No Sleep for Kaname Date

Playtime: 19.7 Hours

Finished 07 August 2025.

I played the Switch 2 version, with all puzzle difficulties on their default settings. I don't think I noticed any huge visual difference between 1080p and 4K, so most of the game was played in handheld mode. To be honest, the game generally doesn't look or feel very different from the other two Somnium games which I played on Switch 1, so I'm kind of wondering what the point of the S2 version was.

I don't really get what the purpose of this game was; it feels like a pretty bald-faced attempt at pushing out something close to the NS2 release date just to get some extra attention, which it certainly did. Outside of that, though, I feel like this game had the impact of a wet noodle in the actual series, feeling more like an undercooked intermediate entry than a proper game in the series. Of course, the fact that the title doesn't even have "AI/Somnium" in it at all is quite telling, but my issue extends more to the motivation of this title than anything. What is the point of this game in the context of the other games in the series?

From the very beginning of the game, I just didn't really feel any tension in the plot. The other games started out with some pretty gruesome murders that instantly created a tense, somewhat creepy atmosphere. The special equipment that the player characters have as an ABIS agent help enhance the effect, giving you a sense that you're investigating dangerous situations, uncovering mysteries that would be otherwise unsolvable. On the flipside, this game starts with a goofy escape game that just seems like some kind of game show, which shatters that feeling immediately. Even given some of the less-savory implications, all of the investigations and conversations that Date has immediately after Iris disappears again are completely full of slapstick, completely voiding any kind of tone the game was building. This whiplash just creates an atmosphere that is fundamentally impossible for me to care about, which is why it took me such a long time to drag my way through the opening chapters.

So, spoilers: eventually shit does apparently hit the fan, but you also learn that both the Somnium levels and the escape rooms in the first half of the game are actually part of a plan by Boss and Mizuki. Surprise! but not really. Forgetting the fact that the circumstances surrounding the escape game and Pewter's Somniums were monumentally stupid to begin with, and also handwaving away the fact that Pewter's "innocence" makes no sense given that information in Somnia cannot be considered evidence, this doesn't really change how flat the game feels, nor does it up the tension for the rest of the game. Either way, by the end of the game you learn that the entire thing was some kind of misunderstanding by the Sakura AI anyway, rendering the entire case - and game - moot. Again, what was the purpose of this game?

Throughout my playtime with this game, I really started to notice a huge issue with the way that the plot was written around the existing characters. Since the series is now 3 entries deep without a significant change in the roster of main and side characters, it seems like the writers have developed an attachment to the characters (emotional or otherwise), so they just keep dragging the same characters back in over and over again. Compared to the Zero Escape series, which only maintained a small number of recurring characters, or the Infinity games that were only connected by theme, Iris, Date, Ota, Moma, and all the other characters in these games are the exact same ones as in the first AI game. It's hard to step away from them, and even more difficult to kill them off, but now the issue is that no issue ever feels significant because they all have plot armor now.

Another unwanted result of this, and probably the more annoying one for me, is the extreme Flanderization that I saw in the writing of this game. In the first game, Date was a complex character and dedicated ABIS agent who happened to have a thing for porno magazines, which is used maybe a couple of times as a "superpower" to get out of a pinch. In this game, he can't go 2 sentences without talking about porn, and that's basically the sole defining trait of his character. Mizuki is kind of a questionable character in this game, as are Boss, Ryuki, and so many other characters that were stripped basically into their underwear to make them all one-note personalities that feel like means to a punchline, not people that actually exist. This game feels like a shitty fan adaptation based entirely on character memes; it's almost completely soulless.

Mechanically and technically, this game is still kind of a disappointment. I already kind of mentioned it above, but I didn't notice any significant upgrade to the game visually, except maybe that the game runs in 1080p (with the same assets) on S2. Meanwhile, performance is just as spotty as ever - lots of menus and UI elements still feel kind of laggy, the flashback sequence when you load a save is still in like 2 FPS, etc. It's not like the games ever looked good, nor did I expect this to blow me out of the water. But when an S2 version is specially advertised, I honestly wonder why it was needed to begin with? Resolution upscaling isn't enough of a reason to separate the systems.

At the end of the day, I feel like this series has gone on long enough, and this lackluster entry proves it to me. I always thought the Somnium mechanic was pretty poorly thought out, given that actions, time costs and solutions were always so arbitrarily defined as to be completely meaningless. If they were reworked to provide reasonable logical consistency (even given varied rules per dream) it might work, but there simply aren't enough hints or time given to solve the puzzle intelligently, instead relying on pure guesswork to solve it the first time. Thankfully, the escape rooms in this game were much better; hopefully, those end up being used instead down the line. Honestly, I'd really prefer for the series to just end here and move onto a new concept - I really don't know if I can trust the writers to create an interesting world and story with such a stagnant group of characters. It's not like they need to kill them off, but they need to step away from Date and the rest of the gang.