We beat AI: The Somnium Files - nirvanA Initiative yesterday and oh boy oh boy oh boy. What a game. What an incredible follow-up to AI: The Somnium Files! And I don't even mean that entirely positively! I just want to note down my thoughts. Think of this is a less-organized review.
It's definitely More of AI: The Somnium Files, so if you love the first game and is itching for more of Kotaro Uchikoshi's Wild Ride, I do highly recommend just buying and playing it and don't bother reading a single review. At worst it will make you want to throw hands with Uchikoshi, but you should expect that from the getgo with every sequels this guy made haha.
If you haven't played AI: The Somnium Files, just play that game instead of this lmao. Sure, you can play this instead of the first one and it won't spoil the first game, but the first game is just better at everything but the technical. Date is better characterized in the first game too. Trust me, you do want to meet Kaname Date properly.
Anyway, AI The Somnium Files - nirvanA Iniative! It's definitely more of Uchikoshi's Wild Ride: Murder mystery with quirky characters, wild twists, and lots of side anecdotes to urban legends, psychology, IT, pop culture, etc. It's also more, in that, there are more characters with more quirks, the twists are wilder, and the meanderings more meandering. The first game meanders, but it's downright tight compared to this second game, I think.
The characters. Hmm. Kind of hard to claim they're flanderized when the first game already established that they like exaggerated quirks. It just leaves a worse taste in my mouth that they try to make plot justifications for what was just a fun quirk in the first game, what should just be flavoring. Things like Mizuki's super strength or Date's porn addiction or Iris's secret society. They don't need to be serious abilities with backstory attached. It's alright to let them be a little silly. A little. A fun addendum. But to make them key plot points too? Hmm.
(As an aside, I'm not sure I like how Date is portrayed in this game. I feel bad for those few people who play this before the first game and got this impression of him)
I think my biggest issue with the game, aside from how meandering it is (it definitely feels longer than it ought to be), is how often it feels like it's written specifically just to fuck up the player. Which is? Fine! You got the desired effect! My heartstrings were strung! That twist sure did catch me off-guard! But it feels, I dunno, artificial. It feels a bit less like I'm following what's happening to these these characters, and more that I'm being carried through a theme park. It doesn't feel... real?
I ended AI: The Somnium Files feeling very fond of Aiba and Date and Mizuki (they're family!!! family!!!!) and I ended Nirvana Initiative wanting to beat the crap out of Kotaro Uchikoshi. I guess that's doesn't objectively make aini worse than the first game, just different.
Some more thoughts with endgame spoiler. Also some spoilers for the first game.
That twist that half of what "Mizuki" went through was actually in the past, and half of what Ryuki went through was actually in the present, man, I'm still not sure how to feel about that. When that was first revealed my first thought was "no, that's fucking stupid." But then I realised that while I was playing, I kept finding the narrative disjointed, that what some characters say didn't make sense. Those disjoints were easily explained with this reveal. What I thought were flaws were, in fact, part of the grand scheme. What I thought didn't make sense, in fact make sense! What I thought was stupid and unnecessarily long, was, in fact, carefully planned out. Ugh!!! How dare they be good at this!! I thought I had a legitimate criticism there!!
The one plot point that I thought was stupid and still stupid after everything was how Mizuki was adopted by the Okiura apparently? Even though she physically resembles both Shoko and Renju? Even though there's no way in hell that Shoko and Renju would adopt a child, that the only way they'd ever have a child is unintentionally? Shoko and Renju, famously terrible parents, adopting a child, really??
My headcanon is that they gave birth to Mizuki B and put her up for adoption and somehow, maybe bureaucratic nonsense, they had to have her back, and got new Mizuki instead.
You know what, I think the whole "Mizuki is a gene-altered super-powered clone" bit is stupid too.
I ended up liking Ryuki quite a lot. I am not fond of how they toyed with him at the ending sequence, making it out as if he died in the arm of the man he loves thanks to some random mooks? And then going "yea nevermind, he's ok"? That's low. That's so low, Ryuki deserves better. When Aiba "died" in the first game, it actually means something. This was just Uchikoshi fucking with us and frankly I've had enough, sir!
I like Ryuki. I like his little crush on Date. I like how married he is to Tama. I like how he tries his best, despite being at the brink of falling apart at all times. I hope he can get some rest.
You know, I'm still not sure where "Dahlia Boat" comes from. What the hell was that.
I can accept Ryuki, being a little less put-together that he is, can have double visions of timelines, though. That golden ending that Tokiko gave him was nice. I usually don't like "meta" things like this, but I like Ryuki. He can have a golden ending as a treat.
Where is Marco. I want to know more about Marco. You can't just tell me there's another AI ball in the story and not show him in any way, shape, and form. That's just mean.
