My biggest disappointment of 2024. I was only looking for a good story and a modern jrpg. This game failed me in both regards.

I get that they tried to appeal to the older audience but this isn't 1991, there's no need for having to walk around town for 10 minutes to get to a save point. Random battles are also completely dated if done like this. Doing puzzles is a complete nightmare because you're constantly getting battles pop left right and center plus finishing those battles takes forever even on auto.

Menus are slow, combat is terrible (also slow and with no option to speed up), magic is complete garbage...

The story is just... There for the sake of being there? It takes FOREVER to start and even when it does the game refuses to make any character interaction interesting from the getgo. Nowa spends 5 minutes with this guy and suddenly they are besto friendo's!

As I said HUGE disappointment. I hope the sequel is at least decent.

I genuinely can't believe they went from 999, VLR and the first Somnium Files to this. It's so fucking bad.

The game takes everything good from the first game and refuses to give us more of it.

The characters are much worse than in the last game. All of the first AI characters are here just for the sake of being here. They don't do nor provide anything to the plot besides standing there and being the target for questions that they never know the answer for. Ryuki is SO BAD as a protagonist. Mizuki is a bit better but still, I can't believe they went from Date to this. Date carried the first game hard, he made it interesting and his funny bits are ALWAYS funny. These 2 new protagonists are nothing like him.

The plot is utter garbage. Perdiod. I'm almost sure Uchikoshi decided to ask his 5 year old cousin to write a story for the second AI game. The twists are boring and predictable, the pace is TERRIBLE (one of the worst I've ever seen), they force you to go around asking stuff every time the plot moves 1 fucking milimeter and every question our character asks we both already know the answer for and is useless. God I loved how the first game set up the mystery, the murders, how you NEVER knew WHO or WHEN the next murder was going to happen. How BIZARRE some of the routes where... I genuinely can't believe how we are here.

Now for the comedy... Listen, the first game had a good balance between seriousness and comedy. The comedy was there but wasn't predominant, they threw bits here and there in the most stupid places ever and it felt good, it made me at least crack a smile, but this one... God it's awful, at the very least half of the game is pure comedy, it NEVER takes itself serious. Comedy is fine but don't lose focus, we ain't here for Comedy Central, we are here for a good suspense, murder mystery plot with time travel and the rest of the shennanigans on the Uchikoshi games. This ain't fucking IT.

I honestly don't understand how ANYONE thinks this is a good game. It feels like the author basically wanted to test how much they can laugh at the players. I genuinely don't see how they make a third game or go from here, it is THAT bad.