Also to me it's quite similar to his last game. The structure is pretty much the same: meet girls and have side stories with them while working through the main plot. If anything this game is a step up because it has more LIs and they have more interactions with each other. Yet Now & Then was popular while this game was dead in the water.
No, not really.
It has more characters sure, but that isn't a good thing necessarily, having a few which are focused on, character depth and growth, as well as story is always beating having more imo.
The girls interact somewhat, not much and only some of them, for the most part their storys are self contained.
In his other game they obviously interacted all way more with each other, they were stuck together the entire story.
One thing i really liked way more in the other game was it had one story which you followed continiously, while this is manly doing a part of a LI story, then doing a part of another LI and so on, with a bit main story in between.
I just never got warm with this 'sandbox' style.
I wasn't the biggest fan of this game as it started, over time and it became good imo, still...compared to his other game it falls flat for me.
The story and ideas are rather unique i'd say, but it could have been more...it feels like wasted potential imo.
Ifuma is a other thing i just find lacking. He is portrait as such an huge threat, but he does pretty much nothing/isn't really a threat most of the time, neither feels like one...even when he got powered up near the end, all he does is nothing.
I hoped at least for an really good end fight...which also fell completely flat.
Not a particular fan of the endings as well, at least i hoped for new different world, not continuing a few years before the old get busted.
As for the LI endings, the only ones which i liked, among the currently avaivable ones, are Marissa's and Roe's. At least in them you got the impression that they were really waiting and hoping for their ''destined'' love.
At the end it's an good game imo, certainly above average of what is avaivable on the this site, just not great.
On a other note. If i remember correctly, what many, especially early on, made them drop or not like the game was this sandbox style and from what i recall also that they are already death...so no particular investment in the LI's, as your whole job was solving their problems and help them moving on.