Oh Tokiko-sama please break the seams of the world and make aini a better game

Ai the somnium files nirvana initiative is the worst game on planet earth please do not play it if you value your time. Or do, if you enjoy stories with horribly done plot twists and narrative devices that make no sense. Or play it if you want to see Ryuki, the only good thing about this game. The drop of quality after his side finishes is insane, the only good things I can say about Side Mizuki are things that are basically about Ryuki. His side is like a prologue of sorts, before everything really begins. Side Ryuki introduces new characters, sets up the plot, and crumbles into ashes once we move to Side Mizuki. The beginning of the route is good, but as it goes on the plot loses itself in an attempt to start new things with the time skip and properly wrap up everything without issues. On paper, the flow of the game and the ideas are alright, but IMO the story telling is where it falls and it falls HARD. It requires a HUGE suspension of disbelief to really invest myself in the story due to poor handling of old characters as devices for new characters and the random reveals that have zero focus due to the nature of the flowchart. I'm just expected to be like "Oh ok so thats a thing?" and move on until it can all be dumped on you again later in some sort of "reveal" or "twist," it makes it harder and harder to move with the story while replaying it. The whole reason I got into aitsf was because of how well the story was told. I wont act like its perfect, but it's def miles better than aini, so when I think abt how the characters I love and new characters I TRY to love are handled it really Really just turns me away from the game. I won't lie and say the gameplay isn't fun, it's visually appealling and the somniums are a blast, but none of that matters when the story its trying to tell is ASS. I'm gonna stop trying to be like Super Serious and just get into my indivdual gripes with the game in hopes this can be a Bit more of a coherent rant. To me and to whoever else wants to read this i guess.

1. Double Helix Disillusion
Ok so like basically Mizuki's side is like a 6/10 and I really wish she got a better game. It lowkey ruins her character and I can TELL there wont be any attemps to fix it (COUGH HACK NO SLEEP FOR KANAME DATE(though that game isa huge joke so who knows)). It takes her story from aitsf and drags it through the mud just so she can be innvolved in the plot or whatever. Her clone story is soooo IDK. Bibi is sweet and her having a sister is nice but it's kinda? A bit off to me. Shoko and Renju not being her bio parents makes me kinda upset because the whole bio family vs nonbio family thing means a lot to me. It's not the *biggest* problem but this + Date going missing for 6 years after they JUST became family makes me want to hurt people. Their reunion is shit too. They are just shitting on everything I love and laughing and im literaly homeless because Date family is dead and there is no more Home. its gone. It was burned down when the explosion in the cathedral happened.
I GET wanting to have Mizuki hype moments and aura but messing up (almost) everything that made her my fave is SO :laughinh emoji: aini is like Ummm its ok if we lowkey mess up her og story for the cool clone plot and the nirvana initiative. BUT ITS NOT. I seriously belive this game would be better if it was only Ryuki or if the second protag was a new character Mizuki's character is okay like she's cool and i love her dearly but there's only really a surface level view of her in aini since there's never any time given to her personal feelings. Because of the, flowchart/ Literally jumping time when something important happens. And then whatever happens is swiftly sidelined for the Nirvana Initiative.

2. Butterfly Eater
Ryuki is actually a pretty good protagonist. His character is fun!! I don't want to glaze him too much, but he's kinda my favorite so I cant help it!! Everything he does is brilliant! The way his struggles with his mental health and distorted view on the world are shown through the flowcharts true nature makes me cry. My favorite example of this is the ferris wheel, on 2/13, Ryuki chases after Shoma who he finds on the ferries wheel. When he gets there, the day has turned over, it's now 2/14. At first, this is all normal, but when you get to the 2/14 on Side Mizuki, you realize (or dont? I didnt notice at first lol,) that when Ryuki went to misetan, looked at every cart on the ferris wheel, he was reliving a memory of his past. In reality, Ryuki really did find Shoma there on the night of 2/14/20, but due to his delusions and [flowchart reasons], he was looking for him on the night of 2/14/26, and when what his reality (his memory) of 2/14/20 differed from the reaity of 2/14/26, he and his reality had been broken down, leaving him there for the Mizuki's to find six years and a flowchart twist later.
I went to Ryuki glazing school so I'm an expert at picking apart what he does and being like Waw kino!!! But he really is the best. His route shows how a flowchart like this can be amazing for story telling, so it's kinda upsetting seeing how Mizuki's side was handled lol. The two branching route's he got were awesome too, I love Ryuki Diverge with all my heart... And unlike Mizuki, his relationship with Date is shown to be mutually loving and KIND. *cough cough where did date family go cough guys we talked about this on 2/10/2026 please*. I seriously love my MPD yaoi so much please bring them back for ai3 please let ryudate make it to the sequel. I love She Was The Universe gawsh the final scene kills me, Guy Who Knows His Lowkey-Work-Crush was Working With The Enemy but Wants To Hear It From His Mouth Anyways. The subtle foreshadowing really makes me want to cry and stuff Ummmm I love Ryuki I love it when he betrays people and I wish the entire game was about this. /srs /gen /fr /ryukicouldsaveaini /lol

3. Everything at Once
But alas, the story had to U-Turn and share the focus with one of the worst relationships known to man (kizuna and lien)! The gen/amame route is the a good example of this, it adds NOTHING to the story besides the discovery of the body (though that happens again in the main route, so. literally pointless route) AND sets up something just for it to go nowhere and like? kinda makes another returning character ooc in the process. The entire thing is just nonsensical and is a waste of a route. This couldve been a Date Family moment since this OBVI isnt happening in the main route but NOOOO its just a pointless expo dump even though this all gets spat at you again in the main route. The entire thing is so random like at least the kizuna/lien route has SOME build-up. I swear they ran out of ideas halfway through and just started throwing darts at the trashcan when writing these two endings. I don't even remember if anything important happens in kizuna/lien either besides seeing bibis face. All this stuff LITERALLY happens in the main route and its on like the same day too???? There's seriously no point in having either of these. Waste of time Waste of story Waste of space. shoma & komeji is kinda the only one that really does anything for the story, I mean, come on, it actually gave us new information! wow! (the bar is in hell with all of my comparisons.) And Ryuki Diverge is just peam, tbh there shouldve been a diverge-like route for side mizuki that woudlve been fun.

4. Its My Own Invention
To raise the bar a bit, let's talk Amame! I love her she's For Real the one of best things about this joke of a game and I wish every part of the game could be as good as hers. Her whole deal with grief and the pressure of literally everything ever is told pretty decently. I wish the game was more grounded like aitsf so more focus could be put on her and the manipulation from Tokiko... let's take this grief ridden girl and blackmail her after she killed my "son" in a fit of rage and hysteria. Let's go into her mind twice and see how she processes and deals with the grief of losing her father and being face to face with the man who killed him. I love her somniums and I think She should've been in the dance number. Her and Ryuki are my favorites from this game, and IMO the parallels they have drive me mad, I have to talk about it more one day. Let's deal with the grief of losing a family member and the urge to kill the one who took them from you together. I hope she's in whatever the next game is and ISN'T hidden behind the pointless spoiler free sequel wall and the effects of all of this is, like, actually focused on, even if its just a bit.

5. Looking Glass Mirror
And Date, who is the #1 victim of a spoiler free sequel(!!!!) Aini does him so dirty its not even funny. He's chill asf in Ryuki's part cus it's just him being like Nice to Ryuki but once we get to the Mizuki side its like. Really dumb. He has the same problem Mizuki does, he's not the protag so not having a lot of focus on him makes sense but GOD the game totally fucks up his reunion with Mizuki for some dumb expo dump! We already know this! Use this time to give them a heartfelt reunion! Also TBH reusing the 6 years of memory loss again is cheap. I feel like they just had that happen for the love of the game. Bro adopted Mizuki and completely fucked off from the most important parts of her life for 6 years (not his fault, but like, come on.) Like aini just takes his story from aitsf, treats it like a JOKE, and drags it through the mud for some stupid PLOT!! His only redeeming quality is how he was being nice to Ryuki he's kind of an ass who does Nothing for the rest of the game. Get TF out of Hitomi's house and talk to your daughter.

6. Double Helix Disillusion II
bibi section

7. Everything at Once II
And finally, I want to talk about the ideas of this game because I HONESTLY think theyre super cool. I love Tokiko, I love the idea of the world being fake, I love all the themes present in this game (not the grooming), I just wish it was handled better!! It's all so bad that it makes me hope Ryuki Diverge somehow ends up being the real ending just so all the bs in this game can be retconned. I'm kinda kidding but I think a game more focused on whatever TF was happening with Ryuki would be way better like no one gaf abt evil gene expirements and the five million flop relationship plots Give me Fraying or give me Death! We want Simulation Theory! We want Tokiko Shigure! The game fell off when she died #lowkey. Bring her back again? Thx. Zero Escape is kinda like this and Unlike AINI vlr and ztd (ztd not rlly, there are some (small) things that piss me off, so) are GOOD! the story is actually good, even if its kinda stupid, just a little bit, lol. I really really think aini couldve been better if it treated the old characters better and didnt try and do 5 million things at once. Um, I'm not talking about the ideas of the game at all, am I? Well, whatever. I honestly just wanted to complain. I love complaining? Did you know that? Did you know that I like to complain? I did that a lot here.