AI: The Somnium Files / AI：ソムニウム ファイル

Buy/Demo on Steam

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police are investigating a bizarre murder of a woman whose left eye has been gouged out, but the evidence trail has been washed away by the rain and the only witness on the scene is catatonic. This is where Special Agent Date Kaname of the Advanced Brain Investigation Squad comes in. Date is a Psyncer, a detective that dives into people’s dreams to look for leads within their subconscious mind, which he investigates in the light of day with his trusty robot eye-implant sidekick Aibou. As the body count grows larger, each dreamer leads Date closer to the killer and also to his own forgotten past.

AI: The Somnium Files, written and directed by Uchikoshi Kotaro, is unlike his previous Zero Escape series, in that it is actually a real, honest-to-goodness adventure game. The Zero Escape trilogy, as brilliant as they are, are only adventure games in the most nominal sense. They all have the player escape rooms by solving puzzles whose content was so tangential to the plot that they were mostly outsourced to specialist designers, and while Uchikoshi would give them a ludonarrative consonant veneer to marry puzzles to plot, it always felt disconnected in the playing, as if I were playing a Frankenstein’s monster of some abstract puzzle game surgically grafted onto a visual novel.

Not so in Somnium, whose eponymous dream sequences represent “adventure game logic” taken to its logical conclusion. Much has been written about the bizarre dream-logic that plagues traditional point and click adventure games puzzle design. To which Somnium seemingly responds by literally turning puzzles into dreams. It is ludonarrative consonance in reverse; Instead of conforming gameplay to story, story conforms to gameplay. This is a peak Uchikoshi take on the level of his switching the screens on the DS in 999.

These dream sequences marry puzzle to plot by having Aibou, as Date’s dream avatar, explore a surreal dreamscape full of interactive objects, with only the vaguest of instructions on how to proceed and a time limit to obey, to make a literal psychological breakthrough with the subject. Many of the object interactions are weird and wacky, but they make a kind of dream-sense while also expressing the subject’s psychological state, or at least providing an opportunity for comic relief when Date bullies Aibou into performing some odd stunt. Easter eggs are hidden throughout the dreamscapes. There is even a math problem aspect to the puzzle, by introducing multipliers to the duration of interactions, with prizes for players that can balance the books. It is a credit to Spike Chunsoft that they have created an adventure game where there are reasons to replay the puzzles over and over.

In between the dream sequences is the rest of Somnium, which is much closer to a conventional detective adventure doing detective stuff. The player as Date travels around to different locations to look for clues and interview witnesses, sometimes using Aibou’s x-ray and infrared vision. Don’t expect too much from this though. This part of the game is mostly about exhausting all critical dialogue options and clicking on all relevant hotspots. Aibou’s occasional quizzes to Date about the case are more about giving Date the opportunity for comic relief answers and making sure the player is paying attention to what is going on than making any inferences and deductions about the mystery. It is roughly equivalent to the sections between trials in the Ace Attorney series.

As a visual novel, Somnium is structured similarly to Uchikoshi’s previous works, with timelines branching off into multiple routes, and progress in the deeper routes unlocked by completing the shorter ones. As such, the game has a similar problem to Virtue’s Last Reward, where the player is free to navigate the story chart but is making more-or-less blind choices on branches, and is likely to end up reading branches in an inefficient order, or worse, seeing plot developments revealed too early. My readers are advised to follow the order red, yellow, purple, green, pink for the best experience, though this is not strictly necessary.

But structure is where the similarities end. Do not expect Somnium to be another Zero Escape. Somnium is thematically and tonally quite different from Zero Escape‘s claustrophobic desperation and despair. In Somnium the stage is wider and the stakes are lower. The closest comparison among Uchikoshi’s previous works is Punch Line, as the world of Somnium has a much more cartoon logic to its operation, a logic that undermines the rest of the story. It is weirdly inconsistent to have a horror-esque sense of constant vulnerability to a serial killer lurking in the shadows, yet also have characters bust out anime-like martial arts abilities in times of crisis. Somnium doesn’t take itself too seriously, so it’s hard to take seriously.

Furthermore, the adventure and VN aspects of the game are in tonal conflict with each other. Almost all of the comedy in Somnium – its bizarre, wacky humor, its running gags, its double act repartee, its puns and wordplay, its dirty jokes – is optional and mostly triggered by the many hotspots hidden in the environments. For the content-completionist adventurer who clicks on everything, the balance of Serious Business and comic relief is far tilted toward the latter. At times the game even feels like watching a romantic comedy on Fuji TV, complete with a nigehaji-style musical dance number in the ending credits. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that this is a CERO-Z rated game.

To its credit, Somnium has a much more straightforward and coherent story than Zero Escape‘s mindfuckery. It’s hard not to sympathize with Uchikoshi’s dilemma, which is similar to the problems Kodaka Kazutaka had with the Danganronpa series. In each entry of Zero Escape, Uchikoshi had to meet the rising expectations of fans for even more dramatic moments and convoluted twists, which could only end in disappointment as he painted himself into a corner trying to outdo his past work. Somnium hits the reset button, with the ambitious Uchikoshi Bingo themes and tropes mostly absent, and the scope and scale of the plot is more limited. The problem is that this reset goes too far. Instead of trying to do too much, Somnium doesn’t do nearly enough.

The rest of the review discusses the plot in detail and is enciphered in rot13 for spoiler reasons.

Gur trareny ceboyrz jvgu Fbzavhz vf gung gur fgnxrf ner gbb ybj. Abobql ernyyl ybfrf nalguvat naq abobql punatrf. Yvxr, jung rknpgyl vf Qngr’f punenpgre nep? Nyy gur qrirybczrag vf “bss-fperra” va gur frafr gung vg unccrarq gb uvf cnfg frys. V jbhyq unir rira cersreerq vs Qngr unq ernyyl orra gur Plpybcf Xvyyre naq jnf na hggreyl haeryvnoyr aneengbe bs uvf zrzbevrf. Gung jnl ur pbhyq snpr uvf qrzbaf naq tebj vagb gur Qngr jr xabj.

Nf n sna bs zrybqenzn naq fhssrevat, V sryg gung Hpuvxbfuv unq chyyrq uvf chapurf urer ol ybjrevat gur fgnxrf. Gur zbfg rtertvbhf rknzcyr vf Nvobh’f erfheerpgvba ol qrhf rk znpuvan, gb tvir gur cynlre n unccl raqvat jvgu ab punenpgre yrsg oruvaq, purncravat ure fnpevsvpr naq Qngr’f njxjneqyl fvaprer pbasrffvba bs ybir va gurve svany snerjryy. Lrg V nz bs gjb zvaqf nobhg ubj gb qrny jvgu guvf.

Gur fgnaqneq nccebnpu (N) vf gb unir Nvobh creznaragyl qrfgeblrq, ohg ragveryl bs ure bja ibyvgvba. Gung vf, ng gur pyvznpgvp zbzrag, Qngr jbhyq guvax onpx ba gurve vafrcnenoyr cnegarefuvc naq nyy gur yvsr-naq-qrngu fvghngvbaf gurl fheivirq gbtrgure, naq ershfr gb fnpevsvpr ure, ng juvpu cbvag Nvobh sbeprf vg ba uvz ol oernxvat guebhtu ure Jnqwrg Flfgrz pbafgenvagf ntnvafg frys-qrfgehpgvba. Qrfcvgr univat NV va vgf gvgyr, Fbzavhz arire ernyyl tenccyrf jvgu gur pbaprcg bs n fhcrevagryyvtrapr naq jung vg zrnaf. Vg vf nf vs Hpuvxbfuv pna anzr gur Guerr Ynjf bs Ebobgvpf ohg arire npghnyyl ernq Nfvzbi’f obbxf. N!Nvobh’f punenpgre nep vf gb yrnea gb genafpraq ure bja yvzvgngvbaf naq qrpvqr sbe urefrys jung vf zbfg vzcbegnag, n gevrq naq grfgrq fgbel nobhg gur cbjre bs ybir naq sevraqfuvc birepbzvat nyy bofgnpyrf. Gubhtu V trg gung guvf nccebnpu qbrfa’g ernyyl jbex vs Fbzavhz vf vagraqrq gb or na batbvat frevrf.

Nabgure cbffvovyvgl (O) vf gb oevat vg nyy onpx gb Fbzavn nfcrpg bs gur fgbel. O!Nvobh znl unir orra culfvpnyyl qrfgeblrq yvxr N!Nvobh, ohg fgvyy yvirf ba jvguva Qngr’f fhopbafpvbhf. Lrnef bs orvat culfvpnyyl pbaarpgrq va zvaq naq obql unir creznaragyl obhaq gurve fbhyf gbtrgure. O!Nvobh ernccrnef va n cbfg-perqvgf qernz frdhrapr gb erzvaq Qngr gung fur vf jvgu uvz nyjnlf. V guvax guvf nccebnpu vf fgvyy n ovg purnc, ohg ng yrnfg vgf n orggre svg gurzngvpnyyl guna univat Nvobh erobbgrq sebz pybhq fgbentr. Fur pna gura cbffvoyl or erivirq va gur frdhry.

Va gur zber vagrerfgvat nccebnpu (P) gur abgvba gung Nvobh pbhyq rira or creznaragyl qrfgeblrq vf nofheq. Gnxr n phr sebz nabgure erprag plorechax ohqql pbc guevyyre IA, Fuvzbxhen Ivb’f Gbxlb Arpeb, rzoenpr gur qrhf rk znpuvan naq znxr Nvob n yvgreny tbq va gur znpuvar. Hpuvxbfuv frrzf gb unir nyzbfg gbhpurq ba guvf va gur inevbhf DGR frpgvbaf bs gur tnzr jurer Nvobh qrzbafgengrf nqinaprq cerqvpgvir fvzhyngvba novyvgvrf gb thvqr Qngr gb fnsrgl. Vs fur pna qb guvf, fheryl bar pna vzntvar ure fvzhyngvat guvatf ba na rira terngre fpnyr. Fhcrevagryyvtrag fvzhyngvba jbhyq nyfb or n zhpu zber ryrtnag fcva ba gur pbaarpgvba bs oenapuvat gvzryvarf guna ergernqvat gur fnzr byq Zbecubtrargvp Svryq cybg qrivpr, gubhtu vg erznvaf gb or frra jung Hpuvxbfuv vf tbvat gb qb jvgu uvf nyvra phyg pbafcvenpl gurbel va shgher vafgnyyzragf.

Nvobh nf fhcrevagryyvtrapr jbhyq or jbegu na ragver fgbel ol vgfrys. Ohg gur obqlfjnccvat pbaprcg vf nyfb na ragver fgbel ol vgfrys. Hpuvxbfuv oevrsyl gbhpurf ba guvf jura ur unf Vevf pbzcner cflapuebavmngvba gb gur crnpu bs vzzbegnyvgl. Bar zvtug guvax gung nyy gur pnfrf va Fbzavhz fubhyq or nobhg obqlfangpuvat cresrpg ubfgf sbe gur ryvgr. Ohg jvgu zbyrphyne anabgrpuabybtl gung pherf nyy qvfrnfr ninvynoyr, rira gung frrzf bofbyrgr, fb jul rira obgure fangpuvat obqvrf va gur svefg cynpr. Vg’f nyzbfg yvxr Fbzavhz vf nobhg n cbfg-fpnepvgl, cbfg-fvathynevgl fbpvrgl gung qbrfa’g xabj vg lrg, n plorechax shgher gung fgvyy ybbxf cerggl zhpu yvxr lrfgreqnl. Gurl qba’g rira unir frys-qevivat pnef gb nibvq genssvp nppvqragf. Gurer’f fb zhpu tbvat ba naq fb zhpu vzcyvrq gung vf zvffvat, naq vg’f abg pyrne gung svyyvat gubfr va vf rira n cevbevgl, fvapr vg qbrfa’g ernyyl unir gb or vs Fbzavhz vf vagraqrq gb or n pnegbba ybtvp jbeyq. Fgvyy, vs vg qbrfa’g gnxr vgfrys frevbhfyl, vg’f uneq gb gnxr frevbhfyl. Mreb Rfpncr zvtug unir orra birenzovgvbhf, ohg vg jnf qrnq frevbhf nobhg vg. Vg’f n yvggyr qvfnccbvagvat vs gur sbyybj hc vfa’g.