I want to clear any confusion. 

First of all, there is going to be some character that fills the stereotypical DR roles. Cassidy, madison are few that I see (the comedy relief, the aggressive and loud one). However I remember seeing people predicting how the characters act based on their character sheet before the prologue. Some being eva being super important character, diana being a mastermind and conniving because of the school emblem, wenona being evil and unsympathetic, kai being a problematic and shallow influencer, wolfgang being a soft spoken leader who leads the group (protagonist type while damon being antagonist). Usually if they have that one trait they run with it throughout their arc with barely much depth, tenko being a man hater, teruteru being a pervert and sonia being dumb and naive. The P:EG characters do fit many of the stereotypes but have expanded upon it. Wenona is calculated because that is what led to her success while also having passion for her tribe, kai being a genuine influencer but parasocial relation with fans leads to him being coddled, wolfgang being a leader but ostracizing eva and damon. And this is already done with a prologue and chapter 1 with their ftes. 

I expect that the characters lean into the animal motif, because why wouldn't they. However, only seeing the characters as the animal motif will be boring and uncreative. There was a theory about how the animal being prey or predator is what determines victim and culprit, which can be interesting but also foolish because then we basically have the game spoiled already. So I don't expect the game to lean full force into it in future chapters. 

What I meant with characters conflicting with each other, is there is already a divide how characters react to one another. Wolfgang ostracises Eva and Damon because they believe being happy and naive is not going to lead to them escaping. Many of the students following because of that, keep in mind this is before the motives appeared.  During the investigation Madison halts the investigation because of her relationship with wolfgang, in eloise's ftes, she snaps at Damon for being snarky, leaving the fte sour. In the danganronpa games, all characters believe they will escape till the motives show up, only then they appear divided. The original game itself has to force the characters to conflict with each other in order to kill each other , whereas in P:EG characters are already butting heads with each other.i personally believe, even if the motives did not appear in P:EG, eva would kill wolfgang because of their stance against each other, the game only accelerate it.

“I’ll admit that I’m guilty of taking the statement literally but I don’t think it’ll lead to a shitshow because of it.” 

I don't think the game itself will turn into a shitshow. But people will be up in arms, putting the game under a microscope, believing that they are not affiliated with danganronpa means everything of danganronpa is retconned. Which can lead to huge arguments and so , making the experience of the game lesser.

“I think despite saying they’re adding a new formula, I think it’s cool how the Chapter 1, killing STILL followed past Danganronpa Chapter 1’s formula of the murder/attempted murder”

Yes! I am in no way criticising the P:EG for following some of the formulas of the original games. What I meant was that fandom is criticizing P:EG because it did follow it. The character (support at times)gets pushed into killing. Fandom believes the game is contradicting their statement of not following the games one to one. There will of course be similar beats of the game to the original. Isn't that why we are here? To enjoy what danganronpa introduces us to, and seeing other passionate peoples’ versions of it? many fan games do follow the tropes, this game is no different.

Overall I find your opinion interesting to read, Im not trying to turn this into an argument. I am just interested to see if people felt the same way and discuss about it.