AI: The Somnium Files PS4 Review

In retrospect, it’s almost frightening how Visual Novels slowly yet steadily grew from a barely niche genre in the West to a widely more recognizable and recurring medium found in virtually every known gaming platform. So recognized, in fact, that a major food chain like KFC has produced their own take on the genre with a parody Dating Sim, which sparked its own controversy among the VN fanbase. While it is true that the genre has a reputation for focusing on the player’s courting of fictional characters (often to the point of explicit content not suitable for anyone under 18), KFC’s tongue-in-cheek marketing stunt can be taken as undermining the more highly-praised VN entries that focus on thought-provoking storytelling and characterization rather than letting hardcore otaku live out their highschool harem fantasies.

Speaking of which, it can be argued that the Visual Novel that was most responsible for the genre’s rise in the West can be traced back to 2009 with the Western release of 999: Nine Persons, Nine Hours, Nine Doors on the Nintendo DS. The cult success of the Escape Room-inspired text adventure paved the way for similar entries in the West, and even helped approve two follow-up sequels that would eventually make up the Zero Escape trilogy. All three games were written by Kotaro Uchikoshi, who would go on to make a name for himself in the VN space thanks to his penchant for inserting quirky, often eccentric characters mixed in with bizarre circumstances often inspired by real-life philosophies and concepts, while also dabbling with meta-based comedy and gameplay that plays upon the expectations associated with the VN genre, specifically the concept of multiple routes and “Bad Ends”. Think Christopher Nolan mixed with Hideo Kojima, with an extra emphasis on risque humor involving women’s undergarments (which, no kidding, was the key premise of his recent game Punch-Line).

AI: The Somnium Files is the latest dose of insanity by Uchikoshi, taking the Nolan comparison even further with a story concept straight out of Inception; the story takes place in the near-future setting of Tokyo, Japan, where an underground police force known as ABIS uses their advanced technology to solve criminal cases that have eluded normal police. The protagonist, a detective by the name of Date, has been tasked with solving the mysterious murder of a young woman, who coincidentally happens to be a known associate of his. Her body left lifeless in an abandoned amusement park along with her left eyeball removed, Date must gather all the clues he can from crime scenes and character testimonies as the killings quickly increase, not to mention the coincidental ties to his own mysterious past (it wouldn’t be a Japanese game without an amnesiac main character, after all).

Fortunately, Date has the latest technology from ABIS to assist him, which also happens to serve as his latest partner; a self-conscious AI known as “Aiba” functions as both Date’s partner as well as his prosthetic eye (hence the name, a play on “eyeball”). Though Aiba remains permanently linked to Date’s mind, allowing for private conversations as well as sharing crucial data from the internet, she can still act independently at her own whim, physically popping out of Date’s skull as a sentient, moving eyeball with limbs (it’s honestly cuter than it sounds). Similarly, Aiba can also assume a humanoid form that is only viewable by Date, both in the real world via augmented reality as well as the dream world of Somnium.

Speaking of which, the most technologically advanced tech in the world of AI is also the most crucial to the storyline: by physically linking Date’s mind with another person, he and Aiba can visit the person’s dreams, which materialize as an interactive world within their subconscious. It is there where the game’s major puzzles come into play, as the actions performed in each dream can have a crucial effect on which of the multiple paths players will take in the story. Just like with Uchikoshi’s previous games, AI’s story can take multiple branching points, most of them leading to a “Bad End”, which is typical of the VN genre. Fortunately, players can jump to any specific part part of the story they’ve unlocked thanks to a handy flowchart, which also shows the paths yet to be unlocked and at which point branching becomes possible. Essentially, if certain actions within Somnium led to one dead end (as well as dead characters), then just run it again and try a different set of actions.

This is where the puzzle-solving portion of AI comes into play, though it’s less “puzzle solving” and more “trial and error”; while previous games like 999 operated under logical thinking in order to solve puzzles, the dream world of Somnium is much more vague and abstract. Players control Aiba during these segments, and are given numerous objects to interact with in various ways. For example, coming across an inanimate skull in a bedroom brings up several options for interaction: talk to it, kiss it, kick it, and so on. Naturally, most of these actions serve no purpose other than reveling in some wacky outcomes and dialog. Having Aiba dump the contents of a cooking pot to wear it on her head like a helmet (complete with a comment about “increasing defense”) or re-enact her favorite fighting game combos to move a container are just some examples of the random, often hilarious outcomes from the random actions players can perform.

But each action comes with a price, and that is “time”; in every instance of exploring Somnium, Date can only remain in the dream world up to six minutes, meaning that he must perform the right amount of actions in order to get through the subject’s “Mental Locks”. Each action subtracts a certain amount of time from the clock, though players can also be rewarded with “Timies”, which are essentially items that can reduce the amount of time needed to perform an action. Timies can particularly come in handy to cut lengthy time subtractions by half, or even more. Beware, however, since it is also possible to receive negative Timies that can double the time of an action and must be used immediately upon retrieval. Fortunately, there is also a retry option that lets players jump back to previous checkpoints in order to do the right set of actions with the minimum amount of time wasted. If all else fails, they can just restart from the beginning and utilize the handy fast-forward feature for previously-viewed dialog and cutscenes.

As mentioned before, the solutions to clear the Somnium areas are often abstract, still serving some sense of logic but ultimately still relying on trial and error, meaning players have no choice but to try out a random action and see if it serves as a guiding post to the next step. This may prove disappointing to those who enjoyed the more traditional puzzles of the Zero Escape series, but from an aesthetic standpoint these dream-based dungeons are still fascinating to witness, plus the comical banter between Date and his sarcastic AI companion make for some consistently amusing moments, all of which are fully voice-acted to boot.

On the subject, however, anyone familiar with Uchikoshi’s previous works should be fully aware of his penchant for risque dialog and humor. Despite looking like the typical stoic, often edgy Anime protagonist, Date is a total goofball who may have a literal mental impairment (besides the amnesia), as he’ll often bring a crowded room into stunned silence with his awful puns and even more awful attempts at wooing the opposite sex. The majority of these moments are often played for laughs based on their ludicrousness, such as Date using his X-ray vision to see through a woman’s clothing (while still getting turned on upon learning that said vision will only display a person’s skeleton), or narrowly avoiding a gunshot to the head by retrieving a porno mag on the floor. Fortunately, there are positive traits that help balance out our protagonist from being a total scumbag, including his distant-yet-protective relationship with his surrogate daughter, his sense of duty in protecting a teenage girl from being the next killer’s target while fending off her numerous advances, and even maintaining a friendly relationship with an LGBT character without cracking any offensive jokes (something that is still culturally backwards with most Japanese media, to the point that people were quick to verify that the pro-LGBT commentary is present even in the original Japanese language).

Make no mistake, the story of AI is filled with all sorts of wacky moments and goofy dialog, but gets deadly serious when necessary; depending on the players’ actions, many of the recurring characters can fall victim to violent fates, leaving the surviving loved ones to grieve over the loss. Even the spared characters may end up tugging at the heartstrings as they monologue about their various past traumas, not to mention the encroaching fear and confusion that Date suffers as he tries to tie together the truth of his past with the brutal murders of the present, terrified at what role he has to play. These moments come across wonderfully thanks to some solid voice acting and a visual style that forgoes big budget graphics for a smooth 60 fps experience. Fans of point-and-click games that offer flavor text by examining various objects will be especially satiated with the numerous bits of self-referential humor littered throughout every single area, including extended dialog moments that go well past the point of normalcy should players choose to repeatedly click on a highlighted object or person until the green indicator around their name finally, mercifully turns gray.

For those who enjoyed the storytelling of Zero Escape and other works by Kotaro Uchikoshi, AI: The Somnium Files is a no-brainer purchase, and might just be his most solid game yet. Even if the random bits of humor and cringeworthy risque dialog might prove a detractor for some, the strongest story beats stand out completely unhindered along with the cast of characters and the fascinating near-futuristic setting, not quite as dystopian as other futuristic police stories, but every bit as engaging and thought-provoking.