Anyone remember the SciADV Live? Well, they’re holding another one Jan 29 2023, although they’ve renamed it ‘Mages;Fes.’
As with the previous SciADV Live events, various songs from the SciADV games are going to be performed. The voice actors of Kurisu, Daru, Frau (Robotics;Notes), and Pollon (Anonymous;Code) will also be appearing as guests.
For those of us who don’t live in Japan, the important thing is that we might get some new SciADV announcements during the event.
Chaos;Head finally hits North America, really needs a patch
In case you didn't hear:
The Chaos;Head NoAH/Chaos;Child Double Pack is out now for Nintendo Switch, and Chaos;Head NoAH has hit Steam!! At long last, the entire Science Adventure or "SciAdv" series is available to readers/players in English!
....aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand it desperately needs a patch to fix its glaring lack of quotation marks 😬. Right now, all internal monologue and narration dialogue AND spoken dialogue is printed the exact same way in English, with no differentiation to tell you what's being said aloud vs not. Weird.
That said, I don't agree with everything mentioned in that review I just linked. I can't understand why they found some of that English "awkward." Those screenshots feel entirely conversational to me.
However, I do wish they'd retranslated the text under the title on the cover/header art. WTF is that even babbling about... ?? I guess it's just baked into the original Japanese artwork, though.
Why You Should Play Chaos;Child [PlayStation Vita / PlayStation 4]
Chaos;Child is, in my opinion, one of the greatest stories ever written, though it has gotten far from the amount of attention it deserves. Please read through this and consider picking the game up! Don’t worry, there are no spoilers, though I should preface with saying that the game does feature some disturbingly-grotesque scenes, so this game probably isn’t for those of weak stomachs.
What is Chaos;Child about?
Chaos;Child’s story focuses around a high school student named Takuru Miyashiro, and his friends in the Newspaper Club at his school, Hekiho Academy. While the club is supposed to be responsible for reporting on the goings-on in and around the school, Miyashiro and [most of] his friends instead gain an interest in The Return of the New Generation Madness, a series of gruesome murders that emulate the original “New Generation Madness” (”NewGen”) from six years prior.
The students of the club - Takuru Miyashiro, his childhood friend Serika Onoe, his partner-in-crime Shinji Itou, the silent Hana Kazuki, and Miyashiro’s older sister Nono Kurusu - get wrapped up in the police investigation when Miyashiro and another club member are found at one of these murder sites, and the murders begin to follow the club around whether they like it or not.
Miyashiro wanting to uncover the Return of the New Generation Madness’ secrets leads them to learn about the psychic Gigalomaniacs that live among them, and have the ability to alter reality through the use of supernatural Di-Swords. Despite the fantastical approach to this story, Chaos;Child still takes a very scientific approach to explaining how these Gigalomaniacs and their powers exist.
Does Chaos;Child have an anime series I can watch instead?
Chaos;Child does have an anime adaption... though I’d recommend you STAY CLEAR FROM IT. The anime does a terrible job at adapting the game’s story, as it rushes through the default route players are forced onto during their first playthrough but still incorporates elements from some of the other routes. This spoils a number of reveals that are done extremely-well in the game. An OVA of the game’s true ending has also been released, but as the main anime series is only 12 episodes and, again, cuts out most of the extremely well-written routes, makes the journey feel lackluster. If you really want to watch the anime series, I’d recommend doing so after you’ve played through the game.
What kind of game is Chaos;Child?
Chaos;Child is a murder mystery narrative video game that was released worldwide for the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4. The game was developed by 5pb., and serves as the fourth instalment of the Science Adventure franchise; most people are probably aware of Steins;Gate, and the Science Adventure (or SciADV) franchise is the universe in which that story, and several others, are set. Chaos;Child is technically the sequel to the first SciADV title, Chaos;Head, though Chaos;Child can be experienced with no knowledge of Chaos;Head or any other SciADV title.
Much like the other games in the Science Adventure series though, the game does a poor job of explaining how choices are made. Unlike most visual novels have the player make decisions via how they interact with the other characters, Chaos;Child instead has the player choose between a “Good” and “Bad” delusion via tilting the control stick left or right at specific moments; the player also has the option of ignoring these “Delusion Triggers”, which is necessary to achieve certain routes. The first time you go through the game’s story you are forced down a neutral route, but subsequent playthroughs centre have the player’s choice of delusion have repercussions that decide which of the different routes the player will go down. I’d recommend following a guide once you’ve played through the game once, as it can be difficult to discern which delusions have what consequences.
Though the visual novel genre is often scrutinized by mainstream audiences due to the most well-known examples being romantic games filled with fanservice and lewd scenes, Chaos;Child only has a literal handful of scenes with any explicit fanservice, though they do a fine job of giving a reason for them being there. The story of Chaos;Child is determined by the player choosing which “delusion” the main protagonist, Takuru Miyashiro, experiences. As he is a teenage boy, it’s not unusual to think that he would have some perverted thoughts about the girls in his life; these delusions are where all of the fanservice appears, though even then they’re spread very far apart.
Before we get too far in, how does this story compare to Steins;Gate?
The common consensus between Science Adventure series fans (at least, those that I have seen) is that Chaos;Child tells a superior story to Steins;Gate. I’m not only inclined to agree with that, but I’d even go so far as to say that Chaos;Child is superior to Steins;Gate in literally every way.
How is Chaos;Child connected to Steins;Gate and the other SciADV games?
As previously mentioned, all games within the Science Adventure series take place within the same universe - though more specifically, the same multiverse due to Steins;Gate’s heavy use of time travel and thus the introduction and exploration of a large number of “worldlines”. The events of Steins;Gate begin in the same worldline that the Science Adventure series’ first instalment, Chaos;Head, occurred in, while all other main entries into the Science Adventure series occur in the worldline that is reached in the true ending on Steins;Gate: 1.048596%. Chaos;Child, as well as the series’ third instalment Robotics;Notes, thus only technically occur in-universe due to Rintaro Okabe’s actions in Steins;Gate (and Steins;Gate 0).
Chronologically, Chaos;Child takes place in 2015, six years after Chaos;Head. The actions that lead up to the finale of Chaos;Head cause a large artificial earthquake to heavily damage Shibuya. Chaos;Child is set in the same area, which has almost-completely recovered from the damage this earthquake caused.
Do I have to know anything about the other SciADV titles to play Chaos;Child?
Not particularly. Being a thematic sequel to Chaos;Head, Chaos;Child references the events of this game far more than any of the other titles, though knowledge of that game isn’t really needed.
The events surrounding the original New Generation Madness series of murders are told through Chaos;Head, and while their existence in Chaos;Child’s story is important, they focus more on the official stories released by the police instead of the behind-the-scenes action the player of Chaos;Head experiences through the eyes of Takumi Nishijou. Besides the NewGen murders, only one character from Chaos;Head reappears in Chaos;Child, and some events told in the former are referenced more-often leading up to the story’s climax. Unfortunately, Chaos;Head hasn’t received an official English release (and as far as I know, the best fan translation is no longer being worked on), so even if it was truly important to the story, it would be difficult to play through it.
For those with knowledge of Steins;Gate or Robotics;Notes (or even Chaos;Head), there are smaller references to remind players that all of these stories exist in the same universe. Gunvarrel, the giant robot of justice which Robotics;Notes focuses around, is referenced during the obligatory school festival part of the story. There are also some indirect references to Makise Kurisu and Itaru Hashida by one of the story’s main characters, and a spin-off story (which hasn’t been localized) even tells of this character’s relationship with Kurisu.
Where can I buy this game?
The game is available digitally on the PlayStation store in Europe and North America. I believe PQube, who released the English version, also released the game physically in Europe and through online retailers for the Americas.
