We Take A Peek At Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp's Hype Cards And Story

Danganronpa Decadence is coming to Switch on 3rd December and will pack a whopping four games in one bundle, all available separately on the Switch eShop, if you prefer. It will include the three main games in the visual novel adventure series (Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc Anniversary Edition, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair Anniversary Edition, and Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony Anniversary Edition), plus a brand new game: Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp.

The latter is a boardgame-style affair featuring characters from the series interacting at — you guessed it — a summer camp. Having got a little heads-up from developer Spike Chunsoft via some press materials, in this feature we'll be taking a look at the prologue and the Hype Card mechanic of this new game.

Pack your bags for Talent Development Camp

According to our sources (who made the game, so they should know), three years study at Hope's Peak Academy are being capped off by a mammoth 50-day summer camp known as the 'Talent Development Camp'. Komaru Naegi gets an invitation but discovers that it's not just the Ultimate Students who'll be soaking up the sun and talent at the camp — family members and elementary school students will also be in attendance.

Bearing in mind the presence of young kids, it's comforting to know that, although the relationships between the characters will be present and correct, "horrifying events" of the variety fans of the series will be familiar won't be a feature of this summer camp — it seems that in this case, thankfully, somebody has thought of the children.

We say 'soak up the sun', but in fact the whole camp takes place in the Neo World Program, a Matrix-like reality you enter by getting in a capsule. The sun on Jabberwock Island is entirely digital, which presumably means you don't need to slather on sun cream and walk around with sand stuck to your person.

Monokubs, Monobeasts and Hope Shards

The robotic Monokubs from Danganronpa V3 feature in the game as camp 'helpers' of a sort, although father of the kubs, Monokuma, takes it upon himself to make the camp a little less relaxing and a little more deadly when he fills the place wih maurauding Monobeasts. Cue a battle to escape the camp and get back to the real world.

Fortunately, the Monokubs stick round to support the campgoers and interaction with them while developing 10 characters apparently forms the backbone of the story experience as they do battle to collect Hope Shards and develop your talent as you progress.

Character and Hype Cards

The school has a store with three MonoMono machines dispense both character cards — which, as you might predict, unlock characters — but also Hype Cards, which bestow ability enhancements on your character and expands their maximum capacity.

Hype Cards are used across game modes and come into effect the moment their drawn, with nine types of card for each of the 60(!) playable characters. Each card featuring illustrations taken from Danganronpa merch, apparently, which you can check out via the Character Select screen.

The aforementioned MonoMono machines also dish out boardgame one-time bonuses that will, for instance, increase your deck size or provide discounts at shops.

Here's a peek at a handful of the cards:

The School Tuck Shop Store, Monocoin and Real-World Purchases

Obviously you can spend your hard-earned in-game Monocoins at the school store and buy chances to win the cards you want (no dupes, either, which is nice).

However, you can also spend real-world coin if you're into that sort of thing. You can't exchange real-world money for Monocoin, but instead time-poor players have the option of buying outright the card they're after using a "1 card DLC" bought via the Nintendo eShop.

The prices for these DLC cards — which remove the random gacha element from the in-game currency machine purchases completely — cost $0.99 for 1 card, $1.99 for 3 cards, and $2.99 for 5 (there's also a one-time offer of a 3-card pack for $0.99, too).

That's it for our brief early look at a couple of aspects of Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp, although fans of the series might also be interested to know that there's a 90-minute live-streamed event planned for the end of November: The Danganronpa 10th Anniversary: Ultimate Class Reunion.

Announced earlier this year, it's a (slightly delayed) celebration of the series' 10th anniversary that will take place at the Tokorozawa Sakura Town Japan Pavilion in Saitama. It will include musical performances of tracks from across the series, plus scheduled appearances from some of the Japanese voice actors and musical directors.

There'll be two performances on Saturday 27th November 2021 — one in the day, one at night (Japan time, obviously). It'll all be in Japanese, but for those of you unable to make it to either of those performances in person, don't worry — there's a VOD option just for you for the performance of your choosing. Times and details below, and you can buy tickets and check technical limitations and information here:

Pre-orders for Danganronpa Decadence are open now. The games all launch on Switch on 3rd December.

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