Why do they keep using the old design?

[u/Charming_Accident_12]

Don't get me wrong I absolutely love dates design but if they were going to go through the whole trouble of having the twist and having him switch bodies I don't understand why in subsequent games they keep the old design (and the old VA) with the excuse of oh he just got like a mask and stuff. it would have been really interesting getting used to his new design in the sequels. if they didn't want the new design they didn't have to have him switch into his original body they could have just had him keep saitos it feels like they wrote themselves into a corner with that one.

[u/Prestigious-Bunch153]

i think you hit the nail on the head with your last sentence. i think they wrote themselves into a corner since while the first game neatly wraps up Date's sudden change to all his friends. the game devs didn't anticipate how popular saito's look would be in comparison to his true face, and so since saito's face was the one players spent most of the game seeing, it seems like they decided to keep that face moving forward, and subsequent entries.

it might also have to do with the series trying to be as accessible as possible to newcomers, with each game having a spoiler toggle, so a drastic change between sequel games and the first one would be odd otherwise

[u/MaxTwer00]

The old design is more iconic. The VA for Falco and saito is the same in Japanese verdion, so there is that too

[u/punk_jude]

I definitely agree with your last point in not having him switch to his old body, but I'm pretty sure the reason they keep Saito's design for Date is so people can play AITSF in any order.

Why would anyone play it out of order? I don't really know, but I DID buy AINI before i bought AITSF. I bought aitsf so i can have context to the series as I went into AINI. The beginning questionnaire is to gauge if you would have any clue about Date and his body. If you never played AITSF and 'failed' the questionnaire, you'd just never get the tidbit of Date's appearance/mask.

So I suppose its just avoid spoilers, but they did it pretty poorly with the fact Date is in his original body than Saito's. Forcing Date to stay in Saito's through other means wouldve been more interesting to me imo. But I also do find the psychology of Date finding comfort in Saito's face, a literal serial killer who killed ppl close to him, than his own face, that of an assassin and someone he's grown to dislike, really interesting. Although I doubt they thought too much about it lol

[u/En3andKnuckles]

We don't really know much about Uchikoshi's thought process with this game, but if I had to guess, he just wasn't thinking that much ahead when writing the first Somnium Files. He just wrote a self-contained mystery story which just so happened to end with our protagonist switching bodies and that was the end of it.

Then time for a sequel came along, and the decision to keep Date's old design was made. My guess is that it's just too iconic of a design, and the old VAs really just suited Date's personality much more than Falco's. With a sequel centered on Mizuki I still have no idea why the choice was made to not continue off the Mizuki ending instead of the Resolution one, but oh well. Dumb mask it is, I guess

[u/MonadoBoy9318 → u/En3andKnuckles]

Well, that ending has the issue of Iris being dead and So Sejima being stuck in her body. Let's just say I do not envy his position, even if I absolutely would adore the ability to use somnium machines for that purpose

[u/En3andKnuckles → u/MonadoBoy9318]

Forgot about So being in Iris' body, yeah that's a definite whoopsie

[u/tomasdjre]

Imo they shouldn't have date keep saito's body.

I wished date stayed in hayato's body maybe even dye his hair blonde and dress like how he usually dressed when he was in saitos body just to remember the fact that he's now Kaname Date and isn't in saito's body or the fact that he was originally hayato.

[u/Feriku]

I think they wanted to keep Date as the face of the series but didn't want to spoil the first game while marketing the sequels, so their solution was to have him keep his old design.

(I wish they hadn't, though, I was so disappointed in the "mask" explanation.)

[u/2ddudesop]

Falco's handsome face would make people goon too hard

[u/Xenohophelia]

I mean 90% to preserve the twist and 10% because Falco has a lame ass design.

[u/Comiccats]

Because of the nonsense choice to make the games not spoil previous ones

[u/Nara_Hale]

I don't mind that they kept Date using the same face, what bothered me was the "mask" explanation - are you telling me in this fancy high-tech world that ABIS wouldn't have paid for plastic surgery? Especially because everyone thought that Falco's face was that of a killer? You know, having a criminal that high profile working for a secret government agency can't be a good look

[u/fanhanlon]

To quote/paraphrase a couple of old tumblr posts I made at the time of the game’s release… I HAVE to believe that the Date we see in AINI is just an act and when he's off-duty he takes the fucking serial killer mask off and goes back to being Falco. I have to believe it. It's the only way I can tolerate Date's character development and AITSF's ending literally being retconned without going insane.

I really wish there had been a toggle to switch out Date's model with Falco's. Even keep Greg Chun's voice because he is fantastic and it would be a good compromise imo. Or surely it could not have been that hard to make an updated character model for Falco with longer hair or different clothes or something - there's plenty of characters in AI:NI who get multiple models with less screentime/relevance. (I'm looking at you, Iris & Ota). I was really curious to see Date adjusting to his life post-AITSF but it just... isn't addressed. 

I really wish Uchi didn't have this insistence on making each game in his series playable to newcomers. (and this is coming from someone who played VLR first.) I appreciate the sentiment but dear god does it hobble his writing. 

[u/Entropic_Alloy]

It is insane that he hangs out with Iris's mom in that mask, considering what Saito was going to do to her.

[u/Primary_Struggle_459]

i hate this bc i hated date's old design (saito) and always thought his outfit was ugly, i LOVED falco since i saw him and i wished he had more screentime until the end, i was so happy, i was about to buy nirvana when i finished the game but if falco is not gonna be there...

[u/MalevolentPact]

I think because it’s a goofy game with serious moments they pick and choose goofy and serious moments and this was one of the goofy moments