I love both games, and honestly? I played YTTD because so many people had compared it to DR, and I love DR so much.
There are a lot of elements from each game that I think can be compared and its just a matter of opinion.
For example. I think that having one main 'stand in' villain in Danganronpa (Monokuma standing in for the *real* mastermind*) is much more effective than what YTTD seems to be doing, which is having a new 'stand in' villain for every chapter.
Obviously, none of us know for sure, but it seems like all of the floor masters are working under one character we already know, who will turn out to be the mastermind behind the whole thing.
YTTD so far has: Sue, Gashu, Safalin, Rio, and Midori as...I guess smoke screens for the real Big Bad. Now, I think all of them are very memorable, Midori and Rio especially...but in my opinion, even Midori and Rio don't hold a candle to Monokuma.
However, I think that YTTD has a much stronger overall cast. Honestly, I think some of the best characters in YTTD are as good as the best characters in DR...but DR also has some really badly written characters, while in my opinion, YTTD just doesn't...even the most boring characters aren't actually that bad. I sometimes feel like DR was like 'well, we have to have at least 15 characters to start with...not all of them will fit into the story we want to tell, but they need to be there for the story structure to make sense...so we have to just phone some in...its okay, we can kill them off soon!'
I didn't feel like YTTD did this. Everyone in the cast feels like they are there for a reason other than just to bring the cast up to a certain number.
I think the biggest thing is the way the actual killing game works, which I'm really conflicted about. I don't think either one is 'better writing' or a 'better concept' than the other, I honestly think it's just a matter of personal preference.
YTTD's killing game is definitely more cruel than DR's. In DR, you have to sacrifice the person who killed another classmate and tried to get away with it. Even if they had a really good reason, or it was an accident...they still killed someone *technically*. I'm not talking about real life morals, but in gaming morals, its natural to feel less guilty killing off someone who killed another character, no matter what their reasoning.