By: Karila-Monique Warner

When I first picked up AI: The Somnium Files: The Nirvana Initiative by Spike Chunsoft for my Nintendo Switch, I had not been familiar with the series. In fact, my friend Geneva was the one who told me it was the sequel that I purchased when she saw me playing the game. Sequel or not, the game is set in a near future-Tokyo where the Advanced Brain Investigation Squad or ABIS is solving high profile murder cases in a thrilling neo-noir adventure. Immediately, as an anime fan, I was captured by the animation style.

Imagine my surprise when I found the game is broken up into two parts: Investigation and Somnium Challenges. During the Investigation, you play as either Ryuki, a young male prodigy with a drinking problem and trauma from the previous game or Mizuki, the teen detective that was employed because of her connection to the murders, also from the previous game. You interact with the world and gather dialogue that leads to new evidence in the murder case you are trying to solve and unlocks the map to several locations where you can deal with the interaction and dialogue functions. Usually with something that repetitive, you would imagine it to be boring. But the writers of AI Somnium truly created a captivating story that has you taking careful notes to make sure you don’t miss a thing. 

During these investigations, you can do a Wink Psync. This small interaction allows for you to determine if the person you are talking to is lying. The AI companion embedded within either Ryuki or Mizuki’s eye socket can do a Thermoscan of the person and also do X-rays; they are valuable tools throughout the game. If someone is lying, you now have the option to counter what they’re saying or unlock additional dialogue trees. The X-ray can also allow for you to investigate victims more closely to deduce what could be the cause of death. My yellow notepad was never far from my side, jotting down anything I thought important to the investigation. Each character – from Boss, a sharp-tongued female and the leader of ABIS (the police authority you work for) to the Yakuza leader, Moma, a suspicious man with an unordinary obsession with teen idols – has unique dialogue that could only have been produced by that person. Even when I had to point and click to trigger actions, I was eager to hear what the characters had to say, even the pointless ones. The investigations were very reminiscent of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, fast-paced and full of hijinks.

The Somnium, the section of the game from which its title was born, kept this mystery loving gamer hooked. It added an adventure element and a moment of high stakes. These Somnium challenges are triggered when either Ryuki or Mizuki do a Full Psync with someone at the ABIS HQ. During a full psync, you can see the full virtual form of the AI program, without them projecting an image only you can see. You have five minutes to solve the puzzle within the person’s mind to break the mental locks. Each Somnium averages around 3 mental locks, and time is moving rapidly when you travel throughout the virtual world.

Every Somnium you solve gets you closer to solving the final mystery. I failed my second round in the Somnium world because I hadn’t collected all the keys or hints provided throughout the world. I had to restart anyway, despite wanting to hold onto my time reverses. You only get three per Somnium and they take you back to checkpoints to provide the player with more time to solve the challenges. Any keys you uncover remain even if you reverse back to a previous section. It did lower the stakes to know I had three time-reverse cards. But when I had used all three and didn’t solve the final mental lock in the Somnium, I realized how valuable those reverses were. 

Despite being a two-year-old game, AI Somnium: The Nirvana Initiative has something for mystery loving fans and Japanese animation loving fans. I have never played a game that made me want to hold a notepad and pen at my side while I played. I never had to pause a game to solve riddles and wrack my brain for answers. The story and case you are challenged to solve is not your normal murder mystery. There’s futurism and mysticism all wrapped into the whimsical story. I was reminded of Catherine, another game with a similar animation style and gameplay. It was a mystery adventure game as well, but it didn’t have the same riddle elements like AI Somnium. Catherine was focused primarily on puzzle solving during dream sequences, but AI Somnium makes the player a detective. You will find yourself reviewing the log of previous dialogue to make sure you don’t miss anything. AI Somnium made me a detective without the badge. Which is fine by me.

Karila-Monique Warner has streamed games on Twitch for NYVGCC and is chief editor of the Bronx-based Tribes magazine.

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