AI: The Somnium Files - Nirvana Initiative is the best detective story this year
polygon.comAI: The Somnium Files — Nirvana Initiative is a riveting, time-hopping murder mystery from the minute it begins until its closing moments. Written by Kotaro Uchikoshi, who also wrote the excellent Zero Escape trilogy, Nirvana Initiative is just as effective as a singular story as it is a compelling sequel to 2019’s AI: The Somnium Files. It’s a well-paced visual novel wrapped in detective conceits and packed with surprises at every corner.
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The game follows two protagonists: returning character Mizuki Okiura and new guy Ryuki Kuruto. They’re both Special Agents of ABIS, the Advanced Brain Investigation Squad. The members in this unit within the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department “psync” with suspects using a large machine in order to dive into their subconscious and uncover their secrets.
The game jumps between two different time periods, six years apart. When the right half of a corpse is discovered in the earlier timeline, Ryuki and Mizuki are both sent down a bizarre rabbit hole — their search for the other half comes up fruitless until six years later, back in the present day. Mizuki and Ryuki each have AI-Balls equipped in their left eye sockets, named Aiba and Tama, respectively. They are autonomous AI that assist investigations with x-ray vision or complex calculations.
Nirvana Initiative is primarily a visual novel in which Ryuki or Mizuki travel to different
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