Just finished the game, and man, what twists at the end, and there were clues strewn throughout the game about them. Most memorable thing is the villainy of Nagito Komaeda. Holy crap, that guy. Worst of all, the catharsis that I was hoping for when he died never came. He haunted you till the end. What a great villain.
The cast of characters, except for a few exceptions, are superior to the first game. Hinata as a protagonist is far superior to Naegi Makoto, he feels like a person of his own and doesn't feel as cliched as Makoto.
In terms of mysteries, this game was a huge step up from the first game. In the first game, I pretty much nailed the perpetrator for the first 4 cases by the time the investigation ended. In this one, only the first case, the second and third case I got it before half way through the case, and I could never figure out the 4th and 5th one. The 4th and 5th case for me will forever be some of the most memorable mysteries. In part this was possible because of the change of setting, a much more open and varied one. It came at the price of the claustrophobic atmosphere, but worth it.
The minigames, I detest them. They actually improved on the rythm one, and I liked the concept of them rebutting you, but I don't think it was well implemented, the way it works doesn't give you much time to think. The two that are just horrible is hangman gambit and logic dive. Hangman is pretty much designed to overwhelm you. The cursor is not fast enough (although I believe you can get skills for that), it becomes impossibly frantic at times, and two different letters can even appear together and collide as soon as they appear. Logic dive doesn't make any sense, the triangle obstacles have terrible draw distances, and it breaks up the flow of the case.
