Gonna write about each little story individually I think anyway,

Akiyama: As a character he is awesome, love his dynamic with Kido and Hana and his overall demeanour and vibe. His only flaw is that he doesnt realise he shoulda been lovin a fat bitch instead of a girl he met yesterday.
Saejima: The scene is really bad. Like worse than just the clip people cite it goes on to have it known that Kiriyu saw the whole thing, was cool with it and left Haruka alone with him. Its a stupid way to illustrate that his ass was in prison for a long time from any way you choose to read it and should have not been in the goddamn game.
The worst thing is that hes actually really compelling and his part of the game is pretty great aside from the 'stealth' stuff near the end. His sub stories are what brought me around on him along with the latter half of his story.
Tanimura : overall the most interesting and the most complete feeling story. Ma-chan is awesome even with all the cop bs idgaf about. They present a mystery and solve it, its cool. I really dont have a lot to say , solid and good story.
Kiriyu: Hes characterized kinda weird and kind of like an asshole which is cool tbh. Im glad they acknowledged that him thrusting his job onto some punk ass 30 year old because he didnt feel like doing it was kind of a dick move. He's kind of a character who wants to have his cake and eat it too, like he wants to leave his yakuza life behind yet keeps in touch with all this people and says stupid bullshit that amounts to "the yakuza are kind of awesome and the good guys actually" while running a fucking orphanage.

I dont know....I dont think I would be as positive as I am on this game if the franchise didn't have its claws into me. Theres plenty of stuff about the main plot i just plain dont like (or gaf about) and even though I played it straight after 3 it made me nostalgic for it. Maybe in a week I'll start to miss it but its safe to say I need a break after playing 4 games in a row.
Saejimas dumb fucking sister and Hana becoming skinny annoy the shit out of me , I really wish the writers saw women as people.

This game is full of things i didn't expect but the biggest are how earnestly and boldly it leans into its yuri and horror aspects. It pulls no punches when it comes to these girls being textually gay as well as having , while not downright disturbing, very good horror scenes.
the level design is really bad like not even rpgmaker bad but it seems to have been made in a nightmare world where iterations of "get to place in time" are things people look for in games. I think it inflated my play time by actually 3 hours and is the reason that as much as i want to i will not be going back and getting any of the other endings anytime soon (i looked them up on youtube)
i kept trying to formulate excuses for the game but i think maybe astral shift needs to hire an actual game designer.
The only other games I can compare this to design wise are "classic" rpgmaker games but those are excused by the fact that they are free, often short games. I payed money for this so yeah there is an expectation there that it would not employ this shit to artificially make the game longer? scarier? more dificult? I actually don't know what the fuck its trying to do.I compare it to rpgmaker horror games because it is clear (almost textual) that it's where this game comes from, but it really irks me when people call it an rpgmaker game, there is a distinction between aligning yourself with that legacy and literally BEING MADE IN THAT ENGINE. There are idiosyncrasies that rpgmaker has that this game surprisingly captures but its not made in the fucking engine. I dont want this to just become a catch all term because i am a huge fan of things made in the engine and as not all games made in it are horror games starring girls not all games that share its aesthetics and mechanics are.
There is however one thing this has in common with "rpgmaker horror" games : theres something about rpgmaker games and the like being so fucking into their own shit that they forget to think of the player. like this game and so many before it will just have actually hard chase sequences right after cutscenes w no checkpoint in between like yeah fuck it get trapped in the time loop nightmare dimension untill you figure out how to do this very specific movement, bitch. its admirable and in this game has to be intended because no way have 10+ years of rpgmaker horror games passed and no dev has thought hey maybe this is infuriating,lliiiike theres something there right? the games not scary but its oppressive its annoying it makes you feel trapped and i think thats kind of beautiful
maybe im just bad at playing games? But it almost feels like getting 100 game overs is part of the game design
esp on parts that seem like they have no way to predict where hits will come from
and every time i finish a night segment and get back into the main game the comical vein that has been pulsating on my forhead retreats and i enter a state of bliss untill the inevitable next night when i will actually take a bite out of my switch.

My favorite thing in this game is the art and insane creativity in presentation. I audibly gasped when I saw the handmade assets. Not gonna say anything else about the art because its actually perfect.