spoilers for everything in this

as of writing this review i literally just beat the game and man do i have some THOUGHTS

the first game is my favorite game of all time, i could go for on 18 billion years about why i love that game so much, i plan to in the future, so you'd think with that i wouldve been positively GIDDY for a sequel, well no not really, the first game had such a strong message to it and it wrapped up all of its characters arcs so well that i didnt see a reason to continue, so when they decided to continue with final remix's kinda shitty bonus story it soured my view on this game going in, and after playing it thankfully i can say a lot of that was misplaced, but it wasnt entirely wrong of me to be cautious

this game has fantastic combat, better than the original if you ask me and i feel like on a gameplay front it makes so many improvements that make it much more fun. however literally everything else suffers

the characters in this game... really dont have any character to them except for a few exceptions, and granted you could argue that was the case with the original, hell i even agree, outside of neku and his partners everyone else is kinda boring, but you only really needed to care about the main characters in that game so i feel like it gets a pass

this game similarly needs you to care about the main characters, and i may just be a little too quick to write off these guys but all of your main party members this time around feel like they have NOTHING going for em

rindo is just a bit of a boring guy who i guess doesn't think for himself and likes pokemon go, okay sure thats fine, but this is our main character, comparing him to neku who has a very defined personality and arc that satisfies... rindo just feels like he's along for the ride, and his ass is the main dude

fret just feels like a more outgoing version of rindo who says sus and imposter once, he's like... fine too i guess

nagi is really annoying, she's like a fhe fan in the worst sense, she does not feel like a human being and therefore i dont feel like i can get attached to her, not that id have a reason to anyways since she doesn't have an arc to her... the best you get is her not hating fret nearly as much by the end

minamimoto is better in this game than he was in the first game, but similar to how he was in the first game he doesnt do much of anything and he just kinda fucks off for most of the time

beat has the advantage of being a good character from the first game so therefore i like him, though he just really feels like he's along for the ride as well... like everyone else

shoka is probably my favorite character honestly, her struggles are super relatable to the point i am in my life and actually has a noticeable arc to her that feels like it matters

neku who was probably the best character in the first game... by nature of him being the main character just feels like another addition to the cast in this one, with his arc of not acting like a cunt being completed he's kinda boring, and i really do hate to say that because i love neku a lot, but this guy doesn't really feel like neku did, he's completely lost a lot of the charm that made him likeable in the first place

then you have everyone else, who all exist to further other characters, kanon with fret, ayano with shoka, coco with neku i guess and everyone else just doesnt have much going for them, though again like with the first game the side characters really didnt need much going for them anyways so it doesnt matter

as for the story... i thought it was kinda boring in all honesty.... up to a certain point at least, the first week felt like we were just dicking around, the second week started out like this but it had a lot more memorable moments, you also had beat along for the ride which made it more enjoyable, and then week 3 honestly felt like a different... much better game

even though i didnt really enjoy a lot of the new characters, a lot of moments here really did hit and i did end up coming around on rindo and shoka, and some story beats like the constant time traveling which i wasnt a fan of (still dont know if i am to be honest) finally made sense within the story, honestly if it wasnt for that last week id probably give the game like a 5 or something, but that last week (and the joshua cameo) made the experience

i could go on longer but im just kinda keeping my initial thoughts here for future reference, this was not a bad game, but it did not hit me in the same way as the original did, not at all actually. the message of that game feels completely lost here and it feels like it has nothing to say... its just another story in the same world for the sake of having another story in the same world, not my cup of tea unfortunately

though idc what anyone says neku and shiki's reunion at the end was fantastic, it felt so earned, im not made of stone