Say It In Red

The Podcast version of hanging out with ghosts in a haunted parlor, but like really chill and the ghosts are talking to you about Visual and Kinetic Novels! Join Runa and Sara as they read and discuss games like Higurashi, Umineko, Kindred Spirits on the Roof, Heart of the Woods, and a lot of other VNs. We break down the mystery elements of the stories we read, talk about the implications of ghosts and magic and the tech apocalypse, and swoon every time a handsome woman shows up on screen. For the most part this podcast is entirely safe to listen to around friends and family and co-workers *except* for the moments when we talk about dismemberment or murders since that comes up in some of these games - we'll give you a heads up whenever things like that are on an episode and when we're about to start talking about them in the show!You can follow us on twitter at sayitinredpod and check out our patreon at https://www.patreon.com/SayItInRed for even more content and features!

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Say It In Red

Say it in Red | Episode 26: AI: The Somnium Files, part 1

April 22, 2022 • Say It In Red

What did you dream about last night? Do you remember it clearly? Was it a dream of a fantastical, impossible place? A nightmare woven from old memories? The precise scene filled with highly accurate evidence that a police detective can use to catch a big break in a serial murder case, maybe?

This week, Sara and Runa dive deep into AI: The Somnium Files and experience Forensic Dream Investigations first-hand. In the perhaps not-too-distant future, we follow Date Kaname and his AI eyeball partner, Aiba, as they arrives to a surreal and abandoned amusement park. The sky is dark overhead, rain falls steadily, and atop one of the merry-go-round horses Date finds the corpse of the first victim, Shoko Nadami. This opens the investigation into the mysterious New Cyclops killings, chasing down the culprit (or culprits?) responsible for a series of increasingly twisting, baffling murders. At the end of it all, what awaits Date and Aiba is...

AI: The Somnium Files (2019) is a sci-fi crime drama, psychological thriller, and Kotaro Uchikoshi puzzle wrapped up in a slick, saturated, and highly stylized presentation. The game follows Date Kaname, an investigator for the MPD's Advanced Brain Investigation Squad (ABIS) alongside his partner, Aiba, who mostly hangs out in his left eye socket since she's an Artificial Intelligence housed in a prosthetic eye. Six years ago, Date lost his left eye and all memories of his prior life in an incident that probably won't be at all important to the ultimate unraveling of this game's deepest secrets, maybe. After the initial investigation at the abandoned amusement park, they find Mizuki - The 12 year old girl who Date has taken care of for the past four years, and also the daughter of the Shoko Nadami. Through their investigations, Aiba and Date piece together the timeline of Shoko's last moments, uncover the links between a net idol and this case, and then try to help Mizuki recover from the trauma of seeing her mother's death. The best way to do that, as it happens, is through the game's central mechanic: Psycing.

Whenever Date and Aiba psync with another character, they can dive into the Somnium - the dreamscape of that person's mind made up of an assortment of their real memories manifested in strange, surreal patterns. While some of these Psyncs are relatively direct memories that Date and Aiba are investigating in search of concrete evidence, others are more abstract locations full of someone's trauma, half-remembered moments, and deep secrets. In this first of two episodes on AI: The Somnium Files, we cover every A route path (with the exception of the AB route, which is locked until we get further into the game). We see a fanboy and stalker come clean about his role in covering for his idol's suspicious activities, we watch Mizuki become an action hero and Date finally become a Dad to her, and we flail around as everything, and everyone, falls apart. What will Date and Aiba find at the end of all this? The truth about six years ago? The identity of the killer? Or, perhaps, will it be something that shakes the city and the MPD to its foundations...?

As always, if you enjoy the show please give us a rating and review wherever you listen! You can also follow the podcast twitter at sayitinredpod on twitter, and you can also find more episodes and information on our patreon at patreon dot com slash sayitinred!

Content Warnings for this episode:
General: Repeated mentions of eye trauma, eye removal, and murder will occur all throughout our AI: The Somnium Files episodes as the crimes at the center of this game involve these elements. Dismemberment, mutilations, child abuse, and child neglect also come up frequently.