Substantial improvement over Trigger Happy Havoc in nearly every way. The cast is so endearing and lovable, and much more consistently written. Even people who I disliked or didn't care for at the beginning ending up completely changing my perspective of them. When the murders eventually start happening, it genuinely hurts to see a character you've gotten to know so well either die or be found out as the culprit - there's some real emotional gut-punches to be found that just aren't there in the prequel. The gimmicks within investigation periods are also brilliant; the separate game to find out the culprit, the funhouse, the main idea of Case 5, it all feels really experimental and it definitely paid off, every case (excluding 3) is superbly written and so damn engaging. The trials are much more involving as well; attacking with the correct piece of evidence and figuring out the culprit is actually more challenging since you don't have someone like Kyoko giving away all the hints, the addition of agreeing with someone in Nonstop Debate is also a clever addition. The Run-2/3-esque Logic Dive is fun as hell to navigate. The truth blades... kind of fucking suck and feel redundant, I would much rather just play another Nonstop Debate, and well Hangman's Gambit will just always be complete shit - but somehow they made it worse here. Really the only other aspect that THH does better in, is the setting and atmopshere. For what it's worth, Goodbye Despair is a near perfect sequel.

The cast is a downgrade from the first game. Music is also a letdown. Nagito is really cool, everything pertaining to him rocks.
Everything else feels like bloat. so many side games and minigames feel annoying to play. The post game hang-out mode is back from the first game. No thanks. Finished the Umami monobeast minigame to completion and didn't see any reward. Why is this here?
Ending stretch is verrrry silly, verrrry exhausting. I didn't hate it, but wasn't impressed either. I liked makoto better as a protagonist overall, but hajime's final moments were pretty cool.

An absolutely incredible experience from start to finish. Being a sequel to a game I already loved so much, I was really curious how they would handle things this time around to keep a fresh and unique experience while still keeping the same mystery and intrigue of the first game. How would they recreate the feelings of dread and mystery from the first game? How would they handle class trials differently? How would they write a sequel story whose foundational premise is so similar to the previous one? I think right off the bat the game it was clear to me that they really went all out in making this feel totally distinct and not just a repeat of what the first game did. In fact, the writers are SO aware of this that they straight up make fun of the first game out loud for the way it executed plot twists and story beats (which weren't even remotely bad in the first place) and then tease you that there is a lot more going on than you actually think.

I feel like right off the bat my issue with the characters from the first game was immediately fixed both in terms of overall writing and appreciation but also first impressions. And for the very small handful of characters I wasn't so fond of at first, they at least did grow on me later on through the story and free time events. It would be quicker to list the characters I wasn't as particularly fond of, so those would be Teruteru, Kazuichi, and Hiyoko (she's probably the only one who I didn't change my opinion on, but I also get it because she's the way she is on purpose). Everyone else in this game is either really entertaining, funny, tragic, incredibly well-written, or some kind of combination of those. My favourites of the cast are Fuyuhiko, Nagito, and Hajime. Fuyuhiko is a character I REALLY loved. His development as a person was probably my favourite in terms of which character's story I felt the most emotion to. Nagito truly established himself as one of the most insane stories I've ever seen. There's only so much I can say about him without spoiling. But there really is no character in fiction who does it like he does. He's truly one of the most unique, fun, and deep characters ever. Lastly, Hajime as a protagonist goes above and beyond what Makoto was in the first game. While I love Makoto's story for being more on the simpler side of things (as is the rest of DR1 compared to DR2), I can definitely say that Hajime is the character with more depth and twists that make him stand out a lot.

This time around the overall story was so much better than the first game. A lot of that is thanks to the much better cast and continuation of the story, meaning questions and aspects of the first game can be answered and expanded upon. Honestly it's a bit hard to say much about the story that I haven't already said in my review of DR1. My opinions on DR2's story is basically what I thought of DR1 but WAY better in every way. The last two chapters of this game are pure mindfuckery; at that point in the game I straight up could not stop playing until I rolled credits because it was so good. The game never lets down the suspense and intrigue one bit throughout all of it, and that's what made this story so special this time around.

I think I loved both DR1 and DR2's stories almost equally but I love them both for drastically different reasons. DR1 was more on the simpler side compared to the sequel, but that was sort of part of the beauty of it. It wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for how much they made me care for Makoto and Kyoko. The highs are very high, and the lows aren't even that low at all. It's an amazing story that is only held back by some annoying characters. On the other hand, DR2 takes all of what DR1 established and just makes it better and more impactful. In a way I guess it's kind of like the jump from Kingdom Hearts I to II, or God of War 4 to Ragnarok where the first game is fairly simple but not to a fault. And then the sequel comes in and ramps things up by a ton in terms of writing and complexity. Sometimes the latter can be a bit of a bad thing, because I actually think God of War Ragnarok removes the simplicity of the first game to the point where it kind of makes things worse. But thankfully that wasn't the case with DR2. It is perfectly fine as it is for the way it continues the story and improves everything the first game lacked. While I did feel more of an emotional impact towards the ending of DR1, it's undeniable that DR2's ending is just miles beyond the first game in terms of depth. And stuff like that is what I like to call "Cinema".

Для большинства людей любимая часть, для себя не могу выделить какая часть моя любимая. Во второй части мой фаворит Микан и мне нравится как ближе к концу в игре потихоньку все сходят с ума, еще мне нравится некоторые убийства второй половины игры, еще мне нравится Мономи и рыжуля фотограф, она милая. Но мне совсем не нравится концовка и идея финального твиста, когда игру начинаешь заново как бы и видно что намеки на концовку были в начале, но все равно абсурдный бред и мне не зашло, но абсолютно все кроме концовки очень даже хорошее, не скажу что лучше или хуже первой части, просто немного другое.