No Sleep for Kaname Date-From AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES by developer and publisher Spike Chunsoft Co. Ltd.—PS5 review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Hello
everyone and welcome back to another Somnium Files title! Today we’ll be taking
a look at No Sleep for Kaname Date – From AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES! A sort of
filler game in the series set between the first and second games
chronologically. In this instalment Date gets to experience the wonders of
escape games in addition to his detective and mental deep dive work!
If you’ve
read the review for No Sleep on the Switch, the takeaway from the PS5 version
is basically just a smoother running experience, and that’s about it. Less lag
or slowdown in some scenes, and faster loading times. For those who haven’t
read the Switch review, come join me as we take a look at this nifty spin-off
type game that’s broaching into escape game!
It's
important to note right off the bat that if you don’t know what happened in the
first game in the series, you’re probably going to be pretty confused. You can
get away without having played Nirvana Initiative, although some things may
still confuse you. That being the case, I’m going to assume you have a bit of
knowledge about the series, but may be a little rusty.
No Sleep
for Kaname Date starts out with Iris, the local internet idol extraordinaire,
being kidnapped and waking up in a spaceship! She is told by an alien that she
must use her “third eye” to escape the confines of the ship. She’s allowed one
helper she can call, so who else but Date and his sentient AI fake eyeball
companion Aiba! Basically this means Iris will need to “play an escape game” to
get out while Date can give running commentary or suggestions. The viewpoint
will rotate between Date’s investigation and Iris’s escape attempts, having a
mix of investigations, escape rooms, and mental diving into the Somnium.
Let’s take
things one at a time. Since this game starts in an escape room, we’ll begin
there. If you’ve played any of the Zero Escape games, you’ll have a decent idea
how this works, but basically the escape sequences work in the same way that
real life escape rooms do. You have a bunch of puzzles and objects and your
goal is to use what you have available to escape the room you’re stuck in. You
can interact with points of interest, pick up and use or combine items, and
rotate and examine items to figure out what to do.
Good news
for those that are having a tough time, if you set the game to anything other
than hard for the escape sequences you will get plenty of hints. Unfortunately
this also means that if you don’t need those hints but are checking something
or seeing if there are other places to inspect, it feels like you’re being
treated like you have no idea what you’re doing. It isn’t too bad for the most
part, but can get pretty annoying. Thankfully there’s not usually a time limit
in the escape games, so most of the time you’re free to think or reexamine at
your leisure.
Good news
for you puzzle fans, pretty much all of the answers to the puzzles or riddles
are quite reasonable. There were only two I recall being a bit troubling, one
was because I discovered an alternate way to solve the puzzle that didn’t give
the actual answer but still was AN answer, and the other was a bit of suspect
wording, but I managed to get through them, so it isn’t unsolvable. Each escape
segment is themed, and as you progress through the game you will actually get
multiple characters to swap between during the escape segments. You need to
find ways to pass items back and forth, or solve puzzles to make something
another character can interact with work. It’s actually pretty neat.
While
outside the escape game, you will be either investigating the disappearance of
Iris, or the appearance of a mysterious pod that may have been related to the
incident or it could be completely unrelated. Either way, it’s up to you to investigate!
Go places, talk to people, examine things, and sometimes get into a quick-time
event. It’s detective Date’s time to shine! An interesting thing about No Sleep
for Kaname Date is that there are a ton of hidden alternate endings. Like,
there are at least three in the first investigation sequence you do alone, and
most of them are pretty funny.
Once you’ve
completed your prodding at possible leads, you can head back to ABYSS, where
Kaname Date can delve into the subconscious mind of a suspect, and hope to gain
insight from their dream realm, or somnium as it were. In the somnium you
control Aiba as she investigates the mental world. Things are usually weird
here, and you basically play a guessing or association game where you can
interact or examine items, and sometimes do weird things with them. Sometimes
those weird things are actually what you’re supposed to do too. In the somnium
you have a time limit, and actions and walking decrease your time. After 6
minutes are up, you’re forcibly ejected and have to restart either from a
checkpoint or from the beginning.
A neat
thing about the somniums is that they have a lot of really funny and weird
interactions. Also, there are giant eyeballs you can collect that give points
towards bonus content you can unlock in-game. If you collect them all you also
get some concept art. Once you’ve completed a somnium once you can return to it
with infinite time so you can explore at your leisure. The giant eyeballs are
still here and can be collected, but the clear bonus for more than a second
remaining won’t be available if you go infinite time. There are multiple difficulties
for the somniums, mostly adjusting how much time gets used on actions.
I have to
say I was rather a fan of No Sleep for Kaname Date. It’s certainly shorter than
other titles, and the plot is very “filler episode” like, but I thought it was
pretty interesting, and I found the escape additions a fun time. The graphics
and soundtrack should be just what you expect from previous games, with decent
3D models for characters and interesting environments coupled with a suitable
soundtrack and solid voice acting. I also like how each game has it’s own dance
number.
While No
Sleep for Kaname Date – From AI the Somnium Files probably isn’t winning too
many awards, it’s definitely a nice filler between main title entries. The
puzzles are good, the escape rooms are well put together, and the somniums are
pretty entertaining. The story is also really interesting once you really get
into it, but might take awhile to really take hold for some people. It is a
little on the shorter side, but I certainly enjoyed my time with it. The PS5
port does wonders for some choppy load times and lag I experienced on the
switch, so if you’re considering playing this title after one of the previous
two, you won’t go wrong with the PS5 port here.
Score: 8.5 / 10
