This was my first Kotaro Uchikoshi game, and I really enjoyed it. I normally lack the patience for "visual novels" (I've started and abandoned Danganronpa three times), but I'm a sucker for games about going inside of people's subconscious (see Psychonauts, Persona 5), so I thought I'd give this a try.

The voice acting, character designs and overall scenario were all really impressive. I never expected to stick with the game through multiple endings, but every time I reached another I found myself compelled to learn more. I also appreciated the puzzle segments: I was dreading them at first because of the time limit, but the time actually functions more like stamina, requiring more resource management than quick reflexes.

All that said, a few issues did stick out to me:

• I appreciate that there are jokes to lighten the mood occasionally, but there are some truly sophomoric, groan-inducing moments that feel at odds with everything else.
• While the puzzle segments start fine and gradually become more challenging, some of the later ones are completely baffling. Requiring some trial and error would be fine, but you're only allowed a limited number of retrys from checkpoints before you have to start the entire sequence over. I ended up consulting a walkthrough toward the end of my playthrough.
• While the branched path style of storytelling is interesting, it also gets repetitive, and there's never a satisfying narrative explanation for why making choices in one branch might unlock new branches elsewhere. (This stands out because of how many loose ends are eventually tied up.)

Overall, I enjoyed this game a lot more than I expected to, and I'd be very interested in playing a sequel.

AI: The Somnium Files is a game developed and published by Spike Chunisoft, a company many are aware was responsible for publishing games such as the Danganronpa Series and the Zero Escape series. However, it should be cleared up that while the company is the same, Somnium Files was written by Kotaro Uchikoshi, who wrote the Zero Escape series specifically and not the DR series.

With that being said, I'm honestly quite surprised and impressed by how this game turned out to be. I'll try to be sparse on details to avoid spoilers as much as I can and focus instead on the structure and telling of the story. The gist of the premise is you, the player, take control of Date Kaname, a detective part of a secret unit that implements a unique method of gathering information. You and your partner, a highly advanced AI taking the form of Date's left prosthetic eye, are tasked with finding the culprit of a gruesome murder that quickly escalates into multiple mysteries that will certainly leave you baffled. The game branches into different routes depending on the choices you make during the game's "gameplay" portions, with each route containing both answers and questions alike.

The game handles each route exceptionally well. While the cast of characters may seem a bit limited, each route will focus on different set of characters as well as shake up the roles each of these characters take in certain routes. To put it as simply as I can, you may find yourself with unlikely allies and unlikely enemies alike depending on which route you end up on as well as unlikely scenarios ranging from gruesome and shocking to off the rails slapstick buffoonery , though the core mystery will always remain the same. That said, some may find the sillier aspects of the game a bit off putting, as these parts are deeply ingrained Japanese humor that some may be offended by or just downright confused by it. Other parts are just so comically baffling that it makes you wonder if you're still playing a game about gruesome murders, though if you're a Zero Escape series fan or well versed in Japanese humor you're probably already somewhat accustomed to this. Depending on the order in which you do the routes, you're likely to have a different experience with the game than another person as well, as you'll be solving the mystery from different angles at a time.

Since the cast is fairly limited, the game makes certain that each character gets ample amount of screen time and development, which I think is where the strength of the game lies. Almost no character is unrelated to this mystery, and you'd do well to exhaust the dialogue options as much as you can, since every bit of information honestly counts. While I can't speak for the English voice overs, I can definitely say the Japanese voice acting is phenomenal as well, though this is coming from someone who understands Japanese already. If you'd rather not hear my opinion about the game's ending and see for yourself, then I'd skip to the final paragraph for my final thoughts... are you gone?.. you better scroll all the way down fast... Okay. Quite frankly, I believe the solution of the mystery is the weakest part of the game and what prevents me from giving this full marks, though that's completely on me for expecting further twists and also because I managed to solve the mystery maybe a little too early. While the solution is what it is, I couldn't help feeling a bit disappointed and going "Huh? is that really it?". Regardless, it was still a satisfying conclusion with no loose ends left alone. The game will make sure you get all the hows, the whys, and the whens.

Kotaro Uchikosh manages to put out another great game that fans and potential newcomers to his works are sure to enjoy. While the game is downright silly, strange, and a little off putting at times with its Japanese humor, The fantastic cast of characters, build up, and multiple twists and turns are sure to hook you in fast. Make sure to keep your eyes open each route, you won't want to miss a single thing.

I think Zero Escape 1 & 2 are better games than this one. Yes, this one has better visuals, voice acting and production values in general, but the issues I had with those other games are amplified here. These are subjective issues, but bear with me:

• Why do some Japanese media insist on creepy adult men (be it the 24 year old, the 30 year old protagonist or the 48 year old one) being so openly horny towards a girl that's barely 18? (happens so many times during the whole game)

• Why does it so often happen in some of this media that when a little girl (like 12 year old Mizuki here) interacts with an adult man (the protagonist here, which is also her father figure) there's all this banter about how the man must feel sexually attracted towards her. It's so prevalent in some Japanese media that it even feels like some Japanese creators have a kink with their protagonists being called the L-word.

• Why does Ota, a 24 y.o. otaku-typed character who's so horny about the terminally-ill 18 y.o. idol regularly does something despicable (sockpuppeting with troll accounts to publicly harass her and then defending her online with his main account so that he looks like a hero to her, and has wormed himself a place as one of her close friends thanks to that) and never receives any kind of consequence for that and doesn't even stop doing it as far as we know?

• Why are so many men in this story just so horny all the time? There's many other examples but our protagonist is possibly the most pathetic and frequent one. The gimmick of the protagonist being motivated by ero-magazines got old the first time, and then it happened like 3 or 4 more times (also ruining a lot of action or tension moments). Don't even mention him stealing the used underwear of some woman, or towards the end wanting to be kissed by an 18-year that has basically seen him as a father since little.

• Why do you introduce a cool LGBT+ character like Mama only to have the protagonist refer to her as a "monster"?

I don't mind any of these things happening in a story as long as the narrative voice doesn't celebrate/excuse them at every point. You don't even need to punish them or anything, just give me any treatment other than celebratory. Neutral, exploratory, morbid, fucked up, moralistic, whatever. It's just celebratory that kills the vibes for me because it causes my suspension of disbelief to be broken and makes me imagine the writers being all horny for minors while developing the game. As an example within this same story that I though wasn't badly done: SPOILER the old politician getting the 19 year old pregnant, I thought that was a story beat that was well executed enough. END OF SPOILER.

Other than that, the early and mid points of the story are somewhat weak but it does get stronger towards the end. Just like in the first two Zero Escape games, it is satisfying to see the puzzle pieces fall into place. The narrative does require some suspension of disbelief but I have no issue with that.

I'm personally not drawn towards stories related to idols but I do like sci-fi themes even if I've seen them done to death. Noir-adjacent stories are also fine.

SPOILERS: I did appreciate the fact that you first explore the path of blindly believing Iris while the protag sorta gets infatuated with her and the next path shows how it was all a delusion (I appreciated the game had at least a bit of idol-halo questioning). I also felt somewhat proud of figuring out the main mystery of the game the moment all the info was available but at the same time I appreciate that they didn't let that become possible too soon (in some mystery stories they do and if you figure it out too early it makes the rest of the game a bit boring).

Other than that, not much. A very very very minor thing: in the ending song I wish they didn't just reuse the same dance animation for the mom than for the rest. She's supposed to not be able to move one of her arms. It was cool having that be a part of her character.

AI The Somnium files is my first game by Kotaro Uchikoshi but it probably won’t be my last. It is a thrilling murder mystery with good plot twists and a great cast. The game presents itself as a murder mystery and although that is the game’s backbone, I’d argue that at least 50% of this game is the different character arcs which are presented through their connection to the murder mystery but still branch off from it. I was particularly charmed by both Ota’s and Mizuki’s routes. As for the murder mystery itself, the game’s main attraction, I really liked it. Throughout playing it I kept a notebook where I jotted down notes on how I expected it to unfold and updated it as I got new information. It’s a fun way to play these and I feel like the ending allured me for long enough to keep it interesting, but that it still wrapped up in a logical and consistent manner. I think the sign of a good murder mystery is that you should be able to solve the case a short time before the solution is presented and here AI delivered.

Where AI really shines is through its characters. Writing this I was trying to come up with a list of characters I particularly liked, and after having named at least 10 I realised that there aren’t really all that many characters I didn’t like. They are all charming and funny in their own way, and it made me want to interact with all the objects in every scene hoping to get one more pun or one more reason to like these characters even more. Even some of the seemingly small characters get their time in the spotlight, and by the end (I consider the true ending to be the only ending, quitting after one arc is like quitting NieR Automata after the first playthrough) I cared for most of the side characters as well, especially Mayumi. I think the only character I didn’t like was Iris, but that is probably a personality thing.

I want to talk about the gameplay without being too misleading, so this is my take on it: AI the Somnium Files is a graphic novel camouflaged as a point-and-click adventure. There aren’t any puzzles, and there aren’t all that much choice besides the branching storyline. As far as I know, the order in which you interact with objects and choose dialogue options doesn’t impact each other either. To me that isn’t negative, I just want to be honest with anyone to whom this is an important factor. Finally, there are the Psync sessions which fell a bit flat for me. I like what they bring from a narrative perspective, and I like the goofy interactions you can have with Aiba in them. However, I did not particularly enjoy them from a gameplay perspective. After 3 or 4 I went through the rest with a guide; from what I have read and heard from other people who have played it, this is quite common.

One final thing I wanted to mention is language and the translation; I played it with Japanese audio and English text. Their approach to translation one where the spirit of what is being said is more important than the actual words. This is normally how I prefer that say books are translated, but it is a bit strange when the characters are saying one thing and the text is just something completely different. Obviously not for normal conversation, but they do that with the puns and gags and humour, and things that are very culture dependent and is probably difficult to translate. I guess the text matches the English voices, but I think the better way of handling this would be to have a different set of English text for when you have Japanese voices and English voices, where the English text for Japanese voices would be a more literal translation. I assume that is a somewhat normal solution? I have no idea. Anyway, not a big minus, but I feel like it should be mentioned.

All in all, I really liked this game, and I think I will pick up the Zero Escape games in the not too distant future. It was both charming and relaxing at times and tense and exciting at others, a perfect roller coaster.

First little "review" I'm gonna write here because I finished this game yesterday, but I'm slowly gonna leave a few comments for every other game that I've finished in the past. They will all be pretty short, so don't expect anything professional (or well-written and useful, since these are just some random thoughts)!

What can I say about the Somnium Files? It's been an incredible adventure. It caught my attention right away with its very interesting mechanics and investigation techniques, but it really started getting me during the second half, when the story actually started getting amazing. And after countless times when I had to just stop for a few minutes and think about what I just learned, I reached the end of the game with very few doubts and very few questions left unanswered. This game has got some wonderful characters who you instantly empathize with, a gorgeous story that branches in so many interesting directions, and some amazing writing in general (with just a couple of gags that get old after a little bit, but nothing that ruins the humour or the general writing).

If you're into investigation games, or even if you're just looking for a new and unique visual novel with lots of original elements, you absolutely need to play AI: The Somnium Files!

82/100

Pros:

• The concept was really original and interesting
• A few good characters
• Some routes were great
• The English voice acting was great.
• I like the sci-fi in how it's not over the top.
• The story and making it all come together through the different routes was really unique and I enjoyed it.
• This game would've been an amazing horror game if they changed the direction a tiny bit. If they had leaned away from the idol stuff and more towards that gore and shock they were pulling off well, it would've been amazing.
• I cried a few times - especially at Ota's route, Mizuki's Route, and the voice acting performances in the Annihilation Route
• Left side of the timeline where Iris was either dead or in the hospital and we were with Mizuki was the best. Mizuki is a great character.

Cons:

• Sometimes sucked having to test out things in the Somnium puzzles. Some solutions were just holding your breath, pressing the A button, and praying it's the correct answer.
• I liked the skipping around the flowchart, but I found myself forgetting what happened previously on a certain route I return to. Switching between routes is a necessary aspect of gameplay, so it would've been nice if it said next to a route like who has died in that timeline, what's been revealed, etc...
• Main protagonist was very hard to like. Multiple times I was uncomfortable and cringed with the way he spoke to the younger girls/any woman in the game. They try to make him out to be a father figure to multiple girls, but he's also weirdly talking about seeing their panties.
• I know perverts are a common trope in Japanese media, but every single man in this game said something gross about women. If I had a daughter, I would not trust a single man in this game around her - including the protagonist.
• Game was really laggy occasionally??
• The idol and dancing stuff was so annoying. Maybe it's just because that stuff isn't as popular in America, but it just made whole parts cringey.
• None of the adults in this game should be around children except for Hitomi.
• Our main love interest is our girlfriend's daughter who is also our half-sister that is 30 years younger than us and in high school.