I don't know how to feel about this one. I was torn between awe and cringe throughout the game.

Like the first game, the main story did a good job tying all the different parts together and explaining the solution behind the mystery. There were some explanations that hinged on some particular science-fiction of the game's world, but otherwise it all came together logically. Some of the puzzles felt satisfying to solve and the animation and acting were engaging. However, I suggest you approach the story as a reader rather than a player; just let it unravel and don't think too hard about trying to solve the mystery too early. The story will have many frustrating contradictions until some major unrealistic secrets are revealed.

Similar to the first game, humor, forced conversation, and action are arguably this game's biggest weaknesses. I sighed through most of the jokes, rolled my eyes in exasperation through forced conversations, and screamed at the screen in outraged disbelief through most of the action.

The translators did a commendable job trying to localize the content, particularly the niche Japanese slap-stick and the "bad jokes" delivered by a certain comedian. However, many jokes fell flat either because of translation difficulties or simply because of lame, raunchy, teenage humor. I appreciate the effort, but it's bad all around, whether it was meant to be written that way or not.

My second gripe is with the forced conversations. Most scenes require you to go through most of the dialog options before the story moves on. For example, you would have three characters each with four options, and you would have to go through 10 of those conversations before the story moves on. It does not matter if you pick the relevant dialog first or last; you need to exhaust at least 90% of the dialog option before the scene can progress. I appreciate that this was intended to help the player find related details and backstory, but many times it's difficult to separate the chaff from the wheat. Another complaint I have about this is that some very relevant information that is needed to progress the story in the other branches is mentioned in passing during conversations, but is not summarized in the flowchart. If you missed that one critical clue because you took a break from playing the game between different branches of the story, you will very likely feel stuck because you can't remember what the clue was nor where it was mentioned.

Oh but my biggest complaint is about the action. I took long breaks from the game because of many of the action scenes. It wasn't the mechanic of the Quick-Time Events (while unnecessary interruptions, most were quite simple and failure was quickly recoverable), but the action scenes themselves were just obnoxious. It was just a steady stream of "shounen anime" cliches, mainly "dashing in alone into a fight with insurmountable odds and win using inexplicable power moves and shouting". Many times I was dumbfounded by how the story simply disregarded concepts of police procedure, logic, and physics for the sake of action. Who is the intended audience for this? This is a game about violent murder and dismemberment and the action is catering to the mentality of 10-year-olds?

This game has one saving grace: the Skip button. Without it I would not have been able to suffer through the terrible jokes, meaningless conversations, and Quick-Time Events.

The ending was satisfying, but it was certainly not worth trudging through all the weak parts of this game.

In my opinion it surpasses it's predecessor in every way possible