I wouldn't call this a coherent review, but here's all of My Thoughts I have to say about this game. I make no promise that this is well-organised, or working towards any particular conclusion. Spoiler warning for not only nirvanA Initiative, but also the first AITSF, as well as the Zero Escape and Infinity series.

I do agree with criticisms I've seen that a lot was sacrificed to enable the timeline twist, and that is unfortunate. Characters with timeskip designs can't appear, and conversely, characters who appear a lot can't have timeskip designs. This is sometimes justified cleverly in a way that ties into other parts of the plot, such as Shoma, but sometimes it's just arbitrary. Lien in particular suffers from this as it reinforces the perception that he's too old for Kizuna. Additionally, characters can't seem to change too much over the 6 years, especially Mizuki and Bibi, who also have to act similarly enough to each other to not give away the twist, with only the occasional aberration to make the player raise their eyebrow. This means de-emphasising traits Mizuki has that Bibi wouldn't, even when they're core parts of her appeal in the first game. Bibi gets some development in her role as the Masked Woman, but despite similar elements being inserted into Mizuki's backstory they don't feel as explored. These elements (as well as her newfound connection being the Most blood-related) also undermine her found family > blood family arc from the first game, which was the biggest factor in endearing me to her. I also just felt like we didn't get enough time with anyone, be that Ryuki, Tama, Mizuki, Bibi or Aiba. But that may in part be a consequence of the speed at which I played through the game.

All that said though, I do love the timeline twist. I don't think any Uchi twist that I've experienced has so radically reframed the player's perspective, even in Ever17. While that game does feature two distinct time periods made to appear the same, you still experience them in isolation from each other. The way they're twisted together, and all the elements in the story surrounding that, bring so much to the game. All the little events that link up together, like Boss chewing out Ryuki not for losing the target in the cathedral but really for shooting at the civilian. That's just one example, but there are countless. The true intensity of Ryuki's mental trauma, with his breakdowns and flashbacks occurring all before he contracts TC-PERGE. There's something I like about Bibi too, though I can't put my finger on it. And of course, the fact that this was all for the Frayer.

The Frayer is probably my favourite implementation of the player-avatar concept in an Uchi work. (Though it's basically only competing with Blick Winkel because ? is nothing and I don't like R11 don't tell the stans). The Frayer has undeniable relevance to the plot, but there's also plenty of plot not focused around them. In particular only certain characters are really involved, mostly Tokiko. And Tokiko is one of the most fascinating characters I've ever encountered. It's one of the most interesting fictional takes on Simulation Theory I've ever seen. She is right, and it drives her actions and ultimately she gets exactly what she wants. But as far as everyone else is concerned, they see no particular evidence that she's right and it doesn't matter. She'd go so far as to take her own life and have her body used to manipulate the Frayer. All the while, she's not completely detached from in-universe motivations, especially in her backstory, and it can be argued despair from this is what drove her to her worldview.

Another thing I like about the Frayer is how the game strikes a balance between Blick Winkel's unquestioned good and SELF's pre-assumed evil. Ryuki's mental health issues are compounded severely by his connection to the Frayer, but unlike R11 this isn't something that happened off-screen without you having a say in it, and the game doesn't crucify you for it either way. Instead, it's a direct consequence of you carrying "Dahlia Boat" across timelines, and you're left to consider those consequences for yourself.

Some more minor individual plot points- personal issues including Gender prevented me from getting too attached to any of the side endings in this game, being a blood-related father/son duo and two het romances. The latter in particular both had some glaring execution issues marring their solid ideas. As mentioned Lien appears older than he is and significantly older than Kizuna, especially pre-timeskip, and his stalking behaviour is explicitly called out in-game, with characters saying that Kizuna's acceptance of his is a bad idea, and then that's never really addressed as she immediately gets so excited by his proposal that she has to dance. This is followed up by an unseen timeskip where you talk to Lien and he sounds more familiar with Kizuna than he should be, it having secretly been 6 years since. It leaves him looking like a creep and Kizuna looking like a pushover. However the base idea of an ex-convict struggling for acceptance is definitely a good one, and I'll touch more on the game's recurrent themes later.

As for Gen and Amame, Gen's age is similarly made unclear, moreso because it's never actually confirmed, and at least one character outright says that he seems more like a father, with him not really fighting that label. I do think this is a potentially really interesting setup, but they don't explicitly explore the angle that makes it… OK. Reading between the lines here I think what's going on is that Gen is read as older than he is because of his bulk (as a result of Chikara's experiments), and people find it hard to consider him in terms of romance because of his deformity. He's internalised that, and accepts labels like Father or Friend to try and deny the feelings he doesn't feel he's worthy of having reciprocated. This makes his arc one of self-love, which is definitely part of the angle the game tries to go for in his Somnium, but that Somnium is so far removed from his ending, which seems to focus on the hetromantic feelings for Amame. Again, they're conceptually tied together, but the game doesn't make that connection in its own text strongly enough, I don't think. Regardless, the Amame and Gen ending is the moment in this game that most got me crying, with Amame's sobbing singing. Between that and Resolution Route, Faye Mata went the fuck off this game.

On that note, overall I don't think anything in this game got me remotely as emotional as moments in AITSF like Mizuki route or 41205. However, it excels in other elements like its horror undertones and metanarrative mystery. I think the two games are honestly quite dissimilar in their core appeal, which is maybe part of why they pushed the ability to play them independently. This can be a good thing, as it broadens the appeal of the overall series and covers more ground in terms of what we expect from Uchi. However, this can also leave people who were hoping for a tonal and thematic followup to AITSF disappointed. Personally I'm very glad both games exist, and I find it difficult to compare them for a relative ranking. On the note of the two games being separated, it's already been noted how Mizuki's character takes a hit, which is also due to other reasons. The same is true of Iris and Ota, who have to hide their timeskip designs. At the same time, Amame fuckin' Doi being a culprit is a masterstroke and is a prime example of an aspect that's enhanced by familiarity with AITSF. Date is something of a complicated topic. His horny jokes are more palatable when you're not hearing his internal monologue, and they're not as often aimed uncomfortably at specific people (Iris most of all). I also think the Porno Mag Power is somehow a good compromise between the goofiness of the QTEs in the first game and being legitimately cool. The way he throws the magazine in the air and beats up everyone before catching it. And having it reprised later, as an excuse to have ProZD say it, was hilarious. On the flip side, we don't see as much of his more mature, caring side, especially as it relates to Mizuki, with most of that being reserved for him as Ryuki's mentor. This is partially because he disappears for 6 years, but we don't even see Mizuki be particularly concerned by that, again partially because half the time it's actually Bibi.

To come back around to what I said about themes, I fucking love the undercurrent of disability love in this game. Ryuki's mental illness, Kizuna's wheelchair, Gen's deformity, Bibi's heart condition, none of them stop them from deserving love or kicking ass, despite them all grappling with such feelings. And Hitomi's arm was treated properly in the ending dance, even though she's an absolute bit character in this game! While not disabilities, this attitude of acceptance also extends to Lien's past and even Komeji's head, which looks strange pretty much just to make a silent point about that not mattering. Mizuki's speech in Marble was legitimately beautiful, and while I loved her spiel in the first game too it honestly wasn't too much deeper than "queer people exist and are cool", making this quite the step up.

The Somnia in this game are so good, it's ridiculous. They're all rich in tone, logically consistent and mentally engaging. The tense and horrifying ones like Neurotic Inception and Nonentity Incognito are like a return to the atmosphere of Zero Escape, and the light-hearted ones like Nemesis Identified and Necessary Intervention were absolutely hilarious.

The music in this game was largely great and some of my implementation issues from the first game were resolved, most of all the overplay of Alarming Incursion - though, this was mostly solved by just not having scenes in the Psync Room, which really cuts down on Boss's and especially Pewter's screen-time. Still, it's probably better for pacing. No use forcing a conversation in the Psync Room if there's nothing meaningful to say. I also appreciate how largely speaking, tracks re-used from the first game were used properly. There were a couple of standout issues, though. My new personal bugbear for this game, replacing Alarming Incursion, is meikAI. It was played once in AITSF, for the specific scene of Mizuki discovering Renju's body. In AINI it becomes a regular corpse discovery theme, and I don't think any of those moments could compare to the horror of a 12 year old girl finding her second parent like that. It's also made to loop, which wasn't the original compositional intent and doesn't sound very good. Distortion Instigating, a new tension theme, also kind of gets just overplayed, with the most comparable AITSF theme yakusAI being neglected. I like the new naming scheme for tracks, with the words from one name flowing into the next. It's neat, and which tracks are part of the same sequences sometimes show a connection, with clearly identifiable themes like "Tearer", "Aioen" and "Lien". Some personal highlights from the new soundtrack are Insane President and Snowy Nonlogical. Personally I don't like Half to Whole as much as Invincible Rainbow Arrow, the latter has this kind of earnest cringe anime OP shouty energy that specifically appeals to me. That said, my mind might end up changed as Half to Whole remains stuck in my head big time after finishing the game.

The English voice acting in this game was top notch as with the last. Depending on how you want to count it, Corina Boettger has as many as 6 different versions of Mizuki with varying levels of how similar they are to each other, and they nail the job. (I'm counting 12yo Date, 18yo Date, 18yo Bibi, 18yo Masked, 24yo Bibi, 24yo Masked). It's also fantastic to have a non-binary person in such a high-profile role. Greg Chun puts his all into Date's exaggerated reactions to porn both gained and lost, while still having the soft fatherly edge for when Date's being more mature. As mentioned before, Faye Mata did a fantastic job with Amame, ranging from devastating sobbing to desperate, murderous rage, all while being very much the same character as the goofy, no-name extra from the first game. Stephen Fu brought Ryuki to life, with everything from wacky antics in reenactments to his absolute mental breakdowns. Anairis Quiñones also nailed Tama, with a mix of sultry, caring and goofy. It's rare to find voice-acted laughter not obnoxious just by the nature of it naturally having to be forced, but somehow Tama's reactions to Komeji's jokes never hit that for me. On the topic of things that normally sound annoying, child characters - obviously Corina has been knocking Mizuki out of the park since AITSF, but we also get Shoma here who similarly sounds legitimately young without being an obnoxious falsetto, so props to Greg Vinciguerra. Of course everyone did a fantastic job, there's no performance I can think of that stands out as remotely subpar, but these are the ones I had specific comments on. Finally, fuck, it absolutely knocked me out to recognise Billy Kametz as Tearer. RIP.

Short of searching Discord for everything I've ever said about the game, I think that's most of my thoughts out there. It's hard to rate this impartially, I've spent basically all year anticipating it. It's a strange mix of "I'm biased to rate it highly because I'm hinging a lot on it" and "I'm biased to rate it low because it could never have reached my expectations". As well as just comparing it to other similar games feeling like apples and oranges. So I'm not going to give it a rational rating (with the 5 star being for vibes and personal importance), and anyone reading this should have already played the game so a recommendation is moot. I think in the long term, AITSF is going to be the game that means the most to me personally, while I'll consider AINI "just" another Uchikoshi game I love. And that sounds weird, but it's no small praise I assure you.