r/visualnovels • u/AutoModerator • Feb 10 '18
Weekly Weekly Thread #185 - Chaos;Child Spoiler
Hey hey!
Automod-chan here, and welcome to our one hundred and eighty-fifth weekly discussion thread!
Week #184 - Visual Novel Discussion: Chaos;Child
Chaos;Child is a visual novel developed by 5bp. Games and released in 2014 as a indirect sequel to Chaos;Head. It was translated and released in English by PQube in 2017. Currently Chaos;Child is ranked #30 for score, and #252 for popularity on vndb.
Synopsis
On 7th of September 2015 a man suddenly dies while streaming a video from his web camera. Later, on September 19th a street musician dies the same way while performing.
Miyashiro Takuru, a member of Hekihou Academy's newspaper Club is tasked to investigate those incidents. His friend, Shinji Ito, directs Takuru to a clue - both incidents took place at the same day as the first two incidents of "New Generation Madness" from 2009.
Takuru tells this to Kurusu Nono, a vice president of the newspaper club, but she doesn't believe him, saying it's all just a coincidence. Takuru continues to stand his ground" "There's a way to prove it's not a coincidence. The third "New-Gene" incident happened on September 29th. Which is... today". That instant Takuru's cell phone rings. It's Onoe Serika.
Trying to calm down his violently beating heart, Takuru gathers the other members and goes to a place Serika told them to...
Upcoming Visual Novel Discussions
February 17 - ef - a fairy tale of the two.
Mangagamer Discount
To help promote discussion these discussion threads, Mangagamer has kindly offered us a discount code for redditors who want to buy ef so they can read through it before the discussion. Use the campaign code RVNSWKLYDSCEFFIRST during checkout for a 25% discount when buying ef - the first tale. and the code RVNSWKLYDSCEFLATTER when buying ef - the latter tale. from Mangagamer. A big thanks to Mangagamer for helping promote these discussions. (Discount for Himawari is also available, see Upcoming Discussions for details)
March 10 - Symphonic Rain
March 17 - Seabed
As always, thanks for the feedback and direct any questions or suggestions to the modmail or through a comment in this thread.
Next week's discussion: ef - a fairy tale of the two
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u/jordanwu Feb 11 '18
One of the best VNs I've read, period. Personally feel it surpasses S;G
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Feb 11 '18
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u/Valkyrio100 Feb 11 '18
Absolutely. I would recommend S;G regardless because its very different in a lot of aspects, and definitely a great VN. You can also try Chaos;Head if you havent read it yet.
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u/BLW92 Feb 10 '18
The SciADV Team really likes fucking me. I like Mayuri best and they Steins;Gate. Now, I like Chaos;Child.
I felt the story was great, though. The only character I had absolutely zero interest in - Nono - wound up being just as likable as the rest of the cast for me after reading through her route. Uki and Hana had decent enough routes and Hinae's, I felt, helped further foreshadow the reveal in the True Route and was so perfectly ironic that Hinae's Route. I still want Mio.
I read Chaos;Head years ago and enjoyed it much more than I thought I would, considering how many people seemed to dislike it then. I didn't reread it prior to going through Chaos;Child, so very little memory of what had happened stuck with me and I had many instances where something would be referenced and I'd think "Oh, yeah. And then this happened" or "That was done because of this or that". I never read C;H Noah and the only thing I remember from C;H's ending is Chaos;Head. While I remember enjoying it, not much stuck with me like most other good VNs I've read.
I was worried about this one after being a good bit disappointed by Steins;Gate 0, but my worries were put to rest after only a couple of chapters. S;G 0 had too depressing of a mood for me throughout and seemed to switch to other PoVs at a higher rate than I felt comfortable with. Chaos;Child, however, was much more in my comfort zone.
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u/Valkyrio100 Feb 10 '18 edited Feb 10 '18
Are you just memeing or is it really that hard to remember the name Takuru? Its incredible the amount of people who get it wrong.
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u/BLW92 Feb 11 '18
Actually, I did forget it was spelled Takuru and not Takeru. There were no mech battles in this one. But yeah, I also spelled it like that because Hinae's Route
Edit: I should have remembered because I loved Serika saying Taku
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u/an_innoculous_table Feb 11 '18
Finished it pretty much as it was released, and absolutely loved it. It's a shame there were shoddy issues with the localization, but that didn't ruin how much I enjoyed it.
Now just have to wait for Noah to be translated.
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u/fastykun Feb 10 '18
I had a great time reading this! Quite a few great moments to remember, and the writing felt fresh and different from what you would expect out of a visual novel.
Don't pass on this game if it interests you, it's obvious that a lot of money and effort was put into making it the best experience possible.
(On a side note, if you are playing or have already played C;C, join the playthrough/discussion Discord server! We've got a lot of good folks on there, and we're always welcoming more people! https://discord.me/ChaosWorld)
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u/godsmith2 Feb 11 '18
Anyone else think that this one peaked at [Chaos;Child spoilers] (#s "Yui's death?") That scene in particular was a 10/10 and had me pretty excited to see where things were going. Unfortunately it felt a bit rushed after that, still very good though.
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u/Shacoluminati Apr 05 '18
Finished this recently and even though I've only read about ten VNs it's my favorite out of all of them. Every rote, from common to true was an absolutely terrifying, amazing ride. This VN will forever hold a spot in my heart.
My favorite route was Hana's just because of how ridiculous and absurd it was. I couldn't believe they went into that territory and I have to applaud their boldness in pulling it off
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u/ToxicDevil93 Feb 11 '18
I can't stand this series. I never liked Steins;Gate at all. I found the characters to be really grating (especially Okabe who most people love for some reason) and I thought its sense of humor was essentially the anime version of the Big Bang Theory, being heavily reliant on otaku memes and references. Felt like the characters were too stupid to be believable and the plot itself couldn't have happened without them being that way. I hate stories that rely on indescribably stupid decisions with no justified or grounded motives backing them.
Chaos;Head was a complete mess of a story that had absolutely no idea what it wanted to be. Its first half entertained me a lot but then it fell completely off a cliff.
Chaos;Child is the only game in the series so far that I can see some sort of appeal for. But I still don't think it's very good as of completing the common route. If you take it as a murder mystery, it's fucking garbage because of how much its plot relies on deliberately withholding important information from you. A good mystery needs to have all of its necessary information laid out before its big reveal, no matter how easy it is to overlook. A bad mystery relies on making the information needed to connect the dots part of its big reveal. That's what this game is.
But if you take it as a character-focused drama it makes more sense. Granted, the characters here aren't really a shade above basic-ass tropes. Really unmemorable cast overall boasting two pretty great characters, another good one, and a bunch of others with really nothing too noteworthy about them at all. To elaborate on what I liked
It's a damn shame to me because I really wanted to like this VN. I haven't finished it yet so I haven't written it off completely yet, but the way the common route concluded really did not give me any drive whatsoever to continue. I think C;C has some really interesting ideas--delusionary, unreliable protagonists solving murder mysteries is what made me want to start C;H in the first place. But then that game just devolved into another boring corporate conspiracy plot before turning into a chuuni anime show about magical swords. I can't stand that shit. Child improved on the Di-swords just because it focused on them way less, but I still think they're such a wasted concept. I feel like the Chaos series is one that could've been done better justice if it was written by a different team that actually had some creativity. Instead it's written by a team that got a few good ideas and then injected them into a hodgepodge of the most generic shounen setups conceivable.
Didn't know where to squeeze this in but I wanted to address it nonetheless: God damn, this game has a boring soundtrack. I felt like C;H had a few really great tracks but it was ultimately forgettable because they rarely played and it was mostly ambient. I figured C;C would be an improvement since it had way more music in general, but it's all just really generic and mind numbing stuff. I can't remember a single track, and I always forget the tune of whatever I'm hearing in-game immediately after shutting it off. C;H wasn't exactly stellar save for a couple tracks, but at least those tracks were pretty memorable in general.
I don't get the appeal of S;G or C;H, but I do get the appeal of C;C. That said, I still think it's a really mediocre shell of both a murder mystery and a character drama. It's got about 3-4 chapters worth of really interesting stuff and in the grand scheme it just boils down to more chuuni power fantasy trite. I see why people like it, but I think it's a pretty run-of-the-mill story even within its niche.
Still prolly going to endure its other routes. I spent $60 on this, so I might as well complete it, I guess. I doubt it's gonna change my score of it at all, though, just for how boring and unoriginal so much of it is.
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u/fastykun Feb 12 '18
Hey man, we discussed this VN a while back, I'm glad to hear that you gave it a try.
I understand that you didn't enjoy a lot of Chaos;Child, and I won't hold that against you; it's respectable enough that you came back to the series a third time.
Regarding your spoiler text: Because you enjoyed the dynamic between the characters that you mentioned, you are probably going to like the true ending. I'm not completely certain that you will enjoy the plot point that the ending revolves around, but at the very least, you are probably going to like the decision that one character makes, and the resolution that follows.
I'm curious to hear which other character it was that you thought was good, was it Nono? If so, her route is considered the best heroine route in the game, and for good reason. I think you may like that one as well.
Hey, it's really admirable that you've come this far despite not enjoying the game as much. Finish strong! I salute your efforts.
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u/ToxicDevil93 Feb 12 '18
Lmao yeah, on DFN sub, I remember that. I'm definitely a little more eager to go through it since you're saying that about the true ending. The other character I was talking about was Nono, so it's good to hear her route is one of the better ones as well. The others I thought were serviceable except for Kazuki--I really didn't like her.
I'll prolly break from this for a few weeks and then get through the stuff I have left. Thanks for the encouragement and seeing my point of view as well!
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u/475513a Feb 11 '18
I found the characters to be really grating (especially Okabe who most people love for some reason)
Same. I had a friend in middle school who was into programming and liked to act up like some great hacker marked by FBI - all completely bogus ofc but charming in a way - and that was before S:G came out - so Okabe just came across as stale, and lame. I abandoned it after reading trial, maybe I'll give another try... one day.
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u/ToxicDevil93 Feb 11 '18
I really wouldn't recommend it. If you find the characters grating in the first few chapters, you're not going to find them any better in the coming ones. If you liked the other characters at all though, go ahead I guess.
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u/ChromeLufwa Feb 11 '18
Waiting for English patch on PC. Will probably take forever considering the amount of cg/translation editing needed.
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u/AutoModerator Feb 10 '18
Weekly Question: How much does knowledge of the events of Chaos;Head improve or make worse the story? What are the advantages or disadvantages to reading Chaos;Head before Chaos;Child?
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