Chaos;Child

''Chaos;Child'' (stylized as ''ChäoS;Child'') is a visual novel video game developed by 5pb. It is the fourth main entry in the ''Science Adventure'' series, and a thematic sequel to ''Chaos;Head'' (2008). It was released in Japan in 2014 for Xbox One, and later for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Microsoft Windows, iOS, Android, and Nintendo Switch. An English localization was released for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita by PQube in 2017, and for Windows by Spike Chunsoft in 2019.

The player takes the role of Takuru Miyashiro, the president of his school's newspaper club, who investigates the "Return of the New Generation Madness" serial murder case. He experiences delusions, and at multiple points throughout the story, the player gets the option to choose if Takuru should experience a positive or negative delusion, or neither: these choices affect the plot's direction, causing it to branch off from the main narrative into different routes.

The game was created to have "psycho-suspense" elements similar to ''Chaos;Head'', while also adding a larger amount of horror elements. For the game's aesthetic, the developers aimed for it to be "unmoving", in contrast to the previous game in the series, ''Robotics;Notes'' (2012). The music was composed by Takeshi Abo based on notes of his impressions of the story and emotional flow, to ensure a good relationship to the game's worldview. The English localization was handled by Adam Lensenmayer, whose experience with translating the ''Science Adventure'' game '' Steins;Gate 0'' (2015) ensured a smoother process, with a lot of communication with the developers.

''Chaos;Child'' was well received by critics, but underperformed commercially; this led to the development of ''Steins;???'', which relates to the more popular ''Science Adventure'' game '' Steins;Gate'' similarly to how ''Chaos;Child'' relates to ''Chaos;Head''. Other ''Chaos;Child'' media includes an anime series, two manga, an audio drama, and the video game '' Chaos;Child Love Chu Chu!!''.

Gameplay

''Chaos;Child'' is a visual novel, and is split into multiple different story routes. During a first playthrough of the game, the player can only play the main narrative; after finishing the game once, other routes that branch off of the main narrative at different points become available. Each route focuses on one of the game's characters, dealing with character motivations and secrets not revealed in the main narrative.

At multiple points, the player gets the option to choose whether the player character should experience a positive delusion or a negative one; they can also choose neither and stay rooted in reality. These choices change the player character's world view, as well as who he trusts, and are what causes the story to branch into different endings.

Synopsis

Setting and characters

''Chaos;Child'' is set in Shibuya in 2015, six years after the events of ''Chaos;Head'', where an earthquake nearly leveled the area. Shibuya has since been rebuilt, but a new series of odd killings begin to occur on the same days of the "New Generation" murders, dubbed the "Return of the New Generation Madness" murders and marked by stickers of a two-faced man called "Sumo Stickers" left at the crime scenes. Several characters have awakened to psychic abilities in the wake of the earthquake, such as pyrokinesis or being able to spot lies with absolute certainty; such individuals are referred to as Gigalomaniacs, and use their abilities by making delusions come true in the real world ("real-booting") through the manifestation of a Di-Sword, which connects them to the Dirac sea.

The story follows a group of high school students at Hekiho Academy who survived the earthquake: the player takes the role of Takuru Miyashiro, the president of Hekiho's newspaper club, whose family died in the earthquake. Other major characters include the newspaper club members – Takuru's childhood friend Serika Onoe, his foster older sister Nono Kurusu, and Hana Kazuki and Shinji Itou – and Shuichi Wakui, the teacher overseeing the club, and the misanthrope Mio Kunosato who aids the police and works with detective Takeshi Shinjo. Takuru and Nono live with their foster siblings Yui and Yuto Tachibana and their foster father Wataru Sakuma at Aoba Dorm, a combined foster home and medical clinic, although Takuru also stays in a caravan trailer by Miyashita Park.

Plot

In 2009, after the events of ''Chaos;Head'', an earthquake destroyed most of Shibuya, resulting in several thousand deaths and near-complete obliteration of the city. Six years later in 2015, Shibuya has been rebuilt.

A series of bizarre murders begin taking place in Shibuya, involving victims being killed through mysterious means.

The protagonist, high-schooler Takuru Miyashiro, pays attention to these killings and notices that the first two killings happened on the same dates as the killings from the events of ''Chaos;Head'' six years prior. Convinced that a new killing was to happen that day, Takuru begins to investigate the murders with fellow members of the school newspaper club; Shinji Itou, Hana Kazuki, and his childhood friend Serika Onoe. Serika pins down a potential crime scene at a love hotel later that day.

Despite the objections of his foster sister Nono Kurusu, Takuru and Serika sneak past the policemen at the love hotel in order to search for the crime scene, eventually coming across a room with an unconscious high-school girl and policeman. In the same room, they discover the third murder.

After being questioned by the police, Takuru and Serika are released back to the club, where they meet Hinae Arimura, the girl at the last murder scene.

Following a tip, Takuru, Serika and Shinji infiltrate the AH Tokyo General Hospital to search for the Sumo Stickers' creator. Finding a secret research facility underneath the hospital, the three, with guidance from Mio, find a secret research facility under the hospital. Accessing the facility's data, they learn that AH Tokyo Hospital is a front for the Committee of 300, concealing their experiments on "Gigalomaniacs" and investigations of an eleventh, Sumo Sticker-like Rorschach pattern that renders Gigalomaniacs defenseless, and of Senri Minamisawa, the original test subject. Before leaving the facility, the group rescues Uki Yamazoe from the basement.

Later, Mio and Hinae explain Gigalomaniacs, who are people who have the ability to turn their delusions into reality, and can project Di-Swords. Hinae reveals herself as a truth-telling Gigalomaniac. Recounting Takuru's explanations of his experiences, and the fact that Takuru can see Hinae's Di-Sword, Mio concludes that Takuru must be a Gigalomaniac with telekinetic abilities.

Takuru and Hinae are later attacked by a pyrokinetic Gigalomaniac suspected to be Senri Minamisawa, a childhood friend of Nono's from before the earthquake and former test subject of the experiments below AH Tokyo General Hospital. Nono joins their investigation afterwards, not believing that the killer is actually Senri.

After a failed attack by the pyrokinetic, Takuru and the rest of the Newspaper Club take a breather for several days. However, Shinji, under mind-control, kidnaps Takuru's foster sister Yui and kills her in a dark alleyway as part of the serial killings.

After Yui's death, Shinji manages to call Takuru from the hospital, partially recovered. From what Shinji can tell him, Takuru narrows down the suspects to Serika or Nono.

Nono finds evidence to implicate Serika and confronts her on the last night of the original killings. Revealing both of themselves as Gigalomaniacs, they begin to battle with their Di-Swords. Takuru arrives on the roof to find Nono dead, having lost the battle with Serika.

Takuru hides himself with Shinjo and Mio as the media begins to investigate him. He soon learns that Serika is actually his childhood imaginary friend, whom he turned into reality with his Gigalomania powers after the earthquake. Serika arrives at his hiding place, who tells him that she exists to keep him safe, and that her role in the killings was only to keep the killer from targeting Takuru. She reveals the mastermind behind the plan to be Sakuma Wataru, Takuru's foster father.

Takuru leaves to confront Sakuma and Serika, while Mio and Shinjo bring the rest of the Newspaper Club and Aoba Dorm residents to one of Mio's hacker friends in Akihabara to keep them safe from the unrest in Shibuya.

Confronting Sakuma at a theater in Shibuya, Sakuma reveals that he previously worked for the Committee of 300's Gigalomaniac experiments, but was fired. He reconstructed parts of Noah II, a device that mimics the powers of Gigalomaniacs, and used it to commit the murders for the sole reason of resuming his experiments with Gigalomanics.

Takuru kills Sakuma with his Di-Sword, but Serika arrives at the theater. Fighting Serika, Takuru learns that Serika lied about her true motivations: she wasn't created to keep him safe, she was created to keep him entertained. The New Generation Killings were simply part of a game she was creating for Takuru. Her original plan revolved around pinning the blame on Sakuma as the "True Killer", but since he was dead, she planned to take the fall instead. Not wanting to accept this outcome and realizing that he was truly responsible for everything, Takuru attempts to use his Gigalomaniac power to turn Serika into a normal person who isn't tied to his will. He is later taken into police custody.

Serika goes missing, but later breaks him out from a prison hospital where he is examined for Chaos Child Syndrome (CCS).

After the main route, side routes are available:
* In Hinae's route, it is revealed that she gained her ability after her brother told her that they are actually half-siblings, as she is the child of her mother's lover. Takuru dies protecting Hinae from her mother, who they learn is behind another murder case. Hinae disappears into a delusion where she lives happily with Takuru.
* In Hana's route, she manifests a portal to save Takuru from Haida using her Gigalomaniac ability – uncontrollably real-booting phrases she utter. More monster-spawning portals appear, and Hana's friend Takumi – ''Chaos;Head'' protagonist – reveals that Wakui works for the Committee. Wakui intends to capture Hana as a Gigalomaniac sample, but she manifests a Sumo Sticker-faced giant that kills him.
* In Uki's route, she accidentally renders Takuru unconscious while trying to attack Itou after Yui's death. When he awakes, the murders have stopped and Yui is alive, but he receives visions where Serika and Nono say he is inside a happy delusion created by Uki. He escapes, but Uki remains in a coma, her mind still trapped.
* In Nono's route, Takuru saves her from Serika, and Sakuma becomes the next victim. Nono is revealed to be Senri in disguise: The real Nono was actually killed in the earthquake, and Senri who witnessed Nono's corpse, wished to be like the latter, gained the ability to shapeshift her appearance and adopted Nono's identity. Takuru is upset over being deceived and loses his will to live, and Serika arrives to fulfill that desire by killing him. Senri intervenes, and his desire changes to being with her, realizing that her love is real; Serika, having no purpose, kills herself, and Senri lives with Takuru as herself.

After all other routes, the true ending reveals reality, which appears to follow the Common Route with the exceptions of Nono being injured instead of killed by Serika, and Takuru never being broken out of prison by Serika.

Three months after the showdown between Takuru and Sakuma, Serika awakes without memories of the events, but recognizes Hekiho Academy on a trip back to the city. Mio tells her that the students all have Chaos Child Syndrome (CCS), which developed in the Shibuya youth after the earthquake. CCS patients age rapidly, and are trapped in a collective delusion separating them from the outside world; Takuru is the first CCS patient to escape the delusion. They infiltrate a secret laboratory within Hekiho, and scan Takuru's brain for a cure. Wakui allows the spread of it since he is interested in the data and will achieve his goal in eliminating the Gigalomaniacs. Serika parts ways with Mio and Takuru, and apparently begins regaining memories. The epilogue shows Takuru's friends cured, and the police taking him away for his role in the murders. While escorted, he comes across Serika, who denies knowing him. Takuru silently agrees that he no longer knows Serika either, and that they will never see each other again.

Development

The game was developed by 5pb., based on an original plan by Chiyomaru Shikura, the head of the company. It was produced by Tatsuya Matsubara and directed by Kanji Wakabayashi, and was written by Eiji Umehara, Masashi Takimoto and Tōru Yasumoto under supervision by Naotaka Hayashi. Several artists worked on the game: Mutsumi Sasaki designed the main characters, Yukihiro Matsuo designed minor characters and uniforms, and Choco designed the characters' Di-Swords. The game made use of "psycho-suspense" elements similar to those in ''Chaos;Head'', but with an increased amount of horror elements. For the game's look, the developers were aiming for an "unmoving aesthetic" as opposed to the "moving adventure" style of the previous ''Science Adventure'' game, ''Robotics;Notes''. To create subtle differences in the game's atmosphere, four different graphics shaders were implemented. For the Xbox One version of the game, the developers made use of the console's controller to play the in-game phone calls; this and some other features had to be changed when the game was ported to other platforms.

The music was composed by Takeshi Abo, who used the same technique as for his previous works in the ''Science Adventure'' series: he started by reading the game's story, to understand the setting and characters as fully as possible, and wrote down his first impressions of the events in the plot, as well as of the plot's emotional flow. He considered these first impressions to be very important, and used them to create a musical worldview. According to Abo, this method takes longer than just designating songs to various areas in the game, but allows him to create higher quality music with a better relationship to the game's worldview. The "image" used for the composition was different than for previous games in the series: while he described ''Chaos;Head'' as rainy, '' Steins;Gate'' as cloudy, and ''Robotics;Notes'' as clear weather, he called ''Chaos;Child'' "stormy", and contrasted its "black-and-white" image with ''Robotics;Notes'' "colorful and emotional hues". Because he found the game's story compelling, he enjoyed composing the music and wanted to create even more for it by the end of the project.

Localization

''Chaos;Child'' was localized by Adam Lensenmayer, who previously worked on the localizations of '' Steins;Gate 0'' and of the anime adaptation of ''Steins;Gate''. He was the only translator working on the localization; this was done as he and the developers wanted to ensure consistency in the way each character speaks and in the feeling of the game, as having multiple translators work on a single project can lead to differing interpretations of the story and of characters' personalities. He had not played the game prior to the start of localization, so after finishing his first translation pass of the script, he went through it in full a second time to correct things he had originally misunderstood due to not knowing how the story plays out.

While Lensenmayer described the translation itself as straightforward, due to the Japanese dialogue being easily understandable, he found the game exhausting to work on, giving quality control of the game's opening sequence as an example: he had to keep watching the opening to check text that is only displayed briefly on-screen, and thus had to see a character choking to death many times. The localization was additionally a large project with a script 30–40% larger than ''Steins;Gate 0'', taking most of the remainder of 2016 to finish following the completion of the ''Steins;Gate 0'' localization. Due to the experience of having worked together with the developers on the localization of ''Steins;Gate 0'', the process was however smoother, with a lot of communication back and forth on how to localize various things. The localization took fan feedback into account: after Lensenmayer had submitted the localized script, he worked on the translation of the ''Chaos;Child'' anime adaptation, and read comments about how some translation choices in the anime were inconsistent with their use in ''Chaos;Head'', such as the rendering of a phrase as "Those eyes! Whose eyes?" rather than "Whose eyes are those eyes?!". Contacting the developers, he was able to get most such instances changed in the game script. A fan-made patch containing further consistency fixes with other games in the series, along with translations of some previously untranslated graphics, was released for the Windows version in 2019.

Release

''Chaos;Child'' was originally planned to be released on November 27, 2014 in Japan for the Xbox One, but was delayed, and was released on December 18, 2014. It was later ported to the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita, and released on June 25, 2015; additionally, a Microsoft Windows version was released on April 28, 2016, an iOS version on January 31, 2017, and an Android version on May 28, 2017. The PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita versions were published by PQube in Europe on October 13, 2017, and digitally in North America on October 17, with a physical North American release following on October 24; the Windows version was published internationally by Spike Chunsoft on January 22, 2019. ''Chaos;Head Noah / Chaos;Child Double Pack'', which bundles ''Chaos;Child'' with ''Chaos;Head Noah'', was released for the Nintendo Switch on February 24, 2022, in Japan.

A limited edition of the Japanese PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita versions was made available, which includes a drama CD and a "present box" paper craft. The Western console release was also made available in a "Gigalomaniac Edition", which includes an artbook, a soundtrack and a set of pin badges.

Reception

''Chaos;Child'' was generally well received by critics, according to the review aggregator Metacritic. Richard Eisenbeis at '' Kotaku'' called the game excellent, and a good addition to the series. He enjoyed the story, calling the mystery "thrilling", and saying that the "disturbing and intriguing" murders were one of the best aspects of it. He also enjoyed the game's characters, calling them deep and layered, and said that watching them try to outwit others' powers and using their own to the fullest was another highlight. He liked how the developers had gone "all in" when making the branch routes; the thing he liked the most about them was the consistency of the characters and their motivations between different routes. He found the game to be very long, however, taking him over 70 hours to play through, which he said could be a potential flaw.

Sales

The Xbox One and PlayStation 3 versions of the game were unable to reach the Japanese weekly sales charts upon launch; the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4 versions did, however, selling 10,325 and 4,860 copies, respectively, with the PlayStation Vita version being the ninth best selling game of the week. On the following week, the PlayStation 4 version had dropped off the chart, while the PlayStation Vita version dropped to seventeenth place with 2,556 additional copies sold. In the United Kingdom, ''Chaos;Child'' was the best selling PlayStation Vita game during its European debut week in October 2017, and charted until the end of May 2018; the PlayStation 4 version did however not appear at all in the weekly top-twenty PlayStation 4 game sales chart for the region.

By October 2020, the game had only sold approximately 10% the amount of copies as ''Steins;Gate''; this led to the development of ''Steins;???'', a thematic sequel to ''Steins;Gate'' that relates to it similarly to how ''Chaos;Child'' relates to ''Chaos;Head''.

Related media

A manga adaption drawn by Relucy is published by Kadokawa in ''Dengeki G's Magazine''; there is also a spin-off manga, ''Chaos;Child: Children's Collapse'', which is drawn by Futsū Onshin and written by the ''Chaos;Child'' game's writer Eiji Umehara. It was published in Kodansha's magazine '' Monthly Shōnen Sirius'' starting in August 2016, and moved to Kodansha and Niconico's web magazine ''Suiyōbi no Sirius'' on September 27, 2017. An anime television adaptation of the game was produced by Silver Link, and began airing in January 2017. A spin-off game, '' Chaos;Child Love Chu Chu!!'', was released in 2017. Additionally, Shikura said in 2016 that he wanted to make an erotic game based on ''Chaos;Child'' and ''Chaos;Head'', targeted at adult players.

Notes

References

External links

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