some dialogues are too annoying and cringe, a protoganist who loves porn magazines is sometimes unbearable and his AI support Aiba sometimes uses this weakness against him and these scenes are too cringe… but story is still fun because dream and detective concepts are cleverly mixed and it makes you think about what will happen in the future so i felt satisfied with story

the gameplay is good for a Visual Novel, the somnium is the most enjoyable place in the game, i describe the somnium shortly by saying, the somnium is a place where we reveal people’s secrets, there are mental locks and we unlock this mental locks in the six minutes… if people don’t be honest with us, we reveal their secrets by the hard way, honestly i love that concept, it's a easy solution.

a decently adequate vn where in the moment i found it intriguing but after finishing it and putting it down it’s occurred to me that i probably won’t be pondering on this one very much compared to contemporaries of similar premise and tone. the game is very much beating you over the head with comfort food themes like found family and how we define it, and there’s nothing necessarily wrong with a game being feel-good comfort food, but i don’t think it was something i was looking for right now, nor was there much room to think on it for myself.

certain major plot beats were neat enough to put together but by the time the game actually gets around to explaining them it feels like it’s dragging its feet while throwing in the flashback i’ve already seen for the third or fourth time. on certain routes it does feel like it goes nowhere, which i suppose is the point of those as they’re intended to be more emotional resolutions (or lack thereof) and some bare hints at plot twists than its own narrative conclusions. i was curious to see how the game would attempt to tie up and reconcile said emotional resolutions from its other paths to its final one, only to get what felt like some meager throwaway lines rather than an effective synthesis of everything the game has built up to.

the dubbed voice acting runs the gamut from mediocre performances (hitomi and iris) to some up to par ones (date) but even the good voice acting has some hiccups in direction here and there.

the entire animation budget went into dance numbers and you can tell.

For me, AI: The Somnium Files benefits greatly from the fact that it is significantly more character-focused than any of Uchikoshi's recent works. It also helps that it's brilliantly localized, making it also one of the most funny games I've ever played. Everyone is a little stupid and a little bit of a freak, and the game rewards you with near-endless fun dialogue for poking around in its often dense environments. And on top of that, the main plot holds up well to its predecessors, even if it's not able to reach the lofty peaks those mysteries were able to hit.

Somniums could use some work, QTEs should be ditched altogether, there is a tad too much perving at times, the animations need some polish, and ultimately I think including the flowchart jumping aspect was unnecessary here. But despite its flaws, AI is easily one of my favorite adventure games of all time, and there are a lot of aspects here that I think other games could stand to learn from.

It has high highs, and ridiculously low lows. It has the bones of a good sci-fi detective mystery, it has a lot of interesting moving pieces, and it has some very good ideas. But ultimately it fumbles them in its execution as it attempts to act similar to Phoenix Wright's comedic tone, when the game functions better as a serious crime thriller. The comedy as well largely hinges on half the jokes being toward or in spite of women compared to Phoenix Wright, which makes the game much like the Yakuza series, something that I cannot in any good faith ever recommend to any of my woman friends.

Iris route is really bad, both in how it barely serves to forward the plot until the true ending, as well as how Iris can really grate on the player when she isn't just a side character. The fact you can choose Iris route first purely by a 50/50 coin flip at the start of the game can make the game rough to play. It is hard to describe just how much better Mizuki route is.

There are some really good and solid characters that are dragged down by some legitimately really awful ones with Aiba and Date's relationship being a highlight. Visuals and style could be beautiful, but also rough around the edges as it was clear they were working with a small budget. Playing around with dreams could be quite interesting but many puzzles were guesswork as a result. The action sequences could be funny, but were generally pretty bad. There was a lot of heart in here, but... Overall... Weakest of the big Mystery VNs in my opinion.

This is like if Danganronpa and Zero Escape had a weird love child, where it has a lot of the charm of Danganronpa and the mystery plot of Zero Escape. But on top of that, it also have the most childish humor of all those games and for me that was fine and right up my alley but I can see it grating for some people.
The main thing stopping the game from being rated higher is I wasn't a fan of the dialogue options at times, it just felt very drawn out, and I wasn't the biggest fan of Somniums, compared to Danganronpa trials and Zero Escape puzzles, its easily the weakest gameplay mechanic of the three.

Hilarious end credits scene lmao

The credit sequence came so out of nowhere it actually helped me properly appreciate the vibe the game was actually going for.

AI The Somnium Files is this interesting yet wacky puzzle game where you’re essentially trying to solve a serial killer case through some Sci-Fi gizmos and shenanigans. The actual science being used shouldn’t be taken too seriously, but it's logically coherent enough under its own premise that it's easy to get invested. This description can also apply to the rest of the game since despite the game dealing with some serious matters like child neglect, underworld dealings, and mental illnesses, there’s this whimsical atmosphere to it where the game never gets too depressing as it peppers itself with some light hearted moments. Many would argue that this is essentially the game having many tonal whiplashes, but maybe you’re just weak and can’t comprehend the erratic human nature.

I have no big issues with AITSF, it's just that after a while it kinda lost me. While the characters have good and funny conversations none of them really stand out to me, and the investigation segments that take up a vast majority of the gameplay get dull after a couple routes.
Often times the somnium segments feel more like throwing random guesses at a wall to see what works than a real conscious effort for me to try and solve a puzzle like with the Zero Escape series or other crimesolving visual novels. I understand that the whole "we're in a dream it's supposed to be random" thing is in the plot, but it doesn't make it any more fun. I'm guessing the timer exists to pressure me into thinking more before I interact with something, but it just has the effect of making me feel frustrated for wasting time, both in and out of game.

So, there's a lot to appreciate about this game. There's the memorable and loveable characters, who all have excellent visual designs and are complimented by an awesome English dub. There's the music, which hauls its weight in regards to creating an atmosphere that can go from tense and noir-esque to lighthearted and quirky without missing a beat. There's the theming: the failure of bureaucracy and institutions, the nature of identity and what makes us who we are, and the nature of truth, wonderfully symbolized by eyes.
But what I really want to talk about is how AI plays with its genre, and how it connects to Uchikoshi's earlier works to create a story that builds off the author's prior works to create his best yet.
Now, one could say that nearly every Uchikoshi work has about the same underlying genre: sci-fi mystery. But they're not identifiably so from the onset. For example, Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors is a Saw-esque escape room story, while Ever 17 and Remember 11 are about trying to survive in an isolated environment.
AI, conversely, is a sci-fi mystery and nothing but. This creates a set of expectations that the VN then soundly subverts. You'd think that an Uchikoshi story that turns his usual "underlying" genre into the "overlaying" genre would be more mysterious, more scientifically ambitious. But it's not. Instead, he uses genre conventions to create a story that's more introspective and contemplative, much more concerned with the question of "why?" than any of Uchikoshi's previous works.
This is partly where the VN's strength in character writing comes in. While other Uchikoshi stories have solid enough characters, this is a notable step up for him. Much of that is precisely because this VN places so much more emphasis on character over plot. But it's also because of how the characters relate to the themes of identity and truth that makes them seem so, well, real.
And, of course, the way the VN plays with genre conventions is just as much related to the plot as it is to the characters. A common complaint this story gets is that the plot is a little too predictable, that it's not a wildly erratic as some of Uchikoshi's other works. But it uses this weakness to its advantage. As the truth becomes increasingly obvious even before it's revealed, the VN begins to question what it really means, if the truth is worth revealing in full at all.
Another great example of how the VN plays with expectations relates to the culprit. Without saying too much, there's a moment where it seems, at first, that Uchikoshi has broken what is commonly regarded as one of Van Dine's single most important Commandments (if you don't know what those are, look them up... or read Umineko). It seems cruel trickery at first, until you notice the pattern. But by the time you have, so has Date. And not only that, he may have just figured out exactly what it means.
Regardless, this smart, borderline self-aware VN is surely incredible on its own, but is even better in the context of Uchikoshi's previous work. Here, he finally dials back the wild unpredictability of his plots to look more inward, and the results are just as awesome as they sound.
Also, if you don't get up and dance and sing along with the finale, you are soulless.

A neo-noir murder mystery game, AI: The Somnium Files is largely defined by cathartic emotional resolutions, which I value a lot in a story. The main plot focuses on the central theme of how the different forms of love people show towards others affect their relationships, and as such, the main cast is easily the game's strongest quality. Nearly all of the main characters are multilayered, entertaining, and absurdly realistic; many of them deal with recognizable issues such as childhood trauma, the struggle of parenting, police corruption, dementia, and more. Balancing that out, however, is the humor, which is almost always top-notch. I can't remember the last time a game made me laugh or cry as hard as AI.

I love this game. From start to finish it lived up every good thing I'd heard over the years and more. The only complaint I have is the somnium sections being irritatingly designed at times, but it was never enough to detract or spoil my mood whilst playing since they were thankfully short

The characters were fun and the plot was masterfully crafted with unexpected twists and turns at every corner to create a mystery that gets bigger and bigger the longer you play, until all coming together at the end for a super satisfying conclusion. Absolutely incredible

feel like i came out of a fugue state where i came out of this and somehow thought "huh, pretty good". i don't want to think too hard about how i came to that conclusion, so i will just continue to have it!!

and its probably better than zero escape bc its an adventure game thats dumb in different and (mostly) good ways instead of being dumb in...yknow, the zero escape way. ai even makes fun of it for that in the iris route and its so fucking funny to think about that i will give uchikoshi SOME credit, just this once.