Chaos;Child

Chaos;Child is a visual novel adventure game. The Japanese company 5pb. and Nitroplus are responsible for the game's development. Both developers are well known to fans of visual novel and pop culture from the Land of the Rising Sun, especially the part of it that is connected with otaku circles (obsessive fans of manga, anime, or other topics). The devs have many console titles under their belt, of which only a small percentage went to Western players. Chaos;Child is the fourth installment of the sci-fi adventure series, whose characteristic hallmark is the semicolon in the title. All the games in the series are loosely linked to each other and take place in modern Japan. Their plot touches on themes related to technological progress and scientific experiments, as well as using ideas derived from urban legends and conspiracy theories. Chaos;Child refers directly to the events presented in Chaos;Head, i.e. the first installment of the series, released in 2008.

Story

Action of Chaos;Child focuses the adventures of members of a school journalism club at the Tokyo Hekihou Academy. The main protagonist of the story is a high school student Miyashiro Takuru. The boy starts an investigation related to two mysterious deaths. The first one took place on September 7 2015. Then, in unexplained circumstances, the popular video game streamer dies suddenly during a live program. Two weeks later, a street musician also dies in an almost identical way. Takuru's friend points out that these accidents are reminiscent of the loud murders of 2009, which terrorized the whole city. The protagonist is slowly starting to link the case from a few years ago with the investigated cases. Trying to convince his colleague from the club to his theory, he comes up with hints which may lead him to a potential next victim.

Mechanics

Chaos;Child is a typical Japanese visual novel. This means that for most of the game we read and listen to the dialogues of characters, having little influence on the plot. At the most important moments, however, we make decisions resulting in reaching one of the six endings of the story.

Technical aspects

The character designs were prepared by Mutsumi Sasaki, who was also responsible for the appearance of the characters in Chaos;Head. The music in the game was composed by Takeshi Abo, working on soundtracks for Steins;Gate, Steins;Gate 0, Robotics;Notes and Chaos;Head.

Last updated on March 2, 2020