Extremely uninspired and predictable story with unappealing characters. Like it's mostly just...FINE? I've just seen everything this game does with its story a thousand times before, and better. And god I did not like Phin at all.
I get it, they're young and stupid, but it just didn't vibe with me. I think the ending was great though.

As usual, city traversal is a blast, and the combat is nice and fluid. It's just not enough to carry this game.
And for some reason the game locks a few upgrades behind NG+, like I'm gonna play this thing again.
Overall, 10 hours of mindless and forgettable fun that wasn't quite for me.

What an incredible journey, and an all-around improvement to the already master-class SakuUta. (Bit of a disclaimer, my Japanese isn't the best and there were a number of cases where I didn't feel like I fully grasped the meaning, but I am confident that I was good enough to understand it for the most part)
If Uta was the set-up, then Toki is the best a sequel can get. Knocks it out of the park. It trims the fat of Uta and focuses solely on hard-hitting, thought-provoking ideas and themes, and it doesn't stop. It's a never-ending train of emotion and impact.
Unlike Uta, where Makoto's route was a (pretty unanimous) weak link, surely in part because it had a different writer, every route in Toki was good.
While I do think it was strange for Makoto to have another route in Toki, I kinda wanna believe SCA-ji wanted to redeem her and write one for her himself. Or he just likes her a lot. Or maybe she's more popular among the fans than I expect.
Anyway, this game made me love Makoto, and she's the most relatable character for me. Well, her and Kana.

Speaking of Kana! What Toki also does is takes one-dimensional characters from Uta (some more so than others, looking at you Thomas) and fleshes them out. I hated Kana in the first game, but now? Arguably my favorite character if it wasn't for Ai. She really feels like the only "normal" person in this game, among a cast full of monsters blessed with natural talent. Her theming of hard work, strenuous effort and finding your own place in the world resonated me hard.

And yeah, even Thomas got his moment to shine, something I did NOT expect but was greatly welcomed. He's still a ridiculous character and I don't like him, but his speech about the idolization of heroes made me see him in a new light.

Kei's chapter? I teared up. Chapter 4 (I think?) and the ending leading to the climax were my favorite parts. God damn amazing storytelling and execution. Amazing tale of loss and moving on from it. Very strong finish.
I'm just rambling at this point, wanted to get some things off my chest. I haven't even scratched the surface of my experiences with this game, but I'll leave it at that.
I'm not confident at all in recognizing themes and analyzing stories, but hopefully this was somewhat readable.

I'm grateful to SCA-ji for giving us these amazing VNs. I could probably rate this a 10/10 in good conscience but something is holding me back. At the very least I can completely understand why people view this as a masterpiece, and I wouldn't argue.

A really beautiful looking remake. Like jaw-dropping at times.
I actually had no idea this was related to Key in any way, I didn't even know Jun Maeda wrote most of it until after I started. After seeing Sumii (an actual Sunohara clone) and the general vibe, I began to piece it together.
So, the story. The nicest way I could put it is that it was very obvious this was one of Jun Maeda's earlier works.
I see much of the foundation in this game that he managed to capitalize on in later Key works, but this was overall very weak. Annoyingly ambiguous serious scenes that often seem out of place, Kohei's almost bipolar characterization makes early routes unsatisfying (especially Nagamori's).
Once I realized what HAPPENING to Kohei, stuff is easier to swallow, but I still never really LIKED it. I don't think anything in this game was realized to its full potential. Misaki's route was easily my favorite route and girl, which had an amazing theme of accepting your lot in life and finding beauty that you never thought was there.
The theming of the whole game is its strongest point (well, aside from the insanely adorable characters), but like I said, disappointing in that it doesn't quite feel complete.

However, I enjoyed it enough thanks to me being a sucker for cute girls and the indescribable Key-like atmosphere it provides.

I tried Judie and something about it didn't connect with me. It was confusing and had a lack of direction.
But! I'm happy to say Viorate fixed all the issues I had with it. It's more clear, concise, and welcoming. I no longer dislike the material gathering, and the goal of setting up your own shop to save the dwindling Carrotte village is fresh and endearing.
The whole shop minigame is kinda fun, albeit simple. It's cool that you can hire people to run the shop when you're out too. (I find it really cute that you can hire Clara for free but she's such a softie she always tells you she slashed a bunch of prices for people)
As usual I missed a lot of areas and events, so I definitely have a reason for another playthrough sometime.

Anyone who thinks Shinigami is annoying is a weakling! I loved her, in both ghost form and girl form. The quips and shenanigans she does outside the labyrinths are funny, and she's a great contrast to Yuma. Ended up loving their dynamic, especially by the end.

But unfortunately there are many negative points I have for this game. Maybe I'll do a few bullet points for this?
-Load times and framerate, yeah. There's not really an excuse for it to be this bad. The framerate didn't bother me too much, but the load times were pretty damn bad.
-On the topic of slow, the overworld exploration segments also feel sluggish. Especially when you're restricted to walking slowly.
-MOST of the characters are below average, tropey and forgettable. I'm talking even most of the main cast.
-Mystery Labyrinths themselves. Idk, they're kinda cool conceptually, but going through them is more slogfest. Getting to the bottom of the mysteries is pretty much identical to Danganronpa, except somehow less fun. (why did they even bring back hangman's gambit...)
-It took me a long time to get into. I was considering dropping it after chapter 1 because of how uninteresting it was. Chapter 3 was also bad, I'd say the worst one.

Ok, but it had some good (great!) points too.
-Shinigami! She's cute, often made me laugh.
-Character design goes HARD. Halara, Vivia, Yomi, Guillaume, Waruna, the nun. Shinigami of course. Just bonkers, great designs, I loved looking at them.
-Chapter 2 is what hooked me. Very well done death, even though I saw it coming, and the motive for the murder was so good.
-Interesting, captivating setting
-Overall plot/mystery was great. So many plot twists that took me by surprise. Chapters 4 and 5 were just a fun, wild ride. I won't go into detail about it, but Kodaka knows how to make a good thriller.

I think a common complaint for this game (for me too) is that unlike Danganronpa, the culprit is always someone you don't know, that just got introduced that chapter. There's a lack of urgency that I loved about DGRP.
So overall, I think it's a good game, but closer to the realm of "decent" than flat out GOOD. I could only recommend it to Danganronpa fans.

A huge improvement graphically, and a story just as distressing and depressing as the first. Maybe more. It's insane how much Amicia goes through, she's tough as nails, and this game developed her especially well.
The characters shine the most in this game.
The gameplay loop itself is more or less identical to the first game, and it gets repetitive pretty fast. I could have stood the game being a few hours shorter because of this, but it's fine. I enjoyed it for the most part, and it has a very strong ending.

I honestly was not sure what exactly to expect from this game after hearing/seeing so much of it from friends.
At the beginning of my exposure to it, I was being narrow-minded, not planning on playing it because the art is clearly amateurish and I'm also not a fan of Dark Souls.

Guess what, I'm glad I decided to try it! This is a fantastic game. It's admittedly quite rough around the edges and the translation ranges from iffy to plain bad (to the extent that it probably dampened my experience some), but it has lots of charm and heart to it.
A cool take on western fairy tales with some extra fucked-up sprinkled in. Playing the game itself is a blast, I always found it really hard to put down. It's fast-paced and doesn't waste your time at all.
This game is very underrated and will stay that way (unfortunately), but those of us who decided to play it know what a fun time it is.

If BS2 is better like I keep hearing, then I can't wait to try it in the near future.

It's a wonder that a small indie studio can make a game with this much soul. And a surprisingly deep story with a great ending.
It's adorable, it's therapeutic, it's...a rhythm game, sometimes! Randomly! Very interesting choice for a 3D platformer to have rhythm boss battles, but hey, it works. They could be better implemented, but it doesn't take away from the feel of the game.
The manga-style cutscenes is a unique way of storytelling that I enjoyed a lot.

The weakest part of the game is the dungeons, mostly because of the occasionally wonky controls. In some ways the game is a bit unrefined, but all the passion it exudes makes anything negative about it not much more than an afterthought.

I dropped it, but it's not like I heavily disliked it or anything. I actually enjoy many things about this game. The humor, recruitment stuff, even the tank battles are fun sometimes.
But the elephant in the room- it focuses on the tank battles/building too much for me. This combined with exploration feeling slow and you only having essentially one move bogs it down quite a bit.
My overall feelings towards this game lean on the positive side, but I don't quite have the motivation to continue it.