I just published my thoughts on chapter 2 of Tokyo Mirage Sessions. I also played through the intermission between chapters 2 and 3, so I will offer some brief takes on what I saw and did.

• A new area opens up in the over-world in the second intermission: Harajuku. The main highlight besides new side-quests and places to eat is a shop where you can buy costumes for the characters. Thus far, the costumes are all performance outfits for Tsubasa, Kiria, and Touma that appeared in the main story or side-stories.
• I tackled Touma’s second side story. The plot is silly: Touma wants to learn how to better appeal to women for a new acting role. With Itsuki’s help, he tries approaching young women in Harajuku and asking for their numbers. Touma is not “good” at it but as Itsuki, you have the choice to struggle along with Touma or offer the “Chad” line. I chose the “Chad” lines. Echoes of the funny choices in Persona 4. I enjoyed this one: Good for both Itsuki and Touma.
• Next, I took on Maiko’s side story. Maiko has a hangover. Tiki can make a hangover remedy, but she needs ingredients. Where are these ingredients? In the prologue dungeon. Getting the ingredients meant wandering through the dungeon looking for items on the ground. I have now had to return to the prologue dungeon multiple times for quests. Walking around a mostly-linear dungeon with hilariously under-powered enemies looking for three shiny spots on the ground does not make for riveting game-play. The story ends with Kiria lecturing Itsuki about everything Maiko does for the party. Boring.
• The final side story was Tsubasa’s. Tsubasa has her first meet-and-greet coming up. She is nervous about interacting with her fans. Itsuki suggests she go out in front of the train station and hand out cards for her meet-and-greet. Tsubasa struggles at first but gradually improves as she follows Itsuki’s advice. Tsubasa came off better here than she has in many of her main story scenes, but the set-up was too similar to Touma’s side-story and less funny. With that being said, the scene with Itsuki and Tsubasa after her successful meet-and-greet is adorable and on the whole it is nice to see Itsuki and Tsubasa have what comes off as a natural interaction.
• I completed a couple of additional quests, one of which was an over-world fetch quest (not fun but the hints made it non-painful).
• Tiki introduced some side story in the training dungeon (which I have not visited yet), but I decided to put that off until Eleonara formally joins my party, which I assume will happen in chapter 3.

There was a bit more to do in the second intermission than the first. Touma’s second side story was the best thus far and notwithstanding my complaint that Tsubasa’s was too similar to Touma’s in concept, it was decent enough on the whole. The Maiko fetch quest was a little bit annoying (and the pay-off was lacking), but I will count this as a solid enough intermission.