AI: The Somnium Files (2019)

Kotaro Uchikoshi. A name synonymous with unique cult classic sci-fi visual novel adventure games with crazy plot twists. Though I never became a huge fan, I personally liked playing each of the Zero Escape games (999, Virtue's Last Reward, Zero Time Dilemma), and when I saw the first details and videos for this new project--A.I. The Somnium Files--I knew right away that I would like playing this one too. 2019 wasn't an exciting video game year for me, but this was a title that stood out as something I'd want to play as soon as I got a Switch (more specifically, a Switch Lite). Of course this one's on PC and PS4 as well, but I prefer reading VNs (or playing games with tons of text) on handhelds.

Somnium Files works with a concept I really enjoy in fiction -- entering people's mindscapes or dreamworlds (as in the film Inception, or the video game Psychonauts). In this case, your protagonist is a detective for a secret police force that uses a device that allows him to uncover truths hidden away in suspects' minds (in hopes of solving a big murder mystery). How this plays out isn't the best to be honest... You control a cute A.I. girl companion who walks around in the dream world, and your goal is to bypass "mental locks" -- what this means is you need to go up to random objects, select something random for your character to do, and hope that it makes the right random things happen that advances the dream the exact way the game wants it to. Unfortunately most of the dreams are just variations of crime scenes, and much of the puzzle-solving doesn't feel intuitive. You also are on a strict time limit, so you don't even really get to explore the dream worlds much. I'm not sure what would have been a better way to go about all this, but I mostly just felt "okay" about it at best (which is a shame because again, I love this concept). I ended up using a guide for the second half of the game.

For the story itself, I'll start with the strong points. First, the characters. Uchikoshi has definitely improved his storytelling in this particular department. Somnium Files has a very memorable cast, and the protagonist in particular is a rather likeable and amusing fellow with strengths and weaknesses (and he's hot, I'll throw that out too). The other significant strong point is this game's presentation. This is definitely the slickest-looking VN adventure game I've ever played. The UI, the environments, the character models, the menus, the way you can look around while holding conversations, and the way other characters in the scene react to what others are saying--it's all a huge step above so many other games in this sort of genre. I consider it the new gold standard.

For negatives, well it's mainly just the actual gameplay portions of the game, which didn't do much for me. I also feel that the story overall is just... good. Which is fine of course, good is good. But I think fans of Zero Escape will want to be careful about how much they'll expect of this one in terms of crazy plot twists. There are big reveals, but they are not nearly as big as the ones in Uchikoshi's previous games. Somnium Files is working on a much smaller scale with its more focused (and more familiar) murder mystery-style narrative, which again, I'm down with. I'll also mention though that the tone for this game is something of a mixed bag for me. I personally was fine with the game including silly and lighthearted scenes to shake things up a bit (and help flesh out the characters more) -- but the game's kooky blend of humor gets repeated several times throughout the story. For me, it just got old after a while.

So I still haven't been fully won over by any of his works yet, but I also can't help but remain eager to check out whatever game Uchikoshi works on next. Like Somnium File's protagonist (and multiple other characters), I may be just a little tsundere.

Finally hit the big twist. It was predictable but a lot of fun. If this had been at the midway point and maybe hinted at more subtly it could have been a really WOAH moment but this late in the game it felt more like, oh good he finally figured it out.

I'm still enjoying the game but plot wise it does feel a little like Uchikoshi wrote this game for people new to his work instead of returning fans because anyone who has even read any serious amount sci fi stories ought to be able to predict where this is going way earlier. It also feel painfully linear compared to his other games. Even ever 17 and never 7 have a lot more freedom. It's good for what it is and the voice acting and motion capture is ACES in a lot of places but it just feels like this game is a lot more style over substance compared to his Zero Escape trilogy.

Just finished the Mizuki route. So far it's good but not great. There haven't been any really crazy twists so far, the premise is interesting but inherently less gripping than a locked room escape mystery. There's a real lack of tension with our characters effectively having cartoon superpowers whenever the plot demands but not at other times. The character interactions make me smile and are heartwarming but the abundance of sex jokes is a little too much even for me, and there are a lot of weird out of character moments where the characters stop being themselves and become mouthpieces for uchikoshi to talk about something he wants to regardless of if it fits in or not, but that's pretty par for the course on his work.

Overall I'm interested to see where this goes but without that locked room premise urging him forward I feel like the story is meandering a good deal.

Oh and side note the lack of any meaningful gameplay is kinda a downer. There are almost 0 meaningful choices in the game and no puzzles. Remember that mobile port of 999 every got sour on because it only kept the door choices and nothing else? This game plays a lot like that. There are so few choices that I just set it to autoplay and listen to it in the car on my way to work. I have gone 40 minutes without needing any significant input before.