AI: The Somnium Files

Reviewing (mostly) every game (or DLC) in my library, part 44: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆☆☆☆☆ (5/10 stars) I came into [i] AI: The Somnium Files [/i] with an open mind. As a fan of Spike Chunsoft’s previous narrative powerhouses like [i] 999 [/i] and [i] Virtue’s Last Reward, [/i] I went into this expecting another layered mystery, one that would reward careful attention and tug at my heart and brain in equal measure. Instead, I got a story that doesn’t trust its own premise, a protagonist who’s allergic to dignity, and enough cringe-worthy lechery to make a teenage boy blush. If you came here hoping for the sharp puzzles, complex moral choices, and thematic depth of [i] 999 [/i] or [i] Virtue’s Last Reward, [/i] you’re going to be sorely disappointed. [i] AI: The Somnium Files [/i] is a chaotic, lewd mess that mistakes juvenile humor for charm and wastes its premise on a protagonist who couldn’t solve a puzzle if it was printed on a bra catalog. A huge miss from a studio I usually trust. 🧿 [b] Pros: [/b] [list] [*] Some creative ideas. The Somnium mechanic sounds great on paper—diving into dreams to uncover truth. In rare moments, it actually works. [*] Slick presentation. UI and art direction are polished, especially the 2D character designs and futuristic menus. [*] Multiple endings and routes. If you can stomach the repetition, there's branching that leads to a complete picture of the story. [*] Great on Steam Deck. [/list] 🤡 [b] Cons: [/b] [list] [*] Oof. Let’s start with the tone. The game opens with the promise of a dark, suspenseful murder mystery—brutal crime scenes, a futuristic noir Tokyo, and high-stakes psychological investigations. But it can’t hold that seriousness for more than two minutes at a time without veering into slapstick, fanservice, or the kind of “horny uncle” humor that wouldn’t have been funny even in the early 2000s. This tonal whiplash isn’t just jarring—it actively undermines any emotional or narrative weight the story tries to carry. [*] Date, the protagonist. Yes, he is a con. Imagine if Bugs Bunny got possessed by a teenage Reddit boy who just discovered what sex is. That’s Date. He’s the kind of guy who will pause a life-or-death situation to throw a porn magazine on the ground … and yes, it somehow distracts armed mafia goons. Every other sentence out of his mouth sounds like it was written by someone who thinks “what if the main character was horny?” is a solid punchline. He is that [i] Looney Tunes [/i] rabbit who goes “AWOOOGA!” at the sight of a woman. That’s Date’s entire personality distilled into a walking embarrassment. [*] Continuous sexualization of female characters—especially the teenage ones. There’s the “joke” where Date tries to get a teenage girl to say “penis” by pointing at objects and asking her what they look like. There are conversations about whether to abandon a teen with a man interested in her underwear. There's a running gag about a teenage girl pleading for a date with a man twice her age. And of course, there’s Aiba—Date’s AI companion—whose default avatar is a sexualized woman that he constantly flirts with like she’s his hot anime wife and not, you know, a government tool meant to help him solve murders. [*] And maybe the worst part is: all of this isn’t even in service of good gameplay. The Somnium puzzle segments—ostensibly the core mechanic—quickly wear out their welcome. Instead of logic-driven problem solving, you’re stuck trying to figure out the right sequence of abstract object interactions, under a strict time limit. It’s less [i] Zero Escape [/i] and more trial-and-error fever dream. Hope you enjoy restarting over and over just to figure out which random dream-logic action won’t tank your timer. The idea is interesting. The execution is not. [*] On top of that, the game world feels barren and repetitive. You’ll return to the same 10 or so locations a hundred times, often just to hear the same jokes, look at the same objects, and talk to the same handful of characters. Character development crawls forward at a glacial pace, and despite the branching narrative structure, your choices have very little meaningful impact outside of puzzle branches. It’s all far more streamlined—and far less satisfying—than previous Uchikoshi games. [*] And if I have to do one more Somnium puzzle with unskippable musical numbers and Minecraft blocks, I actually might kill myself. [/list]

I dont often go out of my way to write reviews but my god does this game deserve it without hyperbole I said to myself "what the **** is happening" about 6 distinct times throughout my playtime. and somehow it lays itself out in such a way that you don't get lost and can string everything together by the end. some genuinely good writing too, some scenes had me on the verge of tears and others had me outloud laughing to myself. Kaname date may be one of my new fave characters. love my pathetic detective.

I’d give this game overall a 6/10. It has some good points, some bad points, and a lot of just...okay points. My time as of writing the review was how long it took to complete all of the endings, though I still have some achievement cleanup to do, which I’ll get to later. [h2]Story & Characters[/h2] I really enjoyed the overall plot of the game, it explored some themes that are a little different. Each route offers another fact about the overall story which was somewhat hidden in the other routes (if you weren’t looking for it) so that you get the overall picture by playing all the routes and revealing the whole puzzle rather than individual pieces. It’s quite well written from that side. Some of the jokes, however, definitely overstay their welcome. Like, the MCs obsession with adult content is funny at first, but then the joke gets repetitive when it’s repeated too many times, and then just becomes an eyeroll moment. Similarly, some of the adult-ish comments directed towards younger characters are just...inappropriate and leave you feeling uncomfortable. The characters are also rather annoying for the most part. The only characters I really enjoyed were Aiba (who is just the perfect blend of silly and intelligent) and Boss (who I wish I could be as cool as). The rest...I struggled to get attached to. Thankfully, Aiba is the main character you interact with throughout the game, and she absolutely carries the game. [h2]Gameplay[/h2] The gameplay is something a little different from other VNs I’ve played. Although the VN segments carry most of the story, there are “puzzle rooms” called Somniums, where you enter someone’s mind to uncover the truth. Some of the solutions are not obvious at first, but thankfully even if you mess up and run out of time, when you repeat the Somnium, you can quickly skip through the dialogue the second time round. I did mess up a few of them and never felt like I was punished for it, which is always appreciated. [h2]Steam Deck[/h2] You have to use the touch screen to choose the “gamepad” at the start of each session, but after that the game runs well on the Deck. The one issue I did encounter was that if you put the Deck to sleep, it will randomly break the audio when you turn it back on, so it’s a kind of...half-skipping sound like it’s gone all tinny and slightly sped up? I’m not sure how else to describe it. Anyway, quitting and re-opening the game fixes it, and it doesn’t happen every time, so it’s not a huge deal.

I played this game because I wanted more from Uchikoshi, and it definitely satisfies that same itch. Plus, there's a lot of fun dialog from clicking on random stuff which you can't do as much in Zero Escape. The story is really well-crafted and unique.

This is a very good romp, even if it's a tad slow going for me at the start. The writing is very very very well done. It balances actually funny moments with some genuine introspection on unreliable narration. I like that all the characters are somewhat complex with various things to hide. I heard the second game is EVEN better and I cannot wait to see if that's true.

a rich and deep game with great characters and an interesting diverging plot. it blends both comedy and psychological horror very well. One thing that stands out is the wordplay used. The letters AI in the title refers to multiple reoccurring themes, such as "A.I." for artificial intelligence, the japanese word "ai" meaning love, and sounds like eye, which is cool as hell.

A really fun VN/puzzle game. I really enjoyed the writing and characters, but if you don't like sex jokes you might find it grating.

Great mostly funny and sometimes creepy game with amazing characters.

Goes on a bit, but it has enjoyable characters, an interesting story and a pretty great soundtrack.

it doesnt quite reach the heights of uchikoshi's other work but was still thoroughly enjoyable. the main twist was executed super well and it really feels like the kind of game that ZTD should have been. also date's voice actor killed it, made me love the guy despite some cheap jokes at his expense as of now id rank the games of his ive played VLR > 999 > AI:TSF > ZTD

Really cute and fun story, I usually enjoy Spike Chunsoft games, i really think this one is a masterpiece.

Boy, where do I even begin... I am ashamed that it took me this long to play this game. Masterpiece. Simply, a masterpiece. The story, the characters, and the music... oh my god, the MUSIC...! Will definitely play the other games in the series after this. Highly recommend it!

This game is absolutely peak. The story is really interesting and engaging. I do love how it uses the idea of timeline hopping to solve mysteries similar to the Zero Escape series. I also do appreciate how the storyline branches occur during the Somnium (sleep) segments. As dreams are still largely unknown, mysterious, and almost ethereal, yet we still have a slight understanding of it. By using something that grounded in reality as a gateway of sorts into the entirely unknown or theoretical is really cool. While I enjoy the story and the gameplay mechanics and ideas it has... I just can't get over the "banter" of the characters. Sometimes it's genuine and pleasant and I enjoy it... but sometimes it seems like they just throw naughty humor in out of nowhere, way too often, and in tonally inappropriate areas. Don't get me wrong, it's funny at certain points during investigation when Aiba teases Date, but like... does it have to be a recurring "OP ability" that his adult content addiction makes him dodge bullets? If the fight was a silly one, that'd be one thing, but during a serious fight it seems kind of dumb to throw that out there out of nowhere and expect it to stick. Overall, enjoyed the game and the story, just wish they let up a bit on the adult humor and had it more tactfully placed.

TLDR brace yourself for 15 hours of the most lifeless sex jokes you've heard in your life, 6 hours of trial-and-error 'puzzles', and maybe 3 hours of good story that it takes 20+ hours to tell. I wanted to stick with this game because it was, rarely, interesting and funny, but I couldn't do it. Pick it up on sale if you like being bored to tears 1) excruciating pacing: there's about 1 interesting or important thing said per 20 lines of dialogue. people just talk and talk and talk just confirming that it's tuesday i stg. you have to investigate every available location to proceed at every step in the story, but about 3/4 of those locations are just "Damn, there's no clues here either..." and then you ask somebody there if they've seen Renju and they're like "still no!". just an unbelievable amount of legwork to not discover things. You do eventually discover things, of course, but it's always a tedious hour of gameplay later than it was needed. 2) puzzles are ass: the titular Somniums are basically dreams in other people's heads that you enter for clues like Psychonauts. Except, you solve puzzles to get through them, and those puzzles do not make sense, are not actually solvable, and mainly kill time. The correct way to solve the puzzles is trial and error and occasionally reloading. 3) the horny jokes: never in my human life have i seen such a frequency of sex jokes and absolute absence of humor. the main character is a pervert to an extent that makes johnny bravo look normal and well adjusted, and mc is not even 1/3 as funny. this mother fucker will open a box and say to himself "i hope it's panties!" unprompted and he will do the same shit again 40 seconds later. My average classmate in 8th grade was funnier than this and less constrained to sex jokes in their humor 4) moment to moment actions/animations/UI stuff take SO LONG even when you're spamming the skip dialogue button there's a forced delay between lines. when you open a door the screen goes WOOSH -zoom- swoosh-[rotate]-Mental Lock unlocked!-woosh-[rotate]-zoom-[camera spends 2-3 seconds resetting to the over the shoulder position before you get control again]. oh and when you're inspecting the environment 90% of inspectable objects will be like [Microwave] ->you click on it->a microwave. but you have to meticulously click on like 30 of these per room because like 4 of those things are important the plot is actually not irredeemable but everything else is

I am hesitant to recommend purchasing this game - if you do, I'd advise doing so on sale, and only if you have an unending amount of patience or the Steam Deck. It feels like a Spike Chunsoft game, which is to say that it blends mystery and intrigue with humor that will make you cringe and giggle in equal parts. The characters are compelling, and it somewhat served to scratch the itch otherwise remedied by games like Danganronpa or Phoenix Wright. However. The game is nearly unplayable. While I have heard these issues are avoidable if played on console or Steam Deck, on PC it is an absolute nightmare. I lost count of how many times the game crashed - and when it crashes, it crashes [b]hard[/b]. Bricks the entire system, forcing you to hold the power button of your PC down like you're gently suffocating a loved one. I have tried every remedy suggested - capping FPS, changing how the skip function works, combing through appdata & eventviewer in the hopes I could pinpoint a cause. I am still at a loss. The closest I came to a solution was to absolutely not skip any dialogue whatsoever by way of clicking/spacebar, and only using Ctrl to skip entire segments of dialogue when it crashed anyways so I wasn't rewatching the same thing for the third time. You can't leave it sitting alone too long though - if you hesitate on any segment where you have to provide input, it'll crash then too. And during some cinematics, just for funsies. Save-scumming has taken on a whole new meaning to me now - every five minutes. Every. Five. Minutes. But only when the option is available and there's a lull in dialgoue, or it might crash because you had the audacity to open a menu when it didn't feel like it. This game probably takes a maximum of 20 hours to read, functionally. But it took me 30, and I genuinely lost focus on the story more than I'd like to admit because being unable to skip lines while reading them faster than it auto-plays is a recipe for disaster when you have ADHD. The story is beautiful. The game mechanics were a delight to interact with, and I really wish I could have explored the somniums more & immersed myself in the game more heavily. But the constant looming risk of yet another catastrophic game crash filled me with the wrong kind of suspense to properly enjoy the game. If you have the patience for frequent saves, repeating dialogue, and some jank in controls - absolutely, play this game. But I would be a terrible reviewer if I didn't call out how frustrating it'll be along the way.

The central story is fine and interesting, but the narrative is too poorly paced. The structure really doesn't work since a lot of the other paths don't feel like they give any hints towards the resolution, so it just disrupts the narrative flow to spend some time developing characters down in dead ends. The game is also very uncomfortably and stupidly horny in a very juvenile way. I don't know who this was for. If the game was like 10 hours long, sure, fine, but at 30 for the full story? Nah.

A melodramatic story grounded by a serious presentation and straight face. The absurd and cartoonish characters are grounded by a sense of humanity which manages to reveal fundamental truths about the human condition. While AI fails to reach the heights of 999 and is let down by some lame and repetitive "puzzles", I was never annoyed and always charmed by this quirky cast of characters and their struggles.

You can have a family be you, your dad who stepped up and became your guardian, and his eyeball partner. I hecking love this found family, man........

not even 20 min into it and the cute mascot turned into an almost naked anime girl and the mc wont stop being a weird pervert but what else did i expect tbh

I'm of two minds on The Somnium Files. It is, without a doubt, the most singularly focused and well executed narrative of Uchikoshi's that I've played yet. The individual character routes exceed the heights of Ever17 and Virtue's Last Reward's character routes, and the main narrative is wrapped up in a beautiful little bow. However, its singular focus also ended up leaving me cold, as there's no room to dive into conversations surrounding the delicious pieces of science fiction that drive the plot, outside of their narrative functions. The societal and ethical impacts of them are left as tantalizingly loose threads, since everyone directly involved with them is occupationally disincentivized from thinking about them in such ways. If there were ever a moment for Uchokoshi to tie me to a chair and shove his hand so far up one of his character's asses that you could call them Kermit before delivering a classic "Let's say..." concept discussion, it would be in any scene that involves the Psync Machine. And yet THIS is the game where that fucker shows restraint! (I think my opinion on this last point is going to change based on whether or not Nirvana Initiative will expand on the subject, but I need some cash first lol) I love this game and the wonderful characters that make up its world, but its world demands a greater scope.

this is one of the funniest games I've ever played and it also made me cry 10/10

The power of the Porno Magazine is unbeatable!

Amount of sex jokes was too much for me to bear

it have aiber MASTERPIECE 10/10

Super fun.

MAN UCHIKOSHI DOES IT AGAIN

I wanted to bring out the hatred in you. That's why I [spoiler] called Mizuki to Bloom Park[/spoiler]. That's why I [spoiler] streamed Iris's murder[/spoiler]. Because they were important to you, weren't they? I wanted you to feel cornered, trapped. I wanted to punish you, Kaname Date!

what the fuck part 1

god i wish aiba was real

👍

[h2] An irreplaceable experience [/h2] ~~~ AI: The Somnium Files is pure entertainment, bizarrely crafted, and a masterclass of the mystery genre. The plot automatically hooks you in with the first investigation, it sets the tone perfect with the moody abstract visuals and atmospheric ambience/ost, despite the humor and comedic approach to many dialogues; this series knows how to lock you back into the horror at play or rip your heart out with emotionally charged scenes. If I had to describe the game in a sentence: [i] Overwhelming in the best way. [/i] Really, you'll ask yourself what's on your screen most of the game but it really does come together for an amazing conclusion. It won't always hold your hand and will toss you straight in, which is part of the fun! The concept behind AITSF's case itself is so layered but the means to solve it are even more so. Solving investigations through other people's minds is already a intriguing idea, but the drama added onto it and the complexity of certain characters really boosts it all. Without a doubt in my mind, the thing that truly sells the game is the voice actors. 10/10 English VAs! For example, Greg Chun's performance as our protagonist allows Date to avoid feeling like an annoying weirdo [i] (which this sort of character could easily become) [/i] and more like a lovable loser whose vices are amusing and inoffensive. The humor is translated off the script into something that feels so fluid and realistic too. I've never played the game in Japanese, and while I'm sure it's done great, Greg Chun sells the protagonist to me. His line reads with Mizuki especially get me, Date's parental bond with her comes out in so many ways. That quality is very much why I love Nirvana Initiative too, this cast is so talented. I could go on, but its better you try it out yourself! [h3] GET THE GAMES ON SALE! [/h3]

8.5/10

i like

Veri Nais