Both games were so promising... In the marketing. And then they became totally different games when they released.

NB started off strong and then fell into what the OG did - become a typical rom-com with the same story scenarios as it's predecessor. Nothing exciting or dark about the lore, nothing added to it, Nightbringer was a forgotten character in his own game, no explanation for him etc. That entire 3rd season of NB was just "eh..." for me. Which is such a shame because there were so many good parts to the story as well, though they were few and far between. I liked the rhythm game though! Much better than the OG's battle progression. I think NB is much more forgiving, even though I think the way they changed how you level up your cards was a downgrade... Most of my cards are sitting at lvl. 70 because I don't have anything to upgrade them with, so by the time I reach chapter 40 (normal) and chapter 30-ish (hard), the highest I'm scoring is a rank C

IDO... Oh man. So disappointed. Some of that falls on me though, because I didn't realise until right when it came out that it'd be a lifestyle game, so that already made me a bit anxious in how they'd actually progress the series's story. A lot of the reviews I'm seeing for the game are that they're trying to be like Love and Deep Space (I never played it but just by looking at the two games... Yep. Checks out). UI and navigation is just jarring for me, since it's trying to be a lifestyle support app and an Obey Me! game at the same time. Character models are so strange too... Like, What's with those hands?? And the arms???!

Like you said, IDO does a lot of retconning. My biggest gripe with the story(ies?? I guess) is that the MC is still largely unchanged in terms of character. Even though IDO is supposed to focus on one character per route, the MC still acts neutral when interacting with other characters. And again, the MC is given shallow decisions that don't matter (something which NB and OG to an extend suffered from as well), which I hate. 90% of the decisions I've had to make in IDO so far are literally the same as the options I don't pick (eg. "That's a problem" Vs "Sounds like a problem if we don't [...]").

Credit where credit is due, I like that you earn devil points after finishing a part of the story. But yeah... It's so shallow and bland. Add more cards and make another Devilgram or something... Give us something to do. Honestly I played it for 2 days and it's been sitting on my phone untouched for the last 2 weeks... I'm already checked out.