Picked up this game shortly after it came out in preparation for when I got a Vita, which was when the 2000 model released.
Beat the main story this past week. Thought I post some impressions of my play through here. I was lucky to go into this pretty much blind. I think I might have seen some spoilers about the mastermind beforehand, but managed to forget them by the time I started playing.
I enjoyed the characters, setting, and story. The gameplay was certainly unique. Talking to the other characters during free time and learning about them was nice, along with unlocking new skills. The English voice acting was great. I watched some of the anime after beating the game, and I preferred the English voices more, especially Monokuma's voice. It just sounds more sinister than the Japanese.
The investigation portion was pretty similar to Ace attorney. The trial portion caught me off guard a bit, I wasn't expected it to be as face paced as it was.
The standard contradicting testimony kept you on your toes, requiring good timing, as well as figuring out the contradiction. There were a couple times I had trouble, but for the most part I was able to put the pieces together no problem. There were a couple times as was to eager and shot the right evidence to early before hearing every statement.
The fill in the blank portions could have been a bit better, though I see what they were going for. The first one I did I almost failed because I didn't realize you had to shoot a letter multiple times to use it.
The rhythm retort sections were probably the weakest part, being the most repetitive. The only interesting part of those were the ones where you quickly had to pick the right evidence.
This post is getting long, so I'll save the specific impressions of each chapter for later.
Edit: Almost forgot to mentioned I loved the soundtrack as well, really added to the mood.
