What TV Tropes calls the Slow-Paced Beginning is often a necessary evil when starting up stories. Stories that use this trope often struggle to gain reader interest, but must sometimes engage in this trope to lay the necessary groundwork for the story to come, from introducing the setting and characters to building up tension. I will look at the three Danganronpa games' opening hours, and the parts of the story that necessitate a slow pace early on.
Characters
Most works of fiction introduce characters throughout the story, but the majority of the important characters usually debut in the first half unless there's some reason for the main characters to not meet a significant player until later. Danganronpa, however, introduces all 16 (or 15 in the case of the first game) students in the game within the opening minutes, resulting in the player having to memorize many different students' names, appearances, talents and personalities. The second and third games are a bit less overwhelming in this regard, as while you see all the characters together, you properly introduce yourself to each student in a one-on-one conversation, but this is still a lot to process.
The games do occasionally help by focusing on certain characters early on, whether characters who will be killed off early on, such as the first victim, or characters who will be important for the entire game. Characters who die midway through tend to get less screentime, as do secondary characters who make it to the end of the game.
Setting
The first couple hours of Danganronpa establish the setting- all the students are trapped in a school or series of artificial islands and cannot leave unless they graduate. They must review the rules of the game, which are a matter of life and death in the killing game and commit them to heart, even if it results in the introduction slowing down to explain the rules.
The initial playing area is relatively large compared to many other stories, in terms of the amount of the setting it comprises. The first and second games have five areas, one of which is unlocked per chapter, and a common area that is open from the beginning, so you start off the game with two out of six areas open, roughly a third of the game world. As for the third game, things are a bit more complicated here, but the portion of the school that is initially available is slightly larger than the other two games.
Naturally, the player character will have to explore these areas thoroughly and pay close attention, since small details often become relevant in the killing game(details that you are generally forced to look at before you can proceed).
Building Tension
One thing that the three games have in common is that the students, despite being desperate to escape, don't just jump at the chance to kill someone to graduate. In the first and second games, Monokuma is forced to introduce a "motive," or additional incentive for murder, before someone snaps and commits murder. In the third game, Monokuma's motive falls flat and he resorts to even more drastic measures.
As a result, the students spend several days at the school, stewing in their anxiety and wondering who will snap first. Sometimes, the player can tell when a murder is about to occur, such as at the party in the second game or when the deadline for murder approaches in the third game, but usually, the identity of the first victim is a surprise.
Foreshadowing
The introduction also foreshadows important events, which can be important. Each of the three games contains a number of seemingly forgettable lines of dialogue, events or other clues that help point toward late-game twists, from the identity of the main antagonist to the true nature of the game. Obviously, their importance will go over the heads of all but the most perceptive first-time players, which help contribute to the perception that the introduction is a waste of time, but a second viewing helps refute that perception.
Conclusion
Some stories have little choice but to use a Slow-Paced Beginning, whethr because the way they're structured requires them to get all the exposition out of the way first, or because they thrive on building up tension. In such cases, while the pacing is slow, it behooves the creators to use every moment of the introduction to the story well, not only establishing the setting but also foreshadowing later events. In that sense, the only truly bad slow-paced openings are not those that take a long time to get going, but those that waste that time, whether by failing to set up the story or failing to deliver what is promised
Comments
Post a Comment