i'm super hard-pressed to say i liked any of it aside from the somniums, bc they were much better constructed puzzle-wise

i feel so grumpy bc it seems like it was reviewed well and most ppl liked it so what's not clicking for me lol

insane bc i loved mizuki in the orig but i felt like the double protag route didn't help - date was dumb as fuck but i was way more invested in his story since he was the main pillar

i thought i'd be way more interested in ryuki given his whole vibe but i was just like, ok...? that's it?

but i'm not sure if it's bc the flowchart twist fucked up my understanding of how it played out - like conceptually i understand what happened but i don't know my brain is catching up to reorganizing it

the meta narrative was cool i guess??? i always enjoy that element in games lol

like outside of me being too dumb for the twist, idk... the characters just did not do it for me this time around lol - i felt way more bonded w the original cast and they really hamfisted fitting them back into this

all the romance was the blandest of comphet lol

also the original was goofy and anime and you had to buy into that to fully enjoy it, but i feel like NI cranked it to 11 to its downfall tbh

WHY WERE THERE A MILLION DANCE SEQUENCES

i could forgive the original bc iris is a net idol and it makes sense but this time i was like, ok can u stop showing off ur mocap choreo im tired of this theyre all so long

LMAO THE DANCE SEQUENCES

yeah with the disclaimer that I generally liked it, I think it like... how to put it. I didn't hate the twist, and it's meta cool, but it felt like a story written JUST to do the meta twist

so there's less character connection there overall imo

I still love Mizuki though

yeah i didn't feel as bonded to the new cast and the sudden mizuki twists was like I DIDN'T WANT HER STRENGTH TO BE EXPLAINED IT WAS JUST FUNNY ANYWAY

i do still love her but god did it feel like it came out of left field lollll

but i did watch a chronological timeline explanation video and things make a little more sense, but i still didn't vibe w the overall plot

all the fight sequences really took me out too bc i don't remember there being that many in the 1st game so it felt like it was just squeezing in more QTE for interactivity

maybe bc the mystery was a lil more enclosed in the 1st one, solving it felt more satisfying - this one being about a crazy cult makes it more... nebulous? like tearer was just not an interesting villain

I honestly had to think of aini as like... an AU to enjoy it tbh LMAO. I had the same weird feelings about everything you described

I did like the new characters though

but if I don't think of it as an au I'll get upset about how honestly kind of shit the writing around mizuki was SKDJFMMG. I dont want her super strength explained, her back story twist was stupid as hell

especially bc you can just tell they made that up for the sequel, there's no hint of any of that in the first game

right! i didn't really need the mystery of mizuki to be solved at all, the gag of her being OP was hilarious as is

and the whole twist also hinging on bibi was like... ok.... i guess it's re-contextualized now i had taken her partnership w aiba comments as a ?_???? until i watched the timeline explanation lmao

but yeah this is just gonna be weird AU material for my brain.... ryuki/tama was a cute partnership but that was about it for me

i am a little confused where ppl are shipping ryuki/date bc that entire relationship felt more tell than show and i didn't actually sense any real closeness of them as colleagues or as more

and i'll attach myself onto any lil scrap of chemistry but there was nothing there ????