The definition of complex feelings. There are some good things in this game, in particular some of the characters and one of the main reveals (for how good they are they didn't reach the highs of AI1 for me). But there's also just unambiguously bad stuff (in the second half almost entirely) that is dealt with very poorly. AI1 was lightning in a bottle and I wish this sequel didn't exist if this is how they decided to continue the story... but again. It had some redeeming qualities so it isn't all bad really

There's many things you could accuse this game of but one thing you can't accuse it of is the lack of a meaningful creative vision. Yoko Taro presents to us a frankly tedious slog of a game. This remake does things to help I've heard, like the combat is pretty fun here and the bosses are good. But this doesn't really stop it from being a slog nonetheless, the specifics of which I'll go into later. Regardless, Yoko Taro takes this purposeful slog of a game and uses it to present us with some very unique characterization and makes us feel the headspace of the protagonist in a way I haven't seen before, and I have to admit it's effective. This game's strongest aspect is most certainly its creative character writing which really uses the full extent of its medium, as well as genre tropes/subversions to deliver us this character writing. I'd like to highlight how the sidequests work in service of this in particular, most of them are honestly shit (with one or two notable exceptions) and some are so monumentally tedious that I didn't finish them (which makes me think some quests are the way they are because Taro just wanted to make them that way, even if he did have a vision). But I didn't actually mind this, given that it like several other things about the game serves to make us feel misery and that definitely adds to the game. Now, do I think all of this misery was justified?

The answer, sadly is no. The one exception to this is perhaps the biggest and most prolific example of this game being tedious to play, that being the route system. I'll go into my detailed thoughts regarding the narrative later, but the route system had absolutely no good reason to be as tedious as it did and whatever benefits you would get from it in the metanarrative I feel didn't outweigh the sheer way the game eroded itself. But if repetition was the only sin of this game, I'd forgive it (or I mean I wouldn't, but at least I'd forgive it more than my main issue with the system).

Let's get to the main themes. Honestly, I like what the game is going for overall in terms of themes. Like, I get what Taro is trying to tell us, and when he uses it to bolster his most interesting characters it's great revelatory storytelling. Nier and Kaine in particular stand out as characters who benefit a lot from this style (though I'd say the latter much more than the former). But I'd say the way he presents the revelations that route B gives us is for the most part painfully simplistic and not well fleshed out enough, it effectively was a hammering home of a point over and over that I already understood by route A and while B's scenes had value and honestly like I said I liked the point the game was making, they weren't anywhere near enough to justify this game's length and repetition. By the end the conflict of this game only really benefited the main characters for me and that falls way short of what I feel the game wanted me to think. Not to mention the worldbuilding details that probably would've served to make the overall themes more interesting are just handwaved, leaving the overall narrative to be in an awkward state until ending E which admittedly is good and definitely a nice send off to the narrative. But overall yeah, good unique storytelling but not always worth the hassle.

I would like to at the end mention the music though. Absolutely phenomenal stuff even in the remake and definitely one of my favourites now.