No Sleep For Kaname Date Review: Zero Escape Is SO Back

Disclosure: Review copy of the game was provided by the publisher. 

Game: No Sleep For Kaname Date

Developer: Spike Chunsoft

Version Reviewed: Nintendo Switch

I’ve been a fan of the Zero Escape series and its creator Kotaro Uchikoshi since middle school, to the point that in Junior year, I decided to gamble a not-insignificant part of my final grade in math on a paper going over the different types of probability problems that appear in Zero Time Dilemma.

So to say I was excited to see Zero Escape’s gameplay combined with the characters and world of AI: The Somnium Files is an understatement. No Sleep For Kaname Date manages to excel in combining both of those in terms of gameplay, though depending on which story aspects fans enjoy from each series, they might be disappointed.

Story

Fans of both Zero Escape and AI: The Somnium Files have come to expect high-concept, mind-bending mysteries from these games, especially with the release of Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, which Uchikoshi co-wrote.

No Sleep For Kaname Date decidedly goes in a different direction. While it references the occult, conspiracy theories, and some advanced scientific concepts, it’s tame compared to the other games in its series. However, that’s to the game’s benefit.

Kazuya Yamada steps into the scenario writer role for this game and chooses to focus more on Date and his relationships to those around him. It does a good job filling in the emotional and character gaps left by Date being missing for half of the previous game, Nirvana Intiative.

If Nirvana Initiative sacrificed characterization to produce a meta mystery directed at the player more than any other character, then No Sleep For Kaname Date is its inverse, prioritizing character interactions and development over a twisty plot.

As someone who liked Nirvana Intiative, I don’t actually have a preference for either approach, and think each game has its own strengths and weaknesses, but I suspect fans who had issues with Nirvana Initiative on the character front will prefer No Sleep For Kaname Date.

Gameplay

The meat of the gameplay is in the Escape and Somnium sections. They’re both puzzles that involve interact with the player’s surroundings to progress, however they manage to both feel unique despite the surface similarity.

Somniums, being dreams, reward guessing more than the Escape sections, and have their own obtuse logic, which the player learns as they progress. They also cover a wide variety of scenarios and themes, reflecting their subjects. Just like in previous games, they’re great puzzles and examples of character building.

The Escape sections rely on real-world logic, though, since Iris — an avid lover of conspiracies and internet creepypasta — is the playable character, they’ve got a superficial coat of mystical rules. The character-swapping aspect especially added a nice twist, as well as figuring out how to get an item from one character to another.

There was only one moment where I got ahead of the game and tried to do something before I was supposed to, but the game’s also very generous in the player’s ability to change the difficulty and access hints.

The Investigation sections suffer the most compared to the previous games. There’s no point where you have to take the clues you found at a scene and put them together or catch someone in a lie, which is probably the biggest disappointment as a mystery game fan. However, the other two parts are strong enough that I don’t mind as much.

Tips

Some quick pieces of advice from my playthrough

• Like Nirvana Initiative, there’s a moment at the beginning of the game where you can essentially toggle spoilers for the first game on and off. The correct answer is the culprit of the last game, but you answer the family name in the first prompt and the given name in the second. I’m sure other people will find this obvious, but I did given name first, and the game didn’t register that as being close enough to let me retry.

• Despite having the spoiler toggle, even moreso than the second game there are key aspects that won’t make sense in this game without having played, at least, the first game in the series. I would not recommend it as an entry point to the series.

• As always it’s good to examine everything, but especially make sure to keep examining things multiple times, as items that keep producing new dialogue are going to lead to a bonus joke ending.

• There are Adorabbit stickers hidden in the various investigation sections, but the game doesn’t inform you of them. I didn’t find my first one until very late in the game. It’s simple enough to revisit sections and find them, so it’s not the end of the world, and the game provides clues after you get the first one.

• Like the previous game, you should generally Wink Sync as soon as the option becomes available; otherwise, you’ll miss out on fun extra scenes.

Overall

No Sleep of Kaname Date provides more of what makes the series great, and adds on some of what made Zero Escape great as a bonus. While I stand by this being a bad game to play as an entry point to the series, existing fans are going to enjoy several of the character moments and how certain side characters are expanded on.

It also serves as a good entry point to Zero Escape’s gameplay, and I highly recommend anyone wanting more from the escape sections give that series a try, because it’s widely beloved for a reason.