I recently replayed Danganronpa 1 and then went straight into Danganronpa 2, and it's wild how almost all the new/changed mechanics they introduced make the game worse. Hangman's Gambit was never great, but the "improved" version in 2 grinds the whole trial to a halt; you just have to guess the exact phrase they're expecting and then very slowly spell it out using an unnecessarily complicated system (random letters slowly float in from all sides of the screen, and you have to find two of the same letter that you want and then combine them before you can submit that letter, but meanwhile you have to keep letters from colliding with other letters that aren't the same letter or you lose health).
The other major offender is the Panic Talk Action. It's similar to the Bullet Time Battle from the first game, where statements appear and you have to press buttons to the rhythm to blow them up. Butin Panic Talk Action, you have to hold the button and then release it, and it just feels much worse. It's hard to tell what feels worse about it because there's so much going on to keep track of, but I think it just comes down to the timing feeling weirdly mushy. I usually just get overwhelmed and activate "fever time" until I win.
There's also the Rebuttal something, where statements fly in to various parts of the screen and you have to tilt the analog stick at the correct angle to "slash" across the screen and destroy them. This isn't the worst thing in the world, but it's annoying because you have a limited number of slashes and it's easy to miss too many times, and if that happens, not only do you have to redo the section of it that you're on, but you can actually get sent back and have to redo the previous one to get back to where you were. Plus this also includes the mechanic where you have to select the correct Truth Bullet and shoot it at a phrase to point out a contradiction. However, the game doesn't pause while you're selecting a Truth Bullet, so if you don't guess which one you're going to need before you even see the phrase you're trying to contradict, you'll miss slashing a bunch of statements while you're selecting the bullet, and probably have to start over.
Logic Dive is fine though.
Anyway, I don't mean to be super negative; I'm still enjoying the game. It's just weird how well the first game holds up and then you get to the sequel and it can be pretty frustrating. It'll be interesting going back to 3 and seeing how much of this stuff they fixed or discarded, or doubled down on (I don't remember having too many objections, but I guess we'll see).
