After catching up to all the Niigo focused event stories, including the ones only released in the JP version so far, I can pretty confidently confess my boundless love towards this game through a nonsensical stream of random thoughts.

It was hard to predict that a "funny" Vocaloid rhythm gacha game would be featuring some of my all-time favorite characters and a narrative I could heavily resonate with but now that I actually gave the story a chance, I can't deny what happened ; I just feel like my past me was completely and utterly blind.

While I've only started getting into the story 2 weeks ago, I was already playing the game 1.5 years ago after falling in love with Kanade's cover of Inochi ni Kirawarete iru. but despite loving the songs and the gameplay, I still eventually fell off after a few months and dropped it alongside my other gacha games because keeping up with those is often a pain and I had no real emotional attachment to the characters back then.

I never really bothered trying out the story considering the moonrunes and I simply didn't have any interest in it after my experiences with Love Live SIF, SIFAS and Bandori's stories. Being a huge fan of Love Live didn't prevent me from finding the few parts I've read mind-numbingly boring to a point where it just feels like I'm wasting time more than anything else ; liking the characters themselves a lot didn't help in the slightest.

25-ji, Nightcord de. (Niigo) was already the group I was the most interested in among the five featured in the game but that interest was very superficial ; I just liked their songs a lot and their character design was much more appealing to me than the rest of the characters. I didn't really feel like learning more about them since my impressions of them were limited to "very edgy idols" based on the imagery I've seen both in-game and in fanarts.

Thankfully, these impressions were way off the mark since the world isn't that cruel but it took me way too much time to realize that... can't help but feel endless pain and shame about how I didn't figure out that Nightcord was supposed to be a Discord knock-off either...

Niigo isn't a group of overly edgy idols, they're just your very average teenagers that log on Discord VC at 1 AM to work on Vocaloid songs and surprisingly they never really sing and dance in the story itself (glad that doesn't stop their VAs from constantly putting out bangers whenever they're singing for covers or songs specifically commissioned for event stories).
It's a much more interesting and unique approach to take story-wise for a music-themed narrative instead of just going for yet another middling idol plot but this time, it would be an idol story tainted by teen angst in its most ridiculous and edgiest form and senseless drama !

Niigo's story avoids all the pitfalls this kind of story could normally stumble into.
There are no over the top antagonists since all the characters always act in a fairly realistic way based on their personalities and their past experiences, as expected of normal human beings...
Can't find any dumb conflicts, they're all ones that you could easily find anywhere and personally live through, which makes the girls easy to empathize with and make their struggles feel more authentic.

There's no real stagnation despite it being more profitable if they drag out the stories to make more money off the characters with the gacha, there's close to no filler, every event story feels like an important experience for them and lets the reader understand the characters more ; the progress can be slow and some of the events feel very "ordinary" but I'd argue that it's one of the biggest strengths of this story there.

There's simply no miracle solution to their problems, they're issues you need to deal with slowly over time instead of acting reckless and making them worse or suddenly making them disappear with an unbelievable deus ex machina coming out of nowhere which would make their problems seem very dumb and wouldn't resolve them forever. The payoffs feel genuinely earned and some of the girls' smiles feel like they're worth celebrating and throwing a huge party for.

I've gotten emotional so many times while reading through all the stories and it's the game that actually made me love Auto speed just to appreciate how well their VAs managed to convey the characters' strongest emotions so well ; it's helped by beautiful event BGMs and very detailed animation for their facial expressions.

Even if it's sometimes hard to view this as just a story considering how emotionally invested I'm into their story with me just wanting to see these girls happy, there's been a lot of well-done foreshadowing that makes me very confident that the writers already know where they're going with this and I find it hard to believe that they'd fumble hard any time soon.

All the Niigo event stories I've read were constantly great, even the ones where they interact with characters from other units for which I don't care as much, the story always keeps a certain balance to keep the player's emotions from going solely one way and the constant variety helps to keep their attention up at all times. It's been fairly easy to draw parallels with my own life with how painfully relatable some of these characters are and honestly, I've been pretty inspired by how they managed to tackle their own problems (in other words, Ena Shinonome is legendary).

It's also hard not to appreciate how much the story recognizes music's value as something that can genuinely impact people's lives for the better without outright resolving all their issues just by listening to it.

I've always been trying to find this kind of music-themed narrative with this much character focus, endearing characters and fun banter, ordinary problems that are portrayed in a compelling, easy to empathize and relatable way and I've found something kinda similar to that in a visual novel but the music featured there was kinda bad/bland... The complete opposite of Niigo' songs.

I get endless satisfaction and catharsis from seeing these girls constantly evolve while complementing and bring each other up but I still can't get enough of it... Thankfully I still have a lot of card stories and area conversations to go through before I completely run out of content.

It's actually so bizarre to see that these writers actually know what they're working with and give it the proper treatment it deserves, I'm genuinely just so damn excited to see how they'll continue this and eventually wrap up all the girls' character arcs...

Obviously also highly anticipating any new songs of theirs, especially commissioned songs because the ones specially made for the event stories often are just plain spectacular.
Kanade Tomosu Sora is some of the most beautiful music I've ever listened to and it's heavily helped by its equally beautiful 2DMV. It fits Niigo so perfectly like most of their other commissioned songs, with the lyrics directly referencing what the girls are going through and the event it was made for. The song quite literally feels like Kanade's song.
Their voices were already something special in the stories but I don't think I can praise their vocals enough because even when I don't like the instrumentals, their voices can still heavily carry the song to make me like it anyway.
Infinitely Gray is probably their most impactful song as far as I'm concerned, really feels like Niigo members (especially Ena) are screaming their emotions out but it's pleasant instead of being a painful cacophony ; just listening to it gives me catharsis again while thinking about the event it's featured in.

Outside of Niigo, I can't say I'm as enthusiastic about the rest of the game even though I still love the rhythm gameplay with how fun and creative some charts can be. The song selection is wonderful to me, all units have multiple standout commissioned songs and covers of Vocaloid songs I'm familiar with and already fond of.

The gacha rates are awful if you're not a lucksack and while the art is consistently beautiful even for low rarity cards, it sucks to be locked off the best-looking cards with how frequent limited banners are and the fact that the game isn't exactly that generous with the gacha currency it gives.
At least, it's not especially hard to get 4*s in general since the game does give free pulls and pity too, it's just a lot harder to get the ones you care about in my experience.

I've pretty much only focused on Niigo's story but I've read some of the other groups' main stories (well, they're just introductions tbh) and they're not as interesting as what I've read from Niigo. The characters there are still easy to like and care about and they're also going through their own problems (angst isn't reserved to Niigo) but I have a harder time getting invested into them and their relationships even though I loved the interactions they had with Niigo members in some event stories.
I'll probably have to try reading more but it's hard to imagine how it could top Niigo' story ; hoping I'll somehow get proven wrong but I heavily doubt it considering how much Niigo means to me now.

Anyway, all of this just to say that I owe Niigo everything and that they're now living in my head rent-free alongside Yonagi and Van Arkride...