the game’s own anti-tampering features will remain active

…what does that mean exactly? Is there an online component to this game or something?

It’s also worth noting that in the case of games in Japanese, it’s not so easy for developers to find alternatives. While games using English can rely on system UI fonts, cheap commercial fonts or open-source options, the sheer number of characters used in Japanese means high-quality fonts are extremely difficult and expensive to make, so few affordable alternatives are available.

There’s already a decent selection of high quality, freely available Japanese fonts here: https://fonts.google.com/?lang=ja_Jpan

CrossCode is probably on the fence of what you’re looking for.

I did do the tutorial (after fucking up the first time through the initial setup and only getting the recommended songs and going “?!?!?!” for a moment) so I know about Z/X but what I mean is it’s not entirely clear if I’m supposed to keep holding them while dragging. The UI’s clear enough if I missed entirely, but if I kind of got it, I’m not really sure if I’m doing it right. With the reversals and the circle closing-in timing and a lot going on on the screen visually, it’s a bit much all at once. TBF, it’d probably make sense if I spend more time poking at it; those were my initial impressions.

Thanks for trying to help me, btw, with your comment; always appreciated.

I’ve seen recordings of people playing this before in stream VODs a couple times before the player fired up another game, and, well, this post finally got me to try it.

The on-ramp for new players trying to make sense of it is, uh, not great. Trying to make an account on the website tells you to download the game. Okay… Trying to make an account in the game then sent me back to the website!? (Why not just let me register on the website in the first place?)

The basic idea of the circle mode is easy enough to understand – although I doubt I will ever get very good at this, at least with a mouse, and I’m still not quite sure on whether or not I’m supposed to hold a key down/click-and-drag or just click and then follow the motion? – but there are other modes that it threw me in (mania?) when I tried loading another song from the catalog and it was rather difficult to even figure out what keys I was supposed to push. (The diagram on the wiki was not helpful – I spent a while confused thinking I was supposed to use ASDF for a “4K” when it seems like it’s actually DFJK for some reason?) Probably all makes sense to someone who’s been playing it for years, but, yeah… Pretty UI, but the on-boarding could use some work.

Might be fun to poke around at for music discovery though.

Anyway, that’s my 2 cents worth from giving it a try.

Nice!

Edit: do you have to disassemble the controller (with a screwdriver or something) or is it accessible with just my hands? I swap (rechargeable) AAs on my XBox360 controller quite a bit, and part of why I like it is that I can do it quickly if the battery dies while playing.

Now if it just had a replaceable battery…

I’m not sure, but this is what my map looks like currently.

Huh. Maybe I’m just too early in the game still (despite having put 10+ hours into it) but crafting materials are like, the one thing I’m not hurting for. It’s got the Zelda rupee problem for me, at least at this point in the game – I’m constantly pegged at the max capacity, and it feels like I have basically nothing to use it on. (I mean, I do use the tools I have found so far, situationally, but I don’t think I’ve been down by more than ~100 or so from max other than for that one wish in the starting area.)

Edit: Ok, I’m a bit further in now, and I see what people mean… -.-

Play them in order; Danganronpa 2 follows a different cast, but was written assuming you’re familiar with 1.

I just got it a half hour ago (2025-09-04 ~3PM UTC) on GOG and can confirm – no issues at that time!

• Preferred: DRM-free download (e.g. GOG, JAST)
• Will consider: Steam (if not encumbered with evil crap like Denuvo, Enigma, Ubisoft/EA shitware, …) – rarely preferred in some cases (e.g. the game is stupidly big)

That’s it. Those are the only ways I buy games in practice in 2025. (The last time I bought a physical copy of a game was pre-COVID…)

I have a Steam Deck and an ancient (offline-only) Win7 computer that is surprisingly still usable. If I can’t run a game on one of those, it might as well not exist as far as I’m concerned.

If a Zelda game did it, it would suck.

While I don’t find the idea particularly appealing personally, there are modified versions of Zelda games that randomize various aspects of the game (like what items are in which chests) and apparently a decent number of people do actually enjoy playing them. (Usually not on a first playthrough though!)

The registrar appears to have ignored the response from itch.io (source with additional details). I’m not sure what that means for them legally speaking – but not following the DMCA process correctly probably opens them up to being sued for damages.

GoG homepage > (your name [drop down menu] when logged in) > “Games” > Click on any game in your collection > Download offline backup game installers

You can download installers for whatever systems the game supports – usually that’s just a Windows .EXE installer (+ several .bin files if the game is large). For games intended to run on Linux w/o WINE, you can select “Linux” from a drop down where it says system and it will give you an .sh file.

Oh, I remember playing Iji! I think that was the first game I played that noticed and reacted if you tried to play as a pacifist. There was at least one unavoidable boss fight when I played it though, as I recall.

Digging back through my old disks, it looks like I actually still have my copy from 2008 (version 1.2, according to the manual.txt file) as well as a saved game from much later when I replayed it in February 2013. That was a while ago!

you might check out Trackless if you like interactive fiction

Thanks. I’ll check it out.

BTW, I thought of another game that might be of interest to you. Have you seen Not for Broadcast? It’s an unusual game where you play as the controller in the studio switching between multiple video feeds of actual actors presenting the news on TV. You get to make choices about what to show, what to cut, and what ads to play in your broadcast – which affects the world in an exaggerated fashion. The game timeskips to show you how things play out over the years. There’s some distractions that make it a bit more gamey than a VN but you can turn most of them off if they’re too annoying, I think.

Have you explored text adventures / interactive fiction? They’re even more niche than VNs but there’s some good ones out there. I remember liking Worlds Apart back when I played it. (15+ years ago… o___o)

One of these days I should go dig back into them again.