AI: The Somnium Files: nirvanA Initiative (PlayStation 4) Review

The air of mystery is the backbone of AI: The Somnium Files: nirvanA Initiative. This time around, Mizuki takes the stage as a lead protagonist with Aiba to assist her, as well as newcomer Ryuki, a psyncer at ABIS with his own AI-Ball named Tama. Ryuki and Tama take lead seats alongside Mizuki and Aiba really well and Date doesn't feel missed too much as a result. The game also begins with a very creative check to see if players have completed the first game in some way by asking a couple questions about the first game. Our reviewer did play the first game, and he noticed many times in his playthrough where characters had no issue discussing and referencing events from the first title, despite the two cases being very separate from each other. It seems that some can play nirvanA Initiative cold, but some of the cut lines and backstory of returning characters may feel sorely missed and the script does take less time to establish characters and some terminology outside of tutorials and the Files (glossary) menu.

The story is told in two halves, each from their perspective. Structurally, this game is preferred over the first, due to the flowchart being narrower and more linear. Having two differing perspectives of the ongoing mystery really helps the pace. This results in a more narrow and streamlined story, as opposed to the many branches of the first title. While there are still somniums that diverge paths, they are as often as necessary to allow events to line up more seamlessly. Without going into character and story specifics, the overarching story of nirvanA Initiative puts too much weight on one major subject outside of the core mystery known as the Half-Body (HB) case, where either left or right halves of bodies begin to appear in bizarre ways. This other plot tries to weave itself into the HB case, but has a hard time staying interesting as the HB case reaches its climax. The murder mystery itself is enthralling and keeps players invested in the cast of characters as a result, but a certain element of the story doesn't grab attention as much due to most of the characters not being directly included in that separate plot line. The cast of side characters is still great, but some new characters take some time to get accustomed to due to how they act when beginning their arc.

The somniums this time around are a great mix of variety both in visual style and puzzle difficulty. These dream sections of the game look great, and have less clutter than before with interact-able objects. They largely do away with including so many objects that serve no purpose or are only there for comedic effect. This allows for a smoother experience and less time crunch which the first game struggled with at times. The environments are much easier to parse as a result and the puzzles themselves are more creative and thematic as well. Pyncs have several quality of life improvements in nirvanA Initiative. For one, starting a new game presents difficulty settings for somniums, allowing for interactions with objects and general time depletion to be slower. It is nice to see the option here and would be great to see in future games in the series. Aside from a simplified UI, interacting with objects now awards Keys; partial or full sentence hints that can clue players in on how to progress. Aspects like Keys and Timies, items that can be used to reduce time costs, make Somniums more manageable than the first game and present the ideal amount of challenge.

A new element to the game is Virtual Reality sequences, whereby Mizuki and Ryuki observe and reenact crime scenes with the help of their AI-Balls. Each is a nice change of pace, and acts as a great way to observe and learn how scenes play out well after the events took place. Objects are observed in a similar fashion to Somniums, but there is no time limit associated with Virtual Reality sections, allowing for a more dialogue heavy scene to chew through as opposed to Somniums which are focused more on solving evolving puzzles. After getting familiar with the scene, the Truth Reenactment phase begins, where Mizuki or Ryuki reenact the actions of the culprit or other key character. These are a nice reward with comedic flair to balance the seriousness of events.

Playing the PlayStation 4 version of the game on a PlayStation 5 console, the performance is rather solid with a couple notable caveats. While the frame rate holds rather steady, changing viewing style (Normal, X-Ray, and Thermal modes) in Virtual Reality or moving the camera too fast can cause brief bits of slowdown. Mizuki's hair can also glitch and become deformed in the middle of conversations in two key areas later in the game, but it is never consistent enough to be much of an issue.