"Shuichi went through more pain then any of the other protagonists"
No. No he did not.
He may have lost his memories, but Shuichi Saihara signed up for Danganronpa. He knew what he was getting into.
"Then Shqueezy, it has to be Hajime!"
Hajime is a war criminal who signed his life away to science you absolute bozos.
There's only one person was forced into Danganronpa without doing anything wrong, or signing up for anything. He was then forced to solve the goddamn apocalypse, watch his sister fight for her life at the hands of an insane pickle bitch, save the group of terrorists from the same game he was forced to play, then watch the world go crazy over 53 more rounds of teenagers throwing their lives away for the very thing that ruined his life.
DRV3 participants knew what they were doing.
SDR2 didn't even have any real casualties.
Trigger Happy Havoc was all real. Sayaka isn't coming back, neither is Leon or Chihiro or Mondo or Taka or Hifumi or Celestia or Sakura.
Makoto Naegi suffered the most pain out of any of the protagonists. We just forget that because he's always held his head up.