I cannot properly convey in words how disappointed I am with this game, but I'll try.

I finished the Danganronpa trilogy, got all the achievements, even the irritating ones that mostly waste time, and thoroughly enjoyed my time with these games. Heck, even the controversial story from Danganronpa V3 did not stop me from having fun with them, so how is it that this spiritual continuation of the format is so unappealing to me?

Well, the biggest issue would be that I just do not care, like at all and for a myriad of reasons, about what happens next.

Characters: The protagonist Yuma is a wimpy, boring and not particularly skilled amnesiac (for an epic twist, I am sure) who is permanently joined by an annoying spirit (death god) who really got more and more on my nerves the longer she had to comment on anything. None of them showed any character progression in the course of my time with the game

See, here is already one major difference to Danganronpa: even the most annoying characters were not permanently around you, yapping about stuff that lost their charm long ago. You sometimes wonder if she even is on your side or not for how unhelpful she is outside of her plot skills. Also the focus on her beauty and respective assets are rather tame but yet so much in your face it becomes hard to describe in words how her teasing is completely unimpressive for fans of such things.

Your comrades are, frankly, a bunch of self-sabotaging jerks that I wouldn't care for if they got removed. They are supposedly part of a grand organization of detectives, get a grand directive of the number one honcho and all they can do is be selfish or flat-out dumb in a supposedly life-threatening environment. One cares about payment more than following the directive of solving mysteries, one wanders around to hit on girls, one just daydreams in depressive edgelord philosophy, one has no braincells to even focus on anything, and the indigenous one surprises me how he even remained active when his disposal couldn't be easier.

All the other characters are either on the same level of uninteresting or even worse, insufferable. Throwaway characters that have a small introduction with potential, but get immediately discarded for the rest of the game. Recurring characters with a single trope, that have no real significance and could have been replaced by a cardboard cutout. Suspects with bare minimum background that appear randomly in a single chapter, get investigated on and maybe accused, and lose all importance afterwards. Antagonists that feel like a group of inept clowns, even though they supposedly hold all the power in a secluded town, outside of global jurisdiction, but somehow cannot or will not stop a group of incompetent detectives, whose location is widely known to them. I could go on and give details in spoilers, but suffice to say I personally failed to grow attached to ANY character in this game until I stopped in chapter 2 (3 if you count the prologue case, since it is a complete one).

Danganronpa had a fixed cast, where everytime someone met an untimely end you were at the very least wondering the reason why it happened. You moved along with the the remaining cast as they presented some character development since they had more time to bloom. If all currently relevant characters become irrelevant the next chapter, none of them can truly become interesting in the long run. Additionally, if the remaining plot fails to meet my interest then it is way easier to focus on other flaws.

Gameplay/Mysteries: To keep it short, boring. Full disclaimer, I did not finish the game, and it doesn't matter. If the game fails to captivate me in three cases out of six, I'm done. Gameplay is worse than in Danganronpa while trying to achieve the exact same things. Introduction to an upcoming mystery (murder), Investigation, case solving with all the acquired evidence in quirky minigames, fact checks and new revelations.

Introductions fall flat once I notice how none of it matters. There is a bare minimum of details to get things going, that's it. Investigations are quite similar to Danganronpa in that you just look at everything and once you have all the bullet points, you will continue automatically to the next step. Cases become either immediately clear or still need the random revelation out of nowhere to make sense. While Danganronpa had some of this as well, the flow was way more palatable with a more engaging cast and enjoyable distractions. Nothing here kept my interest, so I just wanted to be done with it.

Instead of trials we now have the boredom temple, a series of trials to uncover the truth, seperated by long-winded walking segments of chatter that did not engage me the same way as in Danganronpa. Debates are now held in some duel against a speaker where you need to avoid messages and slash contradictions. Shooting them in Danganronpa was way better for me in order to actually get the chance to read the statements. If you have to be both defensive and offensive at the same time you cannot properly focus on what is being said (slowing down time is also way more intuitive than the new skill of ignoring damage that hits you). Don't get me wrong, you do get some buffs and visual cues for the relevant parts, but I was used to reading all of it, not just flaming sentences in rather boring QTEs. There are a bunch of other minigames that failed similarly to be engaging, but at least now one can oogle some jiggling bewbs in the repetitive animations, so that's a plus? I can't remember any single minigame I liked during the solution process....
Also Yuma, please walk/run faster, both here and in the hubworld....., actually, everything feels more sluggish and slower than it should be. Just a personal feeling on the pacing.

The logic of the cases has been flawed. It's a shame I can't give good examples of some logical fallacies, as it would be a spoiler, but imagine in a simpler fashion you are being told there is no way someone could have completed a physical activity several months ago, because they are injured on present day. No additional info on when the injury came to be, no questions asked by our professional detectives whether other parts could have been used, no fact checks, no way of knowing, no mention of the other example where it actually matters more, but I have to say it is impossible or I fail a prompt for damage. If this is the conclusive evidence I have to deal with, then I will have to be prepared to save after every choice, just to get the highest score (you wont fail the case by messing up, but I initially wanted the achievements for highscore and minimal mistakes, so this mattered to me). This is a very simple example, but there are more that are truly baffling and, frankly for me, inexcusable for a mystery story.

Design/Sound: Actually something I can praise. Some of the OST did remind me of Danganronpa or were otherwise absolutely fine for the atmosphere of the game. There is no track I adore, but I cannot claim to dislike it. The character design of the main cast was sufficiently interesting, distinct or even good. Animations and expressions were nice to look at. The main hub of the game and its 3D surroundings were the reason I wandered aimlessly in the beginning to just look at things, as in, I actually really dig the town. Too bad you barely do anything worthwhile in it. The dub is fantastic in Japanese, and for the brief snippets I listened to also quite good in English. This isn't some rush job.

To close off my rant, I went into this game excited and sure of myself I would love it with all its superficial similarities to one of my favorite franchises. Now I am not even sure if I'll manage to finish this game even once. I even developed doubts about whether I would want to purchase The Hundred Line in the future...