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 shit from a butt 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. 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 just dumb as hell. The whole "oh renju and shoko arent her bio parents" thing pisses me off because NO ONE talks about it (again, this is because of the flowchart) and then, they say she's a clone, give her a sister, and then act like they'd be fucking soulmates or something AND THEN LIKE NOT EVEN MENTION THE WHOLE "Mizuki and Date are family even if they arent blood related" thing that happens in the first game which becomes even more shit BECAUSE SHE HAS NO BIO PARENTS 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 ruining (almost) everything that made her Good is an INSULT to me and everyone else who loved her story. Aini treats it like something that doesn't even matter just so she can push narratives and support the new characters even though they All Need To Die (joke). Everything I have a problem with has something to do with her and It seriously makes me belive this game would be better if it was only Ryuki or if the second protag was a new character (though i honestly dont like the dual protag thing. story needs an overhaul if this is gonna happen.) Mizuki's character is, okay? She's cool but there's only really a surface level view of her in aini since there's never any time given to her personal feelings. Anything that's set up like it'll go into how she's feeling is just used for an exposition dump and then swiftly sidelined for the Nirvana Initiative. Gag. She's just treated as another plot device despite being the protag. It's like this game cant do anything right with its returning characters lol.

2. Butterfly Eater
Unlike Mizuki, Ryuki is actually a pretty good protagonist. His character is actually focused on, yay!! 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 really 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*. 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! The gen/amame route is the best example of this, it adds NOTHING to the story besides the discovery of the body (though that happens again in the main route, so.) AND sets up something just for it to go nowhere and completely mischaracterizes ANOTHER returning character 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. Ryuki Diverge and Shoma/Komeji are PEAK aini routes and the only ones that really matter, I mean, come on, both of them actually give us new information! wow! (the bar is in hell with all of my comparisons.)

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. It's been awhile since I've thought about her so I dont have much to say but she's tuff asf and I love her story. I love her somniums and I think She should've been in the dance number. She's like a breath of fresh air in a world of TC-PERGE ridden fools who think the writting in aini is anything to praise. 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. Her song is amazing too... Kya... Amame-sama saiko!! Daisuki dayo Amame-sama!! Please come back soon!!! The Amame Return Arc will be amazing. Unless ai3 is spoiler free game. again. Haha.

5. Looking Glass Mirror
Just like 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 Mizuki aini just takes his story from aitsf, treats it like a JOKE, and drags it through the mud for some stupid PLOT!! I really do like how he's shown to care for Ryuki, it's super cute, and the last bit of Nice-Guy Date we'll ever get. RIP Mr. Date we will never forget you. #ItsMeownrightSad.

6. 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 lowkey-pedophilia), 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 lowkey flopped 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.