Review of AI: Somnium Files - nirvanA Initiative
| Subject | AI: Somnium Files - nirvanA Initiative AI: The Somnium Files - nirvanA Initiative |
| By | Helpfulness: 4 iloveotl on 2023-03-26 |
| Review | 10/10 Uchikoshi game, 5/10 (or less) character drama. With AI:NI, Uchikoshi aimed for a partial return to the VLR/ZTD-type story with a grand scheme and philosophical discussion, rather than the more personal story of 999 and AI:TSF. While it doesn't quite meet the same level as VLR/ZTD, and certainly reused a ton of Uchikoshi-type plot elements (hello masked figure speaking in a tape), it was still unique enough that I did not see the big twist coming (I knew the twist would be timeline-related, but that was not enough to guess the exact mechanism - I thought that perhaps the explosion route wasn't actually the one that happened before Mizuki's side). While I certainly would have enjoyed more extensive discussion of the philosophical and religious aspects - many of the achievements are references to religious concepts that are more or less unexplored in the game (and in some cases used incorrectly, like the one for Shoma's somnium), the shorter discussions does mean fewer red herrings and a tighter, faster-paced game. There was certainly no point in the game when I didn't desparately want to know what happens next. The game keeps you clicking incessantly. There are quite a few ways in which this game represents a partial return to the ZE style. While ZE games mostly have two twists - one related to character identity and one related to space-time - AI:TSF only had a character-related twist. AI:NI goes back to the ZE style, though the character and space-time twists are much more closely linked. The somnia are also more ZE-like than AI:NI, and I personally see this as a weakness. The timie mechanic is certainly much less explored than in AI:TSF, and a lot more ZE-like elements are added; one of the somnia was basically ZE-lite. The zombie Ryuukis and key reversals in one particular pivotal somnium were extremely annoying and I had to switch difficulty levels just for that particular somnium. So it seems that the somnium this time are neither here nor there - they don't fully exploit either the room escape or the somnium formats. The somnia this time are also largely personal and character drama-related, even more than TSF as far as I can recall. This leads me to my biggest criticism of the game. While Uchikoshi tries to retain the level of character drama from the previous installment, this part just completely falls flat. One particular pair of characters central to the game leaves a bad taste in the mouth; the portrayal of their relationship is downright patriarchal, contrary to the stated liberal themes of the game. There is one disturbing pattern that happens, not once, not twice, but in *all three* character-related subplots: The younger person is always blamed for things that should have fallen onto the responsibility of the older person. The most disturbing was Lien/Kizuna. Lien was objectively a creepy stalker in the beginning of their relationship. This wouldn't have matttered much of Lien had stayed a comic relief character, or if the infatuation had just stayed as a comedic element like the Outa/Mouma obsession with Iris, but the Lien-Kizuna relationship was further developed and even portrayed as sweet in the rest of the game. While Mizuki was a kid at the time so I don't entirely blame her for enabling Lien, Ryuuki should have sensed that something was amiss and threatened to get Lien arrested. And for Lien to stay with Kizuna, there should have been some indication that Lien had learnt to respect boundaries. The six-year timeskip is no excuse; there was ample time for flashbacks in that regard during Lien's somnium. But we get none of that, and instead, Lien is supposed to just get self-confidence, think about the future instead of dwelling on the past. The fact that the Lien-Kizuna relationship is never portrayed as problematic in this regard, and that the Lien-Kizuna route even puts responsibility *on Kizuna* for their rocky relationship, is extremely disappointing coming from Uchikoshi. The other two are also quite egregious. While the true route was better, in the Komeji/Shoma route, Shoma's mental health was portrayed as the main obstacle to a healthy relationship between Komeji and Shoma. There is no indication at all that Komeji's poor life decisions is the centre of all this, and Shoma even encourages Komeji to continue as an entertainer. Are Komeji's money problems somehow going to solve themselves after Shoma becomes more cheerful? And how is it the kid's responsibility to heal his relationship with his dad when it was his dad's relationship that led him to extreme bullying and left his life in shambles, leaving Amame to care for Shoma's needs? Gen/Amame was less explicitly awful, but it is not much better if you think about their relationship after the true route. Gen's last wink-psync dream in their route was weird, but it was never portrayed positively, nor is there any hint that he acted on them. But the crimes that Amame committed are clearly the results of poor life decisions that she didn't actually have to make herself. Sure, Komeji was a horrible dad, and for all we know the mum could be the same. But Gen was close to her the whole time. If he really cared about Amame, why did he let Amame work overtime at Sanpoke of all places? A maid cafe, not known to be the safest for an 18-year-old girl to work, owned by Renjuu, also not exactly the most responsible adult in the world - how did he think it would be safe to let Amame to work there? And he has his own restaurant. It would have been easy for him to hire Amame as a helper and teach her to cook. Instead of stepping in before Amame made those poor life decisions that led her to those crimes, he shielded Amame from the police *after* she committed them. When he said 守れなかった, he was referring to not being able to shield her from the police - there was zero reflection on anything that happened prior. With all that said, it was an enjoyable game, and I certainly loved the sci-fi mystery elements. I would say that if you are willing to overlook gigantic, gaping flaws in the portrayal of the character relationships, then you probably will enjoy the game. But if the character drama is at all important to you, I would run away from this game as quickly as possible. |
| 4 points |