All around a very solid experience. The whole story was really well crafted and there was always so much intrigue going on that made me curious and try to piece bits of the plot together. But none of that would have been possible if it weren't for a handful of incredibly well-written, endearing, and entertaining characters. I'm talking about Makoto, Kyoko, Byakuya, Sakura, Celeste, Alter Ego, and the one and only Mastermind. They all made the story something I could truly care about, because I cared for them. Makoto's development throughout the game was really awesome to see unfold. As the main character I thought he was a great representation of the player going through all of this at the same time, and an incredible embodiment for the theme of Hope. Learning about Kyoko's story and getting answers about her was a contributor to a lot of my intrigue in the story. And overall her personality very nicely fits into the category of characters I typically love. Byakuya is an asshole, moving on. I thought Sakura and Celeste's motives and endings were super well-written and compelling. For Sakura in particular I didn't think much of her at all until chapter 4 where I really started to like her. Alter Ego is a character I was not expecting to find so endearing. It made Chihiro's character and circumstances during the story a lot more sad and overall it was just really hard to not like Alter Ego. And finally the Mastermind who I won't name. Despite not BEING there during almost the whole game, their presence was still around during the whole story. And the reveal and subsequent display of how insane and off the walls they were was an unexpected twist.

On the otherhand, there were some characters who were really annoying or straight up uninteresting such as Toko, Hiro, and Hifumi. The rest of the cast was either fine or didn't have enough content for me to form a real opinion. I won't go into why I dislike or don't feel anything towards those characters, all I have to say is that some are just gimmicky and nothing else, and some are just boring and forgettable. I think those specific characters who I wasn't super fond of ended up bringing the game down quite a bit for me, but not in a way that they ruined the experience.