That was very fun! I really liked the Somniums themselves the most because of the way they were designed. The Somniums also perfectly display the two halves of AI: The Somnium files which is Crime drama mixing light-hearted humor. The Psychological sense and strange design vibe in these somniums also go super hard.

The split between the more light-hearted comedy and full-on human drama might turn some people off. I thought this double-edged nature made the game more interesting and unique.

The route structure is used nicely too. Slowly uncovering different facets of the story through the use of these split-up routes made it even more enjoyable for when things came together.


Curious as to what the sequel is going to be like.
Don't have much else to say, i had a good time. Aiba <3

Overall a very good game but falls short story-wise compared to the nonary games.

The psynch mechanic sucks, and the second to last somnium is one of the worst videogame designs I've seen in my entire life.

I must say, the game until it starts branching was a solid 10 for me, since I was having more fun at that moment than with the nonary games, but the more the story progresses the more I realize how much more they could have done with what they had.

I get creating a funnier game with a different tone, but a lot of times it tries SO HARD to be funny and weird (action scenes, precisely) that it completely destroys the seriousness of the story.

kaname date stinky old man.

If you liked Zero Escape, or any of Uchikoshi's other works, the odds are that you'll at least enjoy AITSF. It's writing style can be polarising, particularly due to it's obsession with injecting crude, pointless jokes at the inappropriate times. At times though, the game can be incredibly funny and engaging, and every now and then it does know when to lean back on the humour, and there are several emotional moments scattered throughout the game.

The narrative is intriguing, and the climax of the game is n amazing example of everything 'clicking' - As the game quickly and smartly provides you the final details you need to properly piece everything together, resulting in an immensely satisfying final sequence.

The Somnium sequences, the games only 'gameplay' sections, can be counter-intuitive, and annoying at times, particularly if you're aiming for all of the game's achievements. The Somniums certainly don't reach the heights of Zero Escape's escape rooms, particularly due to the relative lack of logic, as a direct result of the Somnium's being dreams, that don't follow the rules of the real world.

(Very minor and vague spoilers unrelated to any mystery, character, or plot stuff)

I really enjoyed this game. I only have really one major criticism that I felt actively detracted from the experience and that is that all of the action scenes save for one are really bad, and the one not bad one is just serviceable. Good thing, it's the one that actually needs to land for the story to land and the others can be brushed off as gag scenes, but the thing is they are gag scenes which are used to overcome actual problems in certain routes.

It was kind of funny the first time when the fight scene got solved by porno mags but then it happens every. single. time. after.

That's not to even mention how it severely stretches believability how certain individuals can just beat dozens of enemies armed with rifles with nothing more than a melee weapon. Even if there is an attempt to justify their strength, it doesn't work as an actual action scene.

Every single action scene I had to basically go "ok, I guess their budget/time schedule couldn't be used to make these action scenes actually good so they had to resort to making do with what they had time/money for." Because it FEELS in these scenes like they were trying to get around the limitations of what they were working with. IDK the context of the studio or anything like that, but that's the only explanation that makes sense to me otherwise I really want to know what creative director would OK "Lets make all of our action scenes terrible, unbelievable jokes." It took me out of it every time.

Even the serviceable action scene has one problem that I disliked that felt like they were trying to skert by their engine limitations, but it was forgivable in the grand scheme of things.

Besides that, the characters, atmosphere, comedy, is all good. The mystery is fantastic and seeing it all come together the way it does throughout a playthrough is great.

One thing that limited the story from being 9/10 or 10/10 to me was that the main theme of the game isn't particularly complex or interesting. It's done well enough, but this game is definitely not as concerned with having interesting themes than it is having an engaging mystery and lovable characters that you care about. Which is the opposite of what sci fi traditionally is.

Another thing related to platforms, IDK if it's like this on all systems, but the Switch port performance was pretty bad for a visual novel. They have this thing where previous scenes are played in the current scene to remind you of previous events, and it takes time to load every time. Usually this is like -0.5-2 seconds, but for certain scenes characters will stop talking for what feels like 10 seconds before the scene loads and says "damn I really ate fruity pebbles for breakfast" like you didn't already know that. Sometimes the scene isn't even reminding you of anything and it's just showing a location people are talking about. And the loading screens in general can cause the flow of certain scenes to feel off. Probably/hopefully a problem limited to the switch version.

Overall great Visual Novel.