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1Gonna give a forewarning here, it is very hard to fully assess my thoughts on this game without giving any form of spoilers, so I'm going to separate the spoiler sections and the non-spoiler sections via use of a separation marker. Also, this is largely unedited, so don't expect writing to the best of my ability. There's just too much to talk about.
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4---Spoiler Free Section---
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6So I finished Danganronpa 2 on stream. If you've heard me talk about this series in the past, you know that I was not a fan of the first game, to the point where I have called it “the weakest >10 hour game I've ever finished”. Which might prompt the response of “why play the second one?” The answer is:
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81: I've heard it improved significantly on the first.
92: I've experienced sequels which redeemed the first game before. I ranted rather heavily about 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors in the past but came to like it a lot more after playing Virtue's Last Reward, which compelled me to replay 999 and appreciate it more. 
103: I've wanted to stream a visual novel/adventure game at least once. Give it a go, see how I do, how I enjoy it. I wanted to also do something I know a decent number of people have actually played, rather than dig up some obscure adventure mystery game to play.
114: It was like 10$ on Steam, which really isn't much.
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13As far as my general, spoiler-free thoughts go, here they are.
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15Overall: This game was overall an improvement from the first game. My big issue with the first one was that it started off strong and just kept getting worse, more contrived, and sucked with its characters. This game handled most areas better, although I won't say they made this game “great”. I still had many similar issues with this game overall as I did with the first one. While it is generally better, I still have decently conflicting feelings about it now that I am finished. I feel like this game almost necessitates you playing DR1 to make sense of it, and I can't say that DR2 was good enough to make the experience of DR1 worth going through to play it. 
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17Music: I feel the music was decently better, but honestly most of the soundtrack for DR2 is recycled from DR1 so it might just be something I overlooked because I felt the first game had a largely forgettable soundtrack the first time I played it. Still, I do feel the investigation themes (ikoroisha and ekoroisha) are most certainly the best songs I've heard in either game.
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19Characters: The cast is overall better than Danganronpa 2, though that's not saying a lot given that there was very little for me to actually like about Danganronpa 1's cast. It's still a colorful cast of anime tropes, but I can at least name 1 character I liked. That said, 2/3 of this cast was still genuinely forgettable, and at times, even worse. 
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21Gameplay: I'd say about the same. Do some silly nonsense around school, then story stuff happens, then you investigate, then do a trial. All I remember about Danganronpa 1 was that I hated the trial sections because they essentially felt like “Ace Attorney with gimmicks”. DR2 isn't much better, the trial sections are gimmicky still and full of bizarre minigames. I guess I'm just more used to them by now. Admittedly part of my problem was that on DR1 I would have some issues with the Vita controls, and playing on PC with mouse and keyboard for 2 made it a lot smoother. At its core, it's a game that forces you to solve a mystery and test your ability to figure out the solution to a grand puzzle, which is fun enough in it of itself to keep me interested in playing it. The investigation sections are also still enjoyable (and the investigation music is so much better in this game to boot).
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23Story: The story completely depends on you having played the first game. It's...quite honestly more of the same here in terms of quality of story. It's more of the same conceptually; 16 students go to Hope's Peak, only to find themselves trapped in a game where they are tempted to kill eachother by a psychotic bear mascot character.
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25Not a lot to say here without spoiling much. I have two major differences in opinion with DR2 compared to the first one; 1, this game peaks in Chapter 5, the first one peaks in Chapter 1. 2, the first game's ending left me with a feeling of “other games did this better, this just feels contrived.”, while this one's just kind of left me ambivalent. 
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27Difficulty: Might be just because I sat down and thought about things more, but I felt this one was easier to get through than the first one, because I completed this game pretty much completely unassisted and never got stuck on anything for too long. You still run into those “leap in logic” moments where you get ahead of where the story wants you to be, and those get kind of frustrating. 
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29Localization: It's far from the worst I've seen, but it's also NISA, and pretty clearly NISA at that. Many of the gags just don't work, and there's a decent amount of typos in the main script of the game, which is pretty lame given that that's the section you're supposed to proofread. 
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31Voice Acting: I've played both games a decent amount in Japanese and English. I played DR1 mostly in Japanese, and DR2 mostly in English. I feel like the second game improved a decent amount in the dub department, with better direction and a more reputable voice cast that didn't feel as flat as DR1 did. Monokuma is still super annoying in Japanese, so the less I have to hear it the better. The English dub had its share of moments in which someone would underperform on certain lines, but I generally will take a solid dub in my own language over a less than stellar voice over in another.  
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33Overall verdict: Danganronpa 2 is just okay. I don't regret playing it personally, I had fun with it overall, and I felt that in most regards it equaled or improved upon its predecessor. But it still had far too many faults that make it hard for me to recommend it, especially given that you pretty much have to play its predecessor to get the full experience. It's also a game that my opinion soured on as I actually reflected on it more. It's certainly better than the sum of its parts compared to when dissected to its core components.
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35All right, so this was the spoiler-free section. Everything below here is gonna be spoilers and I am going to go much more in depth, so definitely be cautious.
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109---Spoiler Section---
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111So here are the basic spoiler stuffs I wanna talk about in general. I'm going to assume you've played the game if you're reading here, so I won't get too into summaries.
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113Gameplay: Among the minigames, I felt there really wasn't much improvement. Panic Time Action is still as stupid as the rhythm game in the first game, except I found a way to cheese it by mashing left-click and tab. Hangman's Gambit feels gimmicky and late in the game it gets bullshit hard at times. Logic Dive is decently fun, even if it feels kinda stupid in concept. The closing argument section is and always will be a colossal waste of time because it only exists to prove what the player already knows. (That said, I do like the art in these comics, and the way the killer is always a shadow is a nice touch)
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115Pacing: The pacing of Danganronpa 2 isn't particularly great. Several of the minigames, such as closing argument, pad out the game. Furthermore, one of the problems with Danganronpa which I will get into in more detail is with regards to its large cast. The fact that it has 16 characters constantly around means that every character has to get some screentime, meaning every time anything happens, you need to have at least 4 of them say “no way holy shit” or “that's not true that's impossible!” And it makes me feel like any time something happens, it takes just a tadbit too long to move on to the next part. The free time sections continue to be a waste of space, because they seldom feature anything that offers expanded character depth. I sort of get why, because they have to keep stuff a mystery for when the characters become important later, but it ends up feeling like they don't accomplish anything in the way of either character development or giving the player much reason to like said character more or less.
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117Tone: Danganronpa is a fucking mess when it comes to tone, and I almost think DR2 might be even worse about it than DR1. I can tolerate a good amount of rapid tone shifts between light-hearted humor and heavy-hearted moments, Hell, my favorite game is Mother 3, and that game bounces around from “feels bad man” moments to goofy parody moments fairly often. However, in that game's case, there is still generally a clear dichotomy. 
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119Danganronpa on the other hand will have a round table debate between people regarding who stabbed their friend to death and then a character will make reference to her large gag boobs in the same discussion, right before someone else gets to an accusation. Like the humor isn't even funny because the contrast of mood, it's just distracting and uncomfortable, and not in a good way. One of the worst offenses DR2 commits with regard to its tone I can think of is probably Chapter 4 after the trial. Gundham starts talking about how Nekomaru and he fought valiantly for their own lives, and to not give up hope. Then he dies. And then everyone feels sad that two more of their friends have died and they're still trying to hold themselves back up. Okay then, that's fine, except his death scene is him getting Mufasa'd by Monokuma and then a bunch of angelic hamsters grab his body and ascend into the heavens. Like how the fuck am I supposed to take the death of this character seriously when I'm too busy laughing at how utterly cartoonish and stupid his death cutscene is? There's ton and mood whiplash, and then there's the kinds of sheer suspension-of-disbelief-breaking tone and mood changes found in Danganronpa 2.
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121Story: This is the meat of the game, and really the reason to play it. As a whole, I'm not fully sure of what to make of it, to be quite honest.
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123I will have to start by addressing my general biggest issue with this series as a whole when it comes to how it tells its story. Danganronpa kind of digs itself into a hole as a survival-game story in a way that leads to a very non-congruent treatment of its characters. With the premise being about someone dying every chapter and someone being a killer, characters die so often that many of them never really get any real chance to develop or for you to develop attachment to them. Furthermore, you start to feel like the game's chapters have a kill quota. It's not about if, but about when. Death becomes predictable to the point of edging towards being mundane at its worst. Personally, I find this eliminates a solid element of suspense, just because I start to expect “which character who hasn't had much screen time/development is gonna die or kill someone this time?” I would argue that it also limits any real sense of attachment to its characters, as it's hard to want to attach yourself to someone when you know in all likelihood they are gonna bite the dust...but Danganronpa struggles to develop its characters in the first place so that doesn't become as much of an issue (for probably the wrong reason). 
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125Throughout you get some free time sections to spend time interacting with the characters, but this really only goes so far. You have to spend a lot of time with just one character to get much out of them, and even then it kind of only gives some backstory which is generally somewhat inconsequential, especially given the feeling that most of the characters can pretty much die on any given chapter. Free time generally felt like a waste of time in both games and in this one I stopped spending it almost entirely.
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127The writing also has its fair share of absolute duds. There are some really awkwardly placed jokes and non-sequiturs that only serve to be distracting and take away from the point of anything going on. Some of the trials are inconsistent (more on those below), and there are also some genuinely very bad moments when it comes to actually writing the characters. By themselves, these duds are more nitpicky, sure, but they still are worth mentioning, especially when added to the other pile of complaints.
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129One of the cool concepts of Danganronpa 1 that I will give it credit for is the idea of having characters kill one another to fulfill some sort of selfish, but personal motive. Chapter 2 of DR1 did very well in this regard, having a character so afraid of his own inner secret that he would kill to keep it a secret. Danganronpa 2 unfortunately suffers in this area beyond its first chapter; none of the motives offered really provide that visceral feel to them, to where you think to yourself “who has the kind of baggage or fear that they would kill for something like this?” The motives are all kind of weak. But Ill get into that when I address the individual chapters below, where I'll also talk more about the characters in depth as well.
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131And while I do like the cast a bit more, I still feel most of it is weak as a whole. I think this is largely a consequence of Danganronpa's structure: You have over a dozen characters in one place, and every chapter features at least two of them dying, starting with the first one. As such, you really never have the time to properly develop them. That said, it's still really not that good. 
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135Chapter 1: Right away, we get introduced to our protagonist, and...oh boy here we go. Until the very very end of the game, Hajime is Makoto 2.0, i.e. he is bland and has almost no personality to speak of beyond some insecurity about his lack of talent, making him almost entirely there to exist as an audience-surrogate character among a colorful cast of anime tropes. He does have some parts at the very end which make him marginally superior to Makoto, but it's still a very slim difference. 
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137Anyways, surprise, you're at Hope's Peak again. And there's a friendly Monokuma-esque mascot character this time. As far as Usami/Monomi goes, I generally found her kind of annoying, though over the course of the game this kind of lessened. I suppose she fulfilled the purpose of being a contrast to Monokuma and providing some levity, but I generally fast-forwarded through most of the cutscenes she was in because a good half of them were useless. 
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139Anyways, shit hits the fan soon after, you meet a bunch of faces of the characters you will see a lot of for the rest of the game, and Monokuma hijacks everything, trapping you on the island. While I find Monokuma rather annoying, I can at least appreciate having an unlikeable psychopathic villain to some extent. Still, I skipped many of the cutscenes featuring him which weren't important (like Monokuma's theater, or any of the scenes of him beating up Monomi). Once again, Monokuma says “if you want to escape from the island, you need to kill someone and get away with it.”
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141Where this chapter succeeds: This Chapter really works best if you've played Danganronpa 1, because it subverts player expectation very well. You just spent an entire game with Byakuya, and now he dies at the beginning of the game (or so you think by this point). It's quite the curveball, given that the player would logically reason they're going to keep Byakuya around to inform the cast of characters of the previous game's Killing School Life (as well as fill in players who might be starting on DR 2 without playing the DR1 if you really want to get meta). So already I felt as if this game was gonna be a bit more subversive and less predictable, story wise.
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143Furthermore, Nagito steals the show, starting from the first trial all the way until Chapter 6. He proves himself to be a massive wild card unlike anyone before him or anyone else in this game ever does. He felt less predictable than Toko did in the “crazy chaotic neutral” part, and certainly someone you end up more cautious of than Byakuya in early DR1 or Fuyuhiko in early DR2 when they give their threats about eventually killing someone. Having that unpredictable character around genuinely makes the ride more enjoyable.
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145Not only that, but this chapter does as good a job as DR1's first case does in eliciting a feeling of despair, which the game ultimately hopes for. In DR1, you witness two people die, one of whom is a killer and the other of whom was planning to abuse your trust in her in order to kill you. In DR2, you witness the one character you are familiar with get offed immediately, and the character who looks as though he will be your companion the entire game is completely untrustworthy and utterly batshit. Oh, and throw in the part at the end of the trial about how Teruteru just wanted to go home and help his family, and you get this generally dreadful feeling that kicks off the game pretty well. 
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147Where this chapter fails: The actual murder plot (i.e. how the killing is set up, how it happens, and how they try to cover it up and escape) was really weak. I saw everything coming from a mile away in terms of how the murder was committed, from the holes in the floorboards to the missing skewer being the murder weapon. Not to mention, it felt like a strung together sequence of mysteries that didn't form a very coherent and well-constructed murder plot. Glow in the dark paint? Crawling under the floorboards to stab someone as soon as the breaker goes out? I dunno what it is, I just never got the feeling like the murder plot had a very cohesive concept, it was just a string of murder plot ideas thrown together, if that makes sense.
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149The pacing of the chapter is generally rather slow in most facets, especially if the intent is to sort of ease the player into the game. 
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151Finally, Teruteru is a shit character. He's the little perverted character who almost felt like he was meant to be axed early, as he is otherwise unlikeable the entire course of his stay in the game. Sure, they gave him a bit of a sympathetic backstory which served to feel like a punch to the gut of the player, but this is too little, too late. As a side note, I generally feel that presenting almost the entirety of a character's meaningful backstory just as they are about to die for good is a poor choice of storytelling. Why should I feel any attachment to this character now when I know they are just about to die? The attachment has already all but been cut.
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155Chapter 2: 
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157Where this chapter succeeds: Fuyuhiko. While Nagito is the character I most enjoyed, Fuyuhiko is probably the best written character in the whole game, and Chapter 2 (and early on in 3) are most of the reason why. This chapter gives him all the opportunity for character development, shows his true and conflicting feelings about his role in the mafia vs. how he feels about Peko. When she dies, a good part of it is his fault, and now he has a blackened role in the group as the one who was an accomplice to murder (and unlike Nagito, he isn't totally batshit). Then you add in the early part of Chapter 3, where he begs for forgiveness to the point of stabbing himself, his whole character felt both believable and well done, because you know that he can't redeem himself solely this way, but you get a genuine sense that he is trying, and the whole bit about his mafia ties sort of makes it work very well. Not to mention his personality was actually kind of enjoyable, given that he's an irritable and sailor-mouthed but (eventually) well-meaning atoner.
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159Chapter 2 succeeds at gut punching the player even further after Chapter 1, leaving an even worse feeling. And I mean this in a good way, since it feels like that is the intended theme of this part of the game. You now have two accomplices to murder still around, one of whom witnesses his childhood friend beaten to death and almost dies alongside her. It was a very sour experience, providing that kind of negative emotion that video games don't often give.
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161Where this chapter fails: The motive of “the game” is stupid and very poorly executed, even though I don't think it's bad at its core concept (the idea of learning that one of your friend played a role in killing someone). Given that the story was supposed to touch on the possibility of the victim being someone who played a part in supposedly killing Fuyuhiko's sister, that detail is not really elaborated on much and kind of brushed aside once presented. 
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163Mahiru is the single most forgettable character in this entire game. Out of all the characters in the game, I can't tell you a single thing about her other than that she takes pictures and the other characters say she is a tad abrasive.
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165Peko isn't really all that much better. She's also a very forgettable character up until maybe the end of this chapter, by which point you already know she is going to die, so there is no real time to get attached. She has a couple good scenes, but she more or less exists as a plot device more than anything.
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167The murder plot also just kind of struck me as a little on the ridiculous side. Dousing herself in water bottles to wash off the blood? Standing on a sword made of freaking bamboo as a stepstool? The whole murder plot felt the same as Chapter 1's, honestly kind of lame, incoherent, and strung together as a bunch of pieces rather than one large, well thought out murder plot. I dunno, it just felt pretty meh to me.
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169Also holy fuck the sections where you actually play the Murder Case game are BOOOOOOOOORING.
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173Chapter 3:
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175*Side note on this chapter, there was a pretty hilarious moment during the “Killer's Mistake” bit for me. I was so caught up in some little detail about the murder video, that I completely missed the otherwise obvious mistake Mikan makes in her testimony. Essentially I very quickly figured out part of the trial that many get stuck on, but completely for the wrong reasons. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/293385038 *
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177Where this chapter succeeds: I guess the concept of the murder plot felt more grandiose and better conceived than others? I did think there was something clever to it all in concept. Uhm...It has Nagito in some enjoyable moments? The bits at the beginning with Fuyuhiko's character developing?...It has a locale called Titty Typhoon?...I suppose I can say this chapter is not as bad as Danganronpa 1's Chapter 3 anyways.
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179Where this chapter fails: Just about everything else. 
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181Let's start with Mikan. First of all, Mikan is a very weak character up to this point. All she has offered is fanservice scenes/shots, and served as a plot device for autopsies. Her personality is that of a meek nurse, but you never really get anything beyond that. You never sense much of a spark of determination, or some hidden aptitude or resolve. Mikan's motive is “the disease”, which doesn't really do anything for her character whatsoever, nor is it compelling in any way, making it a really shit and impersonal motive. She talks about doing it all for the sake of “meeting someone” but nothing gets elaborated on there and this promptly gets swept under the rug. The slip you catch her in is generally a kind of lame way to prove a crook in this type of game (fooling them into revealing information they shouldn't rather than breaking their contradictions) unless executed well, which I feel it really wasn't. When she dies, they can't seem to make up their mind on “she's like this because of the disease” or “she was always like this” either. 
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183Now let's talk Ibuki. Until this point in the game, Ibuki has been a total goofball of a character. She has some enjoyable moments, but she has no real depth as a character. She occasionally does something goofy and does try to cheer the group up in her own way, but beyond that the only thing memorable about her is how quirky she is. The only reason that I didn't predict her to die earlier was that she is insanely popular among fans for whatever reason, which is an unfortunate semi-spoiler (which I can't blame the game for).
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185As for Hiyoko...I dunno I felt her personality worked for what it was, the untrusting, sassy girl who has a surprisingly good head on her shoulders about the situation they're all in (given that the whole “our classmates have died at the hands of one another” ordeal about the game is something which feels like the characters kind of only feel the need to remember and stress about somewhat intermittently, another minor gripe I have with the tone of the game given how that kind of shit should be more traumatic than it seems it actually is in this series). She does also get a little bit of character development after Mahiru's death which softens her up somewhat, but it's pretty marginal. The worst thing about her isn't her personality, because honestly I feel like it works decently given the context of the game, but rather how badly they handle killing her. She just kind of gets killed, and then brushed to the side to focus on Ibuki's murder during the class trial. Furthermore, there is just lost potential here. She bullies Mikan all game and not once is any hint of revenge brought up during the case, not even a “that bitch deserved it” moment to really drive home who Mikan is. Missed opportunity if you ask me.
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187As for the writing in this chapter. It's just...bad. Details are glossed over, and important matters such as the motive and the weapon are just ignored. The same alibi that was used to vindicate Akane and Nagito is used as Mikan's motive; the disease. That's just kind of a plot hole in it of itself. The fact that the weapon is almost completely ignored is an issue with consistency, given how much of a big deal it is in other chapters (to rub it in, the weapon is literally the FIRST subject of the class trial debate in chapter 4). How does Mikan rig the candle to go out, given that it's a crucial piece of her plan?
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189I can go on about this chapter but I think one moment that really cements the idea to me that this chapter feels as though it was written by someone completely separate from whoever wrote the rest of the chapters is the scene in the conference room where it comes off as though Chiaki is flirting with Hajime. This never gets brought up again, and just feels like a moment swept under the rug. 
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193Chapter 4:
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195Where this chapter succeeded: The twists to the actual murder plot and the setting they were in were solid. You get to play as Nagito and it's better than playing as Hajime. There's an escape room section which is cool (unless you let Monomi backseat you through it).  It wasn't Chapter 3. There's also actually developed foreshadowing.
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197Where this chapter fails: If I had to isolate one key problem to this chapter, it's that it  just felt unnecessary. You start off exploring several sections of the amusement park, but it ends up being a waste of time because you spend the entire chapter inside the Grape and Strawberry rooms, without much real need to have gone to anywhere, save maybe Nezumi Castle for foreshadowing. I don't mind being stuck in one place the whole chapter, but it feels kind of out of place relative to the story of the game, not to mention the fact you waste a bunch of time exploring the 4th island only to find out that you are never going to spend any time here during the chapter.
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199The motive for murder is also pretty shit. It's just...kill someone or starve to death. How can I be remotely upset at someone for killing someone here when they literally need to do so to live? Not even to escape, but to even be alive? There's nothing compelling to it. There's nothing that really gives that feeling of shit that the usual motives provide, where someone is willing to betray their friends for something personal, like in DR1's case 1 and 2.
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201The focal characters of this chapter aren't that interesting. Nekomaru is a beefy guy who flexes and talks about taking a shit a lot. There's really nothing much to his character, and while he isn't a hateable character per se, he like much of this cast is rather one dimensional. The fact that he gets a robot body is the most anime fucking thing in this game.
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203Gundham is one of three of the goofball characters in this cast and he's probably the most out of place. From introduction until his death, he is basically defined by being a total chuuni (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=chuuni). He also had quite possibly the most ridiculous death scene in the game here to the point where it ruined any impact his final words may have had as a storytelling device. I want to like Gundham; in both languages his voiceover is terrific, and he has some of the best lines in the game. But he's all style and no substance.
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205Also let's use this opportunity to talk about Akane. Akane is the worst character in this game. She actively makes the game worse by being a blockhead or a fanservice character, and there are infinitely more scenes and trials she makes worse than better, with her badly placed gags about her large breasts or her huge appetite or some form of innuendo, and failure to contribute to anything. She almost gets Nekomaru killed with foolish abandon as he tries to protect her (one of his few defining character moments), and then proceeds to almost do the same thing again and is saved only by the dumb luck of Nekomaru basically becoming a robot. She comes off as comparable to a female Teruteru, but she never gets a moment that even could be construed as a character-redeeming moment the way he does when he dies, and she also survives the entire course of the game, meaning you never even get to meet the sweet embrace of “thank goodness there's no more of her anymore”.
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207Lastly, as much as I liked Nagito leading up to this point, I feel like he changes for the worse starting in Chapter 4. He becomes more malicious towards the group, and starts to really become narrow-minded when it comes to focusing on dealing with the traitor in the group. I find he starts to take a dip and become an overall less enjoyable character at this point.
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212Chapter 5:
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214Where this chapter succeeds: This chapter I think provides the biggest “oh shit” moment of the entire series. Nagito's big moment as a villain provides probably the most demented and gut-wrenching trial sequence thus far into the series. Him creating a murder scenario which nobody can solve is actually a really well done idea because it just leaves you as the player feeling really shitty, because you know someone has to die and nobody here really “deserves it” (at least in the moral sense). And the twist of Chiaki being the mole works pretty well in context. I admit I was partially spoiled on Chiaki (specifically the part about her being an AI) so it came as less of a surprise to me, but thankfully not everything about her was spoiled for me.
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216The direction during the second half of the trial is super well done. The way the music completely changes from the usual trial themes, and the scene is setup to where the characters have to reluctantly push forward despite the fact that they all know how fucked they are even relative to this game's normal SNAFU, this was very well done. Even the closing argument is the best-handled in the game, given that every character is a shadow except for Nagito. 
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218With regards to Monomi, as a character was generally annoying for me all game, but I think this chapter truly cleared up her purpose in the game, which I think was a good idea to keep generally quiet about until now. You pretty much are set up to not really trust her much for the entire game, so this chapter clearing up once and for all that she is not evil and really was on the player's side genuinely did make me feel kinda bad for doubting her intention all game. 
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220All in all, this chapter was probably left the strongest emotional impact I felt towards any scenario in either game (even though that isn't particularly hard to do given that there are more mediocre or bad chapters than good ones).
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222Where this chapter fails:
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224I still feel like there could have been improvements to make this chapter work even better from a writing standpoint. Given that Nagito has an incredibly gruesome death, they reached the conclusion of suicide way too quickly. There was a great opportunity for this to be a really cut-throat trial where everyone accuses eachother. Akane nearly strangled Nagito to death at the beginning, how did nobody throw her under the bus for almost trying to kill him out of revenge? Why didn't they target Kazuichi for him panicking all chapter about the bomb threat? There was ample opportunity for this case to really dig the knife in deep when the realization that it was all a suicide meant to create an unwinnable scenario finally hits. Imagine how much stronger the scene could be if they all realized how Nagito played with their emotions and trust to get them to point fingers at eachother when it was his doing. Instead Hajime figures out about a third of the way into the trial and they operate under that pretense for most of the trial. 
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226Also, while this chapter isn't really the worst of it, let me talk about my problems with Chiaki as a character given that she “dies” in this chapter. Chiaki is very much Kyoko 2.0 for 5 chapters. She's there to be the support female character who the game explains very little about as a character until near the end. She helps you in trials and investigations and comes off to me as the author's “I really want you to like this character” character with her character design. The type of character who they will end up making a bunch of PVC figures of to sell at conventions and market this game with. She has a handful of goofy moments (being a bit of a snoozer) but overall I felt that she had a very similar purpose as Kyoko in DR1, and all around does absolutely nothing for me as a character. If anything I'd argue she's almost worse than Kyoko, given that she feels like she's designed to pander, being the moe “elite gamer” girl who occasionally references game stuff to try to appeal to the gamer crowd playing this game. I really couldn't tell you anything notable about her as a character beyond the role she fulfills in the game and maybe one or two moments (such as her tasting the glue).
227
228There are also several moments of bad writing here leading up to the trial, which by themselves aren't too big an issue, but they get added to the pile, and by Chapter 5 they get old.
2291: There's a scene early on where Sonia calls Hajime to the restaurant, Hajime arrives on time, and Sonia scolds him because “in my country, everyone arrives 13 minutes early to arranged meetings”. And then she apologizes when she realizes how dumb this is, and says “sorry, this is a moment of culture shock”. Come on, it's 5 chapters in, Sonia is an already established character who has already proven to be a Japanophile, there is no reason for her to hold other characters whom she has spent multiple weeks with to this standard all of a sudden, and then excuse it as “culture shock”. Mind you this isn't how any of her other running gags throughout the game work. There's a decent share of dumb moments for other characters throughout the game, but this one was salient enough that I actually put a note of it in a Word doc after stream because it was just so utterly stupid given the context.
230
2312: Nagito uses an explosive to blow up the restaurant, which directly violates one of the established rules of the game. Hajime mentions the rule about “killing more than 2 people” which they get around quite fine, but there's another rule explicitly in the rules that says “destruction of property, including cameras and monitors (which get destroyed by Nagito's bomb), is prohibited.” Well, Nagito basically gets away with this and nobody addresses this rule. Need I remind you that the entire reason outlined in Chapter 6 that Junko/Monokuma isn't able to get away with killing everyone is that “they have to follow the rules”. To ignore rules which have been used several times throughout the game to prevent characters from getting away with stuff is just inconsistent. It can arguably be justified as “Monokuma giving him permission”, but this isn't ever explicitly stated and it really should have been instead of just being utterly ignored.
232
2333: There's a bit where Fuyuhiko suggests that Sonia probably is a bit on the less nimble side and thus should explore the smallest island for the bombs. He then proceeds to say that Chiaki (a girl who clearly is hardly more nimble than Sonia would be) should investigate the island with a friggin hospital on it. I dunno about you, but I hardly think that sounds like the most efficient way to spread your resources. It's a minor gripe but still on the laundry list.
234
235These all kind of stood out to me as just all around awkward moments, especially #2. 
236
237(Side note, on stream I did rant a little bit about feeling like the game never makes it much of a point to check out the victim's room during investigations. This was a case of me generally mis-remembering things, as they do make it a point to do so in every investigation other than Chapter 4's, so that at least is more consistent than I gave it credit for,)
238
239--- 
240
241Before we get to Chapter 6, let me talk about the remaining two characters.
242
243Kazuichi is generally pretty forgettable. He's less overly perverted than Teruteru but he doesn't really offer much of anything. He's less of a comic relief character than others, he contributes less, gets no real character development or much in the way of establishment, he's just sort of...there. Apparently you get some of his backstory if you get a lot of his hope fragments, but I wasn't really inspired to do so, and while that backstory is kind of decent for causing the player to subvert their expectation of him (he looks more vicious than he really is), it took supplemental reading to really get that out of him and it still doesn't change his role in the story.
244
245Sonia is at least enjoyable enough to have around. She's a goof and a bit of an airhead, but she rarely takes utter command of the scene with her goofiness to the point of taking me out of my immersion or suspension-of-disbelief, barring a couple choice instances. Her naivete can get a bit annoying during the trials, but I think having a character like her doesn't actively hurt much, and she has her moments. If anything, she became my baseline for characters I am all right with, i.e. if a character was actively worse or more annoying than her during the story, then I really didn't care for them at all.
246
247--- 
248
249Chapter 6: Honestly...this chapter just was not all that good in my opinion. 
250
251I'm not really happy about the villain being Junko again, even if it was only an AI. It felt kind of lazy to me to be perfectly honest, especially given how much they set up the whole idea of “she is dead, but her followers still seek despair”. The twist about Hajime being Izuru really doesn't mean hardly anything to me, given that they really don't offer much about that character beyond “he did bad shit”. I feel like Izuru could have been made out to be a better villain, rather than feeling almost like a twist thrown in for the sake of having a twist, which is how it felt like to me.
252
253Speaking about twists, I feel this chapter just all around added a bunch of them just for the sake of doing so, without a lot of regard for what a plot twist is supposed to do. I felt the first game did this towards the endgame as well, but this time the scope is a bit different. The twist about all 16 of the cast being former remnants of despair honestly undermines the aspect of building up the characters over the course of the game, because it pretty much set all of them up as having a backstory of “people who have done horrible things”. Like, what does this accomplish other than pretty much wiping away your concept of who the characters are that you've built up across the whole game? I almost felt like there wasn't even reason to have any attachment to the characters any longer because every concept that I had of them built up through the game was kind of turned on its head. Yeah, I get that they were essentially brainwashed, but it still doesn't really sit right with me to be honest.
254
255I at least can appreciate the twist of them all being in a virtual world filling in some of the gaps in the story, like why the characters still look like they did when entering High School despite losing several years of memory during their growing years, or Nagito's absolute God-given luck with seemingly everything to the point of it being an outright super power compared to the extreme but plausible talents many other characters have, or giving a proper means to combat Junko/Monokuma (seriously, the fact that Junko had to play by her own rules in DR1 just seemed really stupid to me).
256
257I still think “The Biggest, Most Awful, Most Tragic Event in Human History” is a generally dumb plotline with a very dumb name. The idea of a bunch of teen rioting having a domino effect that leads to mass rioting capable of destroying the world is a bit of a stretch, but when you add in shit like the deal where the remnants of despair outright killed themselves, or their families, or try to commit necrophilia (all things mentioned in the game by the way) all because some haughty high school girl has some sort of external influence to make people lose their damn minds is just asinine.
258
259The inclusion of Makoto, Kyoko, and Byakuya also accomplishes little beyond adding exposition to an exposition-heavy chapter. I wasn't exactly happy to see them (especially given how little I liked any of them in DR1), and they really just serve a purpose of tying things in to DR1. 
260
261I feel like the whole scene at the end where the cast sort of blue screens and Hajime starts doubting everything before glowing with determination and resolving to defeat Junko felt like a hot mess (in addition to being outright anime as fuck), complete with standard, generic anime spiel with the usual “never give up” speech just did a whole load of nothing to me in context.
262
263Honestly, for a chapter with as much grandiosity attempting to explain everything and provide a climactic finish, I felt a massive drop-off in terms of my investment in anything going on over the course of its entirety. During the final trial, plot twists would get thrown around, often without even really letting you digest what they really meant for the story. Several of the twists in this chapter were more annoying and frustrating to me as a player, especially the part about the entire cast being former remnants of despair.
264
265The last thing I will talk about is...my goodness did the section where you're navigating Hopes Peak look like it was made on drugs. It was trippy and at times cool, but many of the visual effects of the whole digital Hope's Peak were kind of eyesores to look at. 
266
267So...yeah. Chapter 6 and the epilogue didn't really do much for me. I didn't walk away feeling like it had some profound impact on me, I just thought “boy that was kinda dumb.”
268
269--- 
270
271Well, you've reached the end of this 7800 word book report, so if you actually read through all of this, thank you. I don't usually write this much about a game, so I guess it's at least good to say that this game made me reflect on something. I had many problems with DR2, but as I said earlier, it is better than the sum of its parts, and at its best it did very well, it just wasn't at or near its best nearly as often as I would have hoped. I don't regret playing it, but I really don't expect to get into more of Danganronpa any time soon.