NOT RECOMMENDED
In a manner similar to how he borrowed heavily from Ever17 to create the Zero Escape series, Uchikoshi’s new game borrows (though to a lesser extent) from another old gem, Remember11. For a writer whose stories live and die by their plot-twists, you’d think he wouldn’t be so obvious in showing his hand. This is an Uchikoshi game through and through, and he falls into the same genre trappings he fell in with Zero Escape. Somnium Files is different in that it’s a futuristic setting instead of the claustrophobic closed-off ones Uchikoshi is known for, but besides the advanced AI, Aiba, the game doesn’t really expand on it. The story, atypically, doesn’t add up, the character relations are taken too much for granted, and the author still seems keen on adding time-wasting adventure game elements because of his misguided notion that western gamers prefer adventure games to visual novels.
We play as Date, a cop investigating a string of bizarre murders where the victims all seem to have their left eye missing. The investigations though aren’t really centered around the real world. Instead, you use a machine and traverse a witness’s dream world (or somnium) to get clues on what happened. You play as Aiba, an AI living in Date’s left eye socket who enters that world and acts as his proxy. She has long white hair that looks almost alive, and her design (tailored to Date’s preferences supposedly) sticks out no matter where you put her on the screen. She plays the straight man to Date’s eccentricity. Their conversations kept the game alive, made it more enjoyable and gave it an air of cartoon-goofiness that it should’ve fought harder to protect. It is only when Aiba calls out Date on his perverted behavior (which is so ridiculous that his reaction time increases when he sees a porno magazine), or follows our commands too closely in the dream world to hilarious results did the game excel. That and Mizuki’s relationship with Date, but I’ll get to that a bit later. Uchikoshi has gotten much better at writing “normal” and mundane scenes between characters; something which he struggled with in previous games. Whether it was Zero Escape or the infinity series, most conversations were just expositions or purposeful misdirection to surprise the players later. The dialogue wasn’t interesting in and of itself, and almost everything needed to be explained to the main character (aka the audience). Over here though, the characters are a bit more relaxed. There is no kidnapping, plane crash, or accident that brings the characters together. Date and Aiba already know each other and have been living in Tokyo for some time. The setting isn’t new to them and the places we visit are already familiar to them. This is very standard for a mystery game, but completely new for Uchikoshi. There is much to say of an author’s ability to hook the players right from their games’ opening segments, and even more when genre conventions are alien to them. Though the desire to make a game that appeals to the known cultivated tastes of the general audience caused him to refine his writing.
AI has multiple routes based on how you decide to tackle the evidence, but the only thing waiting the player after all the hard work put into solving the mystery is a substandard outcome no matter the route. Characters acquire the status of “main” and “supporting” depending on this and so do their developments. It was very disheartening to find out that all the time Date spent resolving an issue or forging a genuine bond with someone is treated like filler and simply disappears (except if it’s related to the main plot) because it is not part of the main route. The game features many characters all of which were interesting enough to warrant more screen time. None of them get it. There is Mizuki, the twelve-year-old daughter of the first victim and who has been living for some time with Date. Iris, an internet idol who Date learns is somehow connected to the string of murders. Mouma, a local yakuza gang leader who supplies Date with information and is secretly a huge Iris fan. Shizue, Date’s boss who has a relationship of complete trust with him etc… Some of these characters and many others only shine in the game’s subroutes. The first route I encountered featured Iris getting kidnapped and Outa, a diehard fan of hers, rushing to save her from a polar bear. I had stumbled upon the Mizuki route fortunately. I played all the other routes while collecting the bits and pieces of evidence sprinkled around each one, but I would have liked to finish everything else and leave Mizuki for last had I known it would be the only route that required emotional investment.
Mizuki’s relationship with Date was the only instance the game showed any kind of heart or genuine concern for its characters. The first victim is Mizuki’s mother and soon after, Mizuki and Date start losing more people around them with the mystery growing more confusing by the minute, but we always feel assured that they have each other’s well-being in mind. When Mizuki becomes mute from seeing her mother’s corpse, it is Date who cures her, and she is always there to get him out of life-threatening situations. She has abnormal physical strength and speed causing Date to warn her against ever hitting him (being afraid what might happen to him). She accompanies him to some crime scenes and only seems to get over the tragedies happening to her because she has Date at her side. The emotional weight in this route is among the best Uchikoshi has written, and so was the build up to the mystery. However, because this isn’t the main route, the mystery (along with the story) goes unsolved and ends with only a small resolution of Mizuki and Date acknowledging how much they mean to each other. This being my first route and because of my experience with Uchikoshi, I was pleasantly surprised by how much better he’s gotten as a writer and how much I started caring for the characters. I only envisioned better things to come. You can only expect more Mizuki and Date Shenanigans or barring that more Aiba screen time. What you don’t expect is for Mizuki and every other character to be thrown to the background while the game puts its story ahead of its characters.
The game’s tone starts getting inconsistent with it being unable to settle between silly contrivances and unimaginative literality. It gradually gets more serious and forgets its quirky goofy origins focusing more on surprising the audience and increasing the stakes rather than risk alienating the audience too much with its constant cartoonish set-pieces, perverse dialogue, and power scaling. Date is in a hostage situation with Mizuki’s life on the line and just when the culprit tells him to throw his gun on the ground Aiba tells him to throw a pipe with keen precision to his left and shoot at it. The bullet travels across the pipe and hits the culprit setting Mizuki free. When he is surrounded Aiba has him jump on a rock in the middle of a pond with the promise of an enticing magazine, and when they get closer to him lightning strikes them all, but instead of being happy he is lamenting the fact that there was actually no magazine. These are just some of the lively moments in the game, and the subroutes are full of them. The main route on the other hand seems to have lost its sense of humor. It is in a constant state of explanations, expositions, and lackluster twists that only served to lengthen a game that didn’t need to be this long and eat off its charm. One thing causing this is how many characters are hiding secrets just for the sake of it, and how much time we lose asking them for help, them saying they can’t until we twist and turn only for them to finally give in. The secrets are never worth the hassle, ridiculously predictable, and the way they are hidden is more infuriating than anything else.
When not pursuing the main route, Iris is usually hiding a big secret, and won’t divulge any information. She works with Outa to run away again and again until one of them gets killed/injured. This needlessly prolongs the game as Date feels forced to fall for Outa’s lazy tricks that allows them to escape in numerous routes leading me to despise the badly written Outa more than the serial killer, and question how Date even got his job. His somnium is also the point where the game went from ridiculous to downright exhausting. He never contributes anything outside of Iris trivia (never mind how he got it). His main route contributions could’ve been replaced by any other character, and doesn’t play into any of the strengths the game has going for it. Even the route focusing on his relationship with his mother makes Outa come off as ungrateful more than anything. Outa is a complete waste of audience time. He is just an obsessed Iris fan boy slowly making his way to stalker territory. That’s it! That’s his plotline! The game, however, keeps throwing him in the way of the investigation most likely because the author couldn’t come up with a better way to increase the game’s length and still justify the price point. He leads Iris to an early death in one route, and when she stays alive in another he has the gall to withhold information, and again we are stuck with this walking talking birth control ad. Thankfully, he gets killed, and although it was only a bad ending it is one of the game’s few moments of satisfaction.
When entering the main route, players will notice that everyone besides Iris is subdued to the role of supporting character. The disappearance and gradual fading of characters Date bonded with severely damaged the game, and we always get the feeling that the director is constraining himself. Uchikoshi has a talent for tricking the audience, and his plot twists are some of the most mind-boggling you will ever encounter in the visual novel medium, but the journey there has always been rife with exhaustion. He assumes that many people have the patience to wait out all the technical jargon and expositions, or forgive how the story pauses so that characters can confess their life story. He expects too much by putting his talent as the prize to this endless endeavor. Even Virtue’s Last Reward, which is in my opinion his most honest and indulgent work, suffered greatly from this. Pacing is still an issue in AI as it was in his previous games and the tension can’t seem to settle either. The difference here is that unlike previous games which had some explanation for the route structure, AI lazily accepts that somehow parallel worlds exist. Information is shared between routes arbitrarily, and any explanations into how they play into each other was left untouched. When the plot twists of an Uchikoshi VN are predictable, you know something is wrong.
Credit where it’s due, it seems he was able to convince Spike Chunsoft to spend more than the bare minimum on animation production. After the nightmare that was Zero Time Dilemma, it was nice seeing an actual animation team being put on AI. The way the characters move still looks stiff, but they appear to be more relaxed here. The locations in the somnium are wacky and fun to explore. Aiba’s reactions to acting out different commands we input is entertaining enough that I would go back even after choosing the right option just to see her reaction. The care put into this game is enough to come through, but it just isn’t enough. The story feels very diluted from what we expect from Uchikoshi, and the characters weren’t given enough time to grow on us or on each other.
Iris is the main focus of the true route, but the game (by that time) still hasn’t made me care enough to want to learn more about her as I am still waiting for the other characters’ resolutions. Date’s boss has complete trust in him, and when we learn what happened six years ago we aren’t given a clear explanation over why she trusts him so much to cover for what happened. This relationship is superfluous at best, and is not even given its due then. Date’s relationship with Iris’s mother is similarly unconvincing, but to the game’s credit it is a stretch to even consider her a character. The game should’ve spent more time convincing its characters why they need to take certain actions instead of the audience. We see it time and time again, and it never makes sense to me. Why are girls so eager to spill the beans to their lovers in abandoned warehouses in the middle of the night?!
There is potential in AI, but it’s lost because the game isn’t sure what it wants to be. It should’ve taken the drama with Mizuki and did something with it, or expanded on Date and Aiba’s relationship, or have a clearer picture of its futuristic setting, or focus on Date’s team and the police since they appear to be absent for most of the game. Sometimes it felt like Date was the only policeman in the country (him and his best friend Kaniza of course). The game could’ve spared a few models for other policemen. The central mystery was not the reason that kept me going in the game. The mystery itself is a letdown and overshadowed by how much better the subroutes felt. There is no reason why the game should’ve been divided. A traditional narrative with only one continuous story seemed more apt for the ideas in this game.