I just finished watching wingupingu play the game after having first played it myself over a year ago, and he posted some thoughts here himself, go check it out. I liked AI when I first played it, but I also found it to be somewhat overhyped and this watch confirmed it to me. Don’t get me wrong, I think there’s some incredibly witty writing and it still evoked plenty of laughs from me the second time around, and I continue to appreciate the themes of familial love presented in Ota’s and Mizuki’s routes. The final Somnium in Ota’s route is probably the most vivid memory of the game I’ve had for its emotional impact and it still got me worked up, although it didn’t help that it tied into a personal experience I had earlier this year.

On the other hand, Iris may be entertaining as a character, but I found her actual relevance to the plot kind of weak. I know people like to meme on that one guy who review-bombed the game for all the bad stuff that happens to Iris, but she really does lack agency for the main heroine and there’s a few parts of her suffering that seem pretty tangential to the main plot, existing mainly to prompt pity. Apparently her mother Hitomi was originally written to be the main heroine until she was swapped out for Iris, and you can really feel the struggle to justify Iris having a large role despite not having much direct involvement with the actual plot.

The true ending also kind of drags due to an abundance of flashbacks. I actually really do like a few emotional scenes during the true end route, but it does get drowned out by some contrived plot twists. AI tries a little too hard to make a happy ending as possible for everybody involved, and while I wouldn’t say it’s tonally incoherent with the lighthearted sections from earlier in the game, it does cause some stuff to lose impact.

This probably makes it sound like I dislike AI when I really don’t. I don’t think it’s wrong for a game like AI to be easily digestible and more focused on making the player smile than being difficult to decipher or thematically dense. But I’ve also seen enough people gush on the positive sides of this game that I don’t feel the need to join the choir, rather addressing some of the shortcomings I don’t really see people talk about as much. It’s a fun time, just don’t let the hype overtake you.

although somnium files is sort of a mess, it still does have a great narrative and (a few) loveable characters. the presentation of the story made some routes far more enjoyable than the others that started to feel redundant—and boring, depending on how much you like iris i guess. all in all, most of the independent stories were heartwarming and i would still recommend this game if you’re up for checking it out and are able to endure some parts of the ‘humor’

mizuki is my beloved, aiba and date are my new mom and dad, and the art direction and ost were banger so almost all is forgiven tbh <3 👍 if anything, play it for the end credits cutscene, it's worth it

Tras shelvearlo durante unos días porque no podía más, he de decir que tras 28 horas de juego, las 5 remontan el Uchikoshi que más me gusta, el problema es que para llegar me llevó 23 horas.
Mis principales problemas están en el ritmo (Uchikoshi diciéndome Sabias Ques de la revista Muy Interesante, el juego recordándome líneas de diálogo de hace 10 minutos y que me resuman backstories que me acaba de explicar el personaje relacionado con ellas [tqm Aiba pero acabo de leer lo que me estás resumiendo]) y los personajes, aunque básicos en concepto y hayan tardado, han acabado haciéndose un hueco en mi disfrute del juego (Mención especial a Mizuki aunque sale menos de lo que me esperaba sin saber del juego e Iris) aunque este juego a veces se cebe con las mismas 5 bromas verdes (Haciendo que pierda interes por personajes como Date, que siendo el principal, es un problema aunque Aiba le haga de balance moral, sigue siendo asi durante el 80% del juego). Siento que mecánicamente le sobran mecánicas como QTEs y que debería quizás haberse aproximado más a una visual novel más tradicional.
Los somnium molan, me gusta su estética y mecánicas pero a veces pecan de ser un poco crueles con su gestión del tiempo y que nunca sabes que acción va a causar que que haga avanzar el puzzle.
El flowchart le hace más mal a este juego que bien, porque es el principal causante de que el ritmo de este juego dependa mucho de tus decisiones, pues te llevará o más o menos tiempo llegar a el gancho de la historia detectivesca dependiendo de tus decisiones, que he de decir, su resolución está bien pero pase la mayor parte del juego sin importarme quien podría ser el culpable.
La música esta bien pero la mayor parte del soundtrack me ha dejado indiferente, siendo música que in-game esta bien como fondo pero no escucharía a excepción de unos pocos BANGERS
La historia para resumir mi opinión: es buena, lo es, pero se hace terriblemente lenta y hasta que no empieza a conectar hilos no te das cuenta de que "Eh esto mola bastante" y pues esos hilos tardan lo suyo en conectar por cosas como el ritmo o ir a sitios en los que pasan cosas y hablas con gente de manera repetida.
Algún día le daré al 2, no pronto porque cuesta lo suyo y estoy saturado de Uchikoshi por ahora, pero tengo ganas de ver por que dirección va la historia y como mejorara este juego (O empeorará) lo que no me convence de este primero.
Me van a ejecutar en la plaza del pueblo por gustarme más ZTD pero es que ese juego tiene a Carlos (Y este a Kagami pero Carlos le gana sorry)

Won't say too much about this as there's a lot of spoiler stuff I'd rather not get into even with the spoiler warning tag but easily the best work of Uchikoshi's, not even close.

I enjoyed 999 and I can kinda understand why people enjoy VLR (personally I didn't) but I think this is a far stronger cast and story he's put out than any of the Nonary games. On top of that I didn't hate nearly any of the 'Somnium' sections of the game as opposed to some of the nonary games' puzzle rooms which I thought were pretty hit or miss.

Its still an Uchikoshi game at heart so its filled to the brim with contrived/stupid plot points, characters and jokes but I think it's tied together by writing that takes its time more often to actually develop said characters meaningfully. I liked quite a bit of the nonary characters through and through but if I had to be honest there's only a handful that I truly cared about or enjoyed thoroughly. Like comparing Date to Junpei doesn't feel too fair because Date has way more time to talk about his shenanigans/vices/bits than Junpei can being in a sinking ship, but ultimately that's why AI is gonna stick harder in my head than most of the nonary titles. There's way more down time for a good chunk of the cast to actually get thoughts out and talk about their lives and role in the greater narrative ̶r̶a̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶n̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶e̶r̶r̶u̶p̶t̶ ̶m̶e̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶h̶o̶w̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶g̶a̶m̶e̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶t̶a̶n̶g̶e̶n̶t̶i̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶r̶e̶l̶a̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶m̶e̶t̶a̶p̶h̶y̶s̶i̶c̶a̶l̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶c̶e̶p̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶u̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶f̶u̶c̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶v̶i̶s̶u̶a̶l̶ ̶n̶o̶v̶e̶l̶ ̶k̶n̶o̶w̶n̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶m̶a̶n̶ ̶y̶e̶t̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶b̶a̶r̶e̶l̶y̶ ̶r̶e̶l̶e̶v̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶w̶h̶a̶t̶s̶o̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶a̶c̶t̶u̶a̶l̶ ̶g̶o̶d̶d̶a̶m̶n̶ ̶p̶l̶o̶t̶. Hell even the corny jokes hit harder as the game goes along since you revisit locations constantly and there's usually a few running gags that felt rewarding to see each time they changed the flavor text.

Date and his gang are an enjoyably obnoxious mix of cringe and stupid non-jokes that I honestly can't help but love. Aiba and Mizuki are extremely good foils for Date's cringe/perverted/dad-joke tangents, and Iris is pretty good at deflecting these as well during her route.

Somnium sections are alright although I do think the """time limit""" they impose, while not too bad, does hamper enjoyment. There's times I know one option might lead to funny bit/flavor text, but I don't have much time on the clock to waste on them. Thankfully its easy to super speed through dialogue/scenes you've already seen but I wish you could explore somniums more thoroughly without worrying about spending too much time.

I think the best thing I can about AI is that when I finished 999 and got partways into VLR I started thinking they could have just stopped at 999 and it would have felt stronger (hell if VLR was stand alone i feel like it could have been better). In contrast, I feel as though AI is not only a breath of fresh air for Uchikoshi's style of writing but also has a world/cast that's more ready for a sequel. Incredibly excited to see what Nirvana Initiative brings.

AI: The Somnium Files is what happens when Kotaro Uchikoshi is given the budget needed to execute his vision. The final result is a “visual novel” with one of the most tightly-written detective thriller stories i have ever gone through, accompanied by great characters, visuals and one of the best english dubs of any videogame.
Usually, I would start with the main attraction of a certain game (in this case being the story), but since I have quite a lot to say about that, I’ll first knock the gameplay out. The gameplay is quite good in my opinion. It is split in two different categories, the investigation part and the somnium exploration part, both of whom are compelling for different reasons. The investigation part taps into that engaging loop of any detective game: finding clues in crime scenes, tying them together and confronting suspects in interrogations with the right evidence. They’re more short-burst and don’t overstay their welcome as a result. There are also some QTE action sequences that are entertaining thanks to the writing. The meat and bones of the gameplay however are the somnium levels. Investigating crime scenes isn’t quite enough to uncover the truth, so you are tasked to dive into the minds of characters to gather more information. These levels are the result of that and they’re basically puzzles. You are given 6 minutes to solve these “puzzle rooms”, as well as “timies” that help with making the time more manageable. The “puzzle” stays with managing your timies wisely to make it out in time, as well as making the right decisions that strike the right balance of “out of the box”, “somewhat logical” and fit with the theme and narrative given by the game before the somnium. Yes, there will be some trial and error involved, but they’re nowhere near as ridiculous as some others make it seem to be. These somniums are very much carried by their excellent writing, atmosphere and aesthetic. They do a good job of keeping you engaged in the narrative.
Of course, the real highlight of the game has to be the story. It has all the hallmarks of an Uchikoshi story and they’re all at their best here. The main mystery is fantastic and intriguing the entire way through, with Uchikoshi expertly weaving characters and each of their own personal narratives and personalities into the mystery and making you question every clue given to you. Every action is logical and in-character and every plot twist is well foreshadowed beforehand and never feels unearned. The characters are all amazing, from the main protagonist Kaname Date to the side-characters, whether they be important or less important. Exploring all the branching routes makes you care and be attached to these layered and three-dimensional characters, with their own personal arcs, personalities and relationships, enforced even more emotionally through some characters having their somniums that you can tackle. The main themes present in this game are love, family and emotional trauma, each one of which is present and executed with authenticity and respect in every route of the game. The story also strikes a perfect tonal balance between serious and comedy. The comedy is amazing, as it got me laughing consistently whenever it showed up, mostly in the form of character banter that made the characters even more memorable. The serious moments are also written excellently, as I felt either engrossed, creeped out or extremely emotional many times through the games. I even cried twice during the story, and if a story has the power to make me feel this way, then you have done a great job at being compelling. The story and characters are elevated to another universe thanks to the music and voice-acting. The soundtrack is fantastic the entire way, with each track striking different emotional levels, from catchy to creepy to cheerful to intense to sad, and they help elevate the atmosphere and immersion with the story throughout the game. The voice-acting is some of the best the industry has to offer. Every performance is authentic and not once does it take you off the experience. You don’t hear the voice actors in this game, you hear their characters and performances are judged based on how blurry the line between these two are. The voice direction is also something worth praising, as the story goes as far as to foreshadow aspects of it purely from vocal performance, as the voice actors are able to transform their voice on a dime to suit the story. Some of my favourite moments in this game are a result of being blown away by the voice-acting.
The visuals are also great. Don’t let that Unity watermark at the beginning of the game fool you, the artstyle of this game is really good. It nicely manages to bring to life the 2D anime aesthetic with 3D models, with each setting (real or somnium) having a distinct look and atmosphere to them. The UI and menu design is also great throughout, with each menu being essentially an homage to police procedural or detective tropes (Flowchart menu being a planning and evidence presentation board, collectible logs looking like case files out of a shelf in a police office, options menu looking like a patient log and so much more). It is unnecessary attention to detail that helps you be more immersed in the vibe and setting of the game.
I had high expectations for this game and Uchikoshi took those expectations, shot them to the stratosphere and told me I should have had them there. AI The Somnium Files is not just one of the best detective stories i have experienced, but also one of the best videogame narratives I have experienced period. It is a masterclass showcase on the possibilities and creativity that this format offers to storytelling and Uchikoshi takes full advantage of it yet again. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for an immersive murder mystery story, great characters, voice-acting, music and for a rather unique “puzzle-exploration” type gameplay experience. I cried twice during this game and danced to one of the greatest endings ever, and so will you!

AI: The Somnium Files

This game is very tonedeaf, it oscillates between comedic and dramatic moments almost feeling as if the game is having an identity crisis, it can't DECIDE whether it wants to be over the top goofy or tell a compelling sci-fi murder mystery, or rather the game wants to be over the top goofy all the time but has a murder crime that's so sinister in nature that it doesn't fit well

(Except for Iris's route) the Psyncs are the highlight of this game, and they are also the only time the goofy-over-the-top nature blends well with the dreamlike logic, sometimes it's frustrating when you perform a meaningless action and get a time penalty but the factor of "Timies" makes it very interesting,

Also branching routes by how you engage within a Psync is a very solid idea, Aibo herself is a pretty damn likable character so it's fun to play as her in these segments

Where the Psyncs perhaps fail is that it's entirely trial and error sometimes, which given it's a dream I can't complain much about, but even something such as performing the same action twice (for example to a hole in a tree then in a different hole in a tree) you could trigger wildly different outcomes for progression, but as aforementioned the Timies reduce this frustration because they allow you to cutdown on the time for the main thing you're supposed to do in the Psync

Also to be fair there's only ever so much you can do in a Psync and you usually end up getting it right before it gets frustrating

Uchikoshi's biggest weakness has always been characters and even though there are some truly despicable garbage ones here, I enjoyed that he stepped out of his comfort zone on more than one occasion, besides Iris and Ota (or Mizuki when she's acting up) the cast is actually not subpar, there's some unique interactions you can have by clicking around the environment that got a smile out of me every now and then, but those moments can be counted on one hand
3/5 routes are utter nonsense garbage, but the final 2 routes are actually pretty cool, I enjoyed the final murderer reveal (and the Psync to get to him was also decently challenging albeit the factory itself was not that pleasing to look at)
The infodump is there, but it's broken up into small doses so you're ever only bored occasionally (and it's very easy to speed through these)

Extras:

-I liked the Mayumi final Psync in Ota's route, it's not much of anything and it's easy to find it melodramatic but seeing a mother struggle in a world that confuses her and trying the best for her family is surprisingly good to me, also the OST that plays in that segment ++

-OSTs in general are fine

-Dialogues options are bloated, sometimes you have to click the same option multiple times to continue the same thought for the character which seemed pointless, at one point I would look for the story relevant dialogue option so I could trigger the conversation ending option and didn't have to talk to the character anymore

-Presentation is good, but it's unpolished in many areas, still I can't be ungrateful atleast it doesnt look like VLR

-Despite the fact that both me and Fahim guessed the twist pretty early, the reveal was still fresh, solid and creatively executed with a compelling antagonist

-Sometimes there are cutscenes that play in their entirety, like everytime you go somewhere you have to sit through this shitty car cutscene which I just ctrl'd on instinct, other times Ota will be fed omelette rice and you have to watch the whole thing like, thrice in the entire game, there's also this cutscene where {a person gets killed near the warehouse in the past} and they show the entire video of the stabbing again and again,

These happen rarely but you really can't give the ctrl button a break in this game for a sensible experience

-The Yakuza were cringe

Do I recommend it? I can't say really, the first route is bad to the point where I expected nothing but a letdown, Iris is a horrible character and brings the quality of the experience WAAAAAAY down, but if you can stick with it and burn through the first 3 routes then I can say the reveal feels like all the effort you put in was worth it,

What you're getting is a lighthearted mystery VN so walk in with manageable expectations and you won't be extra disappointed, also for a Uchikoshi VN it's actually surprisingly small in it's scope and ends before it drags

A review on steam captures in a few sentences what the fundamental drawback of the game is:
"In the middle of incredibly climactic and dramatic moments, the tension will be dissolved immediately by bizzare antics, often with played-out "power of friendship" moments."

This game has left conflicting feelings inside of me. For one part, I like it, I like the characters and thought it was fun especially when things went down, but the other part of me wishes it was better in some regards, in the script, in the world around this futuristic version of Tokyo and most importantly, in its pacing.

Like how other reviewer said in this very site, I liked it but I wish I loved it. It's a very good murder mystery, but it's no Zero Escape. It takes a very long time to set in and put you in a spot where you just want to read more and more, ESPECIALLY if you go down the right route in the first Psync sequence, it's like they never meant for you to go down there in the first place if you haven't experienced half of the game because of how lame it feels as they don't introduce you correctly to a lot of concepts and the characters.

And, about Psyncing, I'm bittersweet about it, for one part it felt right coming from Zero Escape, having these small puzzle-solving sequences to continue further in the story seemed neat, until it wasn't.
I get that the puzzles are supposed to be in a dream world where only vague reconstructions of our memories take place in, but that doesn't equal to a good puzzle-solving experience, in Somnia, everything is so bizarre and arbitrary that sometimes you don't know how to start in doing certain things while also causing confusion, and it doesn't help at all that the time system forbids you from completing all actions and just looking for all dialogue inside of these. Sometimes they felt like a roadblock in an otherwise smooth experience, when I knew I had to enter a Somnium at some point I rolled my eyes because I thought again of having to stress over saving TIMIEs and making sure I'm doing everything in order so I don't run out of time doing many actions. It feels poor and without much reason.

My problems with the script are mainly how fast the tone-shifting is in this game, you see somebody die then two scenes after Date is already lusting and doing some weird stuff, and I normally wouldn't have a problem with it but it happens so often in-between what's supposed to be serious and delicate situations that it just makes me wonder how worth it was it to keep there and not for some comedic relief in another time entirely.

I'm pretty sure an Uchikoshi happened again and he (and his team) didn't have enough budget to make a very ambitious title, as you can see they recycle the same overworld places, animations (That are very stiff, by the way! Making action scenes very awkward), models and other things, I won't blame it on him but I just wish there was more to amplify the world that these characters inhabit because moving from ABIS to Matsushita Diner to Marble got repetitive very quick, as you can see.

In the other hand though, the story was well thought out, classic for Kotaro Uchikoshi. Its not his best work but he did a good job on writing it, I just wish it did more towards the direction it was heading, the sequel looks promising just because of that, so we'll see!

AI: The Somnium Files was created by Kotaro Uchikoshi, the writer and director of the Zero Escape Trilogy. If you haven’t played those games, stop reading this and go play them. Quit your job if you have to. Do it .I happen to be an enormous fan of that series, and have been known for incessantly badgering everyone in a 100 foot radius into picking up the games.

I was excited that Uchikoshi was taking another crack at his signature visual novel/3D puzzle-style games within a new IP, this time as a detective story instead of horror. While I wasn’t quite in the mood to play it when it launched in September 2019, I pre-ordered it to show my support for one of my favorite game makers and finally got into it a few days ago. As one of the biggest fans of Zero Escape in the world, AI: The Somnium Files did not disappoint.

Read this review with pictures here: https://gandheezy.medium.com/ai-the-somnium-files-review-576b0350a2fd

Following in the footsteps of Zero Escape, AI is a twisting, branching story that leads to several different endings that are all simultaneously canon. Much like the second Zero Escape game, Virtue’s Last Reward, a flowchart can be accessed at any time to jump between timelines, scenes, events and dialogue. While many games offer the branching paths leading to different endings, very few demand that all endings be accessed before the player can even understand where to look for the true ending. As I said, all the branches are canon, and I can’t really tell you how without spoiling it.

Our story begins when Shoko Nadami, a former friend of protagonist detective Kaname Date, is found dead on a Merry-Go-Round with her eye gouged out. Things only become more complicated; Shoko is the birth mother of Date’s adopted daughter, the feisty and determined Mizuki. Date’s partner in this near-future sci-fi investigation is Aiba, an AI that lives in Date’s artificial eyeball. She is merged with his consciousness and serves as a faithful companion throughout the story, and her back-and-forth with Date leads to some pretty solid comedy. The game opens up with a visual novel section (fully voiced in English with great voice acting) and then turns us to our first puzzle.

I’ll be the first to admit, the puzzles are the weakest part of AI. The setup is rather complex, but essentially each puzzle sends Aiba into another person’s mind (their “somnium”) via the PSYNC machine, a secret project by the Japanese government housed in Date’s department, ABIS. Aiba physically manifests into a human girl, and the player controls her as she tackles the multilayered and multi-ending puzzles in dream-like 3D space. Entering the PSYNC machine has a catch though; it can only work for 6 minutes, or 360 seconds before deactivating. You only have that long to deactivate all “mental locks” to enter the subject’s dream.

When Aiba approaches an object, she’s given a choice to do three or four things, with a “time consumed” marker next to each one and what’s called a TIMIE. TIMIEs are bonuses that can be stored to decrease time consumed for later tasks; for example if you kicked a bucket and it consumed 10 seconds but awarded a 1/3 TIMIE, you could use that to fill the bucket up with water and decrease the consumed time from 60 seconds to 20. It actually makes for a pretty interesting mind game, choosing where to use your three stored TIMIEs and where to take the hit on time, but the puzzles kind of falter in making it clear what to actually do.

There are often five or more interact-able objects at once, each with several options on how to interact, so AI kind of encourages players to trial-and-error the puzzles. Every time you choose the wrong interaction, you lose precious time. You’re allowed three charges to restart at any of the checkpoints during the puzzles, but the farther back you go the more charges consumed. If you don’t make it out in time, you’ll start the whole puzzle over.

On the first few puzzles that were a bit easier, I had fun trying things out and seeing what happened. However, as time went on, I was less enthused about brute forcing the puzzles and started using a guide. Many puzzles actually have two solutions, leading to branching story paths, so it’ll definitely take a while to beat this game if you do it all organically. I think simply giving the player an infinite number of restart charges for checkpoints would have actually made the whole thing more fun; I understand the concept of introducing the fear element of running out of time, but I just got frustrated every time I couldn’t crack a puzzle on the first one or two tries.

The story ended up being pretty fascinating, and if you’re ready to give it the same suspension of disbelief you would to other near-future Sci-fi like Star Trek, Deus Ex, or Prey, you’ll find it’s a pretty tightly crafted script. Working with multiple timelines that must all remain distinct yet feed into each other is complex, and the fact that Uchikoshi managed to nail it again is certainly encouraging that more games of this type may appear one day.

I was a bit put off by some of the characters, such as Iris and Ota, near the beginning, but by the end of finishing my first timeline (of six) I was heavily invested in them. I suggest giving the characters a few hours to grow on you; Aiba and Mizuki are especially wonderfully written and very engaging right from the start.

The dialogue is wonderfully quippy almost all the time; but it does slow down to let the serious moments land. As I mentioned before, the voice acting is much better than I expected in English, so I suggest using that language option. While the mystery unfolds you’ll meet all kinds of people, from congressman to the Yakuza to a Minecraft streamer to a fabulous drag queen.

Also, interesting note, AI has found a lot of traction within the LGBT+ community; it features a few sexual minority characters and several conversations even take place about LGBT+ rights and public view. It was refreshing and totally unexpected in a Japanese visual novel, so kudos to Uchikoshi for being a little more progressive, I suppose.

I will also advise caution on the Nintendo Switch version of the game, as some pretty serious compromises were made to get it to run. Docked, it runs at 720p 30 FPS, and drops to even lower resolution in handheld. The FPS also isn’t stable in either method, and regularly drops to 20 or so. This isn’t really the dealbreaker it would be for most games, as it’s a visual novel for the most part, so I powered through. Being able to play handheld in bed was nice! But looking back I wish I had purchased it on Steam or PS4. The loading times were pretty egregious on Switch as well.

AI: The Somnium Files is a weird game in a weird transitional space, and clearly shows Uchikoshi’s willingness to branch off from what was successful in the past. Even though it doesn’t all work, I greatly admire what the team at Spike Chunsoft put together and am extremely impressed at how well they handled such an overly complex story. I had those moments of epiphany seconds before the reveal like you want in any good detective story, as well as the satisfaction of some of my theories being correct well in advance. Other theories I had were… not so correct, but that’s the fun of it. While the puzzles fell short for me, especially in comparison to those from Zero Escape, I had a great time after getting sucked in and couldn’t put it down all weekend. I legitimately can’t believe a sequel is coming next spring, and is still being directed by Uchikoshi even after his departure from Spike Chunsoft; the next game has the potential to be a mind-bender for the ages. I recommend AI to anyone who’s enjoyed Zero Escape or its partner series Danganronpa, or to anyone looking for a crazy mystery that will test the limits of their imagination.

The master of red herrings strikes back!

I can’t believe it! I really loved 999 and VLR so much and I didn’t expect this one to be such a fantastic experience after the rather disappointing third installment of Zero Escape (that doesn’t exist by the way).

Since everyone else mentioned the great story, the amazing characters, the fantastic soundtrack and the fun puzzle rooms, let me highlight something else:

AI: The Somnium Files is only half as good if you don’t recognize most of the video game, anime and movie references. Loved how entire sequences were almost 100% replicates of MGS moments. It is filled with countless other video game, anime or movie references like Rocky, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Dragon Ball, Zero Escape, Danganronpa, Steins;Gate, Dragon Quest, Animal Crossing, Puyo Puyo, Ace Attorney, The Ring, The Terminator, Toy Story, Star Wars, Space Invaders, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or the most obvious one: Minecraft

What a love letter to classic pop culture. And what a marvelous game this is. I can’t wait for its sequel!