I'll break this down into a few sections as best as I can, but I'll give a summary for those looking for a quick review. For those that played Danganronpa, if you played this game, you're going to find enjoyment here; the vibes and style are very different and you won't get the same experience of entering a class trial or anything like that, but you'll find a similar sense of humor and writing for the better and worse. As for the game itself, its pretty good. Not something to gush over, as I think the story's themes aren't quite as profound as other titles, including the last of the Danganronpa entries, V3, but still think its just solid.

Cast
The characters are all at least good, with some of them being great. Shinigami is basically Junko Enoshima done right; despite being a death god whose got a very different outlook on life and death and its sanctity than our protagonist, she manages to feel more human with those human moments being much stronger because of the said natural disconnect. She manages to carry over the funny from what that character did in that series, while also being her own unique charming character. Yuma also makes for a compelling protagonist, growing a lot as the game progresses, and most of the detective agency makes for a likeable bunch. Desuhiko is the token pervert of the group so you might not be as big on him; for me personally, he was ok, but definitely the weakest of the core group. The antagonists and suspects are all pretty strong for what they are and there really isn't a character in the game I can call outright bad, which is pretty impressive with the number of folks we meet.

Presentation
I'll be short with the music; Masafumi Takada composed it, so its pretty excellent. As for the art style, that's also pretty damn solid. Really the only problems I have from a pure presentation perspective personally are the fact that this game's stuck on a switch and you gotta play it at 30 fps. I believe data miners have already found xbox buttons in the files for the QTEs, so if you're worried about having to actually use a switch to play a game, hey, there will probably be a port within a year.

Story
The game is new, and with the game being so new, I won't go into heavy spoiler discussion as said discussion isn't as helpful when the game's not as much of a known entity as a game that's been around for a few years. As for what is there, I'll say the game has some pretty strong chapters where you're gonna find yourself very sympathetic for the culprit, and others where you'll be practically screaming murder this guy! The overall main story and main twist of this game is strictly okay. I think it grows a bit too big as far as stakes than the game needed to, but I do think it was fairly built up to aside from one detail. Now with the main story being overall okay, you do still have some pretty strong character moments and the stories in some of the individual chapters hold their own as being pretty great.

Mystery Quality/Gameplay
I'm bunching these together since the gameplay in the Mystery Labyrinths and mystery solving themselves are pretty tied together. So, to answer if labyrinth minigames are better than class trials for solving the mystery, yes, I would say so; a lot of shackles from being stuck in a high school are solved by them and despite me not feeling a similar level of tension to class trials, I do think these labyrinths and their approach to minigame design are a general improvement over the last game; they also do a good job cutting the more useless minigames. As for the mysteries themselves, I thought the mysteries for each case were pretty rock solid, save for maybe the first one. There's a few details I didn't personally like, but I didn't have any problems with the rest of them, aside from what I've gone over with the last case, though its always hard to do those flawlessly and I think for what it was worth, it was fine.

Concluding Thoughts
I don't think Rain Code is quite a game of the year, or the best story I've seen in a game. However, what Rain Code does have going for it is that it manages to be a really good game that'll manage to feel familiar to fans of Kodaka's other words like Danganronpa, while also being incredibly unique. There isn't a game with a vibe like it, and while I think it would be difficult, if Kodaka would want to revisit this occult world and write more mysteries for it, I'd be curious to see what they are.

This game is incredibly, incredibly "fine," more fine than any other LAD game I've played. It doesn't have any of the highs that say, an entry that Y2 or Y6 has, but its mostly absent of any lows that those games have. The game's story was just very fine, and lacked some of the hype from previous games; I just had a hard time believing that there were actual stakes in any of the fights, if I'm being honest. Maybe its because we've seen Kiryu kick so much ass to this point, or that we knew that Kiryu has to make it through this one, or because its insanely easy to make Kiryu turbo overpowered if you just do the side content, even on hard mode. Of course, it doesn't make the game bad; I think the absurdity of the upgraded agent style is hilarious, and the side content, as always, is generally enjoyable, and the game's ending has some good scenes mixed in, I just find that the game wasn't enough about the ending and felt more like a game that should've been an infinite wealth expansion pack than a game. Despite all that I, the game is still good, maybe only cause of how sucked in I got into the side content as much as it retreads old stuff. The characters we meet are also decent, but Akame in particular stands out from the bunch and is the game's spotlight. Just be warned that if you're one of the people that just plows through the main story... you won't be here very long. I had like over 40 hours in this game, and barely any of it was spent on the main narrative. Also, on a personal note, the game failed to address my biggest problems with Y6 and its treatment of Haruka, but I guess that's on me for expecting that to be addressed.

Short version: Fine game, isn't gonna rock you off your socks, Y5 still should've been the last Kiryu game.