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scoutception · 4 years

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AI: The Somnium Files review

While it wasn’t the first visual novel series I played, the Zero Escape trilogy- Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, Virtue’s Last Reward, and Zero Time Dilemma- is what made me interested in exploring more visual novels in general. Featuring a creative mix of normal visual novel sections and puzzle room sections, with stories involving fascinating pseudo science theories, colorful and interesting characters, fast, tense pacing, and great music, the series is an insane adventure that’s absolutely worth a try. The series also got me interested in the other works of Kotaro Uchikoshi, the director and writer of the series, which led me to the subject of today’s review, and his most recent work: AI: The Somnium Files, which proves to be quite the change of pace, to say the least.

Story: Kaname Date is a member of the Advanced Brain Investigation Squad (ABIS), a special, secret division of the Metropolitan Police Department. Using a device known as the Psync Machine, Date can explore the subconscious of another person by entering their Somnium, a dream world which often holds secrets they would not reveal otherwise. 6 years ago, Date lost his left eye and all of his memories, left with no link to his past, not even his real name, except for Boss, his superior in ABIS and longtime friend. His left eye was replaced by an advanced AI called Aiba, capable of functions such as night vision and x-ray, as well as serving as Date’s avatar within Somnium.

One gloomy November night, Date is called in to investigate a murder victim found in an abandoned amusement park, having suffered multiple stab wounds, tied to a merry-go-horse and missing her left eyeball. The victim is Shoko Nadami, an acquaintance of Date’s, and the ex-wife of Renju Okiura, Date’s best friend and president of the entertainment company Lemniscate. Date’s initial investigation proves unfruitful, and comes to a halt completely when he discovers someone within the merry-go-round’s central column, traumatized to the point of being unable to speak and cradling a bloody ice pick: Mizuki Okiura, the 12 year old daughter of Shoko and Renju, whom Date took into his care 4 years ago.

Date continues the investigation the days afterwards, meeting Mizuki’s friends, the internet idol Iris Sagan, aka A-Set, and the otaku and aspiring light novel author Ota Matshushita, Iris’ mother Hitomi, and Moma Kumakura, leader of the Kumakura yakuza gang. Though Date finds a number of odd connections and occurrences, such as Renju falling out of contact, a call from a mysterious prisoner only known as #89, who claims to know the identity of the killer, and a large number of incidents among the Sagans, the Kumakuras, and others, all of which seem to date back to 6 years ago, he finds little in the way of actual evidence. Left with no other recourse, Date begins to Psync with both suspects and witnesses in the hopes of preventing the killer from striking again.

While it’s a fairly standard plot on the surface, it’s very well done nonetheless. The various mysteries and plotlines are all compelling, and are all given a good amount of focus. Adding to this is the use of a route system, similar to Zero Escape, complete with a flowchart allowing you to easily go to any point in the story. Completing certain Somniums in different ways alters the course of Date’s investigation, causing certain plotlines and characters to gain or lose relevance depending on the route. While every route needs to be completed, each one containing their own reveals and clues, there’s only 5 in total, making keeping track of the distinctive events in each fairly simple. The pacing is also well done, taking its time and allowing you to get used to the characters, while throwing just enough new hints throughout to keep it interesting.

Speaking of the characters, the cast is easily my favorite part of the game. The characters are very, odd and colorful, pretty much to be expected from Uchikoshi. Date himself is a pretty entertaining protagonist, with a tendency for perversion, making bad puns, and coming up with very odd and often ineffectual ideas for progressing in Somnium, going against his serious demeanor and appearance. The supporting cast doesn’t slack either. From the rational, yet sassy Aiba, who turns much sillier within Somnium as well, to the peppy and friendly Iris, to the playful Boss, whose office is an absolute mess decorated with just about any nonsense you could imagine, to my favorite of the cast, Mizuki, the mature, sarcastic, and inexplicably strong kid who spends a good deal of her time arguing with the rather distant Date. It’s hard to dislike most of the characters, with even the most minor of them being good for a laugh or two.

That’s not to say they’re just goofy, though. Almost everyone carries some sort of baggage or secret with that adds a good deal of depth to them, and the various routes give them a lot of development. The game can be pretty damn emotional at points, and the routes focusing more on the characters than the story are the biggest source of them, especially Mizuki’s route. The lighter tone the game takes most of the time actually helps this. Most of the time, interacting with random objects trigger dumb jokes and commentary from Date and the others, and the relaxed pacing and atmosphere, at least earlier on, make it easier to get gradually attached to the cast. Once things do become more serious, the game starts cutting down the jokes, and stops them outright for the most serious of scenarios, meaning it rarely actually becomes jarring. It’s not often a game can juggle a tone as well as this one.

Overall, the writing of the game is superb, and while it’s quite different in tone and setting, it still has enough of the feel of Zero Escape to feel familiar to those who played it.

Gameplay: While I call AI: The Somnium Files a visual novel just for the sake of simplicity, it definitely more has the feel of an adventure game. There’s two types of gameplay segments, investigations and Somniums. During investigations, Date travels to various locations, talking with various characters or investigating important object. Your only control here is controlling Date’s view, and selecting different dialogue options or objects to investigate. Date often has to investigate several locations during a segment, and while you often have to visit them all, you’re given the freedom of picking where to go in whatever order you choose most of the time, giving just enough nonlinearity to not feel like a chore.

The real meat of the gameplay takes place during the Somnium sections, which are comparable to the escape rooms in Zero Escape. Within Somnium, Date and Aiba must break the various mental locks the information they are seeking are hidden behind, which involves interacting with various objects according to the logic of each Somnium. Basically, they’re purely logic puzzles, and it’s actually quite fun figuring out how everything is supposed to work.

Of course, not everything can be that easy. Every Somnium has a hard time limit of 6 minutes. Going over it causes Date’s consciousness to be absorbed into the subject’s, causing a game over. All interactions also cost time, and many incorrect decisions can drain your time pretty significantly. Thankfully, the game has many mitigating factors that keep this from just being stressful. Firstly, time only drains when you’re making choices, or actually moving around. Standing still causes only milliseconds to pass, allowing you to get a clear look around without wasting time. Additionally, all objects you can interact with have a purple outline surrounding them, and are given name tags as well, meaning you don’t have to just wander around, running up to every object in the hopes this one is usable. Not every interactable object actually has a purpose, however, with some only existing to waste your time, so you’re not completely in the clear. The progress meter on the left also gives hints, if sometimes vague ones, as to what you have to do to progress, so you’re not just fumbling in the dark in that regard, either.

Another important feature at the TIMIEs, objects you gain when you interact with objects. These cut the time actions take to perform by varying amounts, or make it take a fixed amount of time. Good use of TIMIEs can save you a lot of time, and a lot of later Sominums enforce it, making it rather strategic. Sometimes, just rushing to the correct solution burns way too much time on its own. You may have to do something you know is wrong, but takes little time and grants a good TIMIE, to be able to save more time on a much costlier action. This aspect isn’t entirely simple either, however. Not all actions display what kind of TIMIE you’ll get, making it a gamble at times, and some, including mandatory actions, give negative TIMIEs, that actually increase the amount of time an action will take, and force you to use them the action after you get them, often forcing you to do something incorrect, but with low time cost, just so you won’t game over.

Each Somnium also has two conditions that unlock album entries, which provide pictures and concept art. The first is for clearing a Somnium with more than 1 second left, as you’re actually allowed to go over the time limit if the final correct action is what pushes you over. The second is for finding special eye shaped items within the Somniums, which are often hidden out of the way. Finally, even if you’re struggling with certain sections, you’re granted 3 retries per Somnium, which allow you to return to a previous part of the section, with all the time you had left at that time, allowing you to optimize and save even more time, though it costs more retries the further back you go. Finally, even if you can’t win, you can simply restart the Somnium section with no penalty, and are even allowed to do so at any time in the menu. Overall, the Somnium sections are actually a lot of fun. Between the interesting logic and strategicness of it, not to mention some of the funniest dialogue in the game between Date and Aiba, they’re some of the most enjoyable parts of the game.

Finally, the game features a few “action segments” during the investigation segments, where Date will be faced with an actual physical threat. Aiba formulates plans to deal with the situation, and you just need to handle each step by pressing a button prompt, like a QTE, or hovering the cursor over a certain area for a long enough time. It’s not exactly difficult, but they serve their purpose. There’s also a few interrogations segments, where you must present relevant evidence to someone in order to prove a point. You can just randomly pick until you get the right one with no in game penalty, but there are achievements for clearing these sections and the action sections with no mistakes.

Graphics: AI: The Sominum Files is a surprisingly pretty game. It has a similar art style to Zero Time Dilemma, which, to put it bluntly, was downright awful in the visuals department, with unemotive character models and terrible animations that killed almost all of its attempts at being unsettling. While a few of the animations in this game can still look janky, it is on a whole much. much improved. The characters are much more expressive, helped by the designs by Yusuke Kozaki, best known for games like No More Heroes and Fire Emblem Awakening, fitting the style much better, while still being distinctive in their own right. The locations have a lot of detail to them, and the lighting is very well done. The highlight of the visuals, though, are the Somniums, which manage to give existing locations very distinctive, well, dream like qualities to them, such as shifting colors or heavy lighting, and are always a joy to explore.

Sound: AI features a downright fantastic soundtrack by Keisuke Ito. It manages to capture a similar feel to Zero Escape’s music at points, despite being a different composer, but still manages to stand out. Every song manages to fit the situation perfectly, while also being very catchy on their own, especially the Somnium themes. The music, combined with the visuals, give the game a very strong atmosphere. Whatever mood the game is attempting to set, nostalgic, tense, peaceful, or unsettling, it nails it very, very well, and had me immersed very easily.

The game also features some fantastic English voice acting. Greg Chun as Date and Erika Harlacher as Aiba are the main stars of the show, with their performances capturing their characters perfectly, but the rest of the cast is just as good. Jackie Lastra as Iris, Zach Aguilar as Ota, Corina Boettger as Mizuki, Allegra Clark as Boss, Kaiji Tang as Moma, pretty much everyone does a great job.

Conclusion: Overall, AI: The Somnium Files is something I highly recommend to most people, even those who haven’t touched another Uchikoshi game. It’s a fascinating, emotional, and satisfying experience that successfully manages to devote attention to just about everything it brings up, and doesn’t overstay its welcome. Honestly, I enjoyed it even more than any Zero Escape game, and considered I still look on those very fondly, that’s an achievement. With that, this review finally comes to a close. I shall likely be checking out the games Uchikoshi worked on before even Zero Escape: Never 7, Ever 17, and Remember 11. Till next time. -Scout

#ai the somnium files #kotaro uchikoshi #visual novel #game review #long post

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exaltedgrimleal · 5 years

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AI: The Somnium Files review

AI: The Somnium Files is a story about a detective from the Metropolitan Police Department named Kaname Date and his efforts on finding a newly founded serial killer.

The first victim is Shoko Nadami, found tied to a merry-go-round horse with multiple stab wounds to the front of her body and her left eye missing.

Referred to as Date, Date is joined by his AI partner, AI-Ball, “Aiba.” Aiba filling the role of a computer, a communication device, an assistant, and a prosthetic left eye, the two work together to try and find out the truth about the New Cyclops Killer.

Gameplay

The game is a point and click investigation game. The majority of the game revolves around Date going around questioning suspects and exploring his surroundings such as the crime scenes. While investigating locations does little for the story, the game keeps you interested with its interesting story and entertaining flavor text.

When not investigating, you enter a phase called Psync. Psyncing is the act of using a specialized machine where one person can enter another person’s subconscious and explore their dreams, this place called Somnium. While it’s still mostly a point and click adventure in these phases, you’re given less freedom as most things can’t be interacted with.

While in somnium, you have a hard six minute limit. While standing still, time passes quite slowly, each nanosecond prolonged to last a normal second. Otherwise, walking around will pass time normally and performing actions will drain your time with varying results. You are introduced to two things, Timies and penalties. Timies can reduce or increase the amount of time needed to perform certain actions while penalties will multiply the amount of time needed. You receive timies and penalties by performing actions themselves.

In other words, you need to balance your time and use timies appropriately. If you get a penalty, you have to decide whether it’s worth performing the action that needs to be done with a large amount of time being spent or target the penalty on a side action that will ultimately result in a smaller penalty.

ex. There are two actions, one that takes 55 seconds and one that takes 2 seconds. Your penalty is x3. You can either perform the 55 second action with a x3 multiplier, meaning it will take 165 seconds, or perform the latter, meaning it will take six seconds.

Non-spoiler review

I thought AI: The Somnium Files was a good game.

I do think the game was weighed down by the gameplay itself. While the main gameplay revolving around a point and click investigation similar to the investigation phases in a Phoenix Wright game were strong, the psync process was either boring or frustrating.

The idea behind the psync process was interesting, but most of the process revolved around dumb luck on what you chose to do during your six minute time limit. Because the somnium took place in a dream, it allowed the settings to be colourful and real life rules to be distorted, but I found this just made things either confusing or redundant.

I also didn’t really learn anything from the psync phases. While the game pushes on the idea that you psync to find clues on the investigation, I found it was more about diving into the subject’s psyche and potentially just make more questions. While this isn’t a bad thing, I found it didn’t fit in enough with the story to be relevant. It’s hinted you can heal someone’s mental ailments with psyncing and that is proven once, but it’s also well stated that the subject does not perceive the psync in the same way that the psyncer did.

It was fun to weigh out your timies and deal with time penalties, but I found that I only had to worry about those things in three out of thirteen psync phases. Otherwise, psyncing was a mindless effort.

Also due to the multiple endings, there are of course points in the story where it branches off into a new set of actions. Ultimately the player will find themselves with two locked routes where they cannot proceed until they play more of the story. While this isn’t a problem, the fault lies in the fact that in order to unlock all the locks, you need to play part of one route, jump to another, and jump back. This leads to confusion on which events have happened in which route if you’re not reviewing the story and keeping track.

What really sells the game is the characters and story. Written by Kotaro Uchikoshi, I was expecting an interesting narrative and I wasn’t disappointed. It kept me constantly thinking and throwing me for loops. The mystery on who the New Cyclops killer is well thought out and the story only volunteers information at a need-to-know basis, leaving you in the dark when you need to be.

Spoilers below cut.

Story introduction

The story begins with Date and Aiba arriving in an abandoned theme park, Bloom Park, in the Kabasaki District on a rainy night. Date is a member of ABIS, a top secret organization in the MPD that specializes on the act of psyncing. Psyncing is the act of one person entering the dreams of another, aka Somnium. They use this to find clues in their investigation. The psyncer can only stay in somnium for six minutes, however. If they are there any longer, the psyncer’s consciousness will be lost.

With said district having been abandoned for six years due to an explosion at a chemical plant that caused the whole district to become inhabitable, people were evacuated and restoration began. Having been six years, the location is now technically safe to enter but still off limits by government laws. This means there is very little foot traffic in Kabasaki District.

An anonymous call brings the MPD to Bloom Park claiming there is a dead body on one of the theme park’s rides, the carousel. Sure enough, there is the corpse of Shoko Nadami. Date is shown to have been this woman’s acquaintance but he knows very little about her other than she is the ex wife of Renju Okiura(Date’s best friend and drinking buddy), and the mother of Mizuki Okiura. After divorcing her husband for unknown reasons to us, she takes her maiden name and becomes estranged to Mizuki.

The front of her torso has been stabbed multiple times and her left eye is missing. Due to the dried blood on her face, it alludes to her eye having been removed while she was alive and it’s whereabouts are unknown. Cause of death is blood loss. She has been bound to the merry-go-round’s horse as if put on display.

This mirrors four murders six years prior done by a serial killer known as the Cyclops Killer. The Cyclops killer killed four young women in different ways. Postmortem, their right eye was removed. Date’s boss, affectionately just known as Boss, claims these crimes cannot have been done by the same person but does not offer any other information.

We learn that Date has amnesia and does not remember anything prior to six years ago. While he finds that suspicious, Boss will not tell Date anything about the Cyclops Killer case.

With Aiba being an effective investigation tool, he uses x-ray vision and finds a figure inside the column of the merry-go-round. Busting the column open, he finds Mizuki who is holding a bloody ice pick which is revealed to be the murder weapon. Traumatized by seeing her mother in this state, Mizuki develops aphonia meaning she can no longer speak. They wrap up for the night.

That night, Date has a strange dream. With Aiba’s help, he is able to organize his thoughts and unfolds the scene. He sees a woman on the ground with blood coming from her shoulder. It’s unknown if she is alive or dead. Standing above her is a dark haired man with cold looking eyes.

Morning arrives. Date traces the anonymous reporter and finds the call was made by an Ota Matsushita. Date first goes to Ota’s home, Matsushita Diner. Only Ota’s mother, Mayumi Matsushita, is present. Mayumi claims Ota is obsessed with an internet idol, a “witch,” and is most likely where he can see her.

He finds and approaches Ota in the Lemniscate office building, a talent agency owned by Renju. Ota is revealed to be a huge fan and friend of a budding idol and internet personality, Iris “A-Set” Sagan, also known as Tesa by fans.

Ota admits to having been with Mizuki when they found the corpse. Mizuki received a suspicious text to go to Bloom Park and when they went, they found Shoko’s corpse. Terrified, Ota runs away. He drops his cellphone in a puddle leaving it inoperable so he used a payphone and fled the scene.

We meet Iris who claims she is Mizuki’s friend due to working under Renju, Mizuki’s father. She convinces Date to bring her to the scene of the crime due to being interested. Despite not finding anything, Iris is satisfied and Date brings her home. He is introduced to Hitomi Sagan, Iris’ mother and childhood friend of Renju. Date is shocked as Hitomi looks exactly like the mystery woman in his dream. We learn Hitomi suffered from a random break in six years ago where she was shot in the shoulder, leaving her arm paralyzed.

Date returns to ABIS headquarters and is ordered to psync with Mizuki in hopes he can cure her aphonia and/or gain clues on Shoko’s murder. Futa Amanoma, known as Pewter, is a scientist that initiates the psync.

Mizuki’s somnium is Bloom Park in the midst of a violent lightning storm. While this somnium is dream like, we know it is based on reality as you cannot dream of something you do not know.

This is where the story divides between the red route and the violet route.

Red Route

In Mizuki’s somnium, Date sees a mysterious figure in the shadows watching. When the two wake up, Mizuki’s aphonia has been cured. She explains the reason why the ice pick was in her hand was because she found it in Shoko’s left eye socket and she panicked. This reveals Mizuki does not have the eye, as well as the eye was not in Shoko’s corpse when Mizuki and Ota found her. Mizuki also does not know who the figure was as it was too dark for her to see. She did however get scared by the figure and hid in the column of the merry-go-round, explaining why she was in there.

Date brings Mizuki to Bloom Park to investigate and question her. They find there was a car in the area from security footage that belonged to Renju. Hoping to find him, they go to Sunfish Pocket, a maid café that Renju owned. In the building, they find a horrifying scene: Renju’s corpse.

Renju’s corpse has a bruise around his neck and his cause of death is asphyxiation. He has been strung up on the ceiling with a large hook in his mouth attached to three beer kegs on the ground weighing him down. He is missing his left eye, and like Shoko, it was removed while he was alive.

Date gets information from his informant, Mama, and learns that both Shoko and Renju were involved with a Yakuza gang, the Kumakura gang. When he goes to investigate the Kumakura building, he finds So Sejima there, a politician. So puts out a smoke and leaves, leaving Date without any leads.

When Date runs into Ota, Ota admits he saw Iris and Renju together a few hours before Renju was found dead, leaving Iris suspicious. Iris is brought in for questioning, and backed into a corner thinking she is going to be pinned for a crime she didn’t commit, she texts Ota. Ota texts back promising he will not tell anyone about, “that thing,” putting even more suspicion on Iris. When Date is unable to get any information from her, he psyncs with her.

Story proceeds to the green route or continues on the red route.

Red Route continued 1

Iris’ somnium is an abandoned warehouse with a few old fashioned televisions. Each one shows various animals that have been killed. It ends with an unknown figure kissing So Sejima. Having learned nothing from the psync, Iris is released.

Driving Iris home, she requests that her and Date stop at Matsushita Diner and they meet Ota. Questioning Ota about, “that thing,” Date is incapacitated. Aiba is able to record Ota telling Iris he is going to get the car ready as he leaves the diner. Aiba is only able to see their feet as Date is on the ground. Mayumi supposedly threatens Iris to leave her son alone to which Iris calmly walks towards her saying nothing. Ota returns asking if anything had happened, and when Iris denies anything, they both leave. Mayumi follows them. Learning that Mayumi suffers from dementia, it is unknown if she remembers this happening.

When Date regains consciousness, he receives a call from Boss who sends him a link to a livestream. Iris can be seen on a table underneath an ice cutting machine, her left eye removed. She can be seen breathing. He quickly gets into his car and drives towards the location, the Okiura Fishery Cold Storage Warehouse.

Date arrives in the nick of time. He finds Ota has been stabbed who is lying on the ground in a pool of blood but is alive. While Date goes to find the culprit, he is unable to. Both Ota and Iris are rushed to the hospital and undergo surgery.

It is learned that at Okiura Fishery Cold Storage Warehouse, there is the Matsushita van and a stolen car. Ota’s story is that he and Iris stopped at a convenience store. When he was in the store, the polar bear stole the van when Iris was inside. Ota stole a car to pursue them but couldn’t find them until hours later.

When Ota has been stabilized, Date questions him but he is unable to get any useful information. Boss has Date psync with Ota.

In Ota’s somnium, Date relive’s Ota’s memory of the warehouse, albeit a bit exaggerated as Ota deems himself a heroic figure.

Story proceeds to the green route or continues on the red route.

Red Route continued 2

Date sees the polar bear is holding a custom knife that belongs to Mayumi. He goes to question Mayumi who confesses to being the New Cyclops Killer. While Date nor Boss believes her and think she is protecting someone, they interrogate her. With her testimony being unreliable, they decide to have Date psync with Mayumi. The psync is postponed as the machine is broken, so Date continues his investigation.

He finds Mayumi had followed Ota and Iris in a taxi. When they stopped at a convenience store, Mayumi also did the same at a nearby store so they would not spot her. She saw the van driving away, so they followed again thinking Ota was in the van. The van stopped at So Sejima’s mansion and then at the Okiura Fishery Cold Storage Warehouse. When Mayumi entered the warehouse, she saw the polar bear ripping out Iris’ eye. Because Mayumi did not know Ota was left behind at the convenience store, she assumes Ota is the killer which is why she confessed, in order to protect Ota.

It’s revealed that the knife was at the scene because back in Matsushita Diner Mayumi threatened Iris with it. Iris walked up to Mayumi and took the knife from her, leaving with Ota and the knife in hand.

Knowing the van stopped at So’s mansion, he arrives there to question So only to find So’s chopped up corpse. The body had been dismembered and stuffed into a decorative vase. His left eye is missing.

Date sends CSI to the Sejima household and returns to ABIS headquarters to psync with Mayumi.

Ota End

Date does not find anything related to the case in Mayumi’s somnium but was able to regain some of Mayumi’s lost memories. Mayumi and Ota reconcile in the hospital and both apologize for possibly having doubts of each other.

Yellow Route

Date sees that Ota was able to injure the polar bear’s leg during their confrontation. He is pulled out of somnium before he is able to see Ota unmasking the polar bear. When he asks Ota if he saw the polar bear’s face, Ota claims he did not and was stabbed as he tried to look.

Date and Mizuki return to Okiura Fishery Cold Storage Warehouse to have the pool of blood Ota was lying in analyzed. They find it has two peoples’ DNA, so if they are able to find out whose blood is mixed with Ota’s, they will know the killer.

At the warehouse, they spot So Sejima who is walking away with a limp. With suspicion on the politician, Date returns to the Kumakura office and retrieves So’s cigarette butt. They use it to confirm it is So’s blood in the warehouse.

Date and Mizuki raid the Sejima household. When Mizuki is held at gunpoint, Date and Aiba initiate a plan to incapacitate So. While it works, So uses the last of his strength to shoot. Date is able to protect Mizuki but gets shot in the left eye.

Date lives as the bullet was stopped in Aiba, his prosthetic eye, but he is in a coma. Mizuki psyncs with him to attempt to pull him out of it.

Mizuki End

Mizuki and Date visit a shrine they have been to in the past. They talk about how So was held countable for the New Cyclopse Killer victims despite Date having his doubts that the mystery was completely solved.

Green Route

Iris’ somnium is an abandoned warehouse with a few old fashioned televisions. Each one shows the original Cyclops Killer victims and how they were murdered. Having learned nothing from the psync, Iris is released.

Driving Iris home, she requests that her and Date stop at Marble, a bar owned by the informant, Mama. When they arrive, Mama is not there and instead Ota is sitting at a stool. Questioning Ota about, “that thing,” Date is incapacitated. Aiba is able to record Ota telling Iris he is going to get the car ready as he leaves the diner. Aiba is only able to see their feet as Date is on the ground. Mayumi supposedly threatens Iris to leave her son alone to which Iris calmly walks towards her saying nothing. Ota returns asking if anything had happened, and when Iris denies anything, they both leave. Mayumi follows them. Learning that Mayumi suffers from dementia, it is unknown if she remembers this happening.

As he is driving and watching the stream, a large figure in a polar bear costume appears on screen, starting the ice cutting machine and leaving view. The saw blade slowly lowers towards Iris’ abdomen but is turned off by Ota. Ota threatens the now unseen culprit and supposedly goes to fight him off. Shortly after, the polar bear reappears on the screen and starts up the ice cutting machine again. Iris is cut in half by the machine and the camera is splashed with blood.

Being the first to arrive at the scene, Date finds Iris’ body in two halves. On the table she originally was strapped to, there is a polar bear cut in half as well. Taking off the mask, we see Ota who is now dead. His eyes are intact.

Devastated, Date turns to another point in the investigation. He discovers a prisoner known as #89 is linked to the case and interrogates him. #89 is said to have been the Original Cyclops Killer. #89 tells the story of a man known as Falco who worked as a detective during the day and an assassin/hitman during the night. He got involved with the Kumakura gang and became a hired gunman for them. Eventually meeting a younger Hitomi and Iris, he began romantically seeing Hitomi and Iris began calling him, “uncle.” Falco decided to get out of the dirty business of being a gunman. The Kumakura gang leader, Rohan Kumakura, agreed to let Falco go as long as Falco performed one last kill, the target being Hitomi and Iris.

Date psyncs with #89 to learn more. Upon the completion of the psync, Date receives a video of So Sejima looking dazed with his left eye missing. He is shot in the head by a mystery figure who, when showing their face in the camera, proves to be Boss.

After a firefight, Boss is detained and psynced with. Her somnium is a warehouse with several doors, each main door showing the murders that have happened in the past few days. It shows a strange occurrence where each victim was killed by another victim: Shoko was killed by Renju, Renju was killed by Iris, Iris was killed by So, and So was killed by Boss.

Date and Pewter question Boss. Boss reveals that while it is Boss’ body, it’s not Boss’ mind. The mind inside Boss’ body belongs to Saito Sejima, So’s son who was said to be soul searching far away. He explains that if you stay in somnium for more than six minutes, the minds of the participants are swapped. Saito used a psync machine to transfer into Shoko’s body. As Shoko, she lured Renju to a remote location where she switched minds with him, meaning Renju’s mind was in Shoko’s body and Saito’s mind was in Renju’s body. Saito used Renju’s body to kill Shoko and tied her to the horse of the merry-go-round. He then switched minds with Iris and used Iris’ body to kill Renju. Then he switched bodies with his father, So, and killed Iris in So’s body. Lastly, he switched minds with Boss and killed So’s body with Boss’ mind inside.

Annihilation End

Saito claims this was all revenge and wanted his original body. Date comes to the conclusion that Date’s body is actually Saito’s original body, Date’s original body unknown. Saito threatens Date to switch bodies with him with Hitomi, showing him evidence that Hitomi is attached to a bomb.

Date and Saito switch minds but Date is too late and Hitomi explores.

Violet Route

In Mizuki’s somnium, Date discovers the completely frozen corpse of Iris with multiple stab wounds to her back and her right eye missing. Date is confused as he just saw Iris earlier. He then hears an unknown ringtone.

Upon awakening, Mizuki has not been cured of her aphonia. Date calls Iris and tells her to lock her doors and not go anywhere with anyone.

With the lead of the ringtone in mind, Date returns to Bloom Park to find where it was coming from. He and Aiba find a burner phone that had been thrown in the merry-go-round horse’s mouth. They track who called the phone when Mizuki was in the park and discover it was a person named So Sejima, a big politician.

Pursuing the mysterious phone call, Date hears that there has been a big car accident that Renju was in. After getting out of surgery, Renju escaped the hospital and cannot be reached.

Date makes a few stops finding out one, Ota could not reach Iris at all, two, Hitomi is a teacher and teaches Mizuki, three, Hitomi was able to cure Mizuki’s aphonia, and four, Shoko had ties to the Yakuza gang’s Kumakura household.

Arriving at the Kumakura office, he learns that the leader, Moma Kumakura, is a big A-Set fan. Date promises to introduce Iris to Moma in exchange for information on Shoko or Renju.

Finally returning to the phone call, he finds So leaving a warehouse. Inside, Date finds a body on a table: Iris. She is exactly as Date saw her in Mizuki’s somnium.

So is brought to ABIS and interrogated. While So claims he does not know who Iris is at all and that he did not kill her, he is psynced with. In So’s somnium, we see an unknown figure stabbing Iris. It is unknown whether the unknown figure is So or someone else. He saves Iris in So’s somnium before both of them wake up.

Date gets a call from MPD about the body he found in the warehouse. The policeman questions Date on where he found the body and when Date says the table, the policeman claims there is no body in the warehouse. Date arrives to see that indeed there is no body. Confused, he rushes to the Sagan household where he finds Iris fine and well. Because Iris amuses him with the idea of a parallel world, Date believes he saved Iris.

Continuing with his investigation, he finds that a prisoner in Fuchu Prison known as #89 claims to know who the New Cyclops Killer is. They call him out for interrogation, but he escapes by incapacitating Date and holding Pewter at gunpoint. It is revealed that #89 got in a car that fled the scene, that car being drived by Renju.

Desperate to find Renju, Date gets a call from Moma claiming he has seen Renju. Moma is introduced to Iris when he gives information, but Renju is in neither location.

Date and Iris go to Marble, a bar with an informant owner, Mama. He tells Boss and Mama about his trip and Mama claims someone will be there to talk to Date about Renju. Upon arrival, Date and Iris are attacked by several gunmen trying to kidnap Iris. They are able to defend themselves and escape unscathed.

Iris claims she is being hunted by a secret society known as NAIXATLOZ, also known as NAIX. She claims to have learned about their secret involvement with the Wadget System and that is why they are targeting her.

Date psyncs with Iris to see if what she is saying is true or not.

Story proceeds to the magenta route or continues on the violet route.

Violet Route continued

Believing Iris, Date promises to be her bodyguard.

The two find out from Mama that the person that was going to speak to Date was Futa Amanoma, which we know is Pewter. Knowing he is a traitor, Date confronts him where he explains that he intentionally let #89 escape because Renju asked him to do so. Pewter also admits to having let the hitmen target Date. Pewter then uses Aiba to perform an electrical shock in Date’s head causing him to pass out and kidnaps Iris.

When Date wakes up, he enlists Ota, Mizuki, and Moma to rescue Iris. They find her location at the Okiura Cold Storage Warehouse and perform a raiding party. After rescuing Iris, they all split up in hopes they would not be pursued and caught.

Date brings Iris to an abandoned warehouse where he finds a psync machine that was supposedly stolen and its location was unknown. Before he can read into anything, Iris collapses. Aiba does a scan and notices her brain is experiencing massive failure.

Date believes that if he psyncs with Iris and saves her in somnium, he can once again save her in real life.

Iris End

Iris wakes up and thanks Date for everything he’s done. Date promises that Iris is going to be okay and will continue to live. She begins to ask him something but succumbs to her condition and dies. Date yells her name to no avail.

Magenta Route

Date decides to not believe Iris about NAIX. She gets angry and runs off leaving a note saying not to worry about her and that she would be with the person she could trust the most.

Date learns that Iris is suffering from a brain tumor that will kill her within a few months which causes her to potentially hallucinate, explaining why she is so set on her belief that NAIX is after her.

Thinking the person she can trust is Renju, Date goes to Okiura Fishery Cold Storage Warehouse and finds the frozen corpse of Iris again. Hitomi is brought to ABIS to identify Iris’ body, but she is very calm. In order to find out the truth, Date psyncs with Hitomi.

We learn that eighteen years prior, Hitomi and Renju were friends with a girl named Manaka Iwai. Manaka became pregnant with So Sejima’s child and kept the baby. When the baby was born, she asked Hitomi to take care of the child so she could confront So about it. Saito killed Manaka by stabbing her in the back several times.

Rohan Kumakura, the previous leader of the Kumakura gang, is tasked with disposing of Manaka’s body. He pulls out her right eye before they bury her. Hitomi and Renju clean her up and freeze her body so they could expose So when the time was right. From then, Hitomi raised the baby as if it were her own, naming the baby Iris.

Hitomi explains that Iris was diagnosed with a brain tumor that would kill her. There was only one cure, using nanomachine treatment that was too expensive for Hitomi to afford. She decided to blackmail So with Manaka’s body to try and get money from him to fund Iris’ treatment. She put Manaka’s body on a table in the Okiura Fishery Cold Storage Warehouse and called So to the location and threat. That means the body Date saw earlier was not Iris and instead was Manaka.

Hitomi also explains that she did not come to the cops about it earlier because she got a call from someone who said they had Iris, and if Hitomi told anyone, Iris would be killed.

Date and Hitomi track down where the culprit is and enter a warehouse. Date is electrocuted and falls unconscious and Hitomi is kidnapped. When Date wakes up, he finds himself strapped to a stolen prototype psync machine with prisoner #89 looking down at him. #89 explains he is Saito Sejima, So’s son, and that he is the Original Cyclops Killer.

The whole story started with a detective named Hayato Yagyu, known just as Yagyu, became an assassin/hitman. He got involved with the Kumakura gang and became a hired gunman for them. Eventually meeting a younger Hitomi and Iris, he began romantically seeing Hitomi and Iris began calling him, “uncle.” Falco decided to get out of the dirty business of being a gunman. Rohan agreed to let Falco go as long as Falco performed one last kill, the target being Hitomi and Iris.

Boss and Yagyu talk and decide to have Rohan and Yagyu swap bodies. Boss explains ABIS and psyncing, as well as if you stay in somnium for more than six minutes, the psyncer and subject’s consciousnesses would swap places. This would give Yagyu’s mind in Rohan’s body the opportunity to one, tell the Kumakuras to never touch Hitomi or Iris, and two, to kill Rohan in Yagyu’s body which would dispose of Rohan and Yagyu’s body who would be known as a hitman and scandal in the MPD. After they perform the psync, Rohan in Yagyu’s body escaped ABIS headquarters and went to kill Hitomi himself. Yagyu in Rohan’s body goes to save her, but in the process, accidentally shoots her.

Rohan’s mind is arrested and he is put in prison, given the title #89. Yagyu’s mind finds out that the Original Cyclops Killer, Saito Sejima, had an accomplice: Rohan. In Rohan’s body, Yagyu tries to get a confession out of Saito. Saito immediately is suspicious of Yagyu and learns about the psyncing process. He forces Yagyu to switch bodies with him meaning Yagyu’s mind is in Saito’s body, and Saito’s mind is in Rohan’s body.

The process is halted midway, however, which caused both of their memories to be shattered. This left Yagyu as an amnesiac where Boss finds him and gives him a new identity: Kaname Date. Saito in Rohan’s body was caught and since he was acting insane due to not knowing anything, he was brought to a hospital for the criminally insane. He was in Rohan’s body for five years until he pieced together his memory and escaped the hospital.

He lured Shoko out and swapped bodies with her and pushed Shoko, now in Rohan’s body, off the roof to make it look like a suicide. He then waited a year and switched bodies with Renju only to kill Shoko’s body with Renju inside. He went to kill Iris, but Iris refused to go with him because Date told her to not go anywhere with anyone. So, he had #89 escape and swapped minds with him. This meant that Saito’s mind was in #89′s body, #89′s body being Yagyu aka Date’s original body, and Rohan’s mind was in Renju’s body. Because of the car accident, however, Rohan’s mind perished when Renju’s body died from the accident injuries.

Finally, Saito explains he wants his original body back. Due to a brain deficiency, Saito’s body only could produce oxytocin when he killed something. This made his serial killing habit pleasurable. However, in other bodies, he did not feel this pleasure and therefor wanted his body back. Date is confused as even though he is in Saito’s body, he does not receive pleasure when killing and Aiba explains that she administers oxytocin to Date’s body regularly, preventing Date from going down Saito’s path.

Saito and Date switch bodies, meaning they are both now in their original bodies. Saito threatens Date with both Iris and Hitomi’s lives. Without being able to do anything, Aiba explains that she has a solution: she can self destruct in Saito’s eye socket which would cause his skill to explode. Date and Aiba agree that this is the only thing that can be done and Aiba destroys herself.

Resolution End

With Iris, Ota, Mizuki, and Hitomi now privy to the classified information about what ABIS is and the Original Cyclops Killer, Boss is able to pull some strings from the higher ups to buy their silence. Boss funds Iris’ nanomachine treatment and she undergoes surgery to have the tumor in her brain taken care of.

Three months after the treatment, Iris is released from the hospital and her and Date travel around the town so she can thank everyone who visited her.

At ABIS headquarters, Date is put to sleep by Boss. When he wakes up, he sees Pewter to alludes to Boss having done something and it is assumed he returns to prison for unintentionally helping Saito having thought it was Renju.

Iris eventually takes Date to the harbor where she has a surprise for him. He closes his eyes only to open them and see the Aiba. Aiba, having been restored, is now back by Date’s side and the two reunite happily.

The story ends with all the characters dancing and having a good time together.

Takeaways

While I was playing, I had two predictions: one, that the person who was playing patty cake with Iris was Date, and two, that Date prior to his memory loss was the original Cyclops Killer. Both of these ended up being true in a sense, but there was still a much bigger picture I hadn’t caught onto until they were revealed which was very entertaining.

And it’s worth mentioning that there is a secret ending called Me and My Girlfriend’s Atami End. In interviews, Uchikoshi said that no choices you make in this game are wrong ones, but I’m pretty sure this ending is a wrong ending as it involves Date abandoning his investigation to run away with the receptionist of Lemniscate. I honestly thought it was a joke Date was trying to pull until the game actually gave you a Fin screen and made you save, haha.

It was also very interesting to learn that small things that happened in the game pointed to bigger narrative points about characters, like how Aiba would mention that Date’s dosage possibly increased which is later revealed to be oxytocin for Saito’s body.

As well as little things like how Date is the only character we refer to by his last name, Date and Yagyu.

It turns out that the stolen psync machine is a bit underdeveloped compared to the one in the ABIS headquarters, and one of the problems with it is the left eye must be removed in order for it to work. With the well functioning machine, nanocords are able to go around the eye and reach the brain, but with the underdeveloped ones, the eye must be removed for the cords to reach the brain. Since we learn that Rohan is the one that took the eyes of the Original Cyclops Killer victims, it makes sense that Saito didn’t need them.

I get very emotional over some of Date’s intentions, as well. While it’s not talked about in the game, it’s interesting to think that the reason why Date has such a strong paternal instinct towards Mizuki is because he had that with Iris while he was Hayato. He was awkward about it because he was never really a father as well as his built family was almost broken because of him.

And Date being such a well rounded character made it fun to play as him and explore the world around him.

Even though AI: The Somnium Files wasn’t a perfect game, it was still very entertaining. It took me about twenty two fun-filled hours to play through the whole thing. I am very excited to see what Uchikoshi comes up with next, whether that be a sequel, prequel, or a completely new project!

#MyNameIsKagami

#AI: The Somnium Files #AITSF #AITSF spoilers #Spoilers #Review #I can't believe I spent five hours writing this and it's now eight in the morning

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