This entire game is carried by Komaeda. I dislike half of the cast and only like about 3 characters total, counting him. Komaeda is a very cool character but this game uses him as a crutch for its dramatic tension. Unlike DR1, there's no real "beat the mastermind" thing going on behind the scenes. You're just existing until either Monokuma or Komaeda stirs enough shit for someone to get killed. There's no agency. The ending is a cool twist but the protag yelling the same words at an AI until he wins isn't a very satisfying ending, especially considering that it essentially means the entire plot of DR2 feels like it was meaningless from the beginning.
The only reason this isn't a 0 is because Komaeda is in the game and 2-5 is the best case in the entire series

this game really introduced 10 main characters to you at the start of the game and expected shit to just work out, huh
it's a good game and i give it some credit because it's the first one in a long arc, but man, that was a very bold writing decision and i don't think it paid off. i also think this game's sidequests were significantly worse than previous games, partly because for 70% of them Rean is the only guy in the party (less screentime for other characters, less interesting dialogue) and because that same percentage has all of them in the same fuckin small town. now, crossbell showed us that focusing on an area can work, but for whatever reason it just doesn't here. i feel no attachment to trista, thors, or the students despite spending a good amount of an 80 hour game with them. it does not improve next game

Very nice game. The small setting and cast make for a place you can get really emotionally invested in and allows for the writers to put a lot of focus on characters and places that you get to spend a lot of time with. The Trade Conference was incredibly good political intrigue and the rest of the chapters all had really good character arc type stuff.
I'd say my only big issue was the combat. Suffers from the problem of regular encounters being way more fun than boss fights. The bosses have bloated HP pools and immunity to all status effects, so every fight is just a war of attrition. Still very enjoyable overall.

Blue Lions route. I really liked some of the characters in this game, and a lot of that group was in Blue Lions, so that's nice. Dimitri is especially good and is a great take on the standard "Lord" character, though I think even he could've been done better.
this game having 3/4 routes was weird. the way that the early chapters's conflicts tied especially well in with BL characters made me think that pre-timeskip was different depending on your house, but i guess i was just lucky. the game not changing stuff around based on what route you pick in the early game is pretty lame and is the main reason i haven't done a replay. also i was falling asleep mid-combat towards the end of the game and started skipping months just to finish the game sooner. still good but too much content for its own good, i think