AI Somnium files

It'll keep you awake...

AI Somnium files review

While browsing X-Box Game Pass, I came across this little gem and envisioned an anime style interactive novel- Columbo meet Phoenix Wright, where I could pootle my way through an interactive faction, occasionally stirring myself to scrutinize a cut scene and scavenge for clues or shout out 'objection' at a mis-identified witness. What I got instead was for more engaging and *shudder* weepy than I had envisioned. In fact, it stirred my from my cocoon of crumbs and cider to actually pay attention to the screen, the small minutiae… The scenery. The hidden motifs... It infected my conversation- I began to throw out theories to friends and friends who didn’t even know the game existed, let alone played it.

This review is for you. This is my attempt to convert you all. Please join me. Please. Somnium is creepy by yourself.

( as per usual, we shall break this into three main components:

Story

Gameplay

Graphics

Audio

Meme-ability)

Story. 94%

My first impressions weren’t far from the truth. This is at heart a sci-fi crime Anime. In the near future, Psyncers can pop into people’s brains and read clues from their dreams; a helpful skill to have, when suspects keep the truth bottled up. You play as Kaname Date, a psynching detective who suffers a pretty bad day at the office- first his friend’s ex-wife is found murdered on a merry-go-round then his friend’s daughter is implicated- while supposedly in Date's care. Luckily, you are not alone- your x-ray-vision, heat-sensing, artificially intelligent eyeball 'Aiba' is along for the journey. She's a cute little sentient ball in your head most of the time, but has a penchant for projecting herself as a pretty lady, so it could be worse.

In fact, Aiba is one of the best characters, given the most early screen time to flesh out and I warmed to her immediately. Companions can be a little too chatty… *ahem* Navi…. But in a game so dialogue-driven, Aiba is a joy.

Date often asks for her personality to be changed for a more submissive one. No. I say. No. Keep her as she is, her opinions drive the case!

Aiba and Date’s relationship is an odd one; with no memory before seven years ago, when he was injured and in need of an AI ball in the first place, Date cannot remember life without her interruptions. With Google glasses, Meta and all the recent leaps in VR, it is not hard to imagine this future tech.

Written like a typical crime anime, the tone shifts between gruesome murders and dark exploration, to innuendo and slut-talk in the blink of an eye. One moment we’ll be starting at a mutilated corpse, next we’ll be slinging a lady’s knickers at the gunmen guarding it, in hopes of distraction. In Somnium, as in many a classic Japanese cartoon, the everyone has a kink to be exploited, and I for one am more than happy to oblige. I need a little comedic levity from time to time, and having a crass sense of humour, this helps.

The characterisation is so good, you really warm to them, perverted or not, and the story plays out in such a way, that no character is really safe- from scrutiny or the murderer’s blade- and you begin to fear for them and treasure these lighter moments, never sure when the tone might shift again.

Indeed the baddie here “ the cyclops killer” is chilling enough. They leave corpses mutilated and bloodless, far from the scene of the crime, with the right eye plucked out- it is joyfully evil and fun to pick it apart. Little is known from the start, only that similar murders took place seven years ago, though the killer responsible is now behind bars.

To make matters more strange, Date’s fake eye is about seven years old, as is his memory loss, and your boss refuses to discuss the incident. It is well written and there are enough questions to keep your mind engaged with the overarching story.

Time-wise, it takes place over 5 short days- and that is long enough to really understand the handful of characters. We visit their homes, their places of work and even their dreams. ( More on that later.)

Gameplay. 30%

Dream-hopping.

Psychonauts 2 did it so well, with immersive platform worlds and fresh visuals. AI Somnium files is more linear and gritty- in the Somnium, you cannot jump, much less platform, not that you would want to- indeed you want to keep movement to a minimum. Time stops when you stand still while any movement expends valuable milliseconds. Time is slower in the dreamscape, but you only have 5 minutes to look for clues before your mind is subsumed by the host and you die- meaning "a quick in-out" is imperative. To make matters worse, interacting with the surreal objects all around can expend extra time, up to 360 seconds per interaction, so any aimless prodding and pootling can see you fail.

Here the unique puzzles come into their own.

Dreams don’t make sense; it’s why we haven’t cracked them, why scientists have been loathe to study the consciousness at all, for fear they may retire with no solid results. In short, the mind is a mystery, so you must think outside the box to break the “mind locks”.

Each somnium has three or four of these and how you choose to deal with them affects the branching narrative.

For example, a mine-craft inspired dream can either be completed by fighting a massive UFO, ( leaning into the dreamer’s conspiracy theories) or by breaking everything, shattering her delusions and coming to the truth.

Most items have some interaction options, and the stages an take multiple goes to get to the bottom of.

The path you take in these dream-worlds is the only fail factor in the game.

It’s narratives branch off like bits of string on a cork board, a lovingly crafted in your menu as past of a detective's trail.

Up to this point, there was no wrong answer- only the joy of exploration- it was here I realised the player’s agency, and I sat up out of my crumbs.

Hunkered down in the sofa, playing through jolly cut scene after jolly cut scene, I thought the game was forgiving. I often said the wrong thing, or wittered with NPCs safe in the knowledge that there is no wrong answer- the game forces you down the correct path eventually. It’s just a case of pointing and clicking and making the most of the journey.

However, in the dreamscapes, things can go horribly wrong. Characters can die. Clues can dry up. When this happens, you must use the menu to navigate back through time, back through your journal, to try again.

Here’s where you must be engaged. And stewing stupefied in your own snack mountain will not do.

Reliving the same days with different choices is oddly emotional. One quick example- I grew too close to a suspect, an internet idol no less, and took her along to meet a mob boss friend. ( As you do.) Over the course of this timeline, we learned that he was also an avid fan of her music and dance, we bonded over her catchphrases and he became a favourite character. When I reached the end of that story and had to replay the days again, I wasn’t afforded the same chances- the idol didn’t come with me, the mob boss and I never bonded; he looked at me with stony non-recognition. He threatened to have me killed!

Moma, cried, for that was his name, and he had pulled me out of more scrapes than I care to mention. How can you forget our halcyon days- ah yes, I went back...

My heart grew cold. No game has any right to do that to you. Do not play games to FEEL. Just the opposite goddamn it!

Aside from this, gameplay, as I say, is largely “chat to this” “look at that” “press the trigger in time to shoot a vending machine full of porno mags” ( ah, that riske humour…. I love thee.) But it holds together and the revelations come fast enough to keep you engaged.

Graphics. 70 %

In keeping with the atmosphere, the cut scenes are a delight and share the production value of any modern anime. Some cut scenes use the 3D rendered in game characters and are a bit more naff, but on the whole, think Cagaster of an Insect cage or Ajin, without the choppy frame rate and you're almost there. Games' companies have been working in 3D longer than many of these television studios, and the ploish shows.

That said, some of the character models are a little strange. For example Oto Matsushida is a Pokémon trainer. He must be. Chunsoft were responsible for the Pokémon Mystery dungeon games, so its reasonable that during their merger to become Spike Chunsoft, they kept a little somethin' something from the vaults and sprinkled him in.

Similarly, his mother is the spitting image of that same matriarchal figure who, from every game from Red and Blue to Sword and Shied, would wave you off at the door, age 11, to go capture mythical beasts in big air-tight balls and set them on one another.

Mere speculation, but I include a wee piccie of them. Make up your own mind.

Similarly, Puter, the computer whiz who runs the psynching device, could be a Pokémon professor in another life.

Again, I’ll lee it to the reader’s discression. Other than that, the characters are pretty unique and cohesive in the same adult, gritty universe.

Audio. 80%

Just as well produced. Every cutscene, polished or no, is voice acted; the focus really on characterisation and narrative over all else.

Alas, I listened to the dubbed version so that I could comment on the inflection ( I’m not a native Japanese speaker, so my thoughts on the sub are moot.) The delivery was good, and though some of the female voices are a tad shrill, they are bearable.

By virtue of the fact it’s all voice acted, it’s already a better game than Monster Hunter world. ( Sorry, but that was just lazy.)

Meme-ability 50%

The references are top tier. Watch out for nods to everything from the X-files to Stein’s gate. The last Game to make me butt-clench and squeal with pop culture joy was Outerworlds, though this outdoes it!

Meme-wise, there are loads of great references and stills that I’d like to see take off, but it has been so much of a sleep hit, at least in my social media circle, that I can’t see any runaway memes yet.

Basically, any of Aiba's comments are funny out of context, at one point, she's just sat in a box, because that's what she does.... But until they get more exposure, we'll just have to wait and see.

In co

clusion, a beautifully paced detective mystery with an interesting puzzle mechanic. Definately more story over gameplay, as there is little difficulty, other than some of the Somniums, which require backtracking and time-saving items to complete. Free on X-box Game Pass at the moment, it is very much worth a look, these charcters will stick with you for a long time....

75 Millie points