Caelin Bragg
Lantern Staff
AI: The Somnium Files continues director and writer Kotaro Uchikoshi’s special brand of nonsense that leaves players emotionally drained by the end, in a good way.
AI is the latest brainchild of Uchikoshi, most known for the Zero Escape visual novel trilogy, of which includes 999. Released on Tuesday, Sept. 17 for PS4, Switch and PC, AI follows quasi-detective Kaname Date as he investigates the murder of Shoko Nadami.
AI is predominantly broken up into two types of gameplay, investigations in the real world and investigations in the Somnium world. The real-world portions play like a typical point-and-click visual novel, with static screens that the player scans over for clues by highlighting points of interest or speaking with characters. The Somnium portions have players control Aiba, Date’s personal AI assistant, in an over the shoulder exploration of persons of interest’s dreams to look for leads in the investigation.
Overall, the gameplay is serviceable. The real-world segments are mostly just info dumps, as is expected from visual novels, and nothing very special. The Somnium segments, however, are interesting enough that their somewhat repetitive, and sometimes unforgiving, gameplay was forgivable. Being in a dream world, solutions to puzzles are just logical enough that it’s possible to work through them not through trial and error, while being nonsensical and unreal enough to not lose the dream-like irrationality of it.
The meat of AI, like most visual novels, comes from its engrossing story, and AI has that in spades. What starts out as a simple murder investigation quickly boils over into something much larger, and, as is Uchikoshi’s style reminiscent of his work on the Zero Escape series, the game guides players through multiple different timelines to uncover the one truth of the events in the game, which is very satisfying throughout.
One of Ai’s strangest aspects is its overall tone. The juxtaposition on display throughout the game is something to behold. One moment, the player could be exploring the intricacies of a family with a troubled past and the effects of dementia on one of its members which all feel serious, heavy and, overall, very real, and the next moment the player could be guiding a detective, a yakuza, an otaku NEET and a sixth grader to rescue an internet idol from a supposed super-illuminati. Similar instances of whiplash happen throughout the game and it’s hard to tell what the game is trying to go for. Without spoiling it, one of the most notable examples came at its end and felt like a campy ending to a 90s musical sitcom that made me go to Twitter in disbelief and shock.
It’s difficult to categorize Ai: The Somnium Files. In some ways, it feels like retreading old ground from Uchikoshi’s Zero Escape series, but it also offers many new perspectives and thoughts of its own. It’s a fantastic introduction to the weird world of visual novels with only a few hitches along the way.