Review for Chaos; Child. Game for PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 25/06/2015
As already discussed in the reviews of Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds e Steins;Gate 0, the visual novel genre has a good diffusion in the eastern videogame community, but not as much resonance in the western one. Chaos; Child, sequel to Chaos; Head, was initially released in 2014 for Xbox One and then be distributed year after year on different platforms, including iOS and Android devices.
In spite of a not very exciting initial departure, Chaos; Child has overall sold a number of copies sufficient to meet the expectations of the developers and not only: the title, although niche, was in fact well received by both critics and the public. Unfortunately - and predictably - there is no localization, so that a good knowledge of the English (or Japanese) language is essential to fully enjoy the narration, which as you can imagine represents the fulcrum of Chaos; Child, due to the presence of numerous slang terms and some puns that a purely scholastic competence would not allow to grasp.
Taking on the role of the new adult Takuro Miyashiro, the player will find himself investigating a series of murders; what initially will be an almost playful treasure hunt by a group of young people engaged in the drafting of the school newspaper, will soon prove to be something much more complex and disturbing. The mood of the title will constantly oscillate between the lightness of the slices of life of the various protagonists of which you will find yourself taking control and paranormal situations, which will occasionally also result in the gore.
The banters between the supporting actors and the narrative are multifaceted and very well written, certainly victims of unavoidable ingenuity and cultural clichés typical of Japanese products of this kind, but in any case contextualized in a satisfactory way and perfectly capable of involving the player / spectator.
Other strong points of Chaos; Child are the excellent graphic quality of the environments in which the events take place and the musical accompaniment, composed of Takeshi abo and always in line with the events and dialogues on the screen.
Although the character and psychology of Takuro Miyashiro and his friends and acquaintances are the opposite of the average Western gamer, Chaos; Child still manages to provide convincing points of view of the events, allowing anyone with an adequate knowledge of English to easily identify with their point of view, without even the most “daily” exchanges of jokes being heavy to follow.
The story of Chaos; Child predicts several alternative routes, dependent on the player's ability to make certain choices and links between the events and the various murder cases; further variety is provided by Delusion, or hallucinations - to all intents and purposes of daydreams - of the protagonist, who can be favored in a positive or negative direction, or prevented altogether.
This greatly increases the replayability of the title, as repeating certain sequences with different choices can really make a difference and lead the story to completely different endings, with True Ending virtually impossible to achieve during the first run. It is still present both a traditional save system and a quick save, to allow the player to try different paths without necessarily replaying the story from the beginning.
Last, but not least, the presence of one gallery for music, images and characters unlocked during the adventure and a very useful glossary for terms and citations present in large numbers during the in-game dialogues.
Chaos; Child is a visual novel that manages to satisfy a large number of different palates thanks to the good aesthetic, musical and narrative quality: the characters convince and the events, although heavily influenced by the paranormal, are written in a way that is anything but superficial. . Although it is part of a genre that is not very widespread in the West, therefore, this game certainly deserves an opportunity if it has managed to arouse even the slightest curiosity for what it offers.
► Chaos; Child is a Visual Novel type game developed by 5PB and published by MAGES PQube for PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 25/06/2015
