You might want to check the edit i added about 30 minutes ago. It provides a better explanation for why i did it. But yeah, i definitely understand why people are upset about what happened. Most of my issues with the game boil down to my unhealthy attachment to A-set, after all. Hopefully...
So this is weird: Kotaro Uchokoshi's (Zero Escape) latest game AI: The Somnium Files is several months old. However, it now got heavily review bombed on Metacritic with the User Score of the Switch version tanking from 8.2 to 1.9 in just a single day, gaining 311 review ratings in the process...
It is a very weird conclusion to their awkward obsession in the pre-release thread, I guess. I mostly don't understand why he didn't switch to following a normal vtuber, given that a source of annoyance for him pre-release appeared to be any attempt to actually promote the game on the social media sccounts to begin with? But maybe that requires being a bit more self-aware about it all.
Mostly sucks that it affected the devs like that and then he made a fool of himself.
So the guy basically threw a shit fit because the game's story didn't treat his waifu the way he wanted it to treat her?
I feel really bad for the devs for having to go through that. And I hope that guy gets help, because going so nuts over a video game character that you'd harm the game and its developers just because their work didn't line up with your headcanon is all kinds of fucking crazy.
So the guy basically threw a shit fit because the game's story didn't treat his waifu the way he wanted it to treat her?
I feel really bad for the devs for having to go through that. And I hope that guy gets help, because going so nuts over a video game character that you'd harm the game and its developers just because their work didn't line up with your headcanon is all kinds of fucking crazy.
I have just found out what really happened behind the review bombing on Metacritic... I never expected such a motivation. Uchikoshi and his team didn't deserve it.
So the guy basically threw a shit fit because the game's story didn't treat his waifu the way he wanted it to treat her?
I feel really bad for the devs for having to go through that. And I hope that guy gets help, because going so nuts over a video game character that you'd harm the game and its developers just because their work didn't line up with your headcanon is all kinds of fucking crazy.
Here's the post quoted for easier visibility. I wouldn't have known the truth about the single review-bomber being an era member if not for twitter, because the thread was closed. I'm sure tons of people don't know what actually happened now. What a petty jerk.
You might want to check the edit i added about 30 minutes ago. It provides a better explanation for why i did it.
Since this post is starting to get spread around (What @baggage is saying is indeed the case.) because Uchikoshi himself linked the thread. I'd like to quickly note that this was not "done out of nowhere" like people are suggesting. It was specifically in response to the recent discourse of Warcraft 3 Reforged, becoming the "worst reviewed game on Metacritic". Which i found to be a bit ridiculous considering the countless cases of people similarly damaging review scores of perfectly good games (Reforged isn't even that bad of a remaster IMO, a lot of the "controversy" surrounding it is that they decided not to completely redo the cutscenes. Which they stated multiple times pre-release that they were scaling back on.)
The plan was to make a proper thread a few days after my tests were finished, demonstrating how you can easily turn any obscure game into one of the best or worst games of all time with just a few hours of work. Hence why i ended up archiving everything each step of the way. Anyone who's familiar with my previous threads (Or watched the Gamexplain video on Tomohiro Kawasae) knows i like doing investigative articles on Gaming, and this was going to be no different.
But Akira Okada ended up discovering that i had tanked the score for AI hours after i did it, and the whole story basically blew up from there.
To reiterate my thoughts on the game from previous threads. I loved most of the A-set videos and found them to be incredibly endearing, even developing a massive crush on her due to my general attachment issues. But i hated the actual game for how it basically ignores everything said videos were trying to build up, to the point that it
Takes Naixatloz, the proper antagonist of said videos. and tosses it aside by cruelly making them a hallucination caused by A-set having a brain tumor, with barely any foreshadowing. and even requires you to rip her fucking eye out yourself, as part of a bullshit "One of the Psync machines requires you to remove an eye!" plotline that other characters get to conveniently ignore, all part of a route that's specifically about her.
the protagonist being a unlikable asshole who's sole character trait is "hehe funny sex joke" + basically spends 90% of the game completely abandoning his adoptive daughter, and the fact that i personally find the storyline it uses instead to be complete and utter nonsense filled with plot holes and ridiculous logic.
I definitely feel pretty bad for Akira getting so upset over it though, especially considering that despite everything,he seems to be the person running the Japanese A-set account. Which still provides some of the cute idol content i enjoyed pre-release. Drawing little sketches of mythological figures and other fun things.
Honestly, if there's one takeaway you should get from this unfortunate situation i've gotten myself into. It's that A-set means a lot to me. Even though i hated how her game turned out, it still makes me really happy to see people doing things like creating fanart, and hopefully this encourages you (and Spike Chunsoft themselves, i really wish they'd make more videos!) to continue supporting her.
...Even it does end with you acquiring Somnium Files and actually enjoying it.
But yeah, i definitely understand why people are upset about what happened. Most of my issues with the game boil down to my unhealthy attachment to A-set, after all.
Hopefully this does at least cause Metacritic to finally fix their shit after years of similar incidents. That's the main thing i wanted to happen here.
Kinda but not exactly? Since it's not really the character they liked as much as it was... idk, technically the pre-release roleplaying of their Japanese voice actor + whoever was handling their social media accounts? The marketing included A-Set as a "vtuber", basically a streamer represented by an anime-style 3D model rather than their real body, compared to how she's just a regular streamer/web idol in the actual game. And it's the vtuber stuff (and to some extent the in-character Twitter accounts) they cared about.
I never watched any of it so I can't speak to how much of it was probably improvised vs scripted, but either way the writing probably wasn't by the people who wrote the game anyway. So it's a bit of a different thing than just liking the character from the game as a result. It's obviously very unhealthy but imo it's a sliiiiightly more understandable fixation; it's just a particularly manufactured version of a streamer - and that's without even considering the bit where it's literally advertising in this case - and not quite a fictional character. Some amount of an overly dedicated fan base is intended, that's the whole point of doing it as advertising, but... obviously not that much, nor the part where they cared more about them than the game.
how does that explain the time that they were in the main room and someone was trying to break in from outside and they were banging on the main room door?
how does that explain the time that they were in the main room and someone was trying to break in from outside and they were banging on the main room door?
Funny how they tend to forget that he was banned almost immediately after showing his ass, but it doesn't help their narrative that Resetera is the root of all evil in gaming
it really ticks me off that they're pointing at era just because he posted his goddamn detectivework here when this place was just one stop on this dude's road to crazytown
Kinda but not exactly? Since it's not really the character they liked as much as it was... idk, technically the pre-release roleplaying of their Japanese voice actor + whoever was handling their social media accounts? The marketing included A-Set as a "vtuber", basically a streamer represented by an anime-style 3D model rather than their real body, compared to how she's just a regular streamer/web idol in the actual game. And it's the vtuber stuff (and to some extent the in-character Twitter accounts) they cared about.
I never watched any of it so I can't speak to how much of it was probably improvised vs scripted, but either way the writing probably wasn't by the people who wrote the game anyway. So it's a bit of a different thing than just liking the character from the game as a result. It's obviously very unhealthy but imo it's a sliiiiightly more understandable fixation; it's just a particularly manufactured version of a streamer - and that's without even considering the bit where it's literally advertising in this case - and not quite a fictional character. Some amount of an overly dedicated fan base is intended, that's the whole point of doing it as advertising, but... obviously not that much, nor the part where they cared more about them than the game.
So he developed an unhealthy crush on the marketing "preview" version of a character, and then got angry when the game version of the same character didn't line up with what he had built up in his head about her.
So as other people here have already mentioned (and he's mentioned it himself before he got banned) it's an incredibly unhealthy fixation on a *fictional* character, plus the amount of anger that came out of it is dangerous. He decided to cause harm towards the game and its developers because he felt so personally slighted by the fact that the game didn't go in the direction he was expecting. It's fine to feel disappointed about something like that, but he went way, way too far by several orders of magnitude. He needs serious help for these obsessive attachments. They're not healthy.
The creepiest thing about this guy's thought process is that it reminds me a bit of the guy who set fire to the Kyoto Animation office. It's a similar pattern of obsession and then very personal anger and resentment at the world not going the way he thought it should, when pretty much everything feeding into this anger was built up entirely in his own head.
So he developed an unhealthy crush on the marketing "preview" version of a character, and then got angry when the game version of the same character didn't line up with what he had built up in his head about her.
So as other people here have already mentioned (and he's mentioned it himself before he got banned) it's an incredibly unhealthy fixation on a *fictional* character, plus the amount of anger that came out of it is dangerous. He decided to cause harm towards the game and its developers because he felt so personally slighted by the fact that the game didn't go in the direction he was expecting. It's fine to feel disappointed about something like that, but he went way, way too far by several orders of magnitude. He needs serious help for these obsessive attachments. They're not healthy.
The creepiest thing about this guy's thought process is that it reminds me a bit of the guy who set fire to the Kyoto Animation office. It's a similar pattern of obsession and then very personal anger and resentment at the world not going the way he thought it should, when pretty much everything feeding into this anger was built up entirely in his own head.
sounds like the same idea like those people in japan whom were angry at the TALES of team for not having that one female protag in the game (zesteria) and sent death threats and what not because someone in the promotional work wasnt in it as often as the promo material led them to believe.. The plus side of this otoh is a bunch of my friends bought this game because they were interested in it.
So he developed an unhealthy crush on the marketing "preview" version of a character, and then got angry when the game version of the same character didn't line up with what he had built up in his head about her.
So as other people here have already mentioned (and he's mentioned it himself before he got banned) it's an incredibly unhealthy fixation on a *fictional* character, plus the amount of anger that came out of it is dangerous. He decided to cause harm towards the game and its developers because he felt so personally slighted by the fact that the game didn't go in the direction he was expecting. It's fine to feel disappointed about something like that, but he went way, way too far by several orders of magnitude. He needs serious help for these obsessive attachments. They're not healthy.
The creepiest thing about this guy's thought process is that it reminds me a bit of the guy who set fire to the Kyoto Animation office. It's a similar pattern of obsession and then very personal anger and resentment at the world not going the way he thought it should, when pretty much everything feeding into this anger was built up entirely in his own head.
It's definitely not healthy, and I hope they realize the impact of their behavior and get help for it. But review bombing is not anywhere fucking near a real life mass murder, wow.
dude isn't comparing the two events, just the mindsets of the people involved, which is weird and resentful about utter fantasies constructed in their heads
It's definitely not healthy, and I hope they realize the impact of their behavior and get help for it. But review bombing is not anywhere fucking near a real life mass murder, wow.
Oh, of course the two acts that came out of them are completely different in how harmful they were. I mean the underlying thought process has a similar pattern of obsessing over something and getting incredibly, personally offended over a perceived sleight, when said slight is built up entirely in their own head by the rest of the world just going about their business.
Obviously the two acts are completely incomparable in how harmful they were, but the underlying obsession and anger seems similar.
Now, in a turn of events, AI: The Somnium Files – as highlighted by Twitter user FloPerfecto – has become the highest user-rated Switch game on Metacritic of all time. At the time of writing, it's got a user score of 9.0 and sits just above Astral Chain and Super Mario Odyssey. Before plummeting to 1.9, the game was sitting at 8.2. Now it's even better off than it originally was!
Even if this is positive "review bombing" and MC user scores are still broken, those positive user reviews at least came from people who enjoyed the game enough to show their support so I'd call it a happy end to this weird incident.
Even if this is positive "review bombing" and MC user scores are still broken, those positive user reviews at least came from people who enjoyed the game enough to show their support so I'd call it a happy end to this weird incident.
I just finished this game. The final scene was so beautiful!!! I know it doesn't make much sense but I want to see So and Saito dance in Dance mode.
Anyway that was a good self contained story which is tightly wound in the end. Everything just makes sense in the end with some clues and events making more and more sense depending on the order of the game you play it on.
Mizuki route is the best and I hated the Iris route at first because I managed to disbelieve Iris before that. Now that I think about it Iris route is sort of Uchikoshi playing with Zero Escape fans what with all the sudden plot points, pseudo sciences like AIs, and Parallel Universes. And then the final Somnium reminds me of 999. But he subverts it.
Love this game with all its great characters and VA. Not at the top of Uchikoshi's works but better than ZTD.
Ok, so I bought this game on sale on the Switch eShop during the review bomb thing cause I felt bad for the dev, although I was interested in it before then.
I'm enjoying it a lot, I played it basically the entire weekend and am right at the final somnium before the true ending. Definitely some surprises in the story and I like how things differ depending on the path you take.
That being said, I think the Switch port is quite poor. The game is very simple visually, but it runs like garbage. It gets very sluggish any time a flashback or picture in picture happens, which is all the fucking time. This could have run on a Vita for sure so I'm not quite sure why it runs so bad other than the other versions taking priority
Recently finished AI: The Somnium Files on PC. It was pretty good! Some of the Somnium stages were just a slog, but those were by far the worst part about the game. The cast was very entertaining and overall I'd say only 999 tops it for my favorite Uchikoshi title.
The dialogue was a great time as always and I got a good laugh out of many interactions. I'll definitely say it stretches for humor even more than most titles in its family, which is interesting while also a tad tiresome. It certainly gives it its own identity among them which is nice (along with some gruesome grounded imagery).
I wasn't really in the mood for one of these adventure titles, but thankfully the good stuff had me coming back bit-by-bit until I reached the true ending.
Ok, so I bought this game on sale on the Switch eShop during the review bomb thing cause I felt bad for the dev, although I was interested in it before then.
I'm enjoying it a lot, I played it basically the entire weekend and am right at the final somnium before the true ending. Definitely some surprises in the story and I like how things differ depending on the path you take.
That being said, I think the Switch port is quite poor. The game is very simple visually, but it runs like garbage. It gets very sluggish any time a flashback or picture in picture happens, which is all the fucking time. This could have run on a Vita for sure so I'm not quite sure why it runs so bad other than the other versions taking priority
I'm playing the Nintendo Switch version of the game (physical cartridge, japanese import, game updated to v1.0.1), and I'm having issues with the "final" QTE of the chapters (currently I think I'm almost done with 2 of the paths).
It asks me to smash a button (X, Y, A or B) - tried the sequence multiple times (smashing the button multiple times, this is what I need to do I guess?) - and the timer always ends up to zero and game over... very frustrating :P
Am I doing this wrong? I tried handled vs docked mode, multiple controllers (pro controller, joy cons), and it always fails; the game doesn't seem to register my presses.
Did anyone noticed the same thing? Any help would be great :)
Well I just finished the Switch version of this game (big mistake on my part, performance kinda sucked) and my feelings are pretty mixed. Some of the cast are nice/charming and the build up was pretty good until I realized where it was going. There's really a heavy amount of suspension of disbelief I had to exert with some of the rationale behind events happening and people doing things. One of the worst offenders is
after Date experiences fake Iris' somnium, how is that not a dead giveaway to Pewter/Boss if not at least incredibly suspicious that a person unrelated to the original Cyclops murders has a somnium directly tied to and depicting details of those events? They knew Saito stole a psync machine and used it to swap bodies before. They knew the sync machine could damage the left eye. Iris already had a lot of circumstantial evidence against her. No red flags whatsoever?
Before I had knowledge of
the ability for the psync machine to swap consciousnesses,
I was thinking the killer was
Iris, obviously because of how likely she murdered Renju but also because even going through her routes, I felt like she had a vapid personality that made sense for a serial killer and was thinking that #89 took the fall for her as the Cyclops killer for some reason, and that she got mixed up with the Yakuza due to his connection.
There were definitely signs that was not the case, but would have been more interesting than
using the cheap body swapping gimmick that gets announced late in the game and no one ever thinks it's a possibility despite there being a serial killer who stole the body-swapping tool that was inexplicably never found
Between the suspensions of disbelief and constant 6th grader sex jokes I'm a bit burnt out, but it was still a fun ride and I want to adopt Mizuki.
Been playing this for the past week or so, finished one route after getting locked from another.
On the Iris route, I chose not to believe her about the organization. The bomb of the brain tumor had me SHOOK I was not expecting it to go that direction at all! I got locked out of it once I found her body in the forklift but I'm having some feelings that she still isn't actually dead, just like earlier in the route... I'm excited to see where that side goes, and to play what happens if I do believe her.
After the above, I switched to Mizuki's route and played it all the way to her ending. She might be my favorite character in the whole thing. Her finally accepting Date as someone she needs was nice, I'm just sad I won't see more of that since i have to rewind time lol. Also, love how nobody acknowledged So calling Date his son...... Speaking of him, I'm surprised he was confirmed the killer. During Ota's somnium, I DEF recognized Mayumi's knife from the Iris route, in the polar bear's hand.... There's more going on here than what it seems, me thinks.
I love how this game drip feeds the big shit to you. Between what I said above in both routes, wondering who Date really is, figuring out the Prisoner, the mystery of Ryuji and Shoko. It's all like a drug of megatons that you just constantly want more lol. Combine it with piecing together things from the routes you've already finished and you just get amped up on it.
I'm sad I didn't get into it sooner, would've liked to be a part of the bigger launch discussion, plus I saw somewhere that there's a tweet storm type deal I missed out on. Sad day.
Same thing I did, yeah it's locked for now until (I'm guessing) you learn more on other routes. Instead of going back the other way in Iris' route, I went way back and did the MIzuki route. Nice change of pace before just continuing down Iris.
Same thing I did, yeah it's locked for now until (I'm guessing) you learn more on other routes. Instead of going back the other way in Iris' route, I went way back and did the MIzuki route. Nice change of pace before just continuing down Iris.
AI is the first game of its type that I have played and I only now realized how the flowchart works.
I just finished redoing the second Psync and now that I have realized that I can go on developing each branch of the story concurrently, that changes things significantly. I don't mind entertaining a certain characters beliefs now, knowing that I'm not locked into it.
AI is the first game of its type that I have played and I only now realized how the flowchart works.
I just finished redoing the second Psync and now that I have realized that I can go on developing each branch of the story concurrently, that changes things significantly. I don't mind entertaining a certain characters beliefs now, knowing that I'm not locked into it.
Ah gotcha! Yeah no locking in, I wouldn't be playing this much of it if I had to restart at the beginning every time. My fav part so far is how they trickle in mind bending details throughout each path so get ready for a trip!
AI is the first game of its type that I have played and I only now realized how the flowchart works.
I just finished redoing the second Psync and now that I have realized that I can go on developing each branch of the story concurrently, that changes things significantly. I don't mind entertaining a certain characters beliefs now, knowing that I'm not locked into it.
Yeah, I feel like a lot of us are approaching this from the point of view of having played Zero Escape and VLR in particular. If you haven't played those I can understand being surprised/confused by the way the branches work and being locked out of some endings till later.
It's actually kinda funny because there are actually very very few locks in this game, especially in comparison to VLR. You can actually see most of the endings even if it's your first playthrough this time around.
It felt a little overly fanservicey at first. Even though I liked Aiba getting kinda into it and then joining in, I was always uncomfortable with some of the stuff around Iris and Aiba's design didn't help either.
...but then Mizuki came out of fucking nowhere, with those lyrics, and I burst out laughing and was 100% on board
the extra mode rules too, loved to watch Agent 47 the bodyguard going all out for a few minutes
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