#5pb.

Steins;Gate; it’s one of the most popular visual novels ever made, for very, very good reason. While I had played my fair share visual novels before, namely Ace Attorney, Danganronpa, and Zero Escape, Steins;Gate was still a very special experience for me that instantly launched me into the wider world of visual novels. More than anything, though, it made me extremely curious about the rest of the franchise around it; not just the sequel to it, Steins;Gate 0, but the whole rest of the Science Adventure series. For a bit of a rundown, the first game in this series, that many fans of Steins;Gate very likely have no clue about, was a title called Chaos;Head. Focusing on an extremely reclusive and paranoid high school student named Takumi Nishijou, who has his life thrown into chaos after witnessing the latest in a series of murders known as the New Generation Madness, it was an interesting story with a heavy focus on delusions, creating an interesting experience that, while still ultimately clear and conclusive, leaves you in the dark the majority of the time in regards to just what is happening, and how much is even real. While a good effort all around that served as a great base for Steins;Gate, it was ultimately held down by a lot of things, from smaller things like a pretty generic and unmemorable artstyle and mostly unremarkable voice acting, to much more noticeable things, from the slow, unfocused plot, to the underutilized cast of characters who never come together as a group, mostly just dropping in and out on an individual basis whenever the plot needs them, to the choice system of the game, the delusion trigger, which allows you to view a positive or negative scene Takumi imagines in response to surprising or stressful situations, being pretty much pointless, only rarely giving a better glimpse into Takumi’s characterization, to Takumi himself being extremely creepy, cowardly, and all around unlikeable, and not getting sufficient development across the story to make up for it, at least until the very last chapter. While it did get an updated version, Chaos;Head Noah, Chaos;Head was nonetheless buried beyond saving by Steins;Gate, not helped by not having an official localization to this day. As the cherry on top, it had a terrible anime adapation that tried to fit a fairly lengthy VN into a mere 12 episodes, completely wrecking the pacing, making the story even more confusing than was intended, and using an entire episode on useless filler to top it off. The reason I went into detail on that is, well, the subject of today’s review; Chaos;Head’s sequel, Chaos;Child. Chaos;Child is in an interesting spot in the series, firstly because as of right now, it’s the only main VN in the series other than the two Steins;Gate titles to have an official localization, and while both Robotics;Notes and Robotics;Notes DaSH are set to be localized this year, it still means it’s the only other title around to experience until those come out, at least in an official fashion. Secondly, unlike Steins;Gate 0 and Robotics;Notes DaSH, Chaos;Child is only a thematic sequel, with the cast of Chaos;Head not returning, with the exception of one side character having a fairly prominent role, and a few references and cameos for others. The main cast is otherwise a clean slate, and concepts of Chaos;Head are taken at a different angle. Aside from helping keep things fresh, it also allows it to take its own pace with introducing and explaining the main concepts, making it still cohesive even without having gone through Chaos;Head, though it’s still connected in important ways. The main point is, you don’t have to go through Chaos;Head to enjoy Chaos;Child, which is very good considering the various problems surrounding Chaos;Head. Now, the question is, is Chaos;Child worth going through by itself? The short answer is, absolutely, yes. It is a fantastic experience on par with Steins;Gate, and I would recommend it with all my passion. You can get it on PS4 or Steam. Seriously, go for it. As for the long answer, well, buckle in, because this’ll be a ride.

Chaos;Child takes place in 2015, 6 years after a devastating earthquake that utterly wrecked the ward of Shibuya during the events of Chaos;Head, leaving many physical and mental scars on the populace. Though Shibuya has since been rebuilt, a series of bizarre murders begin to occur on the days of the New Generation Madness, the series of killings that gripped Shibuya in the days before the earthquake. These killings, dubbed the Return of the New Generation Madness, leave the citizens of Shibuya morbidly captivated, much as the original incidents did, and unfortunately leave the police with no clues as to the identity of the culprit, seemingly leaving them to continue their crimes unopposed. Enter Takuru Miyashiro, a senior at Hekiho Academy and president of its newspaper club. Takuru was orphaned by the Shibuya earthquake and adopted by Wataru Sakuma, a doctor who has a foster home in the same building as his clinic, though Takuru has moved out into an RV by the time of the game due to an argument with his foster sister, Nono Kurusu, the student council president and vice president of the newspaper club. With the help of the other members of the club, Serika Onoe, Takuru’s reckless and rather dense childhood friend, Shinji Itou, Takuru’s confident best friend with an interest in bizarre murders such as the New Generation Madness, and Hana Kazuki, a mute girl who spends most of her time playing MMOs in the club room, Takuru conducts his own investigation of the Return of the New Generation Madness despite Nono’s concerns for his safety, independently discovering many clues and connections, such as the presence of the mysterious and creepy “Sumo Stickers” at the site of each murder. After taking his investigations too far and stumbling upon the scene of the latest murder, Takuru finds increasing evidence of the killer having capabilities far beyond that of a normal human- and that his discoveries may have put him in danger of becoming the next victim.

While this sounds much like the basic premise of Chaos;Head, in practice it’s very different. In Chaos;Heads, the New Gen murders, though certainly important, mostly just played out in the background, with Takumi rarely directly being involved. By contrast, the murders in Chaos;Child, and the mysteries around them, are the focus of the game, and it’s very worthy of it. The mysteries and reveals around them are downright fascinating, and gives the player just as many hints for them to follow as the characters, making for a very interesting plot to follow. Chaos;Child is also notable for being much, much darker than the previous entries in the series, which weren’t exactly flowers and rainbows themselves. The murders themselves are extremely gruesome and disturbing, the reveals don’t pull any sort of punches, and the majority of the game’s endings lie much closer to the bitter end of bittersweet, compared to, say, Steins;Gate’s endings. While it can get a bit draining by the end, Chaos;Child makes it work, never pushing you to the extent of becoming apathetic despite the horrors and tragedy of the plot, which is owed in large part to the well written and very sympathetic cast of characters.

Everyone in the main cast manages to be interesting, fun to have around, or both. Takuru himself is a very good protagonist, despite having a very unlikeable start. He’s arrogant, reckless, extremely awkward, overly stubborn, and downright petty in a lot of ways, especially regarding his obsession with staying on the “right side” of information, not to mention him treating the murders as something exciting and a way to get famous. Despite all that, he has a lot of development across the game, and starts early on it. He’s also got a much rougher past than some of the previous protagonists, which helps explain how he grew into the person he is.

Some of the other more memorable members of the cast include Hinae Arimura, who, though hyper and friendly on the surface, hides a very sharp tongue and a fairly cynical nature, Mio Kunosato, the exceedingly harsh, obsessive, and resourceful scientist investigating the Return of the New Generation Madness on her own, who makes an interesting contrast to the rest of the cast just because of how completely unpleasant she is, Shinji, who manages to be a much more likeable character than some of the previous obligatory male friends in the series, and my personal favorite, Nono, who despite seemingly being an unfairly harsh big sister type, quickly establishes herself as an extremely caring person, with a lot more emotional baggage than she lets on. A good chunk of the game’s emotional moments involve her, particularly her attempts to fix her very strained relationship with Takuru.

While all the characters make at least decent impressions to begin with, what helps them even further is the additional ending routes, branching off from the normal route depending on specific choices you make throughout the game. Compared to the way Steins;Gate handles its endings, these are full chapters, putting much more focus on characters such as Hinae and Hana, taking the plot in completely different directions. Not only are the stories of them interesting on their own, they do a great job of developing the characters and showing them from different perspectives.

What caps off the writing is the absolutely fantastic atmosphere the game builds. It goes very heavy with horror elements compared to Chaos;Head, and doesn’t skimp in any area. While it’s got the visuals down, the main strength is the buildup, suspense, and narrative description, all of which is fantastically done. Tense scenes go at a steady enough pace to let each small thing sink in, without being drawn out enough that you lose interest, and the much less ambiguous nature on what scenes are real or not makes any shifts of that sort much more effectively jarring. It’s seriously one of my favorite atmospheres in a game, and makes for a great experience for anyone even slightly a fan of horror.

The subject of “fake” scenes brings me to the main gameplay element of Chaos;Child: the Delusion Trigger. Every once in a while, a situation will make Takuru imagine a positive or negative delusion regarding it, with you being able to choose one to view before snapping back to the regular scene like nothing happened. While a decent idea on paper, like in Chaos;Head, it really doesn’t add much most of the time, and despite being your method for accessing the different endings, it really doesn’t tie into them at all. At the least, though, it does a decent job of showing Takuru is much less mature than he tries to appear, and if nothing else, they’re gold mines for random screenshots. They also appear less and less frequently as the game goes on, which helps keep them from distracting from more serious scenes.

On a more technical side of things, visually speaking, I like the look of the game quite a bit. While it doesn’t reach the heights of Steins;Gate in character designs or the general artstyle, though that’s a very high bar to reach for, the sprites, backgrounds, and CGs are all very well drawn on their own, and the designs are at least more distinctive than in Chaos;Head. The visuals also do a large part to help with the atmosphere; while it looks light on the surface, many scenes use lighting filters that do a lot to help the mood, and the CGs do not disappoint when they get serious.

The UI also looks great, and furthers the atmosphere even more. From the shadowy ends of the dialogue boxes moving passively, to the menu screen’s rolling fog, to the odd borders of the screen during delusions, it has a very stylish look.

Chaos;Child doesn’t disappoint on the audio side of things either. Series composer Takeshi Abo puts out a great soundtrack, as usual, with many catchy or atmospheric themes, along with vocal themes that are absolutely fantastic. The voice acting is also very good, with just about everyone giving out a great performance, in particular Yoshitsugu Matsuoka as Takuru, Sumire Uesaka as Serika, Sarah Emi Bridcutt as Nono, Suzuko Mimori as Hinae, and Risa Taneda as Mio.

The last thing to mention is that Chaos;Child is a very long visual novel. Not quite as monsterous as some, but it’s still a significant time drain, and while there is an anime adaptation, it is a terrible alternative. While not outright awful by itself, especially compared to Chaos;Head’s anime, 12 episodes is simply not enough time to make the story work. Not only does it have to rush to make nearly every chapter fit into one episode, absolutely ruining the pacing, it doesn’t adapt the other endings in any way, making a lot of the characters come off as way less developed, and couldn’t even adapt the true ending at first, which is just disgraceful. The visual novel is the only real way to experience it. And now that we’re at this point, I suppose it’s conclusion time.

Is Chaos;Child something I would recommend? 100% absolutely. Between the fantastic atmosphere, great cast of characters, and fascinating and emotional story, it is a special kind of experience that proudly stands with Steins;Gate as one of the greatest visual novels out there, in a genre with many fantastic works. It can be a bit slow to start, but once it gets going, it stays an amazing experience.

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Title Steins;Gate 0 Developer 5pb, Nitroplus Publisher Spike Chunsoft Release Date May 8th, 2018 Genre Visual Novel, Adventure Platform PC, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 4 Age Rating M Official Website

Steins;Gate 0 is now available on PC via Steam. If you prefer a more “animated” experience, Steins; Gate 0 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll. This review will be a bit…

‘Robotics;Notes Double Pack’ Day One Edition Comes With An Exclusive Pin Badge Set

(Featured Image Source: 5pb. / Spike Chunsoft)

Spike Chunsoft has taken a better look at the collectibles fans can expect from the Day One Edition of Robotics;Notes Double Pack in a new video.

Four exclusive and stylish pin badges featuring characters from both Robotics;Notes games fans of the visual novel series are…

Η πρώτη (και τελευταία) φορά που ακούσαμε κάτι για το Robotics;Notes Elite ήταν τον περασμένο Ιούλιο. Η σιγή ασυρμάτου σπάει σήμερα όμως χάρη στην ESRB!

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