By all intents and purposes I should have really liked AI: The Somnium Files. By all intents and purposes I should be rating this 3.5 or 4. But I honestly cant.
The first half of playing this was great as I plowed through the various goings ons, following the murder mysteries and trying to make sense of who the culprit could be. Its fun piecing together the various strands and backstories to create this tapestry of whodunnit.
Then something happened, the game basically did a one two punch that made me just want to skip through to get to the ending.
What happened was hitting two endings. One ending that had some feel good moments but ultimately answered absolutely nothing before going 'WELP THATS ALL FOLKS' in my ear, leaving me feeling more confused than anything. Then one ending that pulled off the Nonary-Games style bullshit of halting a path because... well... actually that was the problem. There was no reason.
While Nonary games had a reason behind those path halts, this had no such good reason other than to drag out storylines. What then happened was a second set of plots that just felt nonsensical. While the first set of plots at least felt rooted in... SOMETHING. The second set of plots just went off on tangents, repeated information and generally mucked about. Whats worse is when you do unlock those paths, the 'why' of the paths unlocking is theorised about and dropped like a hot potato and never picked up properly.
This felt like a game that should have focused more on the core story rather than just putting in branching paths and dead-ends for no reason. Another problem came with the characters themselves. While at first a lot were interesting and had their moments, did we really need every character behaving like a horn dog? Did we really need to be 'Powered by porno mags?'.
I dunno. Overall its just a game that starts off very strong but by the end of it, I was just speeding through reams of nonsense dialogue to try and actually have the answer to what happened and when I did have the answer, it didnt even feel that good. What a crying shame.
The first half of playing this was great as I plowed through the various goings ons, following the murder mysteries and trying to make sense of who the culprit could be. Its fun piecing together the various strands and backstories to create this tapestry of whodunnit.
Then something happened, the game basically did a one two punch that made me just want to skip through to get to the ending.
What happened was hitting two endings. One ending that had some feel good moments but ultimately answered absolutely nothing before going 'WELP THATS ALL FOLKS' in my ear, leaving me feeling more confused than anything. Then one ending that pulled off the Nonary-Games style bullshit of halting a path because... well... actually that was the problem. There was no reason.
While Nonary games had a reason behind those path halts, this had no such good reason other than to drag out storylines. What then happened was a second set of plots that just felt nonsensical. While the first set of plots at least felt rooted in... SOMETHING. The second set of plots just went off on tangents, repeated information and generally mucked about. Whats worse is when you do unlock those paths, the 'why' of the paths unlocking is theorised about and dropped like a hot potato and never picked up properly.
This felt like a game that should have focused more on the core story rather than just putting in branching paths and dead-ends for no reason. Another problem came with the characters themselves. While at first a lot were interesting and had their moments, did we really need every character behaving like a horn dog? Did we really need to be 'Powered by porno mags?'.
I dunno. Overall its just a game that starts off very strong but by the end of it, I was just speeding through reams of nonsense dialogue to try and actually have the answer to what happened and when I did have the answer, it didnt even feel that good. What a crying shame.
2 Comments
Yeah..my main issue was all the cringy and wacky shit that started happening..also mizuki lol, sad because I figured I would have really liked it
FallenGrace
1 year ago