Nirvana Initiative is bad. I've been sitting here for like 2 hours writing about how bad it is, but I gave up because I realized I was getting way too wordy (like, encroaching on 1k. nobody's going to read all of that).

the most important thing is that Nirvana Initiative has two layers of badness to it. the first is that, as a standalone title, it's full of messy and insecure writing, obsessed with pulling the rug out from under you at the expense of any compelling or coherent characterization or storytelling. Nirvana Initiative's top priority at any given time is to make sure The Big Reveal is surprising, surprising always taking precedence over satisfying.

the second layer is that as a sequel, it is even worse. and this is the one that really gets me, that takes AINI from a lukewarm disappointment to a raging dumpster fire for me (I could say I'm a fan of the first game, but that kind of downplays the fact that I think about it near 24/7). there's ways they could have mitigated this, but the writers wanted to have their cake (all the characters old fans love from the first game) and eat it too (accessibility to new players who don't know who any of these people are). Nirvana Initiative flounders under its no spoiler policy, meaning no character arcs or threads from the first game can be meaningfully followed up in this one. all of the returning cast, without fail, is flanderized, retconned, or otherwise subjected to absolutely bizarre creative decisions, either to service the new mediocre plot or to preserve the "mystery" of the first one - including and especially the character that returns as one of the protagonists of AINI. it's bad enough to the point where I frequently find myself wishing it focused on ONLY new characters in a new setting without trying to bring the previous cast into the picture at all.

one last, salty sidenote: anyone who says the gameplay is an improvement over the first game is lying to you. QTEs are "improved" by making them last longer (upwards of 15 minutes straight in some instances), putting in more of them, and requiring more complex inputs which, if messed up once, boots you back to the beginning of the sequence. there is a fast-forward button, but it's not nearly fast enough. likewise, Somnia are "improved" by making them longer and stripping back interactivity with most objects except the ones explicitly required to progress through the Somnium. many Somnia in AINI follow the format introduced in one of AITSF's late-game Somnia, PSYNCIN' IN THE REFRaiN, where you are given a group of the same or similar objects in a little pile and the puzzle is to pick the right one out of the bunch. REFRaiN is one of the longer Somnia in the first game, and it takes about 30-40 minutes - now imagine doing this for an hour or even an hour and a half, and imagine doing it in five Somnia instead of just one, and that's pretty much AINI's revolutionary new take on Somnia as a whole. also two of them have swim mechanics, and they play as badly as you'd expect them to.

a decent game with potential that really feels more like a tech demo than a fully finished product. too much essential backstory is communicated to you through files instead of dialogue, and meta gameplay elements (which ARE very cool) are so few and far between that they seem out of place whenever they show up.

the characters have good chemistry with each other, but a lot of the interpersonal mysteries themselves aren't satisfying to figure out. the art direction and presentation is beautiful and probably the game's strongest aspect. paranormasight is honestly fine, but i was bored at times and had to force myself to get to the end.