AI: The Somnium Files - nirvanA Initiative

AI: The Somnium Files nirvanA Initiative gets almost everything right. It builds on the original in just about every way and remains a more accessible entry thanks to new quality of life features and difficulty options. The narrative is more over-the-top than the original with its humor turned up even more, and it excels with its excellent characters. If you enjoy mystery adventure games, you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you didn't buy AI: The Somnium Files nirvanA Initiative. It is an easy game of the year contender.

It’s not perfect, but it is memorable in a way that’ll have me playing its ending song on repeat for weeks. This game gave me such an adrenaline rush that I was able to pull my first all-nighter in months without an issue. If Special Agent Date’s powerup is a porno mag, this is mine.

Ultimately, AI: The Somnium Files – nirvanA Initiative is a detective story that needs to be experienced. If you’re a fan of Japanese mystery games such as the Zero Escape series or the Danganronpa games (by the same developer/publisher), Nirvana Initiative is definitely something you shouldn’t pass up. The only thing better is that if you haven’t experienced the first game in the series, you get to go back and experience another terrific detective tale.

The game presents you with a fascinating murder mystery that is very interesting to experience. The hilarious dialogues bring a fresh undertone to it and the same can be said about the puzzles and other gameplay elements. This is a rather unique experience and the graphical mediocrity has to be taken for granted, as well as the fact that you sometimes have to guess a little too much. However, these are small blemishes on an otherwise excellent whole.

A fantastic murder mystery with engaging puzzles. Impressive storytelling devices give different routes purpose, but ironically it ends up feeling a bit too linear. [Issue#17, p.80]

A second series of serial killings is fair game in AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES – nirvanA Initiative, a title focused around the established world of the prior game with newcomers that are just as hungry for the truth as Kaname Date once was.

While nirvanA Initiative doesn’t stray too far from the formula established in the original, the gritty sci-fi story and likeable characters mean that it is a compelling adventure. Piecing together all the threads of the story will lead you on a rollercoaster of a journey and keep you guessing until the very end.

From the very first screen to the last lines spoken, this is Uchikoshi at his best.

I love this story, it is always unexpected. I like interact with all objects, because it always surprise to me.

Uchikoshi has done it again! If you've played any of the Zero Escape games or the first AI: The Somnium Files, then you know this man is incredible with his writing. For everyone else, just play it. Enjoy the confusion and piecing together of the puzzle.

Without giving anything away as far as the plot goes, Nirvana initiative is quite a bit worse than the first game. A lot of the mysteries are unsatisfying and have logical inconsistencies that make it hard to enjoy without suspending your disbelief a tremendous amount. The pacing of the story is also much worse, with there being so much wasted time and many instances where you investigate locations with little justification or results. The story also focuses a lot on the personal struggles of each of the new characters which isn’t necessarily bad in and of itself were it not for the fact that it forcefully pulls you away from the murder investigation in a way that feels like filler rather than naturally exploring the characters by integrating them into the narrative, or having those parts be optional like Persona’s social links and Fire Emblem’s support conversations. The humor is also repetitive and relies too much on referencing or outright quoting word for word jokes from the first game which are no longer funny the second (or even third in some cases) time. Nirvana also tries to stand separate from the first game but the way it does this is by retconning details from the first game, ignoring/undoing established character arcs that were central to their development, and otherwise pretending the first game didn’t happen in an effort to seem disconnected despite very much being connected.

You should add more languages into your game, not much people wants to play visual novels in secondary language