It’s a bit hard to fully divulge my feelings about AI: Nirvana Initiative at the moment, even after a few days of having beaten it (Only just platted it earlier today). What I can say is that this is without a doubt a worthy sequel to the first game, illuminating issues I didn’t think about in the first game and just expanding upon the already intriguing concept.
It’s a hard one to talk about especially as, admittedly, I wasn’t too sure how to feel during the game’s first half. It certainly feels slower and it becomes noticeable how much more linear the story goes this time, as you don’t have a major split down the path like in the first game. Thankfully, much of the set up in this first half isn’t the pseudo-science that had to be explained. Rather much of the early game diatribes actually hone in on the games’ philosophical or thematic beats (i.e. Uchikoshi’s wikipedia spiel on what he learned about buddhism and simulation theory). Unfortunately, going through the first half begins to feel much more like learning certain half-information about the games’ “HB case”. Not to say these bits of info are entirely useless. Upon finishing the game in its entirety does it become apparent how meaningful some of the hints dropped throughout the first half are, it's just a matter of dealing with some of the vague details of the case.
To make up for this slower pace, we start the game with Ryuki, an entirely new character to the series, and a pretty interesting protagonist overall and the result of Yusuke Kozaki’s horny imagination gone rampant, Tama. Shelve the horny though, Tama’s actually pretty fun and her relationship with Ryuki throughout the first half is great. For the second half, playing as Mizuki is also quite the joy even if she isn’t too different from how she was in the first game. Similar to Ryuki, her banter with Aiba is also a joy and it's fun to see the similarities and differences to when Aiba was in Date’s skull.
Much of the first game’s cast returns and some of them kinda just run their same schtick or run a new bit this time around, but to make up for this we have tons of new characters and much of them are enjoyable or (intentionally) despicable. Some of them kinda run the same bit over time but where I think they shine compared to other characters in the first game is that most of them actually have an arc. AI 1’s cast is great but the game itself plays out more like a standard mystery but with branching paths that drop major clues by the end of most of them. Most of the cast throughout doesn’t have much room to develop outside of a handful, the rest kind of just serve their role. AI:NI rather has much of its new additions be the subject to character flaws, traumas, conflicts and relations to explore via the psyncs. Speaking of, I think the psyncs throughout are a massive jump in quality compared to the first. The first’s are pretty fine but much of the second game’s have new gimmicks or neater setups to differentiate them, and they usually have a much better time developing and reaching conclusions for these characters. The first had a couple of stinkers and a few that are just okay, but it was hard to think of my least favorite in this game. Even the more time/action intensive somniums have neater gimmicks to differentiate between them (I keep forgetting how many somniums in the first game are set in the same abandoned factory).
Also I do have to give props to both the cutscene and music direction, I feel like the atmosphere is much stronger for whatever ‘beat’ the game is going for at the time than in the first game. It still has its cheap quality (the ending video played at an extremely lower quality than the rest of the game for me) but this still remains a really great looking game and much of the game’s higher quality cutscenes and somniums are filled with memorable moments. Although admittedly, as much as I like the game’s music it does tend to lull me into a trance during certain investigation segments.
Lastly, I’ll say that the game’s final chunk up and throughout the last bit and into some of the post-game ‘secret hunting’ did a lot in kinda wrapping my opinions as I was going down the game’s trophies. It was already a good expansion on the first game but the last chunk really sealed my liking for this game a good bit more. It might take a bit for me to decide whether this is an all time favorite or not but I'm glad that despite the initial slog I thought the game was going through, it actually ties up pretty well. It’s still Uchikoshi at his hackiest, and there’s a lot of eye-rolling at where the plot gets taken. There’s still way too much horniness and terrible, terrible jokes (even more courtesy of there being a terrible comedian character, Komeji). But this definitely stands as a worthy successor to what I previously called Uchikoshi and his team’s best work.
It’s a hard one to talk about especially as, admittedly, I wasn’t too sure how to feel during the game’s first half. It certainly feels slower and it becomes noticeable how much more linear the story goes this time, as you don’t have a major split down the path like in the first game. Thankfully, much of the set up in this first half isn’t the pseudo-science that had to be explained. Rather much of the early game diatribes actually hone in on the games’ philosophical or thematic beats (i.e. Uchikoshi’s wikipedia spiel on what he learned about buddhism and simulation theory). Unfortunately, going through the first half begins to feel much more like learning certain half-information about the games’ “HB case”. Not to say these bits of info are entirely useless. Upon finishing the game in its entirety does it become apparent how meaningful some of the hints dropped throughout the first half are, it's just a matter of dealing with some of the vague details of the case.
To make up for this slower pace, we start the game with Ryuki, an entirely new character to the series, and a pretty interesting protagonist overall and the result of Yusuke Kozaki’s horny imagination gone rampant, Tama. Shelve the horny though, Tama’s actually pretty fun and her relationship with Ryuki throughout the first half is great. For the second half, playing as Mizuki is also quite the joy even if she isn’t too different from how she was in the first game. Similar to Ryuki, her banter with Aiba is also a joy and it's fun to see the similarities and differences to when Aiba was in Date’s skull.
Much of the first game’s cast returns and some of them kinda just run their same schtick or run a new bit this time around, but to make up for this we have tons of new characters and much of them are enjoyable or (intentionally) despicable. Some of them kinda run the same bit over time but where I think they shine compared to other characters in the first game is that most of them actually have an arc. AI 1’s cast is great but the game itself plays out more like a standard mystery but with branching paths that drop major clues by the end of most of them. Most of the cast throughout doesn’t have much room to develop outside of a handful, the rest kind of just serve their role. AI:NI rather has much of its new additions be the subject to character flaws, traumas, conflicts and relations to explore via the psyncs. Speaking of, I think the psyncs throughout are a massive jump in quality compared to the first. The first’s are pretty fine but much of the second game’s have new gimmicks or neater setups to differentiate them, and they usually have a much better time developing and reaching conclusions for these characters. The first had a couple of stinkers and a few that are just okay, but it was hard to think of my least favorite in this game. Even the more time/action intensive somniums have neater gimmicks to differentiate between them (I keep forgetting how many somniums in the first game are set in the same abandoned factory).
Also I do have to give props to both the cutscene and music direction, I feel like the atmosphere is much stronger for whatever ‘beat’ the game is going for at the time than in the first game. It still has its cheap quality (the ending video played at an extremely lower quality than the rest of the game for me) but this still remains a really great looking game and much of the game’s higher quality cutscenes and somniums are filled with memorable moments. Although admittedly, as much as I like the game’s music it does tend to lull me into a trance during certain investigation segments.
Lastly, I’ll say that the game’s final chunk up and throughout the last bit and into some of the post-game ‘secret hunting’ did a lot in kinda wrapping my opinions as I was going down the game’s trophies. It was already a good expansion on the first game but the last chunk really sealed my liking for this game a good bit more. It might take a bit for me to decide whether this is an all time favorite or not but I'm glad that despite the initial slog I thought the game was going through, it actually ties up pretty well. It’s still Uchikoshi at his hackiest, and there’s a lot of eye-rolling at where the plot gets taken. There’s still way too much horniness and terrible, terrible jokes (even more courtesy of there being a terrible comedian character, Komeji). But this definitely stands as a worthy successor to what I previously called Uchikoshi and his team’s best work.