AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES

The AIs have it

What do you do when a witness won’t talk, and you need to track down a serial killer who’s taking their victims’ left eyes as trophies? The answer for ABIS (Advanced Brain Investigation Squad) agent Date Kaname is simple: psync with them. Using a special machine the unit can hop into someone’s dreams, but only for six minutes at a time.

Date is aided in his dream delving by Aiba (short for AI-ball), his AI partner who lives inside his false eye. As his avatar when investigating dreams, time only moves when she does, and different actions incur different time costs. Each ‘Somnium’ you hop into is essentially a self-contained adventure game that uses dream logic, which you need to puzzle together in the right order.

How you complete peoples’ Somnia can alter events in the story, creating a flowchart you can access and skip around in the menu at any time. You’ll spend more time picking dialogue options and examining crime scenes than you will dream-hopping. But there’s quite a lot of interaction – it’s closer to the likes of Ace Attorney than Steins;Gate.

Kotaro Uchikoshi is the writer/director, 1 so as you’d expect the story is key. Full of twists, every detail of the world is masterfully woven into the mysteries hidden within. There are multiple endings, but this is the sort of game where each route is lavish in detail, each one key to experiencing the true ending. Superbly voice acted, 2 and with great-looking animation and environments, AI: The Somnium Files is a decadent production giving you one of the best videogame detective mysteries this generation. Oscar Taylor-Kent

FOOTNOTES1 Best known for the Zero Escape series – grim and quirky visual novel death games. Greg Chun (Judgment’s Yagami) plays yet another detective, albeit a much leerier one, in Date.