My feelings about this game are so much in both a good and a bad way. Here's the short summarized version of my thoughts: it wasn't quite the sequel I wanted and the more I think about it the more faults I find with it. It did give me Ryuki + Tama. So there's that. Unfortunately their presence in the second half of the game is so lacking to me, which is a shame because I think the second half of the game is where everything falls apart. Ryuki's side of things is so interesting and Mizuki's... is constructed so poorly in comparison for so many reasons, which infuriated me because her being my favorite character was the entire reason I was so excited to play the game. While playing the first half, I was convinced this game was going to at least tie with AITSF for me on my favorites list because of how much fun I was having and how good the story was looking, and then the second half happened and it lost all of its momentum with me. There are some spots of brilliance in this game, like the gameplay is greatly improved, the Somniums are PHENOMENAL and so much better than the first game, I had a blast playing every single one, some of the new (or I suppose now more major) characters are brilliant like Amame, etc. But man, my issues with the second half of the story falling off as hard as it did really hurt this game for me. I still enjoy it, but it's not close to touching AITSF for me.

I wrote up a lot of a MUCH, MUCHHHHH longer rant-y review after playing the game (with spoilers for both AITSF and AINI!!!), and I never really ended up finishing it entirely, but I'm going to use it to incorporate some of my longer more detailed thoughts on stuff I personally found fault with below:

1- I really hated the shafting of Ryuki and Tama in the second half of the game as I mentioned. By GOD did I feel like Ryuki became the game’s BIGGEST afterthought once his two routes were over. Never did I see this coming, if anything before the game released I was worried that HE was going to overshadow Mizuki, but actually, the game just stops caring about him once you get up to Mizuki. It upsets me so much! Before the game released, I did NOT expect to love Ryuki and Tama as much as I do now, I was actually worried that Ryuki was going to be too bland. In fact, the opposite occurred, and Ryuki is actually loads of fun, so it SUCKS that him and Tama are two of the absolute best characters in this game but are tossed to the side once the left branch is over. They’re easily my favorite characters in this game without contest. So much about Ryuki, however, is hardly developed, and I THOUGHT that the game would continue his arc even when we switched over to Mizuki POV… BUT IT DIDNT! Like, for example, you mean to tell me the scraps of info we got about his family from the promotional content… WAS ALL WE GOT IN GAME TOO??? No more details on his twin brother or his parents???? Or anything about his childhood????? How he grew up??????? And also like… Ryuki’s mental problems. Why was that not properly dealt with and addressed? The game mentions him not doing well SO many times, and I guessed it was partly from the PERGE or whatever, but… I would’ve liked to see how Ryuki managed to deal with it instead of his episodes essentially becoming a throwaway plot detail? Like, Ryuki’s suddenly like “Oh no worries I found out I contracted TC-PERGE BUT I somehow became resistant to it and I take special medicine for it now” . AND THATS IT. LIKE… OK COOL… HOW DID WE GET THERE THOUGH?! Like why was that all something that was handled off-screen?! What about all of Ryuki’s other lingering trauma and mental issues?! Am I missing something?! Ryuki’s crazy episodes are so startling yet seem SO deeply interesting and important when you first start the game and do his routes, but then once you’re on Mizuki’s route everyone’s all, “Oh just ignore him he’s not well” until it becomes totally irrelevant entirely. AND THAT SUCKS!!! I found Ryuki so damn interesting, and they lay the foundations for such a god tier character in his side of the game, but then they totally butcher it so hard by making him SO IRRELEVANT later on. To the point where the game treats him like one of the supporting cast INSTEAD OF LIKE… THE OTHER MAIN PROTAG OF THE GAME???? Why is Ryuki barely in the true route other than when he appears to exposition dump a bit? Why is RYUKI the ONLY major character showing up with the less important supporting cast in the last fight and then getting shot and “dying” IMMEDIATELY before he can even do anything? Don’t even get me started on the lack of closure with him and Date. Ryuki “dies” in Date’s arms and it’s all dramatic and tragic and miserable and Date’s going crazy, but when we find out he's alive we don't get like... ANYTHING else? No wrap up to the importance of their relationship arc?! One of the biggest parts of both of their characters in this GAME?!! Like, I loved Ryuki being the one to save Date this time, him taking the bullet for him and all that, that was so significant to me, but… I would've appreciated one more convo before the game ended to wrap things up on that?! Because just ending their arc on that cliffhanger feels ridiculous to me? Even when we learn Ryuki lives, Date has nothing to say about it (did Date even know he lived????? Like I would ASSUME so but he says he "doesn’t want to talk about it" when you ask as if Ryuki DIED so??????) and Ryuki’s hardly even IN the fucking epilogue to begin with. When the epilogue happened in my mind I was SO certain about this prediction I had, I was like “OH. OH I GET IT. Because there’s two protagonists we’re going to probably switch perspectives between Mizuki and Ryuki back and forth to wrap everything in the story up! So Ryuki and Date will have one more conversation to give the audience some full circle closure on their relationship arc in this game!” BUT RYUKI IS IN THE EPILOGUE FOR ABOUT 2 SECONDS JUST TO BE LIKE “lol I lived dw mizuki” AND THATS IT. I understand it can be hard to manage multiple protagonists, but come on. There was MORE than enough time in this game to give both Ryuki and Mizuki proper arcs, but Mizuki barely even gets hers and Ryuki’s feels totally unfinished. It’s like they wrote out the first half of everything for Ryuki and were like WOW this is so genius… Hmmm we deserve a break let’s write the second half later AND THEN THEY NEVER DID IT. So what was his point in the story?! He never gets any real closure within the main game and it pissed me off. In general, the second half of the game really fucking falls flat in comparison to the first, and I feel this is one of the major contributing reasons as to why. They spent way too much time trying to develop side characters / relationships that I didn’t even end up caring about, and I think more of that time should’ve been given to FURTHER DEVELOPING ONE OF YOUR MAIN PROTAGS. Give him a MAJOR ROLE in the STORY after his two routes. It felt like everything you do with Ryuki and Tama was Solely intended to be setup for Mizuki’s bigger part in the story… Which is just so strange to me because you would think he would continue to be important in the story after that. But he really isn’t. Which I seriously hate. I should note that I do also think all this has partly to do with the game’s timeline twist, where you find out some events with Ryuki actually happened in the present, and the timeline was actually all fucky, but… Idk, I just don’t think that prevents them from giving Ryuki’s character more in the second half anyways.

2- I really wanted a Ryuki and Mizuki friendship?? Like I thought it was gonna be a given but it wasn't??? Because this game has two protags, I was very excited to see the relationship they would end up having. Like, it just seemed obvious to me that they were going to have some sort of really fun dynamic. Whether they were rivals, or they became besties, I was so interested in seeing how Mizuki and Ryuki’s relationship would develop over the course of the story. In my head, before the game dropped, I thought they were going to be a sort of duo, like working closely together and stuff on the case. To me, this just made a whole lot of sense. You get two perspectives, they can both learn different things and really work together on solving everything while getting closer to one another. But this doesnt even remotely end up happening, and I don't even feel Mizuki and Ryuki have a notable friendship to speak of. And like, I get it. Ryuki is in a bad place mentally after the 6 year timeskip, and Mizuki’s only 12 and not even an ABIS agent before the timeskip. To me, however, that doesn’t mean that there’s suddenly no room for building their friendship as a duo. I think them having a closer relationship would actually deeply improve parts of what I thought were missing from Ryuki and Mizuki in the second half of the game. Yes, Ryuki is in a bad place mentally, but wouldn’t it make so much sense for Mizuki to be someone who’s there for him? His guilt over what happened at the cathedral is largely WHY he’s in a bad place mentally, and Mizuki WAS one of the people who was in the cathedral and lost HER EYE and HER DAD (WHO RYUKI IDOLIZES) in the process. Ryuki must OBVIOUSLY feel especially guilty for that, and that would be such an interesting thing to unpack in their relationship. Mizuki’s not the type of person to coddle him—she’s been through so much herself, I think she would be the perfect person for Ryuki to have by his side to help him move past his guilt and regret. Of course, I do think Mizuki would feel some rage over his actions considering they cost her Date, but Ryuki objectively didn’t really have any good options, and we see her from the beginning move to think positively and believe Date’s still alive, so I can’t say that she would hold a grudge against Ryuki, considering she doesn't seem to in-game to begin with. If Ryuki had someone to work with by his side who he feels immense guilt towards, but that person doesn’t WANT his guilt and instead wants him to get better and work together with her to solve everything, move forward from the past, and possibly bring the person they love back… Wouldn’t that be dope?! Wouldn’t that be such a deeply compelling relationship?! Wouldn’t that lead to so much interesting growth for them as characters?!!!!! Mizuki having someone by her side who also really cared for Date (not that Aiba doesn’t, but yknow how Ryuki is) and understands how she feels, having to work through how she feels about everything that happened (losing a parent for the THIRD time?!!), having moments of weakness where she’s scared that things won’t work out but ultimately finding the strength to keep going and pushing her and Ryuki forward because she’s MIZUKI!!!! Meanwhile, Ryuki has one of the targets of his guilt right beside him, but instead of hating him like he expects, they help him move forward and acknowledge what he did wrong instead of letting him continue to run away in cowardice from his problems, and they look after him and work together with him to fix the problems created in the past. I know Ryuki has Tama, but it doesn’t HURT for him to have a new person to share his emotional burdens with and who understands where he’s coming from. It’s not like Mizuki’s never felt guilt over losing people and thinking it’s all her fault and all that. She knows what he’s going through, she’s also lost people she loved just like how Ryuki lost his family and accidentally hurt his friends. They just have such a perfect balance that doesn’t require anything to be changed about their characters!!!!! They naturally fit together!!!!! They would be such a good fucking duo!!!!! Not to mention how obviously funny they would be together!!!!!! They’re literally “HE ASKED FOR NO PICKLES!!!” I understand Ryuki had TC-PERGE for a while, so maybe that would prevent contact between them, but I think there still has to be a way to make it work in spite of that. It’s an imaginary virus, who even fucking cares. Just change the rules a little or something. Even before the timeskip, I think the writers could’ve added / altered some scenes to begin their budding friendship so that it makes sense for them to get closer after the timeskip. Ryuki and Mizuki definitely do have scenes together before the jump, but I would’ve liked more substance there. All of this, to me, is how Ryuki and Mizuki’s character arcs could’ve been so easily greatly improved, and the game would’ve felt so much more solid as a result. None of this really ends up happening though, like I said. To me, it seemed so obvious that this was the route the story should take, but I GUESS NOT! Ryuki and Mizuki’s friendship is so bare bones in actuality that it holds no meaning to me. I feel like I have to make up 95% of the stuff about them to make them fun, because the game barely gives you anything. One of my biggest gripes was that throughout ALL of Mizuki’s part, any time Mizuki sees Ryuki struggling and going through one of his manic episodes, Mizuki is concerned but then Aiba goes “Oh, we don’t have time to worry about Ryuki, we have to focus on the case, just entertain his delusions and leave him be”, and so Mizuki does. It pissed me off so bad. You, as the game, don’t GET to tell me there’s “NO TIME” for Ryuki when there are TWO ENTIRE ROUTES spent on developing side character relationships that aren’t even GOOD. Who asked for a bad Gen/Mame plotline or a totally meh Kizuna/Lien plotline, because I didnt. I am ENDLESSLY more interested in what’s going on with Ryuki and creating a meaningful friendship between my two beloved protagonists, but the game looks at that and throws it into the garbage in favor of developing [looks at notes] A weird age gap relationship between a high schooler and an older man that’s offputting because it got turned romantic for no reason and is supposed to mirror Beauty and the Beast… And [looks at other notes] Hans and Anna from Frozen but if Hans wasn’t a dick and Anna was boring as shit. LIKE I DOOOOONT CAAAAAREEEE. It’s such a fucking shame that so much time was put into relationships I DONT give a fuck about because they weren’t even very well written, instead of one between the two most important characters in the game. The game even tries to trick you into thinking Ryuki and Mizuki have a real friendship with Ryuki being alive being Mizuki’s surprise in the epilogue, but like… Even when I was playing and predicted it coming, I remember stopping and going, “Wait, why would this be Mizuki’s surprise, she’s never demonstrated any real concern or attachment towards Ryuki?” To the point where I GENUINELY questioned if Ryuki had actually died in the game for real, because I was so disbelieving of Ryuki being Mizuki’s surprise. Like I said, for one, she doesn’t ever get to connect with Ryuki about his mental trauma. Beyond that, though, even when she sees him get fucking SHOT and seem to DIE right before the epilogue, she’s off joyfully celebrating the win with all her friends?????? She’s also never visibly worried about him in the epilogue?????? She can ask about him like twice but doesn’t rly show any reaction to all the negative info she gets???????? The surprise is obviously supposed to be a parallel to Aiba being alive being Date’s surprise in the epilogue of AITSF, but that actually makes SENSE because Date and Aiba are so close that you KNOW it’s coming. Obviously, Aiba didn’t DIE die for real, and Date will get her back, their relationship is too important. But in this game, I couldn’t even be relatively sure Ryuki HADNT died, because the game throws him away in the second half and Mizuki is hardly even shown to care about Ryuki’s existence. This isn’t a knock against Mizuki, it’s a knock against the writers, because it’s 1- so OOC for her and 2- makes it even more difficult for me to pretend there’s any semblance of a meaningful friendship between her and Ryuki like the game wants me to believe after putting in NONE of the work for it. I could go on, but this is the gist of how the entire game goes between them, and it irks me so much. Their relationship is barely even touched upon, when there is SO, SO MUCH you could do with it. I think part of this game’s weaknesses with its character writing compared to the first game show itself so vividly with this. Is it crazy to expect that if a game has two main protagonists with ties to one another, they should have some kind of meaningful relationship that gets heavily developed upon? I don’t think so. Which is why I don’t understand why this game avoids it altogether.

3- Oh boy the bastardization of Mizuki's character arc. The last thing I was expecting upon playing this game was to finish and go “…Wow, Mizuki really felt kind of meh in this game compared to the first one,” but that’s exactly what ended up happening, and it’s still making me utterly miserable. My entire hype around playing this game revolved around her being the protag, because she was my absolute favorite character in the first game (tied w Date ofc), but I actually… Didn’t really love her that much in this game. At first, when I was midway through Mizuki’s route and kept being like, “Huh, I kinda miss playing as Ryuki and Tama real bad right now,” I thought it was just because I was too early into Mizuki’s route to get to the good stuff that would remind me just how much I love her. But that never really ended up happening? Like I said, I love Mizuki to the fucking moon and back, so it was seriously tearing me up inside whenever I felt like I didn’t really like her as much in this game. She was just… fine. Like I thought I was doing something wrong, yknow? So after finishing the game and realizing my feelings on the matter were still the same, I sat down and tried to think about the reasons why Mizuki didn’t give me the same rush of complete obsession and adoration in this game as she did in the first. I still haven’t organized my thoughts on this subject entirely, because the more I think about it, the more I find fault with, but these are some of the biggest points that explain my problems with Mizuki’s writing in this game that I’ve sorted through thus far.

Point 1: This game kind of ruins Mizuki’s entire character arc from the first game. In the first game, Mizuki’s character arc revolves around family being something you choose for yourself. While she loved her parents, she desired to have a true, ordinary family who loved her the same way she loved them instead of neglecting her. To make matters worse, she loses both of her parents, and so she loses the chance to ever have a happy family with her parents once more. Or at least, she thinks she loses the chance to have a happy family at first. Her route centers itself around the conflict between sticking with your biological family VERSUS family you choose for yourself. The culmination of this is her realization that just because her parents were her biological parents Doesn’t mean they are her true family that she has to hold onto and stay with forever, especially not after their neglect and abuse. She CHOOSES her family in Date and Aiba. Date is not her true father, but he is who Mizuki chooses to be her parent and who she believes she needs—to her, it “has to be [him]”. She lets go of her attachment to her biological parents and chooses Date again and again. The themes of found family are so prevalent in her character arc, and it’s a huge part of what makes her development so strong. One of the problems I found with this game, then, is the fact that it throws this sentiment out to the wayside. I really didn’t like the reveal of Mizuki being a test tube baby who was adopted by Renju and Shoko, and who thus isn’t actually their biological child. I thought it was an entirely needless twist, and very clearly contradicts the point the first game so effectively made. There was so many ways to explain Mizuki’s superhuman strength that doesn’t affect her arc from the first game (maybe Shoko donated the eggs, maybe her parents chose to put her through the experiments), but instead, the game takes the “Oops! On top of them being the worst parents ever, she was adopted the whole time, completely destroying the best lesson from the first game!” route. It’s so stupid!!!!! I hate it so much!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why would they do that!!!!!!!!! Why suddenly change everything that’s been established about Mizuki’s background when it isn’t necessary?! All it does is make the first game look fucking stupid! Nothing about her arc MATTERS anymore because they completely fucked everything up! Shoko wishing Mizuki had never been born (which this game even MENTIONS after the adoption reveal), Date’s feelings of inferiority over not being her biological parent, etc etc, IT ALL DOESNT MATTER NOW! I hate it!

Point 2: This is branching off what I was just talking about, but the importance of Mizuki and Date’s relationship suffers greatly in this game, and what I was discussing before has partly to do with this. Mizuki chooses Date in the first game—she’s now his adopted daughter and takes his last name and all that. Then, Date goes missing and is presumed dead for 6 years, and it’s “one of the two most important things she lost 6 years ago”. You would expect quickly losing the person you love and who you have CHOSEN to be your family right after losing your parents to affect Mizuki pretty heavily. Ryuki’s clearly pretty fucked up over it, and Date was just his idol. But… Mizuki’s mentioning of Date before his return are moments that are very few and far between. Even other characters don’t really acknowledge the fact that he’s her dad. I get that him going missing happens pretty quickly after the end of AITSF, but they’ve still been living together, have known each other, and have cared for each other for numerous years—it’s not like it was suddenly an entirely new thing. All that happened was Mizuki realizing how much Date cares for her, and how much she loves him in return. So… I just don’t really get why Mizuki’s relationship with Date barely gets touched on in a positive light in this game? They have about one tender, warm, and sincere moment in the entirety of it (the “I’m home”, “Welcome back” moment), and even the tone of THAT is ruined by the porn joke right at the end of the convo. Practically any other time Mizuki talks about Date, it’s in an insulting manner. Don’t get me wrong, I fucking adore Date and Mizuki’s derogatory banter, it’s one of the best parts of the first game, everybody knows this. But that’s not all their relationship is, yknow? There’s a lot of really warm and sweet stuff there, but it’s never brought into the limelight in this game the way it is in the first. I don’t remember all the instances that bugged me super clearly, I would have to replay some parts to remember specifics, but there would be moments where a character would be talking about Mizuki’s family or who she holds close in any way… And Date would never come up. That was mind-boggling to me. Now, you might be thinking, okay, well he’s gone for six years and people think he’s dead, and when he comes back they’re too busy for that. My response to that is 1- When I said “a character”, I include Mizuki herself in that statement, who believes Date isn’t dead, so… If there’s talk about family, wouldn’t you expect Mizuki to talk about Date and not just Renju and Shoko? Isn’t he really important to her? Again, I mistakenly didn’t note down particular scenes where moments that dismiss Date’s importance to Mizuki happened, so unfortunately I cannot give concrete examples at the time of writing this, but just trust me on this. I wouldn’t bring it up if there weren’t numerous instances where I went, “Is Date nothing???? What happened to everything built in the first game, especially Mizuki route???” (I know what you’re about to say. “But this takes place after true ending!” I could get into my thoughts on that, but in short, I think going post true ending was a mistake. Also I don’t fucking care about that logic they should’ve just taken the stuff from Mizuki route and retconned it into Resolution route somehow. God. How are you going to make a game about Mizuki that takes place after true ending when she got hardcore shafted in it? Fix your fucking mistakes!) Anyways, and 2- Listen, yes, I get it, they’re in the middle of a crazy ass investigation when Date returns, there isn’t a lot of time for them to sit down and talk about everything that happened while Date was gone and what Mizuki went through… Except there fucking WAS time for that IN THE EPILOGUE, but instead, Date's off at the Sagan household meowing at Hitomi. Uchikoshi you made me so mad with this one how did you true-end Mizuki yet again. How many times do I have to teach you this LESSON old man. That's Date's daughter who's not had him in her life for SIX YEARS!! If you weren’t going to give Ryuki and Date a final convo to give them closure, AT LEAST give one to Mizuki and Date. BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Like, obviously, one conversation isn’t going to cover everything I want addressed in Date’s disappearance and Mizuki’s feelings on the matter, BUT IT WOULD’VE HELPED! IT CERTAINLY WOULDVE HELPED! They could’ve literally just fucking made Date go, “Let’s go get some of your favorite stew and catch up on everything later”, or insert a moment of Mizuki calling him “dad” for the first time, or some shit like that, and I would’ve been bawling on the floor going crazy. IT’S THAT SIMPLE. All I think is that if finding Date is supposedly Mizuki’s biggest motivation in solving the HB case, the game should SHOW me how much Date means to her. I’m not saying he has to be the subject of every convo or something, because that’d be ridiculous—just a few proper moments of her being real with herself and talking about how much she loves and misses Date would’ve been perfectly great to me. Maybe even some flashbacks of what she was like directly after he went missing, or something like that, I’m just throwing ideas at the wall. Instead, Date’s importance to Mizuki feels like a total afterthought that comes up in the game every once in a blue moon. Like I said, it’s supposedly her motivation for solving the case... Wish the game had truly shown me that though!

Point 3: This is my last point here, but I think it’s probably the most important one of all, because I feel like so many of my other qualms stem from this. I’m going to preface this by saying as a character, I fucking love Bibi, she’s one of the greatest characters in the game. However, I do ALSO think her existence as it is written in the game HEAVILY stunts Mizuki’s character. I really, Really don’t like how they made her and Mizuki so similar when that doesn’t make any sense. They are two diff people of diff ages who grew up in diff circumstances, just because Mizuki’s her clone doesn’t automatically mean they should have the same personality and mannerisms and shit when their lives growing up were largely separate from one another. The reason the game does this is to preserve the surprise of the twist, obviously, so you don’t realize that you’ve been playing as two different people, but this is another thing I really don’t like. The reveal that we’ve been playing as Bibi instead of Mizuki for a good amount of the game rubbed me the wrong way. Like, all it does is further undermine any character arc Mizuki might’ve had, because now Mizuki’s time has been split for another person who she’s supposed to be identical to, which means she isn’t allowed to be different or grow apart from that character in any way. Basically, the reveal happens too LATE into the game for any growth on Mizuki’s part to be possible, like we’re at most a couple of hours away from the end of the entire game by that point. I think Bibi could’ve worked better and not have been so detrimental to Mizuki’s character if only they removed that stupid “You’ve been playing as Bibi!” twist and allowed for Bibi and Mizuki to be entirely different from one another, instead of essentially the same exact people but one’s 6 years older. To prove my point on how detrimental this is, let me bring it back to my first few gripes. Playing as Bibi is a large part of what ruined the opportunity for any Mizuki - Ryuki bonding and close friendship—you’re not Mizuki for a considerable amount of the game, and Bibi doesn’t like Ryuki… Wow, no wonder Mizuki and Ryuki’s relationship is nonexistent! Playing as Bibi is a large part of what ruined the importance of Date and Mizuki’s relationship in this game—Bibi has no ties to Date, and Mizuki isn’t allowed to be her own distinct character who loves and misses Date because she has to be identical to Bibi to make sure the twist works… Wow, no wonder Date is practically never mentioned and so much of Mizuki’s character from the first game feels missing! Do you see what I mean? Again, I can’t stress this enough, I genuinely think Bibi as a character by herself is great. Her somnium is one of my all time favorites, her character plotline is great, I really love her being Boss’ daughter, etc. However, the way she is written as being so closely related to Mizuki turns out to be SO damn harmful, to the point where I felt like Mizuki might as well not have been in the game at all. Like, in actuality, this is a Ryuki, Bibi, Mizuki game, which sucks. I’m sorry, but I don’t want that, especially if you can’t properly juggle 3 protagonists. If they had JUST focused on keeping this a Ryuki and Mizuki centric game, I think all the problems I mentioned earlier would’ve been handled much better, and possibly not even have existed to irk me in the first place.

4- I never wrote a full paragraph for this so I'm just going to freestyle it now, but I was really dissatisfied by Date in this game and I felt like he was such an underwhelming character compared to how good he was in the first. Not that I was expecting him to be as good as he was in the first game, considering this game isn't about him, but like... it wasn't even close. His best moments that remind me of how great he was in the first game are his moments with Ryuki, but outside of that, I really felt they leaned way too hard on the horny gags with him. Like yeah, that's an intrinsic part of who he is and why we love/hate him, but it doesn't need to be the subject of every conversation involving him in any way. It just felt excessive and like they didn't know what else to do with him since he wasn't the main character. I blame this so heavily on the fact that this isn't a proper sequel to AITSF and thus spoilers aren't allowed, because I feel like it regressed him so hard in a way that I REALLY didn't enjoy. Really, really let me down and made me sad, as he's one of my favorite characters of all time, but I seriously didn't get much out of seeing him again in this game at all.

5- Also never wrote a full paragraph for this, but this game's mystery and conflict being so widespread across the game's world instead of being personal the way it was for Date in AITSF... made me care a lot less about it. I really felt the stakes in AITSF and was constantly on the edge of my seat freaked out and trying to unravel the mystery, but in this game, I was just totally whelmed. Like, I guess it'll really suck if the entire world starts going crazy cause of PERGE, but that's such a broad conflict (that also reminded me a bit too much of VLR-ZTD) that it means little to me compared to the weight of the Cyclops Killings of the first game. I would've preferred a conflict and a villain with ties closer to Mizuki and/or Ryuki, though I will note that everything they did with Amame in this game wrt its villain + conflict was pure genius and I wouldn't give it up for the world. Best character in the game hands down and one of my new favorite characters of all time.

Overall, this game... was something. I'm glad I played it, but i wish it had been something closer to the sequel I was hoping for.