AI: The Somnium Files Review. Review of the video game AI: The…

AI: The Somnium Files is a visual novel game originally released in September 2019 for Switch, PS4, and PC. It was developed and published by Spike Chunsoft and directed by Kotaro Uchikoshi, an extremely successful visual novel developer with his experience on the Zero Escape trilogy. Having played and really loved all three Zero Escape games, I was eager to try and play Uchikoshi’s new series, and now having finished the game myself, I can say that the man’s writing and direction are as perfect as ever, and he nailed almost everything with this game!

Story

AI: The Somnium Files’ story revolves around Kaname Date, an amnesiac detective, and his AI companion, Aiba. They work for a secret police organization called the Advanced Brain Investigation Squad (ABIS) in a future version of Tokyo. ABIS investigates and solves crimes through a process called psyncing, which uses a machine to go inside people’s dreams to find information the person may not be telling or subconsciously keeping to themselves. Date is sent to investigate the murder of a woman named Shoko Nadami and finds her tied to a merry-go-round with her left eye missing. Date and Aiba will use the psync machine and classic detective work to investigate people close to the crime, including Renju, Shoko’s husband and Date’s friend, and Mizuki, Renju and Shoko’s daughter who is currently under Date’s care, to find out who the killer is and what their motivations for killing are.

The story of this game is incredible, to say the least. While there are many dark and serious moments due to the nature of the killings, there are also many fun and goofy moments that can provide a laugh and take your mind off of the stakes of the story, and I think it strikes a good balance in both areas. The writing in general is extremely well done and gives every story beat their time to shine while still not rushing things along. The game has multiple routes that culminate in a final route once you have completed them all, and the routes explore different characters and themes that will make you feel both shocked and emotional. The characters are all extremely likeable, with their own brand of personality and humor that makes them stick out from the rest, and seeing their growth in certain routes is one of the driving forces of the narrative. My personal favorite is Mizuki, as her relationship with Date and her generally brash but very well-meaning attitude provide for some extremely funny dialogue! Date himself is also very humorous and works great as the main character for the story. The ending is also just phenomenal, and the game ends in a satisfying way. I could recommend this game on the story itself, but there are still gameplay sections that help enrich the already fantastic story.

Gameplay

As a visual novel, AI: The Somnium Files consists of many scenes where the characters are talking, presented with changing character portraits and backgrounds to further the story. Every line of dialogue is fully voiced, but you can choose to go through the text and not listen to the voices if you want. There are also investigation sections where you select objects in an environment to gather clues, similar to games like Ace Attorney. Occasionally you will do interrogations with characters that require you to select the correct piece of evidence that counters their claims, as well as quick time events during action set pieces, but there are only a handful of these throughout the game.

The real meat of the gameplay happens in the somniums, which is what ABIS calls the dreams that they psync into. In these sections you control Aiba as she walks around in a 3D dreamlike state solving puzzles. Each somnium has multiple mental locks that all need to be broken to finish the somnium. Breaking these locks requires you to interact with objects in a certain way, and objects have multiple ways of interacting with them that can either further the current story or just provide some fun dialogue. Because of the strain and adverse effects the psync machine can have on the human brain with prolonged exposure, you are only allowed six minutes in a somnium. Every object interaction costs a certain amount of time, and managing your time properly while finding the correct solutions to get through each mental lock is the most important part of these sections. Time doesn’t pass when you are standing still, so you can take all the time you need to think about your next move if you need to. The gameplay thus involves lots of trial and error, as the solutions are not always clear and you might have to try a few different objects before you proceed to the next mental lock. Each lock also serves as a checkpoint, so if you mess up too many times, you have multiple attempts at each lock to try again.

The investigative portions of the gameplay are enjoyable and serve the murder mystery aspect of the story well! Finding what evidence you need to interact with tends to be easy, as when you hover over something you can interact with, your cursor becomes a different color. However, while the somniums are fun and enjoyable in their own right, I am not a huge fan of how they are designed. While visually they all look amazing and uniquely different from each other, the trial-and-error gameplay of all of them tends to wear thin, as it can be very unclear how exactly to proceed in the somnium. Oftentimes you find yourself wasting precious seconds on items that you thought were the solution while the actual solution is something more nonsensical, and it only gets worse the later you go through the game. One of the final ones in particular you have to do everything almost perfectly, or else you just can’t finish the somnium, and it gets to the point that it is just frustrating to deal with. I do love the somniums as a concept and still enjoy them despite my criticisms (the setting and dialogue are just that good), but it just wasn’t executed as well as it could have been.

Structure

Each section of AI: The Somnium Files is broken up into multiple chapters that represent each day of the week from Saturday to Wednesday. You are free to go back and revisit chapters to find other routes or just to play through them again via a flowchart that you always have access to. Somniums are also their own chapter on the flowchart, so you don’t have to replay any investigative portions to replay a somnium, though you first must actually complete it in order to replay it. Different routes are usually triggered in somniums, where you either have to make a decision between two choices or interact with something specific to unlock the alternate route. As mentioned in the story section, there are multiple different endings that only open up once you complete specific parts of one route, and all of them must be completed to view the true ending of the game.

The investigation sections tend to follow a similar structure, where you have to go to a series of set locations to find clues in every location, and once they are all complete, you proceed to the next story beat. These sections tend to be pretty linear, as while you can choose which location on the list to go to first, going to all of them is still required. Somniums also tend to be linear, with only a handful of them having alternate choices or different means of completing them. The structure is simple and works to the game’s benefit, as the flowchart makes it clear what you have and have not done. Because you always know what to do next due to the linearity, it makes it very friendly to those who haven’t played a branching-style visual novel before, while giving enough layers and branches for more experienced players. You are free to explore the left side of the flowchart for a while and then switch over to the right side at any point if you want to (personally I did the whole left side and then the right, but it’s up to you how you want to do it!).

Visuals and Soundtrack

AI: The Somnium Files is a great-looking game! The character portraits and models are all very well done and detailed, and the faces changing to reflect current emotions is a nice touch. Every character looks aesthetically different from each other and has their own memorable visual details that stick out to me, like Mizuki’s long blue hair or Iris’s headset. Anime-inspired art styles sometimes have a tendency to make characters look like one another, but that is not the case at all here. Date and Aiba travel all over the city and even go to some outside surrounding areas during their journey, and all the environments reflect the future Tokyo setting very well, as there is a mix of modern buildings (the boss’s office) and more classical Japanese architecture (Golden Yokocho). Somniums also have many environmental details that help you feel that you are exploring in someone’s dream, even if the space you are exploring is just someone’s house. The UI is very clean and easy to navigate, and prompts are always given so you know how to check chat history, fast forward through text, etc. The visual effects of using x-ray mode and heat vision mode during investigations also look fantastic. The visuals of this game are really wonderful and help enrich an already fantastic story!

The soundtrack is also great and complements the game’s themes extremely well. The title screen music is the first thing you hear and has this unsettling yet somewhat relaxing vibe to it that sets the game’s tone right off the bat, and the somnium themes like PSYNCIN’ IN THE CAPTaiN and PSYNCIN’ IN THE REFRaiN have a darker and more melancholy sound to them that enhances the tension of the dreams you are exploring. The game doesn’t shy away from happier pieces such as Appearance of Iris to lighten the tone when it needs to. Iris’s vocal track, Invincible Rainbow Arrow, is such a BANGER; I sing the song to myself sometimes because it’s just that catchy! The voice acting is just SUPERB; it’s incredible how much personality each character gets through their voices alone! Every performance clearly had lots of love and care put into it and makes the story that much more enjoyable to play through. The sound design also is simple yet elegant; even the simplest noises, like the QTE finish jingle or the advancing text sound, are pleasant to the ears. Audio design can really enhance a game’s story and presentation to such a large extent, and this game accomplishes this in a big way with its sound.

Final Thoughts

Getting every achievement in the game took me about 27 hours, and with a 20 dollar price tag (I got it on sale for 5), this game is well worth the investment. Performance was good on my PC, and I didn’t have much stuttering or issues with either the investigative or somnium sections. Mizuki’s stuffed plush rabbit, Adorabbit, is also super awesome, and I wish I had a real-life Adorabbit!

Even if you have never played a visual novel before, I can’t recommend AI: The Somnium Files enough! It is a game crafted with love and care with everything from story to visuals to music. It has left a huge mark on me as an enjoyer of the genre, and you should check it out!