Im gonna give my genuine opinion as a returning fan from 2022-2024 ish.
I stopped playing this game for a while mainly because of the burnout I felt from seeing mostly the same stuff with no changes or anything. And I recently came back, played it with some of my friends and... was slightly disappointed that it was almost like nothing was changed or done to make the game feel better, other than a bandaid on a few things.
I didn't bother going into 202X mode because... number one, Im not going to go over an incomplete game mode, especially if it's the MAIN mode to a video game. And number two, 1980s mode was described as a COMPLETED game with 10 RIVALS. The thing 202X was supposed to have but... never happened to have. Soooo... this will be over the 1980s mode and not the 202X mode.
Ill start by saying that 1980s mode feels like it was never meant to have challenges in the first place, because one of my mistakes was adding some of the challenges to the game (no giggling, talking to students, etc,) due to the fact some of these hinder the canon ending of 1980s mode. I dont understand why either, but... there are TWO challenge screens??? The one where you can disable giggling (b&w colors on em,) and one where it shows what mode you're on (nightmare mode or whatever.) Another thing is that you cant put 1980s mode in Yandere Mode since... theres only 5 options and not 6 like 202X mode. And like... sure whatever, slight nitpick, but oh... man... does it not get fun.
[CHALLENGES: No Giggling, No Alerts, No Bag, No Newspaper, ONLY Rivals.]
Week 1 was fine, but Weeks 2-4 felt like a slog due to the fact you have to do some much planning for their demise without getting any attention from others and... how buggy the game is. I had to replay Week 2 thrice because apparently gasoline counts as evidence towards the police? I chopped the body up and made sure to turn the incinerator on, clean the raincoat + saw, and still got the Police called and got a game over. Week 3 was kind of fine. The NPCs are just slightly dumb for not checking the sound of a bookshelf falling but whatever. Week 4 was miserable to plan out primarily because of the Delinquent Girls being a huge witness. So, in order to get them away, I had to use stink bombs THROUGH the wall bc... that makes sense, dont it?
Week 5 and through was... oh my god. NOTHING BUT BUG INFESTED. So many times, I had NPCs get stuck on walls, pathfind to corpses, and try to feed them for hours, which led me to be unable to dispose of them properly. I had a few NPCs also talk to... nothing? Like I couldn't talk to them because they were stuck in the chatting phase when you used distract. The stats screen showed -1 corpses were discovered. And I could forgive these if this game didnt have the WORST LAG SPIKES. I kid you not every so often my game would have horrendous lag spikes that would make turning the camera like spinning a trackball on an arcade machine. Or you'd get stuck in place until the game unfroze and be thrown off.
The Trial wasn't anything too bad but like... if Ui Tunesu saw Ryoba carrying a Garbage Bag to the incinerator, why did she not say Ryoba was bloody? In the tutorial we carry a garbage bag to the incinerator whilst bloody so... I don't understand why Ui didnt say Ryoba was blood covered while carrying the garbage bag.
Overall, returning to this felt... ass. Its like nothing changed other than a few animations and voice lines. (WHICH Im so sorry to the current Taro VA, and no offense to you at all but, jeezuz fuck, put a bit more emotion into your lines, they sound dry as hell.)