Yay finished! (both the game and reading all 60+ pages of this spoiler thread
) My thoughts on the game are kinda all over the place so I shall attempt to order them a bit...
The best thing about DR2 is Nagito
I absolutely freaking love Nagito. His presence made the game for me, he was always doing crazy things (mannn Chapter 5), talking like he was insane, stirring people up and manipulating people/situations/evidence and all those mood swings...ahhhh he was the beeeessst. He was so out there that Chapter 6 just didn't feel very impressive at all :| My reaction was pretty much 'oh, it's just Junko again'. Don't get me wrong, I thought Junko was amazing in DR1, but her reappearance just felt like a rehash. I guess it was partially because I had somehow convinced myself that the one controlling monokuma had to be one of the 16 students, and even though remnants indicates more than one, I thought it was referring to one of the students being the mastermind/remnants of despair. I would have been totally blown away if any of the survivors was the one behind the killing game. But in the end it was just Junko again
I got pretty annoyed with the game for not letting me bond with Nagito in certain chapters
Then when I could finally chat with him (in the funhouse) I didn't have anything he liked
Super sad about not getting all his hope fragments since according to the wikia he pretty much confesses his love to Hajime or something like that XD
On the twists
I did like the reveal that they were all part of the Ultimate Despair group. It kind of reminded of that arc in Death Note when Light erases his memories and you get a glimpse of what he could've been if he hadn't been led astray. Nagito with Junko's hand was deliciously creepy. And I didn't pick up on it being a game, but when it was revealed it was like huh well that makes sense. The ending/consequences of using the forced shutdown confused me though, so I won't comment on that -_-
Hajime vs Makoto
I didn't really like Hajime much (I really liked Makoto) but when Makoto actually appeared I realised that he's actually a pretty boring character XD I realised that I prefer playing as Makoto because if it were me I would act more like him than Hajime. If Hajime wasn't the player character I think I would've liked him a lot more.
Best Characters (other than Nagito)
I'm pretty surprised to see all the hate for Soda. I thought he seemed pretty normal and fun to hang out with, he's pretty adorable when he's geeking out about machines. Soda and Gundham were the only ones I got all the hope shards for. Ibuki was a lot of fun, but in the end best girl is Sonia for being cute (her obsessions with the occult/j-culture), being pretty useful, making me laugh (her wetsuit/swearing) and her budding relationship with Gundham (SO ADORABLE). I wish I had talked to Fuyuhiko more, his character development was really well done. I had no idea what to give him though, the one time I did talk to him I tried to give him those height-enhancing shoes and he got mad ^.^;;;;
Worst Characters
Akane and Hiyoko, no explanation needed (according to other replies in this thread!)