Some segments (notably the prologue, as well as a certain sequence in Route C) are ridiculously punishing for no good reason other than being "cute and quirky XD" with the "endings" (glorified game-over screens) attached to them.

I love Akane. The game does not. They continually insist in this racist stereotyping of her, to a point where characters directly compare her to animals. It's revolting.

The collectibles feel really meaningless, and there's just too many of them.

The plotline about prosopagnosia is absolutely vile. Ableism is unfortunately a staple in Uchikoshi games, even when he's trying to do right by disabled people.

Its worst moments are when it needs to make the bridge to VLR. This isn't even a fault of the game, I just really hate VLR.

That escort sequence with Mafuyu is the most egregiously misogynistic example of the "women are healers" trope I've ever seen. Holy shit.

RGG Studio, honey... I just wanna talk... WHY THE HELL did you think selling cosmetic DLC to dress your party up as Bleach Japan members — you know, the decidedly antagonistic neofascist group that despises sex workers, homeless people, foreigners, basically everything your party is; the group that has its founder say that people who become homeless are "worse than garbage" — was a good and reasonable idea?! WHAT?????

I usually find incentive enough in Yakuza games to play at least /some/ amount of Premium Adventure. Not here. Aside from fishing, the side stuff was just really boring.

That one couple missable puzzles in Chapter 3 that make you have to replay the entire thing if you wanted an S-rank are a real letdown.

Just like 999, this game also finds itself being horrendously ableist — only it's even sadder to see this time because of the genuinely good portrayals of some conditions you'll find. You get a touching depiction of dementia and a story about a man who became a disgusting person because of the brain damage he sustained, all in the same breath.

The same piece of criticism everyone who's played both games has: the returning cast is done terribly nasty by the narrative — special shoutout to Moma Kumakura, who's so insanely flanderized (with his worst traits being the ones exacerbated, at that) I've seen people who used to like him in the first game who want nothing to do with him anymore.

Extremely rushed and unsatisfying ending, probably because they didn't have enough of a budget. I hope there's a Director's Cut of some sort.

Easy to lose incentive to get all endings, as the gameplay loop is a little... boring.

Annoying difficulty spike at points if you pick harder card challenges.

The quest characters just don't interact enough amongst themselves — if you complete someone's quest, chances are you'll never see them again. It lessens the communal vibe.

Some stages (the one that comes to mind is the Midgar maquette from the FF7 pack) just have too many tiny little things to clean. It's grating.

I don't like how the Community Center vs Joja Mart thing doesn't actually impact the game much beyond making a couple QoL items easier to get. It's just more symbolic than anything, which kind of ticks me off.

The ending suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks

Same thing everybody says: Lusamine's new arc sucks. Let the woman be a bad person!!!!!

You've heard of high highs and low lows, now get ready for HIGH HIGHS AND MID MIDS!!!!!!!!!! Seriously. Whenever the story isn't being stellar it's being boring. Real boring.