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scoutception · 4 years

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AI: The Somnium Files review

While it wasn’t the first visual novel series I played, the Zero Escape trilogy- Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, Virtue’s Last Reward, and Zero Time Dilemma- is what made me interested in exploring more visual novels in general. Featuring a creative mix of normal visual novel sections and puzzle room sections, with stories involving fascinating pseudo science theories, colorful and interesting characters, fast, tense pacing, and great music, the series is an insane adventure that’s absolutely worth a try. The series also got me interested in the other works of Kotaro Uchikoshi, the director and writer of the series, which led me to the subject of today’s review, and his most recent work: AI: The Somnium Files, which proves to be quite the change of pace, to say the least.

Story: Kaname Date is a member of the Advanced Brain Investigation Squad (ABIS), a special, secret division of the Metropolitan Police Department. Using a device known as the Psync Machine, Date can explore the subconscious of another person by entering their Somnium, a dream world which often holds secrets they would not reveal otherwise. 6 years ago, Date lost his left eye and all of his memories, left with no link to his past, not even his real name, except for Boss, his superior in ABIS and longtime friend. His left eye was replaced by an advanced AI called Aiba, capable of functions such as night vision and x-ray, as well as serving as Date’s avatar within Somnium.

One gloomy November night, Date is called in to investigate a murder victim found in an abandoned amusement park, having suffered multiple stab wounds, tied to a merry-go-horse and missing her left eyeball. The victim is Shoko Nadami, an acquaintance of Date’s, and the ex-wife of Renju Okiura, Date’s best friend and president of the entertainment company Lemniscate. Date’s initial investigation proves unfruitful, and comes to a halt completely when he discovers someone within the merry-go-round’s central column, traumatized to the point of being unable to speak and cradling a bloody ice pick: Mizuki Okiura, the 12 year old daughter of Shoko and Renju, whom Date took into his care 4 years ago.

Date continues the investigation the days afterwards, meeting Mizuki’s friends, the internet idol Iris Sagan, aka A-Set, and the otaku and aspiring light novel author Ota Matshushita, Iris’ mother Hitomi, and Moma Kumakura, leader of the Kumakura yakuza gang. Though Date finds a number of odd connections and occurrences, such as Renju falling out of contact, a call from a mysterious prisoner only known as #89, who claims to know the identity of the killer, and a large number of incidents among the Sagans, the Kumakuras, and others, all of which seem to date back to 6 years ago, he finds little in the way of actual evidence. Left with no other recourse, Date begins to Psync with both suspects and witnesses in the hopes of preventing the killer from striking again.

While it’s a fairly standard plot on the surface, it’s very well done nonetheless. The various mysteries and plotlines are all compelling, and are all given a good amount of focus. Adding to this is the use of a route system, similar to Zero Escape, complete with a flowchart allowing you to easily go to any point in the story. Completing certain Somniums in different ways alters the course of Date’s investigation, causing certain plotlines and characters to gain or lose relevance depending on the route. While every route needs to be completed, each one containing their own reveals and clues, there’s only 5 in total, making keeping track of the distinctive events in each fairly simple. The pacing is also well done, taking its time and allowing you to get used to the characters, while throwing just enough new hints throughout to keep it interesting.

Speaking of the characters, the cast is easily my favorite part of the game. The characters are very, odd and colorful, pretty much to be expected from Uchikoshi. Date himself is a pretty entertaining protagonist, with a tendency for perversion, making bad puns, and coming up with very odd and often ineffectual ideas for progressing in Somnium, going against his serious demeanor and appearance. The supporting cast doesn’t slack either. From the rational, yet sassy Aiba, who turns much sillier within Somnium as well, to the peppy and friendly Iris, to the playful Boss, whose office is an absolute mess decorated with just about any nonsense you could imagine, to my favorite of the cast, Mizuki, the mature, sarcastic, and inexplicably strong kid who spends a good deal of her time arguing with the rather distant Date. It’s hard to dislike most of the characters, with even the most minor of them being good for a laugh or two.

That’s not to say they’re just goofy, though. Almost everyone carries some sort of baggage or secret with that adds a good deal of depth to them, and the various routes give them a lot of development. The game can be pretty damn emotional at points, and the routes focusing more on the characters than the story are the biggest source of them, especially Mizuki’s route. The lighter tone the game takes most of the time actually helps this. Most of the time, interacting with random objects trigger dumb jokes and commentary from Date and the others, and the relaxed pacing and atmosphere, at least earlier on, make it easier to get gradually attached to the cast. Once things do become more serious, the game starts cutting down the jokes, and stops them outright for the most serious of scenarios, meaning it rarely actually becomes jarring. It’s not often a game can juggle a tone as well as this one.

Overall, the writing of the game is superb, and while it’s quite different in tone and setting, it still has enough of the feel of Zero Escape to feel familiar to those who played it.

Gameplay: While I call AI: The Somnium Files a visual novel just for the sake of simplicity, it definitely more has the feel of an adventure game. There’s two types of gameplay segments, investigations and Somniums. During investigations, Date travels to various locations, talking with various characters or investigating important object. Your only control here is controlling Date’s view, and selecting different dialogue options or objects to investigate. Date often has to investigate several locations during a segment, and while you often have to visit them all, you’re given the freedom of picking where to go in whatever order you choose most of the time, giving just enough nonlinearity to not feel like a chore.

The real meat of the gameplay takes place during the Somnium sections, which are comparable to the escape rooms in Zero Escape. Within Somnium, Date and Aiba must break the various mental locks the information they are seeking are hidden behind, which involves interacting with various objects according to the logic of each Somnium. Basically, they’re purely logic puzzles, and it’s actually quite fun figuring out how everything is supposed to work.

Of course, not everything can be that easy. Every Somnium has a hard time limit of 6 minutes. Going over it causes Date’s consciousness to be absorbed into the subject’s, causing a game over. All interactions also cost time, and many incorrect decisions can drain your time pretty significantly. Thankfully, the game has many mitigating factors that keep this from just being stressful. Firstly, time only drains when you’re making choices, or actually moving around. Standing still causes only milliseconds to pass, allowing you to get a clear look around without wasting time. Additionally, all objects you can interact with have a purple outline surrounding them, and are given name tags as well, meaning you don’t have to just wander around, running up to every object in the hopes this one is usable. Not every interactable object actually has a purpose, however, with some only existing to waste your time, so you’re not completely in the clear. The progress meter on the left also gives hints, if sometimes vague ones, as to what you have to do to progress, so you’re not just fumbling in the dark in that regard, either.

Another important feature at the TIMIEs, objects you gain when you interact with objects. These cut the time actions take to perform by varying amounts, or make it take a fixed amount of time. Good use of TIMIEs can save you a lot of time, and a lot of later Sominums enforce it, making it rather strategic. Sometimes, just rushing to the correct solution burns way too much time on its own. You may have to do something you know is wrong, but takes little time and grants a good TIMIE, to be able to save more time on a much costlier action. This aspect isn’t entirely simple either, however. Not all actions display what kind of TIMIE you’ll get, making it a gamble at times, and some, including mandatory actions, give negative TIMIEs, that actually increase the amount of time an action will take, and force you to use them the action after you get them, often forcing you to do something incorrect, but with low time cost, just so you won’t game over.

Each Somnium also has two conditions that unlock album entries, which provide pictures and concept art. The first is for clearing a Somnium with more than 1 second left, as you’re actually allowed to go over the time limit if the final correct action is what pushes you over. The second is for finding special eye shaped items within the Somniums, which are often hidden out of the way. Finally, even if you’re struggling with certain sections, you’re granted 3 retries per Somnium, which allow you to return to a previous part of the section, with all the time you had left at that time, allowing you to optimize and save even more time, though it costs more retries the further back you go. Finally, even if you can’t win, you can simply restart the Somnium section with no penalty, and are even allowed to do so at any time in the menu. Overall, the Somnium sections are actually a lot of fun. Between the interesting logic and strategicness of it, not to mention some of the funniest dialogue in the game between Date and Aiba, they’re some of the most enjoyable parts of the game.

Finally, the game features a few “action segments” during the investigation segments, where Date will be faced with an actual physical threat. Aiba formulates plans to deal with the situation, and you just need to handle each step by pressing a button prompt, like a QTE, or hovering the cursor over a certain area for a long enough time. It’s not exactly difficult, but they serve their purpose. There’s also a few interrogations segments, where you must present relevant evidence to someone in order to prove a point. You can just randomly pick until you get the right one with no in game penalty, but there are achievements for clearing these sections and the action sections with no mistakes.

Graphics: AI: The Sominum Files is a surprisingly pretty game. It has a similar art style to Zero Time Dilemma, which, to put it bluntly, was downright awful in the visuals department, with unemotive character models and terrible animations that killed almost all of its attempts at being unsettling. While a few of the animations in this game can still look janky, it is on a whole much. much improved. The characters are much more expressive, helped by the designs by Yusuke Kozaki, best known for games like No More Heroes and Fire Emblem Awakening, fitting the style much better, while still being distinctive in their own right. The locations have a lot of detail to them, and the lighting is very well done. The highlight of the visuals, though, are the Somniums, which manage to give existing locations very distinctive, well, dream like qualities to them, such as shifting colors or heavy lighting, and are always a joy to explore.

Sound: AI features a downright fantastic soundtrack by Keisuke Ito. It manages to capture a similar feel to Zero Escape’s music at points, despite being a different composer, but still manages to stand out. Every song manages to fit the situation perfectly, while also being very catchy on their own, especially the Somnium themes. The music, combined with the visuals, give the game a very strong atmosphere. Whatever mood the game is attempting to set, nostalgic, tense, peaceful, or unsettling, it nails it very, very well, and had me immersed very easily.

The game also features some fantastic English voice acting. Greg Chun as Date and Erika Harlacher as Aiba are the main stars of the show, with their performances capturing their characters perfectly, but the rest of the cast is just as good. Jackie Lastra as Iris, Zach Aguilar as Ota, Corina Boettger as Mizuki, Allegra Clark as Boss, Kaiji Tang as Moma, pretty much everyone does a great job.

Conclusion: Overall, AI: The Somnium Files is something I highly recommend to most people, even those who haven’t touched another Uchikoshi game. It’s a fascinating, emotional, and satisfying experience that successfully manages to devote attention to just about everything it brings up, and doesn’t overstay its welcome. Honestly, I enjoyed it even more than any Zero Escape game, and considered I still look on those very fondly, that’s an achievement. With that, this review finally comes to a close. I shall likely be checking out the games Uchikoshi worked on before even Zero Escape: Never 7, Ever 17, and Remember 11. Till next time. -Scout

#ai the somnium files #kotaro uchikoshi #visual novel #game review #long post

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gamer2002 · 3 years

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AI: The Somnium Files - Review2002

AI: The Somnium Files is a VN game with puzzle/adventure elements. Story-wise, I personally describe it as Lethal Weapon with SF elements in anime format and with bonus twists. The game was created by Kotaro Uchikoshi, of Zero Escape series. Similarly to ZE games, the story has branching points and multiple different endings, with some being required before reaching the others.

You play as Kaname Date, an amnestic detective in a slightly futuristic setting, whose partner is Aiba, an AI in Date’s cybernetic left eyeball. The main plot is about catching a mysterious serial killer, who removes left eyes of his victims, and discovering Date’s forgotten past. Through his investigation, Date, with help of Aiba, enters to other people’s dreams, the titular Somniums, in order to discover secrets hidden within peoples’ subconsciouses.

Comparing to Zero Escape series, I wouldn’t say the AI’s twists and revelations are as mindblowing. But AI is definitely stronger when it comes to emotional scenes, and highs of this game are incredibly high. It’s also at least as good Zero Escape when it comes to characters – while maybe the game doesn’t have characters on the level of the greatest in Zero Escape (999’s Zero and Ten from VLR)*, it has even better main duo than VLR (the best main duo in the series), has no weak characters (Quark, Alice and Clover are the reason why VLR cast can’t outshine 999 cast), and has an entertaining villain (999 had a good villain, but VLR and ZTD had their issues with it).

* Boss and Renju are good and quite complex characters, but Renju is an off-screen entity, while Boss doesn’t really have any kind of arc. Which is why they aren’t on the level of Ten, let alone 999 Zero.

Music is great, visuals are nice. The game is also the most immersive VN I’ve played. Instead of having static background with 2D characters, we, as Date, stand, or sit, in a 3D environment and turn around our head to look at various characters that are talking with us. Thanks to that, we can shift our focus from a talking character, to a character reacting to the other character’s words, and then even roll our own eyes over what we’re hearing.

Somniums are the main gameplay sections, just like the escape rooms are in Zero Escape. While investigating dream worlds is a fascinating concept, and I had some fun with completing them, the gameplay itself boils down to trial and error. There are rules and hints that help you solve the Somniums as puzzles, but I went through most of them by managing items that save limited time. And “perform an action, that has nothing to do with solving the current puzzle, to be able to perform next action in just one second” isn’t a legitimate puzzle solving. Sure, I can blame only myself for gaming the system, but I couldn’t game the good old escape rooms. And some Somniums were required to be gamed, particularly, the final one.

When it comes to the story, it’s good, but better not to approach it like Zero Escape. ZE were SF mysteries, while AI is a buddy cop story with elements of SF mystery. With such elements like the ridiculous actions scenes, Ota’s family character designs, or Mizuki’s abilities, Uchikoshi clearly wanted to have some anime fun with this project. And it is fun. The main duo is always entertaining with their back-and-forth, the intrigue and mystery are interesting, and the different paths allow to look at characters through different angles. The scenes that are intended to be touching are way batter than any attempts at that from Zero Escape. But there are really silly scenes, and there is a lack of complex elements, like motives of the villain. Still, with Uchikoshi botching complex motives in ZTD, I prefer simpler, yet more entertaining and memorable villains. And AI does provide such.

Overall, I recommend this game for fans of VNs and adventure games that don’t mind silly comedic elements. It’s a 8/10 story, with some interesting ideas and really well done character moments. And that’s what it comes to a spoiler-free review, as I decided to try starting blogging about interesting me aspects of writing in stories.

So, spoiler warning - I have couple of specific subjects to talk about. Those subjects are: the issue of the right side of the flowchart, why you don’t see the greatness of Iris’ character, and the Psync Machine sized plothole. That’s a lot of critique, but (assuming I will continue this series of blog posts), you should read me for spotted writing errors and solutions to them. But to not be overly negative, I will also praise and outline a good writing job, by focusing on the topic of Aiba as a perfect partner character.

The problem of the right side of the game.

Common complaint about the game is the right path from the first branching point, specifically Iris Route. Actually, I happened to complete Iris Route first, and I didn’t mind it. I still didn’t know what Uchikoshi was up to this time, and Zero Escape had taught me that an ending in Uchikoshi games isn’t a start yet.

Still, in retrospect, Iris Route has an issue with pacing and can feel bit jarring, after playing left side of the game, which is much more focused on the murder mystery. There’s also a problem of Iris herself, but that’s a separate topic.

The left side is laser focused on the game’s plot. The goal is to catch the serial killer, the stakes are bringing him to justice for killing Mizuki’s parents, the urgency is genuine threat of another person becoming the killer’s target. Urgency and stakes raise with each next victim. More and more questions are piling up, while all our actions are strictly plot related – we either try to obtain information from a separate criminal, clear up another framed suspect, or confront the apparent man behind it all.

Iris route is more SF focused, to a degree that is shocking after completing left side’s routes. There are raised questions that are related to the main mystery, but the focus is shifted on Date’s past and stuff like a possibility of prophetic dreams. Then we have Iris’ “death” with an emotional high in the form of questioning So and entering his Somnium. But then we are bamboozled with “Iris’ body” vanishing and her sudden “resurrection”, with the focus shifting on the possibility of altering reality with dreams… And then we fall into the rabbit hole of Naixatloz.

When I played this route, which was my first one, I assumed that Uchikoshi was telling me “you know my love for pseudoscience, so get a pile of pseudoscience and guess all the red herrings”. That in itself isn’t bad, but the stakes and urgency were gone, with the primary goal becoming more and more unclear.

Instead of more and more victims being targeted by the killer, like it happens on the left side, Iris route boils down to her status shifting between “not in danger”, “in danger” and “dead”. There are no more victims, only the first victim is dead. Stuff happens, like the attack of mercenaries and escape of a prisoner, but none have the weight of left side’s deaths and injuries. There is a possibility of bringing victims back to life, which removes any threat. Sure, this one sets up a beautiful tragedy for the route’s finale, but that’s the finale. Between So’s Somnium and the finale, the only real emotional moment is revelation of Pewter’s betrayal, but this doesn’t have any proper payoff akin to confronting So in Mizuki’s route. Fighting goons of a passive villain that hasn’t hurt anyone isn’t the same as fighting goons of a murderous villain that is prepared for a showdown. Renju with his mysterious agenda also isn’t the same threat like the serial killer that keeps killing or hurting characters around you. #89 can piss you off with his escape, but that’s as well.

Instead, the route is filled with exposition after exposition. We discuss Somnium technology, mythology, Iris’ close ones, alternate realities and conspiracies. We don’t progress with the case, we only get Iris back to the “not in danger” status for few times. Date becoming apparently brainwashed by her is intriguing, but that won’t carry a route with unclear shifting goals we don’t really progress toward. What’s left, Date getting lectured on Mizuki’s well-being? If you played the left side, you know her situation isn’t that bad as it could be. If you haven’t played it yet, you don’t know her enough to care that much.

Overall, Iris route has a good beginning and finale, but the middle is exposition filled and nowhere as engaging as the left side. And while Date and Aiba duo can easily carry the game, Iris route is a problem.

Iris – really good character dragged down by an execution misstep

There is a complaint that Iris, unlike Ota and Mizuki in their routes, doesn’t have a character development. For starters, Ota and Mizuki don’t really have much of character development outside of their routes. Iris does develop in her route, but negatively. The real issue is that the game doesn’t properly justify her early actions, which you may or may not like, depending on your subjective opinion.

Personally, I have a soft spot for cheerful/wacky female characters that can bring a smile on my face. Iris, being a girlish idol with trollish tendencies, was enjoyable for me. I liked her blackmailing Date to let her tag along, and I liked her trolling Ota or Moma. Although, the way she talked about Egyptian mythology or nanomachines was bit too infantile for me.

But when all is said and done, Iris is a good character, or at least there is a really good idea behind her. A crazy idol-slash-troublemaker that produces a scandalous video, just to force a detective to let her look at a crime scene and go wild with her imagination, is in fact a terminally ill brain cancer patient that tries to have as much fun and excitement she can get in her soon to be over life. She wishes for something special to happen to her, an adventure, a conspiracy, or to find at least a replacement for her lost father-figure. Unknowingly to her, she is a center of conspiracy her mother is part of, in order to protect her from the killers of her actual biological mother. Unknowingly for her, her mother has a plan to obtain money for her treatment. Unknowingly to her, the man she things as a replacement of her father-figure is her father-figure, but they both are unable to recognize one another. She had a special life, she had a chance for a long life, and she had discovered the man he was looking for, but she was unaware of it all.

And then she gets the adventure she wished for, in form of unknown armed men trying to kidnap her. Trauma from that event, mixed with the condition of her brain and tons of conspiracy theories, pushed her into delusion. The worst of all, she ended up dragging into said delusion the man that could help her, if she had not made him lose his own grasp on the reality. Unable to handle the trauma, she succumbed to her brain tumor, wondering if she was dying in the arms of the man she wanted to reunite with.

When Mizuki’s and Ota’s stories end on positive note, Iris’ story ends on a tragic one. Her wish for excitement before the end of short life provided her with excitement that prevented her life from being prolonged. The careless troublemaker that could irritate us at the beginning was understandable, but paid the ultimate price for her own actions.

But the execution fails to deliver that.

When it comes to Mizuki and Ota, the game is clear and to the point. We don’t have to connect the dots, to see what is moving about Mizuki finding that she has her family in Date. We don’t have to reflect deeply about it, to see that irritating manchild Ota actually deals with an unhappy situation of the person he does deeply care about. When you want to emotionally move the player, you can’t expect from him to figure out why he has to be moved, you have to directly slap him with reasons to care and then bash him with emotional scenes.

The problem is that in Iris’ route we don’t learn about her brain tumor. We learn about it when we switch the path and look for information in reality, not in her delusions. The additional layer to the tragedy in her ending is revealed to us when we are avoiding said ending. Plus, the game doesn’t ever connect said revelation to her early behavior with constantly forcing Date to let her tag along, that aspect of her remains unexplained. And not every player will think that deeply about it.

The game had an occasion to hammer down why Iris’ behavior had a purpose beyond her forcing herself to the plot. After the second discovery of “Iris’” body, but before Aiba helps us with figuring things out, Date could mourn Iris and think about everything he had learned about her. He could remind himself how Iris wanted to be around him, he could realize she knew that her days were numbered, he could conclude that she was just desperate to feel alive before her own end. Then, after Aiba helps him figure out that the body doesn’t belong to Iris, he could also think about the importance of staying in reality and that it would be a tragic mistake, if he had believed Iris about the conspiracy. It’s not much, but it clarifies the purpose to everything.

It’s subjective whatever you like Iris leeching on Date, it’s subjective whatever you find the above explanation as a sufficient justification. But the character’s actions being clearly purposeful and meaningful, and not just being borderline obnoxious for the sake of being obnoxious, is an objective quality to your writing. When it comes to Iris, the game does not have such a quality, when it easily could have.

Two short monologues, with some montage of flashbacks, and the character would be put into a different light. That’s why you need to be direct about emotionally affecting the player about your story and your characters. Otherwise, you won’t affect many.

The plothole with Psync Machine prototype

So, six years ago, Saito swapped bodies with Date in Rohan’s body, using the prototype of Psync Machine. Date escaped with Saito’s body, while Saito remained in Rohan’s body, and both have lost their memories. Date was found by Boss, who made him join ABIS. The police arrested Saito, and locked him up in the local Arkham Asylum. For six whole years, the Psync Machine prototype remained in secret location, with two knowing about it men suffering from amnesia.

But there was also a bunch of Saito’s people. You know, the same guys that stole the prototype and witnessed Saito and Date swapping their bodies? Whatever happened to those guys, and how come that they never said a word about it, especially to Saito’s father?

The game doesn’t recognize this at any point. We are supposed to accept that the prototype was hidden in abandoned chemical plant, and nobody knew about it until Saito regained his memories. Sure, Saito’s people could remain loyal to him, but how come that six years later Saito was forced to work on his own and, in true ending route, had to improvise swapping the body of dying Renju? And Saito really isn’t any kind of charismatic leader that would made bunch of criminals to never use or take away a machine that allowed them to become literally anybody. That’s simply an unbelievable plot convenience.

There is a simple solution to this. One way for explaining why nobody touched the prototype would be causing the explosion in the chemical plant right after Saito and Date swapping their bodies, which would be the cause for everybody present losing their memories. After the body swapping, due to Saito overlooking one of the prototype’s properties, Date was hit with an adrenaline shot, while Saito was drugged. Or maybe Saito’s men were the ones that didn’t tell him about that feature? While Saito was unable to do much, Date was still surrounded by Saito’s men, that were going to betray their boss and use the machine for their own ends. But Date did gain access to Saito’s memory, who had a plan of causing an explosion in the chemical plant, and also had finished his preparations. Perhaps Saito choose the chemical plant as a place for the body swapping, because he intended to trap there his own men and Date, because he wanted to become independent from his father and keep the secret of body swapping machine for himself. So, Date, not having any other way of preventing the Psync Machine from falling into wrong hands, finished what Saito had started and caused the explosion, wiping everybody’s memory. Of course, Date had no intention of losing his own memory, but something went wrong and he ended up barely escaping.

While this issue is an easily resolvable plothole, I doubt if Uchikoshi would prefer such a solution instead of keeping the hole unfixed. I mean, while Date’s decision to cause the explosion would be understandable, due to being outgunned by criminals and a dangerous device being at stake, Uchikoshi wouldn’t be able to have his happy dancing party ending anymore. Because Date would be indirectly responsible for Ota’s father death.

It’s because of the chemical plant explosion that Ota’s family’s diner has lost their consumers. Because of that, Ota’s father had to take different jobs and overworked himself to death. Because of that, Ota was the only one who could support his mother, after she started to suffer from dementia. Such a revelation couldn’t be just overlooked, to let everyone dance and have a shamelessly cheesy finale that celebrates Aiba’s miraculous resurrection.

Perhaps Uchikoshi planned for Date to cause the explosion, but backed away from it, realizing its implications. Which is why he has changed things last minute (moving the explosion two years before), while doing a rather sloppy job at it (so, people could enter the epicenter of explosion two years after it, but only six years later the restricted zone was decontaminated?). I can understand him making such a decision, having a dark twists for the sake of it isn’t really that good. It’s respectable that he wished to have an upbeat ending. But he should have think things through.

But to get myself out of this game’s shortcomings, let’s look at how it delivers what it promises in its title. AI, also Artificial Intelligence. Ai, also love.

How to write a Partner Character for a video game with Love in its name

Each medium is different, each medium has its different strengths. Books allow for imagination inspiring descriptions of events, and good books make their readers lost themselves in their settings. Movies allow to condense plenty of events in one-two hours, good movies make their viewers to invest themselves in an emotional roller-coaster. Video games (and RPGs) allow direct involvement in their events, good games make their players to have intense personal experience.

Which is why gaming journos that endlessly complain about video games writing supposedly not matching to books or movies (especially when they talk about movies) are nothing more than a bunch of desperate rejects from pop-culture sites they’d like to become a part of. But I digress.

In a book or a movie, Aiba would be a supporting satellite character. While I’ve compared the game to Lethal Weapon, she isn’t exactly a Danny Glover to Mel Gibson in this. While Gibson’s character ends up having more character development and ends up being arguably the protagonist, Glover’s character is still his own independent entity with his own supporting cast (his family), and he still makes his own major plot advancing decisions (sheltering a smuggled family in 4).

Aiba is closer to Aladdin’s Genie. She was explicitly created to support Date, she doesn’t really have much of an arc, up until the very end she has no interactions with most of the cast, and in her every single decision she faithfully aids Date. So, while she shares equal screen-time with Date, she doesn’t share an equal standing with him. And while both Aiba and the Genie are memorable, entertaining and likable, and also they both form a connection with their protagonist, with whom they have great chemistry (although Date and Aiba have greater, due to being bigger opposites), there is a limit to how much you can get invested in the fate of such a character. Let’s say that Aladdin couldn’t defeat Jaffar, but the Genie sacrificed himself to save the day, and then he got his own miraculous Disney-like resurrection. Let’s make it easier for the Genie, and imagine him as a more appealing waifu material.

On paper, Genie’s sacrifice and resurrection would be the same Aiba’s is on paper – a rather predictable nice to have miracle in a kids story that has no balls for a lasting tragedy. Even when said tragedy pretty much only could impact a single character, even if said character was our viewpoint protagonist. Even if the character is fun and them being okay can make you happy, depending on your subjective experience.

But we aren’t experiencing video game plots by reading them on the paper. Aiba isn’t just a fun and likable character that solely aided another character that we were following, Aiba is our Partner Character that aided us. The reason why she didn’t get much of interaction with other characters isn’t because she is some satellite character, it is because she was, rightfully, preoccupied with us and nobody else.

We people are quite selfish, and you’re lying if you deny this. The purpose of Aiba’s character was to make us feel sadness, over her sacrifice, and joy, over her resurrection. For that, the game needed to make us love her, which wouldn’t work so well in a book or a movie. How a game can make us love a character, in a way that other mediums simply can’t? By appealing to our selfish needs of usefulness and reliability.

Aiba is extremely useful to us. In Somniums she becomes playable, with the game presenting it as her following Date’s, ours, instructions. Outside of Somniums, Aiba’s abilities and tips help Date, us, to advance the investigation, making the game proceed smoother. Zoom, x-ray, lie detecting, hacking, googling information, perfectly calculated ludicrous plans, you name it. Aiba is also completely reliable, being the character that aids us 99% of time, and also one of very few that never turns against us. And like I’ve said before, she is always fun to have around.

While in other mediums Aiba could be more than just Date’s little useful techno-Genie, in a video game this isn’t just not needed, it would be also a potential hindrance. If Aiba had another character with similar importance to her as Date, in order to establish that she would have to, at some point, push Date aside for said character’s sake. And that would be pushing aside us. Notice that the second most important character to Aiba is Mizuki, and Mizuki also never turns against Date.

Add to that she always secretly loved Date, and we have our perfect videogame waifu. You will love her, you won’t want her to die, you will want her to return, you will rejoice when she returns. On the paper, it will be one of the most played out and cliché plot turns. But you won’t be experiencing it by just reading some paper.

#ai the somnium files #ai: the somnium files #somnium files #vn #video game #video games #game reviews #game review #story review #story analysis #review2002

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scoutception · 4 years

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Ranking the next 5 animes I’ve recently watched

After many distractions on my part, including playing through Steins;Gate, something that has quickly become something I adore like few others, I’ve continued my descent into the world of anime with 5 more series. The stuff I watched was a lot shorter on average than last time, and my attempts to be “objective” and my personal biases align much more closely compared to last time. With that, I’ll begin. 5. Soni-Ani: Super Sonico the Animation

Number of episodes: 12. Language options: subs only. Streaming availability: Crunchyroll. When it comes to visual novels, nitro+ is one of the biggest developers out there, alongside Key. Whereas Key is mainly out to make you really, really sad, nitro+ prefers a different approach. To my understanding, at best, their works are really, really dark, and at worst, they’re going straight for your nightmares, with stuff like Song of Saya and Sweet Pool. So clearly, the best mascot for them is the pink haired, constantly headphoned, and downright adorable Super Sonico. Even if it’s not outright official, it’s pretty jarring. Anyway, with that little rant out of the way, here’s the only thing on this list I actually wouldn’t recommend. Produced by White Fox back in 2014, this anime apparently got slammed pretty hard, and honestly, I have no idea why I even ended up watching this one. Perhaps this’ll be a reminder to be less impulsive in my choices in the future. Soni-Ani focuses on, who else, Super Sonico herself, an energetic and kind, yet clumsy college student who should reasonably be dead from stress and exhaustion. Along with college, she’s an idol, gravure model, helper at her grandmother’s restaurant and guitarist and main singer in the band First Astronomical Velocity with her friends Suzu Fujimi, the witty and manipulative bassist and official leader of the band, and Fuuri Watanuki, the mysterious drummer single mindedly obsessed with food. The series just explores some of the odd, extremely fanservice filled days of her life. It’s ok idea on paper, but in practice it’s just not really anything special or even entertaining for the most part. While I can usually ignore fanservice, it’s downright distractingly prevalent in the earlier episodes, to the point of several episode premises pretty much only catering themselves to it. Even without that, there’s just not much to be found; aside from Suzu and Sonico’s manager, the honestly hilarious Kitamura, who constantly wears a hannya mask and is willing to attack people for attempting to take advantage of Sonico, the characters aren’t anything memorable or entertaining on their own, leaving a lot of episodes feeling dry. They do improve in the second half, featuring episodes like a fairly charming murder mystery spoof, and an episode focusing on Sonico’s cats, of all things, but they’re still not something going out of your way to watch. The voice acting and animation, while at least ok, don’t stick out much either. Overall, again, this is the one thing I’d say to just avoid. There’s tons of other slice of life animes out there that are way better. If nothing else, though, I’m kinda glad I stuck to it just for the surprise cameo by Kurisu Makise’s outfit, considering I was already playing Steins;Gate.

4. Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun

Number of episodes: 12. Language options: dub (video release only, apparently) and subs available. Streaming availability: Crunchyroll, Hulu, Netflix. Moving onto stuff I’d actually recommend, here’s a nice little anime adaptation of a gag manga by Izumi Tsubaki, produced by Dogakobo. Chiyo Sakura, a high school student who stands at an impressive 4′9″, confesses her love to the tall and mysterious Umetaro Nozaki, and gets his autograph, of all things, for her troubles. Trying again, Nozaki instead takes her to his apartment... to assist him with his manga. As it turns out, Nozaki is a popular romance manga author, whose interests in life start an end at manga, rendering him utterly oblivious to Chiyo’s feelings. Thusly, Chiyo officially becomes his assistant in order to grow closer to her crush, meeting his other associates along the way. The main thing that must be said is that this is not a serious anime in the slightest, and it’s all just big parody of romance manga more than anything, especially with the characters, like Mikoshiba, who acts like a playboy, but in reality is cripplingly shy, and Kashima, the “prince” of the school who is both actually a girl and an airhead who’s frequently on the nerves of the drama club’s president, Hori. A lot of the humor thrives on miscommunication, and it’s exaggerated enough that it works well. Every character is an idiot, in their own ways, but endearingly so, and each of them stands out, from Chiyo, who mostly plays the straight man but has her moments of over imagination, or the hilariously abrasive Seo. The plots are the right kind of dumb too, like Nozaki and Mikoshiba becoming obsessed over a helper NPC in a dating sim, or Hori gaining an intense hatred for people standing on boxes due to Nozaki’s attempts to fix perspective problems. The jokes can get a bit predictable after a while, especially with Nozaki, but overall it’s a pretty funny time. The voice acting is good, and the animation is charming. Overall, this is definitely a fun watch. If you want a good laugh, or just something that doesn’t take itself too seriously, this is definitely something to check out. 3. Angel Beats!

Number of episodes: 13 (+ some OVAs not on streaming services). Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming availability: Netflix, Crunchyroll, Funimation. As it turned out, visual novels, or at least visual novel developers, became a theme in the things I watched this time around. As mentioned before, Key is one of the biggest VN developers out there, who specialize in making you really sad. From Kanon, to Clannad, to Planetarian, to Little Busters, Key’s made a lot of great stuff, and had some great anime adaptations made, particularly for Kanon and Clannad. Thus, Jun Maeda, co-founder of Key, conceived Angel Beats to originate as an anime, produced by P.A. Works in 2010. Angel Beats focuses on Otonashi, a teenager who wakes up in a strange high school with amnesia, only able to remember his last name. He soon meets a girl named Yuri Nakamura, who informs him that they’re dead, and stuck in a sort of afterlife, seemingly ruled over by a mysterious girl they only know as Angel. In this purgatory, they’re unable to die, as Otonashi finds out first hand at Angel’s hands, and the school is populated by fabricated teachers and students, but the real people stuck there are at risk of being “obliterated” if they act like normal students, ceasing to exist. Unwilling to accept this, Yuri leads class SSS in opposition of Angel and the assumed God that created this world for the cruel fates that everyone stuck in the afterlife met, Otonashi seemingly included. With seemingly no other path to take, Otonashi joins forces with the SSS. The main strength of Angel Beats is its cast of characters. From the pretty mean yet charming Yuri, to the reliable, yet often abused Hinata, to the crazy and energetic Yui, to even some of the side characters, like Shiina, the ninja girl with a crippling weakness for wind up dog toys, or TK, who speaks in gloriously mangled English and dances constantly. The premise as well is honestly fascinating to me, and makes for some very interesting episodes. It’s got some pretty entertaining action scenes, along with some really funny moments, mostly by playing the “nobody can actually die” tidbit for all its worth, with the second episode devoting a good amount of time to slowly killing off the main group in horrible, yet blase fashions. It delivers emotionally too, with the second half in particular having a good deal of touching episodes, especially episode 10. Unfortunately, there’s one giant problem with this anime that brings it down quite a bit: it’s only 13 episodes long. While I’m not a fan of 12 or 13 episode seasons, I can’t say that’s a problem by itself. What is a problem is that they were planning to have double that amount of episodes, causing the storyline to feel very rushed, and leaving nearly every character in the cast that isn’t part of the main group very underdeveloped. While there’s an entire expanded universe of stuff, good luck tracking it all down, and while Key themselves were making a 6 part visual novel of Angel Beats to expand upon it all, something that’s very promising, only the first volume has been released so far, back in 2015, with no word since, very likely because of Jun Maeda’s health issues. Overall, Angel Beats genuinely is a good watch, but it’s kinda depressing, just because of how much potential was cut short thanks to whatever genius decided to cut the episode amount in half. Unless the VN project really gets going again, it’ll probably just remain a bunch of what could have beens. 2. Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Number of episodes: 12. Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming availability: Netflix, Hulu, Crunchyroll, Funimation. Continuing the theme I unintentionally set up, here’s this famous little thing, from the mind of Gen Urobuchi, who, among other things, has worked on several nitro+ visual novels, mostly notably Song of Saya, wrote the apparently horribly depressing Fate/Zero, and was a scriptwriter for Kamen Rider Gaim, which, to my understanding, is one of the darkest Kamen Rider shows out there. Will all this in mind, there’s no real hiding that this isn’t going to be anywhere near as innocent as it tries to appear. Even if you didn’t know that, its reputation probably far exceeds it by now. Madoka Kaname is an average middle school student whose life is thrown into chaos when a mysterious girl named Homura Akemi transfers into her class, whom Madoka later finds attacking a strange creature called Kyubey. After rescuing it, Madoka and her best friend Sayaka are attacked by a strange creature known as a witch, only to be rescued by Mami Tomoe, a “magical girl” given power by Kyubey. Kyubey sees much potential in Madoka, and offers to grant her any wish of her choosing, in exchange for her becoming a magical girl as well and helping fight the witches. Homura, however, is completely determined to keep that from happening. Thus starts a chain of event in the lives of Madoka and Sayaka that, suffice it to say, don’t go very well. Without getting too specific, what starts as a mostly typical, if slightly odd, magical girl show quickly goes to very dark and twisted places, comparative to Neon Genesis Evangelion, though not quite as in depthly depressing with it. Everyone takes a beating in some way, and even with just 12 episodes, it can get a bit much for some people, even when it doesn’t end quite as awfully as you might expect. Still, it’s actually very well done. The characters are complex and flawed, but ultimately sympathetic, the overall plot is fascinating, and it ends in a very fitting way. It’s emotional, and has surprisingly good action. The dub voice work is solid, and the animation by Studio Shaft is as well, especially helped by the abstract designs of the witches themselves. While I’m not quite as passionate about it all as some are, it’s definitely earned its reputation. It’s a great watch, and definitely a big recommendation. 1. Steins;Gate

Number of episodes: 24 (+ 1 OVA). Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming availability: Funimation, Hulu, Crunchyroll. Finishing off my unintentional theme with an actual adaptation of a visual novel, there was no way I wasn’t checking this one out with how utterly passionate the VN made me. This is at least partially a bias placement, but this anime is a very, very good adaptation, and a great way to experience the story without the VN, and a great watch even having gone through it. Rintaro Okabe is a college student on break living in his “laboratory” in Akihabara. A self proclaimed mad scientist, he whittles his days away hanging out with his friends Mayuri Shiina and Itaru Hashida, inventing useless gadgets in a supposed fight against an evil organization. One day, Rintaro and Mayuri go to attend a press conference by Doctor Nakabachi in Radi-Kan, who claims to have invented a time machine, only for it to end horribly for all involved when Rintaro discovers Kurisu Makise, a young neuroscientist who had recently had her thesis published in a major science magazine, murdered by an unknown assailant. Sending an email to Itaru about the incident, Rintaro suddenly finds the world to have changed. According to everyone else, the press conference had been canceled due to a mysterious satellite that crashed into Radi-Kan, and Rintaro later runs into Kurisu, alive and well. Investigating, Rintaro finds that, by complete accident, his modified microwave has become a device capable of sending emails to the past- and that SERN, a French research organization, has been conducting time travel experiments of their own. In his attempts to understand the capabilities of what he’s invented, and his curiosity as to why his memories appear to be out of sync with everyone else’s, Rintaro rushes into a series of experiments that change his life, and those of friends old and new. This is something I could rant about all day, but putting it as succinctly as I can, I’ve never been as fascinated by time travel as Steins;Gate has made me. As fantastic as it, it’s also shown to be unpredictable, limited, and downright unsettling, especially when nobody knows just how time even works. It’s a story about the concept of time travel as much as a story about using it. The story definitely starts a bit slowly, but it’s well worth pushing past. As an adaptation, it doesn’t even need to sacrifice much, with the most that’s lost being some details in a few later arcs that aren’t worth much in the long run anyway. Beyond that, the main strength of the story is the cast of characters. Rintaro, with his rather severe case of chuunibyou, is a unique protagonist to begin with, but the events of the story turn him into an honestly fascinating and downright tragic character, and easily one of my favorite protagonists in a long time. The rest of the cast is just as good, with Kurisu being a great mix of intelligence, ravenous curiosity, and flusterability, with her and Rintaro’s interactions always being entertaining. As well, there’s the always kind, yet ditzy Mayuri, the outgoing, but odd Suzuha Amane, the endearingly gentle Luka Urushibara, and the energetic and wily Faris, just for some examples. The cast is downright loveable and very easy to get attached to. While I prefer the Japanese voice cast overall, the dub isn’t to be overlooked, with Trina Nishimura as Kurisu, Tyson Rinehart as Itaru, Cherami Leigh as Suzuha, Lindsay Seidel as Luka, and especially J. Michael Tatum as Rintaro giving great performances. Visually, White Fox did a great job giving it a distinct look. While the VN had a gorgeous and unique artstyle, it’s not really something that can be translated into animation. Instead, they used a whole lot of washed out colors and saturated lights that, combined with the sparse use of flashy effects and even music, gives a very subtle atmosphere to it all. Even beyond the style, it looks very good on its own, and it’s especially nice not having Rintaro look like a ghoul half the time, like he does in the VN.

Overall, this is very much something worth checking out. I’m beating a dead horse here since Steins;Gate is already wildly popular, but it’s that way for a very good reason. There’s also an extra OVA episode, along with a sequel movie, though both are only available via Funimation. They aren’t quite the best, but they make for entertaining watches worth checking out. And with that, that’s the end to my rambling. With the exception of, again, Super Sonico, everything here is very much worth a watch. I’m sure, once I emerge from the hell of Steins;Gate spinoffs, I’ll get to watching even more stuff. Till then, though. -Scout

#anime #steins;gate #monthly girls' nozaki kun #angel beats #puella magi madoka magica

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