With the first game, I only liked a handful of characters while the others fell flat. With this game, I liked every single character. I'm honestly impressed by how well this game was written, and how many of the problems the first game had were fixed in this one. The only thing I really disliked was one specific plot twist that involved the player needing to change their perspective (and I mean that literally), but this was probably the best mystery yet. There's a little too much of a reliance on the player needing to suspend their disbelief, but I can look past that because the rest of the game was so good.

I do feel like Spike Chunsoft games have a tendency to lead the player in the mystery instead of letting them solve it for themselves, but I think it was handled decently well here, since you see the story from two different perspectives and both characters (especially Mizuki) are pretty much sharing your experience as well.

Somnium segments were vastly improved over the first one, and now feel much more intuitive especially with a decent hint system helping you understand the rules of the dream, which was missing in the first (and felt like you were throwing random stuff constantly and seeing what stuck). There were also more puzzle segments beyond Somnium too, which is always welcome.

Overall, a near perfect game and fantastically written. Please play it.