Board 8 > itt I talk about AI: The Somnium Files before moving on and it purges. (spoiler)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Anagram posted...

I can't wait for you to play the second.

Going to have to, after I am done with this I am going to be playing Tales of the Abyss and I might want to get into the trails series as well, I keep putting it off but hear good things.

I also ordered some light novels.

But even so I am on the Yellow route now with best buddy Mizuki.

SirChris posted...

I will never get tired of So being brutally murdered though, that guy sucks too.

Ok I won't tolerate the So hate

Repeating earlier sentiment that I am glad Shoko has been dead this entire game.

Also clears up the main reason I think Date is fucking awful. He knows everything that couple does and is just like "wow, that's crazy, you guys are terrible people OH WELL LET'S GET SOME BREWSKIES"

MrSmartGuy posted...

Also clears up the main reason I think Date is fucking awful. He knows everything that couple does and is just like "wow, that's crazy, you guys are terrible people OH WELL LET'S GET SOME BREWSKIES"

Eh, idk it's kind of a tough spot to be in when you are told Mizuki is so attached to her mother like that. I am not saying he made the right choice but the fact that he eventually did take her in is something.

But Date's bigger problem is he is kind of dumb lol

MrSmartGuy posted...

Also clears up the main reason I think Date is fucking awful. He knows everything that couple does and is just like "wow, that's crazy, you guys are terrible people OH WELL LET'S GET SOME BREWSKIES"

You're basically only shown scenes where he's finding out how bad things are, then adopts Mizuki. Did you want Date to kill them right in the bar or something?

Oh a porno mag skit when we are trying to bring the killer to justice.

Just what this scene needed.

POOORNO MAAAAG (caps)

I will say I think MSG skipped the boat on Mizuki and Date's relationship if yellow route is anything to go by.

Mizuki route done.

Mizuki is indeed pretty awesome.

Hm, Hitomi's probably got some explaining to do.

Back to the cold and cruel world where Iris isn't alive rip

SirChris posted...

Back to the cold and cruel world where Iris isn't alive rip

I take it back it is spicier than this.

One last stupid porn mag joke for the road huh.

Also she is called 'Boss' of course she was going to be an enemy at some point, it really only makes sense.

I can see why everyone loves Mizuki though she is literally the only person who doesn't fuck you over at some point this game lol

I mean

There are other reasons

UshiromiyaEva posted...

I mean

There are other reasons

I mean, fair. I just noticed that pretty much everyone either betrays you or does something stupid but Mizuki is pretty clutch at being reliable.

I also like Aiba a lot, I was expecting her to betray me and yet so far so good, even in the timeline when Pewter does the betraying she is not willingly giving us up so I like her as well.

Final couple of secrets seem pretty obvious to me atm but we'll see if they pull the rug

SirChris posted...

Final couple of secrets seem pretty obvious to me atm but we'll see if they pull the rug

What are you thinking they are right now?

TeamRocketElite posted...

What are you thinking they are right now?

That Date is in Saito's body. This is I think overwhelmingly obvious unless I have missed something. From Iris seeing Date's face as the original cyclops killer (oh Saito is the cyclops killer, obviously) to So calling Date his son when shooting him in Yellow route to the ages matching up to the memory issues heavily foreshadowed by the 6 minute time limit. I wondered, in fact, how that six minute time limit came about (ie how would they know that if it didnt happen before) so that seems pretty clear to me.

I don't know if Prisoner 89 is Date's (or whatever name he may actually have had) original body and that is the cyclops killer in his body but that'd make the most sense. Which I think would make Date 'Falco' and Hitomi's lost love and Iris' 'Uncle.' The story of Falco kind of lines up with Date's personality in terms of being caring but also extremely hot headed at times, and I could for sure see him going down a dangerous path.

That's where I am atm for those story beats.

Don't really know why Boss went all stabby stab specifically though. Probably could piece it together if I thought about it more.

Also I am always willing to believe supernatural stuff in games because 'hey why not' but I am glad a lot of the supernatural weird stuff was better explained in the end by simple logic and unfolding knowledge, that's pretty dope.

Ah.

They haven't told me 100% yet.

But I think I got it now. I think.

That's clever lol.

Okay so a little sci fi supernatural bullshit

but still that's pretty cool tbh

Yeah as soon as we saw the prototype machine I figured that was the reason for the eyes being removed, and with the egg yolk analogy everything clicks into place for this route.

How fun.

lmao killing Hitomi for style points. Got to hand it to Saito he sure does know how to put on a show.

I am very satisfied with this story telling atm

Okay so on the last remaining route I think everyone I care about is alive (no one cares about Mizuki's parents, Date is daddy now) so if we can keep it that way I will be very pleased.

I am now Moma's # 1 fan.

What a fucking chad.

Okay not to quibble in my sci fi tech future game but I am pretty sure if someone as strong as Mizuki swung a metal pipe at someone's skull the head might detach.

The bad guy definitely has some DEM in his favor.

MacArrowny posted...

The bad guy definitely has some DEM in his favor.

Yes but that's fine because it is still fun.

Oh my God the callback to self destruction.

Oh my God.

SirChris posted...

I am now Moma's # 1 fan.

What a fucking chad.

Oh wait when I said I wouldn't tolerate So hate earlier I meant Moma. I forgot his name. Yeah fuck So

_stingers_ posted...

Oh wait when I said I wouldn't tolerate So hate earlier I meant Moma. I forgot his name. Yeah fuck So

Acceptable

I might do a random character ranking of all of the characters after the epilogue since I blitzed through the game and it feels wrong that there is no hope of me abandoning this topic before finishing the game, so I need a new goal to fail

(this is a bit of a self-jab because i have new medication that I am testing in terms of my focus and ability to follow up on things, so far so good)

Aiba, Mizuki, and Hitomi are the 3 characters I like in the entire game. Figured I'd wait until you were done to get into the specifics there. Everyone else ranges from "has their moments" to "holy fuck you're irredeemable".

MrSmartGuy posted...

Aiba, Mizuki, and Hitomi are the 3 characters I like in the entire game. Figured I'd wait until you were done to get into the specifics there. Everyone else ranges from "has their moments" to "holy fuck you're irredeemable".

I will not say anything to keep my list more MYSTERIOUS but I have a few more that are solidly in 'I like them' range, as characters.

Dance number finale.

Fantastic.

Wait

Mizuki is the protagonist of the second? Oh shit that moves up plans to play the sequel lol

Anyway game beat.

Overall I am going to wait to give a score, but I will say from the time the last porn mag reference happened to the very end was close to a 10/10 story telling experience for me. That was all very satisfying, interesting, and resolved everything in a way that pleased me.

The gameplay of this game sucks, but its such a small amount of the game that it only lowers the score a little bit just because it really didn't matter much.

The tone at times however does really hurt the game in places. Like, its both immersion breaking and makes me feel really stupid for rooting for the main character. It also doesn't make a lot of sense in the scope of Hitomi falling in love with this guy when he is so creepy all the time.

The random mercs also going crazy over porn mags and bras is just... so bad and dumb and it tars the game for me overall because its so memorable.

Beyond the highs of everything coming together, and the lows of that stupid stuff, is a solid game I had a lot of fun with. I liked more characters than MSG for sure, although not an overwhelming amount looking at the character list.

I'd be curious to hear other people's thoughts about the game now though. I had a lot of fun, but damn the lows really annoyed me lol

OK, so now that you're done, I have to vent about this game.

All of the characters' motivations are all over the place. Like, Falco gets in trouble and decides to confide in his old police training buddy. Ok. And Boss's FIRST INSTINCT is to use the super confidential police tech to SWAP YOU INTO A CRIME LORD'S BODY. But then you talk to her in the post-game, and Falco asks Boss "why didn't you tell me about what happened 6 years ago?" And she says "I was under orders to never reveal the psync machine's ability to swap bodies with anyone."

WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN NONE OF THIS GAME WOULD'VE HAPPENED IF YOU HADN'T DONE THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE

I don't understand a single god damn thing Iris does. Some guy comes into the studio, and you're so enamored with his job that you blackmail him and reverse kidnap yourself for the entire day? Do you not have a life? What is even happening with you?

What were Renju and Hitomi doing with Iris's mom? They find the body, freak out, and decide that in order to cover their tracks, instead of just leaving it there where it is already and no one would find it, they EXHUME IT AND TRANSPORT IT INTO TOWN SO THEY CAN HIDE IT INSIDE A FORKLIFT AT THE DOCKS????????

Augh, alright now I gotta go off on the somniums, which are the main focus of the game.

.... what was the point of any of them? They keep playing it up that they're the ace in the hole for this secret police team, and yet you learn fuck all from every single one of them. They're either too anomalous to glean anything, completely irrelevant to what you're trying to find, or in Iris's case a complete hallucination. Every single time you go in, you finish it up and come back out, and Date's just like "what does that mean" and Boss and Pewter both just shrug. Then something completely irrelevant happens elsewhere to give you your next lead.

And gameplay-wise, don't even get me started on them. They are 100% the worst experience I've had playing video games in my adult life. Specifying my adult life, because nowadays, I do tend to only play games I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy, and I really thought this would be one of them. That one with boss can eat my skinny ass. I had to spend like 20 minutes redoing the last bit of it because I got all the door and ladder prompts wrong, which was impossible to know because NONE OF THE SHIT YOU DO IN THE PSYNCS MAKE ANY SENSE TO PROGRESS THEM. It's not like the branches even make sense from a choice perspective, either. They're all just "you can either open this box or look in that mirror" or some shit.

But somehow, they were still probably the pieces of the game that most held my attention? I think it's because I didn't have to play as ultra-perv Date for an hour, and got to be one of the characters I actually liked. Her intros to all the psyncs were the best part of the whole game. I still have the clip where she crashed the forklift saved on my Switch to watch when I need a quick smile.

sigh

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/3/7/AANxMBAAEosF.png

I feel like those were explained mostly in game.

Boss was willing to help her friend out so that his life wouldn't be over, but thought it was better if that old life disappeared for everyone's sake including the higher ups since yeah she kind of did something she shouldn't have done there.

Iris at that point thinks she is a dead girl walking, so she wanted to have adventures and see new things before she died. For someone who is an internet idol, getting to see a crime scene and see a detective work is a life experience that wouldn't come a second time around for her. 'Does she have a life?' not much of one left outside of her career, at the time anyway. You heard her in the car - 'I'll be dead soon.' That was her mindset.

They kept the body there so that they could mourn their best friend's death whenever they wanted and also to eventually get revenge on those that did it. But Hitomi explained as the years passed she just became too busy being a mom to seek revenge anymore.

I think most of these are well reasoned/understandable and the only flaw is human flaws not story flaws there.

I thought some of the gameplay sections in terms of plot were fine (Mizuki's makes sense, Boss' made sense, to name two off the top of my head. Hitomi too.)

The actual gameplay was terrible though agreed.

Date feels like a broken character. Half stupid loser half pretty cool character. It doesn't make sense really tbh.

Alba is pretty fucking based though, not surprising given who voices her.

I'm reading my old thoughts now about stuff from when I was playing, and it's very very funny to me all the small things the game just completely fucks up in its storytelling. There's that time Date has the vision of Iris dying so he runs to her house and she's just there hanging out with Mizuki.

.... but it's the end of a chapter, and the next one begins with him the next morning at the police station? And he's like "man I need to talk to Iris about this"

YOU WERE JUST THERE! HOW DO YOU LEAVE THAT BUILDING WITHOUT SOME KIND OF IDEA AS TO WHAT HAPPENED?!

Was Date just so embarrassed at walking into their playdate that he went home and passed out?

And he goes to Iris's house that next morning and she's not even fucking there anymore, and you have to go look like 5 places for the next story beat to pop up. It makes no god damn sense.

tbf the boss one might be a bit of fudging, but I feel strongly that the Iris one is spot on and very defendable from her pov

Yeah Date felt carried by Aiba.

I saw in the trailer for the sequel that Mizuki was actually giving her orders and shit and I was like 'oh yeah that'd be good.'

Actually the game is a lot better if you think of Aiba as the main character and Date as the bumbling idiot.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/4/6/AANxMBAAEosO.png

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/4/7/AANxMBAAEosP.png

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/4/8/AANxMBAAEosQ.png

Reading these thoughts really brings me back.....

Oh, and I really like how the post-game shows there's no repercussions for any of this. So gets to retire on an island, and Falco, who killed untold numbers of people, possibly even more than Saito did, gets the happiest ending of them all. Awesome.

tbf a cop getting away with mass murder is the least troubling thing to believe.

I liked the first game a lot but the second game was very disappointing for me in a lot of ways. Dont let that stop you from playing though

Second game is very weird in that they tell you directly at the very beginning that they are avoiding spoilers for the first game. You actually have to prove you've played it to have any spoilers at all.

Given how Somnium Files ends, you can see how that might be weird.

Liked the second game more but I'm a big time Mizuki Stan.

Second game was dope, first game was dope, both games are dope

Naixatloz

I desperately hated the first game and mildly liked the second