Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is the first game in what appears to be a series from Japan that has developed a bit of a following and also, apparently, a manga. Trigger Happy Havoc is the series' first foray into the U.S. and it leaves an odd, but appealing impression that feels more like an interactive graphic novel than a standard videogame.

Danganronpa has two visual styles that fit oddly together. The game flips between free-roaming 3D worlds where you explore the school and 2D scenes filled with characters and set pieces that you can interact with on a limited basis. Danganronpa doesn't try to smoothly transition between its two styles, but even so, there isn't much of a difference in art style that would make such a switch too jarring.

All of the characters are fully voiced and both the acting and the translation seem to be pretty good. While Danganronpa doesn't have an overabundance of characters, each one of the people you meet is important to the story and their characters are fairly well fleshed out - something that having a good voice behind the art really helps to do.

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc puts you in control Makoto, a kid who has been invited to join Hope's Peak Academy. This school is known primarily for one thing - only enlisting the best of the best. In fact, each student is considered the "ultimate" in one field or another. One girl is the lead singer of the most popular band, while another is world renown for her poetry. One boy is considered the ultimate baseball player, while another writes the best fan fiction and another has the strongest moral compass. So what makes Makoto so special? Well, he is average, average in every respect except that he was picked in a lottery to join and thus labeled the "Ultimate Lucky Student."

Makoto's schooling doesn't start off that well, though. As soon as he walks through the front doors, he collapses and when he comes to, he finds himself alone in a classroom. After making his way to a common room where he meets his fellow ultimate students, they are are all presented with an odd situation. A strange teddy bear appears and tells them that they are all prisoners and the only way to actually graduate from the academy is to murder another student and not be found out.

When you take away the odd Japanese wrappings that Danganronpa swaddles itself in, the game becomes essentially a Phoenix Wright-like trial game, or even something similar to Telltale's Law & Order series. When a murder occurs, you start interviewing your fellow students and looking into anything that seems out of place. The surviving students get together and try to sleuth out who the killer was. If the correct culprit is chosen, then he or she is executed in a manner appropriate for that student. If, on the other hand, the wrong person is accused - then the killer walks away and everyone else dies.

The story of Trigger Happy Havoc does run a little deeper than that, since your goal is to not only uncover the murders amongst your classmates, but also determine just what is going on in Hope's Peak Academy and who is manipulating everyone.

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc was slow to start, but once I got past all of the character introductions and got to the meat of the game, I found it hard to put down - which is good because its a game that can get hard to put everything together if you forget who said what and what you observed - after all, you are trying to catch your classmates in lies in order to determine what is really going on.

In the end, how hard Danganronpa is comes down to how closely you paid attention to everyone's personality quirks and catch inconsistencies. If you make a false move, then the wrong classmate could end up being accused and then your work will have been for naught.

Where Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc truly excels is in its story and both its character and plot progression, which is good for a game of this style. If either part had fallen short, then Trigger Happy Havoc would have resulted in a chore to trudge through. Instead, learning who the characters are and interacting with them made me want to track down the various mysteries even more.

There aren't a lot of PS Vita games out there, and fewer for those that enjoy a good adventure title, but if you don't mind the anime art styles or bits of odd Japanese culture, then you should definitely consider adding Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc to your library.