AI: The Somnium Files – nirvanA Initiative

Genre: Graphic Adventure / Visual Novel

Players: 1

.

Review:

Released in 2022 on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, AI: The Somnium Files – nirvanA Initiative (from here on simply referred to as Nirvana Initiative) is a Graphic Adventure with strong Visual Novel elements that places you in the role of investigators in a futuristic police force that uses AI-augmented vision and subconscious-exploring technology (a la Inception) to solve crimes. This is the sequel to the first AI: The Somnium Files game, featuring a cast of new and old characters, depicting mysterious murders that begin three months after the end of the original game, with the story jumping between these events and what appears to be a resurgence of these killings being investigated six years later.

The former events follow detective Kuruto Ryuki, a contemporary of the first game’s protagonist Kaname Date, who becomes assigned to a case involving a serial killer whose murders involve victims whose bodies are cut in half at an atomic level from head to toe, drained of blood, and placed for detectives to find missing its other half. The latter events follow Mizuki Date, Kaname’s adoptive daughter who has become a detective in the same agency and who takes up the investigation when the other halves of the victims start appearing, with evidence pointing to them only having been killed within the last day as opposed to six years prior.

That… is a highly highly simplified breakdown of Nirvana Initiative’s premise, and if that still sounds confusing, suffice it to say that the full version that this game presents players with is even more so. At the start of this game, players are presented with the option to play with or without spoilers for the first game (requiring a small quiz if you do want them), and while players do not technically need to have played the first game to understand the events of this one, I feel like regardless of whether or not they played the first game, many players will be struggling to keep up with this game’s plot.

Many of the strange sci-fi concepts that were gradually introduced in the first game are pushed at the player in rapid-fire here without any time to process them or any explanations. The AI-controlled eye augmentations and their dream-state avatars, the dream exploration technology and how it works, the bizarre dream-world logic and how that works, even the complex relationships between characters – who they all are and how they all know each other. And this is in addition to the strange occurrences of this game and its somewhat jarring non-linear narrative.

If you can keep up with Nirvana Initiative’s story, what’s here is quite imaginative, with some creative sci-fi concepts, some clever narrative trickery I won’t spoil, and some interesting and likable characters… but I feel that many of this game’s best elements were already established in the first game.

The overall presentation here is generally pretty good, with detailed 3D cel-shaded characters in an anime style and detailed 3D environments to inspect and explore. I did notice some aliasing here, but it doesn’t ruin the experience. And these visuals are all backed by decent (though occasionally silly) anime-style music and solid English voice acting (or Japanese, if you prefer).

Before moving on, I’m going to mention this here because I’m not sure where else to mention this – even if you get the physical version of this game, you’ll still be installing a 6.2GB patch on top of that. That’s not to say the digital version of the game is small, though – at over 11.6GB, this game will be taking up a sizable amount of space on your MicroSD card if you get the physical version.

When it comes to the gameplay, you’ll be inspecting crime scenes in the real world, interviewing witnesses, and going into the “somnium” (dream world) of witnesses who are unable or unwilling to be forthcoming in a standard interrogation. The odd logic of these somnium sections was one of the highlights of the first game, but here I find it to be a bit too illogical, something the game even seems to realize, giving players additional chances to go back and make different choices after choosing the wrong ones previously. As it’s not always clear which choice is correct, players will likely be making heavy use of this.

Honestly, I found the mechanics of the somnium sections more confusing this time too, with players picking up helpful items with it not being entirely clear how to use them… or maybe I was just too dumb to figure it out? I dunno.

See, that’s just it. The original Somnium Files made me feel like a futuristic dream detective in an offbeat anime, but Nirvana Initiative just makes me feel stupid. Given the universal praise this game seems to have received elsewhere, perhaps this is just my problem. Maybe I need someone to jump into my somnium and clear up whatever mental block is making this game seem so indecipherable to me. However, I can only speak to my own experience, and while I loved the original Somnium Files, I just cannot enjoy this game. The pacing, story, and even the gameplay all seem wrong to me. If you enjoyed the first game, I suppose this one may be worth a look for you. But otherwise, I highly recommend you simply play the original Somnium Files.

tl;dr – Nirvana Initiative is the follow-up to the original AI: The Somnium Files, and as such it features a similar mix of Graphic Adventure and Visual Novel elements, with players using futuristic AI-powered eye augmentations and dream-exploring tech to try to solve a string of killings where victims were cut in half. While the story and characters are still interesting, the story, pacing, and gameplay all strike me as far more confusing this time around than they were in the original game. Unless you’re a fan of that game who needs to see the next chapter in the story, I suggest sticking with the original game.

Grade: C+

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