were really not acceptable, so I had to rewrite them myself (pained laughter).
I: What an interaction to have. Enough about character scenes. We also had many new secret routes in the Class Trials.How exactly were these secret routes created?
SS: The secret routes exist because we wanted to incorporate the Lie Bullet into the story, not only the gameplay. But lying is something we kind of needed to convince most players to do. You know, we needed to add moments where the player would want to lie. And all thanks to Sugawara, we could do it.
I: You wrote the secret routes, didn’t you, Sugawara?
KK: I was too busy with everything else. Since already had semi-done scripts for the proper route, I let Sugawara have his ideas based on that.
TS: That said, I was also piled up with other jobs, so I had other developers do some bits, like pointing me out where I could lie. Some pointers I followed straight, while others I had to rethink. I tried to include as many secret routes as I could, but this was a work I couldn’t get done in time for the voice recordings.
I: I think making secret routes is hard even when the proper route script is complete...
TS: It was relatively easy to make the new content for the secret routes. The difficult is how to get back to the original route.
KK: I tried not to touch on Sugawara’s scripts too much, but I did edit some character word choices or some parts where the topic got too long.
I: How did the fans react to the secret routes?
KK: I didn’t hear much about it.
YT: I often check Twitter for fan opinions, but that’s never really tweeted about.
TS: I think a lot of people don’t notice where they can lie to get a secret route. I did make them change the song for the Debate where you can do Perjury, but that’s not listed or hinted in any tutorial, so...
KK: Not to mention it’s a really minor change, so I find it pretty difficult to notice on your first go.
The mystery novelist Kitayama adds even more well polished murder tricks
I: Since we are talking about Class Trials, I would like to ask about the murder tricks. First, tell me how Kitayama joined the party.
KK: Once I knew I would have to work on this and the DR3 anime at the same time, I thought I would have to ask someone for help, since the time I would have on the scripts would shorten. I thought that if I could smoothly get all the murder tricks decided, I could handle both scripts just fine, but unfortunately the discussion went for much longer than I expected. In the end I didn’t gain any time from all this, but thanks to Kitayama joining me, we boast higher quality.
I: How was your work?
KK: I told Kitayama the trick themes for each chapter and had him come up with the howdunnit. With that, Sugawara and Sasaki’s developer team can plot out the trick, then I check it all and put it together as the script.
I: Was there anything big you had to fix?
KK: Depends on the chapter. For chapter 1 I pretty much used Kitayama’s idea exactly as it was. Even the “I tossed away what I was holding” descriptor was left exactly as Kitayama wrote it. On the other hand, chapter 2 was very different from the initial draft.
SS: The chapter 2 trick was the water slider instead of the ropeway using the floating tube, right?
KK: Yeah, that one. Lining up a lot of floating tube to make the corpse slide on them. Then she would only have to cut the rope connecting them and that would leave just countless floating tubes on the pool. I fought finding the tubes during the investigation would be a fun idea, but when it came the time to script it, I got a lot questions. “Is this really enough water pressure to make a corpse silde?”. “Won’t she get wet from the water on the gaps between tubes?”. “Are sure the corpse can enter the fish tank?”.
YT: I’m a physics major, so this bothers me a lot. One little detail like this can ruin the whole case for me, so I made sure to comment everything I noticed.
KK: Yeah, so I had to change to the whole water slider trick into a ropeway trick. Sasaki, you’re the one who argued the most against this, weren’t you?
SS: I was (laughs). I had to plot the trick for chapter 2. So when Kodaka told me “The water slide won’t work”, I was like “Really...?”.
I: The script is where you start to notice the problems.
KK: More exactly, the plotting stage doesn’t put all that attention to detail. Because the workload for plotting a trick as a lot bigger than it sounds. And we’re definitely not gaining any time if I happen to see plans before they’re ready...So, the issues only start showing up when I’m doing the script.
SS: In chapter 2, even my idea to gather all the students together, the Insect Meet-and-Greet, caused some back-and-forth.
KK: Yes, I let the developer come up with the finer details, like for example the reason why all students gathered together. So, for this one I was like “What’s an Insect Meet-and-Greet even supposed to be?”. Then he explained to me that the group would be assembled to look at Gonta’s insects, but I still had no idea why they would do that. I still wanted to do it, it was a fun idea, so I implemented Gonta’s Insect Meet-and-Greet on the form of Gonta kidnapping the students under Ouma’s orders.
I: Do you have any other case of struggles to connect a trick’s dots?
KK: Chapter 3, handled by Sugawara, also took a lot of time.
TS: I used Kitayama’s idea for the main trick using the seesaw, but we needed to change all the steps that lead to the crime, and that was the time consuming part.
KK: Oh yeah, we changed the seance ritual.
TS: At first, the trick was that the students would all hold hands and sing Kagome Kagome together, while the culprit would stomp the floorboard. But if that were the case, when the culprit stomped the floorboard, the people holding his hands would feel the movement, you see...
I: And that’s why you had to edit. Next is chapter 4, how was it?
KK: Chapter 4 also had a murder trick by Kitayama, but it was a trick using a rope. Since we changed chapter 2 into the ropeway, that would make chapter 4′s a repeat. While we were thinking of how to make a ropeless trick, one the developers gave the looping world idea, so I created the trick using the loop.
I: Chapter 4′s trick was an idea that made a really good use out of the game world. Was there any reason to change the characters’ visual into the chibi models?
KK: I was born because we wanted to make a game inside a game. At first, we wanted to make a fully 3D world.
YT: You were calling it “VR”, weren’t you?
TS: But then its main gimmick became the loop trick, so we had to give up because a loop would be too hard and far too costly to portray in 3D.
SS: We also considered using the bonus modes’ 8-bit sprites, but the consesus what that those were too visually unimpressive, so we made new ones, if I recall correctly.
KK: Also because to make the trick work we need to make the game in 2.5D, not 2D. Most of us thought it would be difficult to use the 8-bit sprites under that circumstances.
I: And for the chapter 5 trick, the twist where the victim and the culprit were in cahoots was very original, and I honestly couldn’t tell which of them was the culprit until the very end.
YT: That one is the hardest to figure out.
KK: I’m glad I could put the Exisal to good use in the 5th trick, with the victim and the culprit switching places. Also, I loaded chapter 5 with a large amount of information to distract you from the truth, so you being confused about it is exactly what we wanted.
The feelings imbued in the shocking finale. And an intriguing plan for the future!?
I: From this part on, I will be asking about the controversial chapter 6 and your plans for the future. I was told that when you were writting the chapter 6 script you added many extra animations and cutscenes of the school being destroyed.
KK: At the plot planning stage, the only thing I had planned for chapter 6 was the endgame. Only when I actually reached that part in the script that I saw I didn’t know how lead the path to that. In DR2 I prepared some surprises to thrill the fans, like Kibougamine Academy appearing and whatnot. I wanted this game to have an element like this. And that’s when I arranged a meeting with all of Sasaki’s developers. I said “I put Kibougamine in DR2′s finale, so now I want V3 to have a set up as good as that”.
SS: Everyone agreed we should have one, of course.
KK: And that’s where I suggested we should explode Saishuu Academy. With Ki-bo appearing to help us around at the tightest moments, fighting the Exisals and all that. I talked with Sasaki’s team to ask if they could do it, they said “I think we can” and I answered “Nice” (laughs).
I: (laughs) That said, I think that was hard on who was managing the budget and schedule...
YT: You get me. There was suddenly a lot more to make.
KK: But we weren’t behind on the deadlines, were we?
SS: That’s right, we weren’t.
YT: That’s not how it works! (laughs)
Everyone: (laughs)
I: Chapter 6 had a lot more animated cutscenes too, hadn’t it?
KK: I wasn’t expecting that. You know that scene where Ki-bo first appears, flying to the glass? I was think that was going to be just some CG, not a fully animated cutscene. So it was a good surprise, like “Are you really making him this cool? Thank you!”.
YT: And his cutscene was quite a long one, at that.
SS: A CG would be too weak and unconvicing for this. We decided we should have this animated to give it the impact it deserved.
I: And I assume the same goes for all the add cutscene. Was the idea of slapping away the block-pathing debris conceived and added for the same reason?
SS: It was. Honestly, there was so much more we wanted to do but didn’t have time to...
KK: To be completely honest, I was thinking chapter 6 was going to be a lot more visually simplistic than that. But once we started we didn’t want to stop. I’m glad the finished version is this much better than I imagined.
I: Speaking of chapter 6, can I ask Kodaka to explain the ending?
KK: I went with that ending because I wanted to change where the player stands in V3. In 1 and 2 the player was an outside observer to the killing game. But in V3 I wanted the player to experience the same shock as Saihara and take part in the debate from the same position as him. Then, as Saihara is shocked to learn “This world was fictional. The Akamatsu and Momota I believed in were all fiction”, the player would also be hit with the fact “Everything I played so far is fictional”. But it’s a fact that everything you played so far still resonated with you and you gained a lot from it, so I was hoping you could synchro yourself with Saihara and take his side in the argument after he gets back in his feet. I was thinking that it if the player and the characters could outgrow this fiction, it could even create a new relationship between player and game.
I: I see. So that’s what you were thinking.
KK: I prepared a lot of tricks to make it easier for the player to sync up with Saihara, like Ki-bo’s “Do you want to save?”. Just empathizing with the characters was not enough for chapter 6, I want to share their point of view. That why, to make it harder to insert and emphatize in one specific person, I shuffled the POV with everyone.
I: I think the finale intentionally avoids stating what’s the truth and what is a lie. Do all of you in the production staff share the same answer to this mystery?
YT: Kodaka might have the answer on his mind, but I think we don’t need to know. We don’t even know if we can take everything Kodaka says as correct. See, the real right answer is the answer you came up with yourself.
I: You mean you just want everyone to think of the answer with their own personal interpretations?
YT: Also, I want to take this moments to tell all the fans that we never had the slightest intent to tarnish or insult the past games. We still think of Danganronpa 1 and 2 as our very beloved children. We love all 3 games from the bottom of our hearts.
I: Kodaka said before that V3 is a culmination and an end to everything, but will the Danganronpa series continue?
YT: Like with the first two games, we are completely burned out after finishing it, so, honestly, we don’t have any solid plans for a next game yet. However, as a producer, I want to answer to the fans’ support and expectations. I need to think long and hard about the future of Danganronpa.
I: What could this future be holding for us...?
YT: Who knows. DR1-2 Reload and Ultra Despair Girls will be ported to the PS4 this year, so I think we’ll get many new fans. If something in this trend incites Kodaka’s desire to write, we could be having a new game. Or at least that’s what I expect. I hope our fans expect the same.
I: I’ll be looking forward to it. Now, one message from all of you to the fans.
KK: Thank you for buying this artbook. How about replaying once more now that you know the game better? Or even better, buy another copy of the game and the book!
TS: I think there’s always something of value, be it good or bad, in someone playing a videogame for the first time. So the words I want to say here are the same words of gratitude said since the old days: THANK YOU FOR PLAYING.
SS: I saw a lot of intense critical commentary both for and against this game, so I’m very happy that this game managed to make this many people feel something about it. I believe leaving you wanting to talk about of you felt is one of the more characteristic traits of Danganronpa, so I love that you can enjoy exchanging your opinions.
#artbook translations#kazutaka kodaka#Yoshinori Terasawa#shun sasaki#takayuki sugawara#'blank project file' sugawara is truly the chiyomaru of spike#kodaka completely forgot sakura in that comment about momota and gonta#why is hayashibara like this?#a lot of dramatic irony in context of too kyo existing
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