Recenzje AI: The Somnium Files

I reached the true ending. My spoiler-free opinion is this: The writing in this game is very bad. I can imagine the first draft of the story with only the outline of the characters and story events might have been great, but the way it all has been tied together checks too many "incompetent/lazy writing" boxes. The game goes multiple times against "foreshadowing 101", failing to present setups to future payoffs in a way that is organic to the story. Characters often act not like actual human beings, but like fake constructs designed to push the plot forward: either very stupid or against their own established character. The game also features several high-concept elements that are pretty much served as-is, without sufficient background to make them believable. Overall, most of the time I felt like the game treated me as if I had the intelligence of a 10-year old, which made suspension of disbelief practically impossible. Such offences against the story would be annoing in an action RPG game, but for visual novel it's a straight up disqualification. If you've finished the game already, feel free to read on to find some examples (detailed spoilers ahead): [spoiler] 1. How is Aiba able to assess rigor mortis by just looking at the body? 2. How is it possible that the Boss accidentally spilled the beans about some very important top secret event from the past to main hero, who I'm sure is somehow involved? 3. Why is a 30-year old man living with a 12-year old girl if she has one or both parents? 4. Why does a 24-year old man meet with a 12-year old girl at night? 5. Why does a police officer let himself be blackmailed by a spoiled brat who literally has nothing on him, when it is sure to backfire at him in multiple ways, including breaching multiple police procedures and harming the quality of his work? 6. Why isn't Kane interested, when he hears Aiba say something about his "dosage", he has no idea what she meant and she refuses to elaborate? He literally says "anyway" and changes subject, ffs. 7. We know the culprit has a leg wound, and then we see (suspicious and related to the case but still) an old man limping a bit. Will our seasoned investigator be able to imagine explanations other than the most convenient "he's the culprit" without the help of AI? No, of course not, let's put this dude behind the bars right away! Bonus points for his boss doing the exact same thing later on. 8. Mama. Gross. 9. Main hero getting superpowers after mention of porn magazines could be funny if the execution was better, but the way it is now it just falls flat. 10. Main hero goes on a private raid and takes with him a child (for which he's responsible) armed with a pipe. They can't even be bothered to do proper reconnaissance to know if they are facing 3 or 30 enemies. And then the girl is taken hostage? Surprised pikachu face. 11. Aiba is not just an AI, she's a godd*mn clairvoyant with how she has immediate knowledge not only of the weather, but also of all the detailed effects of Date's actions as if they didn't even depend on how he executes them ("just shoot the ball and its pieces will knock out your two enemies with guns", because apparently these pieces are magically homing on their heads or something; "just throw the pipe in that general direction and shoot in its general direction, the bullet will go through it, change direction inside the pipe because the pipe will be spinning and the bullet will hit your target"; and here's my favourite part: "my calculations are always correct"). 12. Pitch meeting: now we want Mizuki to save Date so that it's emotional and we want to use psyncing because that's the mechanic that we have in the game. But why would a police department send an untrained child to do that? Who cares, let's throw in some "high synchronization level" bullsh*t without ever explaining it (even though before when Date was psyncing these were never mentioned), I'm sure nobody will notice. 13. Investigator learns a phone number which probably belongs to a murderer and just calls it without any plan whatsoever despite no urgency. 14. I'm no doctor so call me ignorant, but 12-year old girl going from being mute from trauma straight to discussing most gruesome details of her mother's dead body like it's nothing just because someone hugged her - it doesn't seem very plausible to me. I probably would miss this if it was number 1 on this list (as I did when playing through my previous endings). 15. Something about the legal side of psyncing seems out of place. How is it possible that an order to go inside the mind of a politician so powerful, that he is able to single-handedly halt official murder investigation with solid leads, can be given just like that without worrying about consequences? And then we openly talk about it in front of him? 16. Aiba's battery dies in the moment that is convenient for the plot, without establishing beforehand that this is even a thing. Ridiculous. 17. Serial killer is taken out of prison to interrogate (and without good reason too, I'd say) and then interrogated without any precautions and escapes? What a shock! You can't just have protagonists play stupid games for no good reason and expect the reader to care when they win stupid prizes. 18. The plot needs you to go to Matsushita Diner even though you have no reason to go there? No problem! Let's say you're hungry and need to eat! (And ignore the fact that Matsushita Diner is in fact out of business and also that one of the places you actually have to visit is Sunfish Pocket where they serve food.) 19. Date tells Iris "extremely confidential" stuff completely without reason. ...oh wait, she ASKED, my bad. 20. Iris. Singing. Repeatedly. 21. Date decides to have a friendly race with Iris. In a place which is a crime scene, at least it's cleaned now but for some reason still closed off with the holographic police tape, so maybe not the best idea? 22. Major plot twists regarding the culprit can be seen from miles away. 23. I choose to stop the culprit instead of saving Hitomi, game gives me "BAD END". So I go back, give in to the demands, but Hitomi still faces the same tragic end. Wait, which one was bad again? 24. The whole idea of swapping bodies feels like a too high concept to be introduced and executed so lightly, without any complications, without any moral or legal considerations, anything. It's just something we do here, why do you ask? And a positive police character proposing it just like that, "yeah we have this option, maybe a good idea in your case"? To me it feels neither right, nor well executed. 25. The police letting a killer escape in a detective's body. How dumb can you be just to let the plot happen? 26. Since at this point I already wasn't invested as expected, the last scene didn't buy me, neither the cheap resurrection nor the cheery get together with the song and dance that I didn't like in the first place (but more) and Hitomi magically regaining mobility in her right arm. [/spoiler]

The story is insanely good and presented very well. I love the jokes and puns and how dum they can be.