Danganronpa is one of the best hidden gaming gems for PSVita owners. Originally released only in Japan as 2 PSP games in 2010 (Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc) and 2012 (Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair), thanks to the release of the PS Vita collection with both episodes in USA and Europe, western gamers were finally able to enjoy this bizarre Visual Novel. Before to be known with their final title “Danganronpa”, the project was in development for the PSP with a different title: Distrust.
The story behind the development of Distrust is more complex than what is generally supposed. Even if Spike Chunsoft released many images from the beta version of the game, they did not explained why the project was so heavily changed and some features from the original Distrust project were reused not only for Danganronpa, but also for another popular visual novel.
Danganronpa was originally published in late 2010 by Spike, just a year after they released 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors for the Nintendo DS, developed by Chunsoft. 999 was released in English in 2010, where it soon became a cult hit among american visual novel fans, thanks to its gloomy and mysterious plot. Unfortunately it seems that in Japan it was not as well received. When it was first shown Distrust received better feedbacks from japanese gamers, but it seems that in its early development the game had much more similarities with 999.
A beta Execution in Distrust
It is difficult to say to what extent Danganronpa follows the original story of Distrust, but at least we know from these beta screens that the game already had both Class Trials and the resulting executions, as well as an ensemble of 15 characters. Both the drawings and the darker atmosphere of Distrust are in contrast to the more “colorful” Danganronpa. The colors in Distrust were much dirtier and the “Over the Top” executions that can be seen in Danganronpa were not implemented yet. Distrust had much more bloody deaths for the characters, such as the execution of a female protagonist through a guillotine (that does not happen in the final game). The poor girl here, killed by the guillotine, could have been a beta version of Kyoko Kirigiri or Junko Enoshima from Danganronpa.
It seems that Spike and Chunsoft had some disagreements about the style of the game. After a while the design of the characters and the color of the blood were changed.
On the left Beta Distrust, on the right Beta Danganronpa
According to the developers, they have changed the color of the blood to pink in Danganronpa to keep the age-ratings down, but in the end it was a good stylistic choice that perfectly matched the final style of Danganronpa. Even with a pink blood, CERO (the Japanese entertainment rating organization) gave a D rating to the first Danganronpa, so the game could have only be sold to buyers of 17+ years old. The second episode had a C rating, for 15+ years old gamers. Ratings of CERO are often regarded as very random.
If you look at the beta cover for Distrust, it seems that the game already had a D rating from the CERO, so violence and blood could not have been the main reasons for the drastic changes that evolved the game into Danganronpa.
There was a Trust / Distrust mechanic in Distrust
A feature that was changed in Danganronpa is the “Trust / Distrust” system. While we can make our choice in the Hope / Despair in Danganronpa, Distrust was all about trust and distrust. This game mechanics was much more complex than the one in Danganronpa. Something that is missing in Danganronpa (which is also relatively unusual for Visual Novels) are tough decisions that change the course of the story and lead to many different routes and endings. Only once, and only at the end of the game, you are able to make such a decision in Danganronpa, even if it have little effect on the plot. The Trust / Distrust system would have allowed players to gain the trust or the resentment of the other characters. Under this system, different murders and routes would have happened in the game. If one won the trust of a character, they would act as allies in the following investigation. It’s interesting to notice that the Trust / Distrust system was reused in Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward, the sequel to 999.
The Rhythm Minigame that can be found during Trials parts in Danganronpa was already implemented in Distrust, as we can see in the left Screenshot.
Design of the characters in the beta version was changed often to find the more popular one, but in their final designs, Distrust characters kinda resemble their appearances in Danganronpa. Character designer Rui Komatsuzaki stated in the official artbook (in which we can find many interesting unused artworks) how difficult it was to find the designs of the main characters. The first characters that were designed for Danganronpa were Sayaka Maizono and Leon Kuwata, from which he then created all the other designs. These two characters seem to have already been finalized in Distrust and in these beta screens Sayaka and Leon are the only ones that are almost identical in the final game.
Other characters like Byakuya Togami, Hifumi Yamada and Toko Fukawa have since been drastic changed. Even the main “antogonist” of the game, Monokuma, was much, MUCH different in its beta version.
Final characters:
Beta Characters:
Final Monokuma:
Beta Monokuma:
Design of Hope’s Peak Academy was quite different and in Distrust it looked more like a dirty warehouse.
Danganronpa, a game about executions, had many executions itself. We don’t know the official reasons for all these changes from the beta version (Distrust) to the final one (Danganronpa), but we can speculate that Spike Chunsoft decided to make these shifts to differentiate the game from “999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors”, that was not enough popular in Japan. We wonder how Distrust would have been played, with the different characters, an abandoned / dirtier school, more violent executions and different gameplay mechanics, with new plot lines and new endings.
Another huge change in the beta version was the 7 days time limit. Unfortunately we don’t know much about how this could have been used in the game.
A few easter egg remain from the early version of the game, as a well-known music track from Danganronpa that grant its title from the original project.
Only a single beta video from Distrust still exists, that shows all its little details and distinct features. Even if the characters shown in this beta video are not the exact same as the ones in Danganronpa, do not watch this if you have not finished the game, to avoid spoilers.
Original article written by Aufziehvogel in german, english translation and updates by monokoma! Thanks to Dengeki Playstation for the screenshots, GameFAQs users & Jeuxvideo. If you notice more differences or if you own the Danganronpa artbook and can find some other interesting beta designs, let us know in the comments below!
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