To get the most enjoyment out of this game character-writing wise, I think it's best to take a leaf out of AI 1's book and treat NI as an alternate universe. I'm not suuuper happy with how characterization from AI 1 wasn't retained but this is what makes it work for me
I really liked the new improvements upon somniums, the VR investigations were a welcome addition, and the performances from the cast both writing-wise and voice acting-wise were excellent. Overall, the presentation is stellar. My main gripes are with the story, which unfortunately fell pretty flat.
What made AI 1 work so well for me is how deeply personal the story was. The theme of love encompassed every element of the game, even down to the title having a double meaning (Ai = Love in Japanese + Artificial Intelligence), and every character had a deep personal tie to the overarching plot. Meanwhile in NI, Ryuki and Mizuki spend a decent chunk of it as outside observers rather than being personally tied to the events of the story. This is not helped by NI’s lack of a true thesis or mission statement, rather it feels written with the goal of creating “something cool” first and providing commentary on society second, all the way down to the most significant plot twists. AI and NI being written with very different end goals in mind, combined with the frequent callbacks to AI 1 and Zero Escape teasing the player with direct comparison to Uchikoshi’s other works didn't really do any favors for me towards this feeling of disconnect.
This isn’t to say anything bad about writing something to be cool though! I think this game was written as charming as always, I particularly loved Tama and Ryuki. This game can be very thought provoking as well. However, even treating this game as an alternate universe to the first I feel the overall messaging and creation of this game is substantially weaker
I really liked the new improvements upon somniums, the VR investigations were a welcome addition, and the performances from the cast both writing-wise and voice acting-wise were excellent. Overall, the presentation is stellar. My main gripes are with the story, which unfortunately fell pretty flat.
What made AI 1 work so well for me is how deeply personal the story was. The theme of love encompassed every element of the game, even down to the title having a double meaning (Ai = Love in Japanese + Artificial Intelligence), and every character had a deep personal tie to the overarching plot. Meanwhile in NI, Ryuki and Mizuki spend a decent chunk of it as outside observers rather than being personally tied to the events of the story. This is not helped by NI’s lack of a true thesis or mission statement, rather it feels written with the goal of creating “something cool” first and providing commentary on society second, all the way down to the most significant plot twists. AI and NI being written with very different end goals in mind, combined with the frequent callbacks to AI 1 and Zero Escape teasing the player with direct comparison to Uchikoshi’s other works didn't really do any favors for me towards this feeling of disconnect.
This isn’t to say anything bad about writing something to be cool though! I think this game was written as charming as always, I particularly loved Tama and Ryuki. This game can be very thought provoking as well. However, even treating this game as an alternate universe to the first I feel the overall messaging and creation of this game is substantially weaker