I played this on a controller since I found it a bit awkward to control the camera and cursor with the KB + Mouse combo. Otherwise, this game runs perfectly. No crashes, and no bugs, it's a great PC port.

So, this game caught my eye with it's bright and colourful character designs. Especially the AI, Aiba. And I have to say, their characters are just as good as they look. This game has a memorable cast of characters, with great English voice acting. Our main character, Date steals the show with Aiba. He's a fun protagonist, especially with the interactions with his AI companion. This man will stop at nothing to get his porno mags. Yet he can be serious when he needs to be. In fact, I really have to compliment the way the game is able to switch between serious detective thriller with gore to a jolly fun time when things aren't that grim. It really helps to make the intense moments feel even more intense when the fun times end abruptly.

The story resolves around a single large case, split into many investigations and Somniums. You interact with the many objects in the room as you look around for anything really. It's a pretty linear game, you won't suddenly not know what to do. Think of it as a visual novel with a lot of interactivity, I usually don't interact with everything I see, but in this game I do it all the time. As there's tons of funny dialogues and things you can find in the world the characters comment on. A lot of effort is put into this to have different responses when you re-visit the area.

All of that interaction peaks with the game's Somniums. These are special dream sequences where you enter a subject's dream to find leads and clues. And let me tell you, Some of these are really creative and interesting, as expected of dreams. Somniums in gameplay term is a puzzle to simplify things. You have 6 mins, or 360 seconds to poke around the place. Since it's a dream, not everything works as you expect it to work, so you're always going to experiment and play around with the dream world's objects. But be careful, as everything you do in Somnium takes up time, mess around too much and you have to restart. This is the highlight of the game in my opinion, there's some really crazy stuff in them and you never know what you're getting yourself into with each one. Some of them are pretty easy, while some will test your resource management skills to conserve your time while finding the solution.

The game has multiple routes as I mentioned earlier, to get to a different route you have to get a different outcome in certain somniums which lead to a branching path. And I have to say, I love the way the game handles this. Instead of overstuffing the game's story, it's split up into routes where events are altered (Sometimes Drastically) in such a way that the player finds out information that would otherwise never be found if the game had only one outcome.

On top of that, it has this very intuitive flowchart system, a very comprehensive menu that allows you to jump into any point of the game and replay any section. It displays the different branching paths and you can easily start another route without having to replay through the entire game, unlike some other visual novel style games. The skip function also not only skips the dialogue, but also speeds up the animations and cut scenes. Making things much easier for those who want to retry Somniums or go for a different route.

It's a long game, but it's worth the time and money. The English localisation is done well, and it has a great soundtrack. I especially love the way you're able to move the camera around during most conversations, it's as if you're responding to another person in the room and you move your camera to face them. It's a small thing, but it really adds to the enjoyment. So if you're looking for a great time and are starving for a good single player game, why not give AI: The Somnium Files a shot?

I played this on a controller since I found it a bit awkward to control the camera and cursor with the KB + Mouse combo. Otherwise, this game runs perfectly. No crashes, and no bugs, it's a great PC port. So, this game caught my eye with it's bright and colourful character designs. Especially the AI, Aiba. And I have to say, their characters are just as good as they look. This game has a memorable cast of characters, with great English voice acting. Our main character, Date steals the show with Aiba. He's a fun protagonist, especially with the interactions with his AI companion. This man will stop at nothing to get his porno mags. Yet he can be serious when he needs to be. In fact, I really have to compliment the way the game is able to switch between serious detective thriller with gore to a jolly fun time when things aren't that grim. It really helps to make the intense moments feel even more intense when the fun times end abruptly. The story resolves around a single large case, split into many investigations and Somniums. You interact with the many objects in the room as you look around for anything really. It's a pretty linear game, you won't suddenly not know what to do. Think of it as a visual novel with a lot of interactivity, I usually don't interact with everything I see, but in this game I do it all the time. As there's tons of funny dialogues and things you can find in the world the characters comment on. A lot of effort is put into this to have different responses when you re-visit the area. All of that interaction peaks with the game's Somniums. These are special dream sequences where you enter a subject's dream to find leads and clues. And let me tell you, Some of these are really creative and interesting, as expected of dreams. Somniums in gameplay term is a puzzle to simplify things. You have 6 mins, or 360 seconds to poke around the place. Since it's a dream, not everything works as you expect it to work, so you're always going to experiment and play around with the dream world's objects. But be careful, as everything you do in Somnium takes up time, mess around too much and you have to restart. This is the highlight of the game in my opinion, there's some really crazy stuff in them and you never know what you're getting yourself into with each one. Some of them are pretty easy, while some will test your resource management skills to conserve your time while finding the solution. The game has multiple routes as I mentioned earlier, to get to a different route you have to get a different outcome in certain somniums which lead to a branching path. And I have to say, I love the way the game handles this. Instead of overstuffing the game's story, it's split up into routes where events are altered (Sometimes Drastically) in such a way that the player finds out information that would otherwise never be found if the game had only one outcome. On top of that, it has this very intuitive flowchart system, a very comprehensive menu that allows you to jump into any point of the game and replay any section. It displays the different branching paths and you can easily start another route without having to replay through the entire game, unlike some other visual novel style games. The skip function also not only skips the dialogue, but also speeds up the animations and cut scenes. Making things much easier for those who want to retry Somniums or go for a different route. It's a long game, but it's worth the time and money. The English localisation is done well, and it has a great soundtrack. I especially love the way you're able to move the camera around during most conversations, it's as if you're responding to another person in the room and you move your camera to face them. It's a small thing, but it really adds to the enjoyment. So if you're looking for a great time and are starving for a good single player game, why not give AI: The Somnium Files a shot?