Recent reviews by Jordan Brown

As someone who struggles a lot with self-worth and relies too much on external validation, this game was extremely validating to me. It made me reflect on the actions of my self in years past, when I was desperate for approval, along with my actions in the recent past.
I call myself a writer and a game developer, and this hit very close to home with an important message of self reflection. Thank you.

------Intro------
I have been privileged enough to receive a review code from Spike Chunsoft for AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES — Nirvana Initiative, who graciously agreed to give me a review code to prevent spoilers on the AITSF subreddit. I wanted to give you a review of the things that other reviews probably won't mention. Technical details, presentation specifics, etc. This review doesn't actually go over any of the plot events whatsoever, so it is 100% free from spoilers and is able to be read for a completely blind playthrough.

I am obsessed with this game series, and as such, my review will be written from the perspective of a fan of the first AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES.

------Presentation------
Character portraits and models look cleaner than ever before, and individual elements of hair, earrings, etc. are all rigged to jiggle when they nod their head in a portrait or in-game, look down, and whatnot. It is very dynamic and looks great. Additionally, Boss, Ritsuko The Receptionist, and Tama all have breast physics, in case you were wondering. I suppose this proves that Boss does not canonically wear a bra at work. H̸̰̋e̷̯̓r̶͔̃ ̶̣͋p̶̰͝o̷̩̐ö̵́ͅr̶̠͐ back...

The new animations look phenomenal. The characters all have a gorgeous fluidity about them, and all cutscene animations and most S̵̗̪͑ő̷͓m̶̜̌̔͘n̶̝̹̓̔̎i̵̛̩͙̥u̷͍͍̪̾m̶̻͕̂́ ̸̡̊̇̽ animations are motion-captured, making them look excellent. Combined with the stellar voice acting and snappy dialogue and localization work, it really did make me feel like I was watching a well-choreographed movie at times, not playing a VISUAL NOVEL, of all things!

------Technical Details------
I played the Steam PC version. It ran perfectly well on my RTX 3060 TI ć̸̩a̵̢͑r̴̼̆d̶̠̈́ with 32 GB RAM and AMD Ryzen 9 5900x... but most people will not have a setup like that. It seems to be about as performance-intense as the first game, but with better lighting and animations.

One odd quirk is that the game launcher does not allow for anti-aliasing, which had to actually be forced in the NVIDIA Control Panel for me, and I'm sure the Intel and AMD Control Panels work the same. (Set anti-aliasing to override to fix this. I have reported this issue to Spike Chunsoft.)

AI Sight has been significantly improved. In the previous game, when a flashback to a character speaking occurred, the game would load the scene that character resided in. This resulted in 5, 10, or 15 second long flashbacks when a character would speak about a p̶͇͐ą̸̋s̷͎̔t̵͕̏ ̸̼̋ event. Some events were prerendered, but most were rendered in real-time, resulting in long load times for Date to recall a single line.

Meanwhile in Nirvana Initiative, flashbacks work by a character portrait and model appearing in an AI Sight black void. You'd think this would be jarring, but this method of flashbacks get the message across the same way as prior and has the added benefit of instantly loading, not stalling the dialogue.

One nitpick, though, is that the few prerendered cutscenes in the game have a jarring amount of visible compression artifacts. I assume the bitrate on the videos is low, but these artifacts are VERY distracting, even on my cheaper, 60HZ 1080p PC monitor, and I hope that the developers address this in a future update.

------Writing------
As expected, the localization and voice acting are phenomenal, with actors, voice director, and localizers doing a bang-up job. This was a passion project, and I could feel that in the cast's performances, as well as the localization work. Every character felt like a person with thoughts, feelings, etc.

Nirvana Initiative is hilarious. I could not stop giggling throughout the game... Arguably, AITSF:NI is funnier than the first game. The jokes are generally less dirty and far more clever, which, in my opinion, makes the dirty jokes that are there much funnier.

Characters rarely swear, and when they do, it is used for emotional impact or humor. It's a metaphorical spicy condiment, and they only apply it to dialogue is supposed to be spicy, so when a swear word is in a line, it feels much more î̴̘͍̯̰͔m̴̲̰̓̀͝p̸̻̘̘͈͇̔͌̅̃ͅȃ̴͓̯̘͇̪̱͙̑̄̓͝c̵̛̜̞̻̥͊̈̉̐̏͝t̷̨̜͈̱͆͑͗͗͆f̵̨̲̮̥̠̦͝͝ú̶͈͖̙͖̓̅̕͝l̸̖̦̙̐́.

------Overall Story Reactions, No Spoilers------
I was enjoying the game itself. I loved the characters, and thought the twists were pretty great.

Then, it happened : the Uchikoshi Moment. The moment where all of my perceived notions of the game's narrative broke, and my jaw hit the floor, leaving me genuinely gasping and giggling like a schoolgirl at the events unfolding on my screen.

The game is good. The game is really, REALLY good. You will love this game if you enjoyed the first game.

------Misc. Fan Concerns, Addressed------
- There is a minor, touching tribute to Brad Venable, voice actor of Kagami in the first AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES, as Kagami has been re-cast. I will not spoil it, but it did make me tear up a bit when I noticed it.

- Tama is interesting, and not just a horndog. She is funny, and even my dirty-joke-hating friend (who also got a review code) giggled at Tama and her stupid jokes, and enjoyed Tama's dynamic with Ryuki. Date lovers will love Tama, and as a woman who likes dirty jokes, I feel a personal kinship with Tama... even if I liked Ryuki more.

- Tama does have a mole on her breast, as was shown in the box art. I think this may have been patched in with the day one update, as I messaged Akira Okada about it, and the mole was not in Tama's initial render. I know this is a very important concern, so I am specifying it for all you Tama Mole Bo̷̧̡̥̜̹̫̞̩̠͇̦̳̹͙̥̦̎̉͐̈́̊̀͛̔͂͒̃̒͊̐͘̕͝ob Lovers out there.

- The Spoiler Toggle is blatantly obvious at the beginning of the game. You can't miss it.

- The game does take place in Japan, and sometimes puns or gags need to be explained a bit as a result (explaining Kanji), but the game never assumed I knew Japanese or has a joke that I found confusing. I wasn't certain of some of the Japanese cuisine names, and did need to search Yen conversions to United S̴̨̨͓̺̦̬̘̬͎͓̘͕̣̻̤̠͉̫̜̞͔̱͚̳̣̼͌̍̎̅̿̓͐̉̐̇̃͆̾̿́͑͜͜͜ͅtates ̸̠͉̙̦͙̭͊̓̏̃̀͝Dollars, but that just added to the worldbuilding, in my opinion, and was simply an acknowledgement that, yes, this game does indeed take place in Japan.

- Unfortunately, a lot of the items still have text that is unremarkable yet are still clickable. Lines like, "it's a chair", are very boring and common, and there is no way to tell tell which clickable elements will have a dialogue line, or what will not.

- This game is not a Zero Time Dilemma. The quality of this game will not be divisive. The game is genuinely, truly, fascinating and p̶͕͝h̷̪̄e̸̥̾n̵͖̓ǒ̶͚m̸̖̈́e̶̲͝ṉ̶́a̴͓̅l̷̺̃.

------Final Thoughts------

AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES — Nirvana Initiative is a game with an overly long title that managed to surpass my experience of the first AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES game. I genuinely haven't felt as giddy as I have playing this game in the past 14 years.
Please buy this game. If you have any interest in visual novels, or mysteries, or well-written stories.... please support this game and this fantastic company that was willing to give a lowly Reddit mod a review code, and then you shall discover the truth.
R̷̡̓e̵̠̋a̸̛̙l̶̪̽i̷͚̚t̵͙̕ý̷͈ ̸͓̑i̴͔͒s̴̻͆ ̵̮̇a̴͈̿n̷̯̕ ̶̜̈́i̶͖̍ľ̸̻l̸̺͠u̷̫͑s̴̈́͜i̵̮̚o̷̫͑ṉ̷͝,̷̛̰ ̵̜͂a̶̤̐f̴̹̂ẗ̵̖́e̵͓̕r̶͕͊ ̸͔̈́a̴̻̎l̴̛̖l̷̜͋.̸̡̑...

- Jordan Brown
"Robotortoise"

The graphics are MUCH nicer, the audio and animation quality (and lip sync) is a day and night difference, and the lighting is gorgeous.

Minor tweaks like the time of day changing during the episode really changes up the feel and keeps it more fresh. I think Bosco's new VA is pretty good - definitely different, but not bad at all.

Skunkape clearly REALLY care about the property and to update the games to make them better. (Like, come on, their name is based off the Season 3 villian, they clearly like the series)

These games are a great example of how a remaster should be done. Honestly, it's sometimes difficult to tell what was completely redone and what was part of the old assets, just recompressed at a higher quality/resolution.

The only gripe I have is that the game loads rather slow when booting from HDD, but the entire package is 900 MB, so just install it to a RAM disk or an SSD and it'll load much faster.

It's basically a more sci-fi, hornier Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney but with excellent, full (and fantastically directed/acted) voice acting.

If you like Ace Attorney, you'll like this game.

Absoslutely stunning!

I'm not usually into horror games, but I AM into computers and datamining and whatnot, and this game was absolutely brilliant in that regard.

It's like UNDERTALE in how it messes with your perception of what should and shouldn't be possible in a game.

And honestly? It's not that scary - at least, in the conventional sense. There are barely any jumpscares, and the ones that are there are very, very light.

It's unlooped.

The soundtrack itself is fantastic. But why the heck is it unlooped? Why would I want to listen to a 50 second song?

This is just laziness, Toby, jeez.

I'm gonna loop it myself if you won't..... :/

A really fun lighthearted game with Paper Mario-esque mechanics. Lots of great humor, though I will admit the story suffers from the premise of being "just a game", though it gets a bit better later in the story.

Anyways, the reason the game runs at 30 FPS is the game uses prerendered cutscenes with a sprite of your character layered on top. So most cutscenes, unlike the game, look a bit....JPEG-y and not crisp. Unfortunately, there's no option to have them rendered in real-time....I would've rather had longer loading times and better-looking cutscenes.

Overall, a really fun game that has about 14 hours in it if you complete most sidequests. I wouldn't say it's worth $60, though. Maybe $30 max. I paid $20 for it, it's probaly worth more than that, even though it's short.

I love this game.

Has too littlw hats. As a hat connesiour, this displeases me.


Also the robots don't have hats. Not realistic at all.

0/10 would not rate again