This season still manages to keep you curious and intrigued, but not as much as the first season. This season was completely fine, it wasn't bad, but it also wasn't that great.

A bit too much exposition in the beginning that were a bit too obvious. I get that they need to tell what happened between this season and the previous one, but the dialogues were a bit unnatural. I did really like the first episode tho. It was fun to see them chase the man with a suit and also build his character a bit more. The rock, paper, scissor game was very tense to watch.

Still, I think they could have shorten the first two episodes a bit. The introduction was a bit too long and took away time for characters to be developed inside the game.

I think the story with the cop and his crew was very lacking. Also the plottwist with the boat captain not being on their side is something I figured out in the first episode. Just a veeery obvious twist. So obvious that I can't even call it a twist. Also, why would they trust this random fisherman so much?? Like they have a whole crew and also so much money to spend on this search. Why not just hire a captain and have better boats? This whole side story made me annoyed and frustrated.

I also found it a bit annoying that the main character did not think about that there could be a mole in the game (like in the first season). I feel like that is something he would consider.

Something that I missed in this season with the games was the clever solutions to them. The last season the games were very suspenseful, but it was also fun to se how they would solve them and what clever ideas people had.

There were some interesting new characters this season, but unfortunately they did not have that much depth and emotional impact compared to the first season. I found myself not caring super much about them, except for maybe a few of them. One of my favorite new characters was Cho Hyeon Ju (No .120), but I also kinda wanted to know more about her. Still I found her character interesting.

Speaking of Cho Hyeon Ju, I think the show did a pretty good job at portraying a transgender character. (There have been a lot of opinions and debate about having a cis male actor for this role, which is another topic, but only focusing on the actual written character I thought the show did a pretty good job.) I have never seen a transgender character in a Korean media before so it was very nice to see that kind of representation especially for me that is a transperson myself. I liked that she actually got to be a character and also not just a stereotype for the show to ridicule. Maybe my bar for representation is really low, but I was happy to just see a transgender character exist in a show. One of the scenes that I liked the most was when Hyeon Ju was talking about how other transgender women in Thailand was so beautiful and then Kim Young-mi said that she already thinks that Hyeon Ju is beautiful :,)

This season overall lacked the pure dread and emotional impact of character death that the first season managed to capture. The first season had high stakes and made you fear which characters would survive. I did not have that feeling watching this season. I thought it was kinda obvious who would survive.

Overall I think the first season worked better because it had a lot more mystery to it. It made the viewer curious and wanted to know more. It also had a good balance in showing the survivors in the game, but also showing the cop discover behind the scenes stuff about how the games are being managed. This season doesn't have exactly the same balance. Sure we got to follow one of the soldiers, but it actually doesn't contribute that much. Like we already knew from the previous season about the corruption within the management of the games and how a secret organ harvest is happening. I would have liked to see more new stuff and discover more about the actual games and the facility.

I did like when they finally actually fought back. Like finally something new and interesting is happening! It made me curious about how things would progress, but that progression also kinda happend too late. This season mostly felt like a build-up towards the next season.

The production is very good, just like the first season. The soundtrack and actors are also great.

Overall, the first season was definitely better but I still enjoyed watching this and will be watching the next season as well.