Science Adventure | |
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Logo of the Science Adventure series | |
Art from a 2012 Science Adventure event, featuring heroines from the first three entries. Left to right: Rimi Sakihata, Kurisu Makise, and Akiho Senomiya. | |
Medium | Visual novel, anime, light novel, audio drama, stage play |
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Science Adventure, [lower-alpha 1] commonly shortened to SciADV, is a multimedia series consisting of interconnected science fiction stories created by Mages, [lower-alpha 2] initially in collaboration with Nitroplus. The main entries mostly take the form of visual novel video games.
The series currently consists of six mainline entries: the first entry of the series, 2008's Chaos;Head , is followed by Steins;Gate , Robotics;Notes , Chaos;Child , Occultic;Nine , Anonymous;Code , as well as the upcoming Steins;??? . The series also includes several spin-off games based on Chaos;Head, Steins;Gate, Robotics;Notes, and Chaos;Child, as well as spin-offs in other mediums including anime, manga, light novels, audio dramas, and stage plays. All main entries except Anonymous;Code have received anime adaptations.
The main entries and their spin-offs all take place in the same fictional universe, focusing on several different science fiction themes. Chaos;Head and Chaos;Child focus on perception, Steins;Gate focuses on time travel and science, Robotics;Notes focuses on robotics and augmented reality, and Anonymous;Code focuses on hacking, time leaping, simulated reality among concepts from other games in the franchise. The player can affect the course of the story by making certain choices: in Chaos;Head and Chaos;Child this is done by choosing what kind of delusions the player characters experience. The choices in the Steins;Gate games and Robotics;Notes are made via messages set by the player via an in-game cell phone and tablet computer, respectively. The choices in Anonymous;Code are made using the hacking trigger and save/load ability.
The series is created and planned by Chiyomaru Shikura, founder of Mages and Chiyomaru Studio, composed by Takeshi Abo and Zizz Studio, written by Chiyomaru Shikura, Naotaka Hayashi along with other writers, and features character designs by artists including Mutsumi Sasaki, Huke, and Tomonori Fukuda. The developers aimed to make the series set within reality, as Shikura felt it made it more relatable and believable. The series has been commercially and critically successful both in Japan and internationally, far exceeding sales expectations for the genre and establishing Mages (previously 5pb.) as a game developer.
The series is published by Mages and Nitroplus in Japan, [1] [2] and by JAST USA, [3] PQube, [4] Mages, [5] and Spike Chunsoft internationally. [6] The visual novels Steins;Gate, Steins;Gate 0, Chaos;Child, Steins;Gate Elite, Steins;Gate: Linear Bounded Phenogram, 8-bit ADV Steins;Gate, Steins;Gate: My Darling's Embrace, Robotics;NotesElite, Robotics;Notes Dash, Chaos;Head NoAH and Anonymous;Code have been officially localized in English. [7] [8] [9] [6] [10] [11] [12] [13]
2008 | Chaos;Head |
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2009 | Chaos;Head Noah |
Steins;Gate | |
2010 | Chaos;Head Love Chu Chu! |
2011 | Steins;Gate: My Darling's Embrace |
Steins;Gate: Variant Space Octet | |
2012 | Robotics;Notes |
2013 | Steins;Gate: Linear Bounded Phenogram |
2014 | Robotics;Notes Elite |
Chaos;Child | |
2015 | Steins;Gate 0 |
2016 | |
2017 | Chaos;Child Love Chu Chu!! |
Occultic;Nine | |
2018 | Steins;Gate Elite |
8-bit ADV Steins;Gate | |
2019 | Robotics;Notes DaSH |
2020 | |
2021 | |
2022 | Anonymous;Code |
2023 | |
2024 | |
2025 | Steins;Gate Re:Boot |
TBA | Steins;Gate 0 Elite |
Steins;??? |
The Science Adventure series consists of six core entries, [14] [15] along with a seventh in development. [16] The game adaptation of the Occultic;Nine novel series, and Anonymous;Code were referred to internally as part of the Science Visual Novel series, which was originally announced to be separate from Science Adventure, but has since been incorporated into the series. [17] [18] Occultic;Nine was planned to be updated with new story content tying it more closely with Science Adventure. [19] [20] Some of the games have received updated editions with added content, [7] and there are compilations collecting several games, such as Chaos;Head Dual (collecting both Chaos;Head games) [21] and Steins;Gate: Divergencies Assort (collecting Steins;Gate 0, Darling of Loving Vows, and Linear Bounded Phenogram). [22]
The main entries are as follows:
The series contains eight spin-off games: one based on Chaos;Head, [58] five based on Steins;Gate, [37] [59] one based on Robotics;Notes, and one based on Chaos;Child. [60] It also contains several more side entries spanning several different mediums other than visual novels, such as manga, drama CDs, short stories, and novels.
The Science Adventure games all feature stories in the science fiction genre. They make use of real scientific concepts and theories, but also cross over into fictional territory, using fringe science and urban legends. [7] [85] Chaos;Head and Chaos;Child focus on individuals with the power to alter reality, and discuss topics such as perception, reality, and antimatter, while Steins;Gate focuses on time travel. Robotics;Notes focuses on several technologies such as robotics and augmented reality, as well as borrowing some concepts from the previous two entries.
The main games and their spin-offs are all set in the same world, [7] and although presented as self-contained stories, [85] they all contain many callbacks to the previous entries (excluding the first entry, Chaos;Head). These callbacks range from minor references, such as mentions of characters or events from previous entries, to more significant ones, such as usage of concepts explained only in another game. There is also a higher antagonist shared throughout the entire series, the Committee of 300. The Committee, based on the real conspiracy theory, seeks world domination, and is portrayed as very powerful, having control over corporations, politicians, and religions, and being seemingly impossible to beat even with time travel and control over reality. [7]
The games are primarily visual novels, in which the player can affect the outcome of the story through choices. In the Chaos;Head games and Chaos;Child, the player does this by controlling what types of delusions the player characters experience: the player can make them experience positive or negative delusions, or alternatively choose to let them stay in reality. [7] Chaos;Child Love Chu Chu!! additionally uses a "yes/no" questionnaire the player character takes in in-game magazines to determine the plot's direction. [86] In Steins;Gate and Steins;Gate 0, the player affects the outcome by using the player character's cell phone: in Steins;Gate, it is done by choosing to respond to certain messages, make phone calls, or taking out the phone at specific times, as this affects what information the player character learns and how he interacts with other characters; and in Steins;Gate 0, it is done by deciding whether or not to answer the phone at certain times. Robotics;Notes works similarly to Steins;Gate, but with the player using a tablet computer and its apps instead of a cell phone. [7]
The series is planned by Mages's CEO Chiyomaru Shikura, [87] and is developed by Mages, Nitroplus, [88] and Shikura's multimedia concept studio Chiyomaru Studio, the latter of which owns the copyright to the series. [89] [90] Naotaka Hayashi has worked on the series writing, both in the role as a scenario writer and as a scenario supervisor. [91] [92] [93] [94] [95] Recurring character designers include Mutsumi Sasaki (Chaos;Head and Chaos;Child games), [94] [91] Huke (Steins;Gate games), [96] and Tomonori Fukuda (Robotics;Notes games). [89] [97] The games' soundtracks are composed by Takeshi Abo and Zizz Studio. [98]
Shikura aimed for the series to be set in reality, feeling that it made the stories more relatable and believable; he said that he personally found it difficult to "buy into" fantasy, and that he was not convinced that people could get excited for "exaggerated fantasy stories". [88] Throughout the series, the development team aimed for a rate of "99% science and 1% fantasy". [85] [99] Shikura called the 1989 film Back to the Future Part II a direct influence on Steins;Gate, citing how it is just believable enough to feel real. [100] For Robotics;Notes, Mages cooperated with JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, to bring further realism to the story. [87] Due to the series' use of worldlines – alternative worlds – the developers make use of a correlation chart to track the events in the games' stories, which is updated whenever they create new entries in the series. [85]
Abo noted that while all the games are part of one series, their sound have different images; comparing them to weather, he called Chaos;Head rainy, Steins;Gate cloudy, Robotics;Notes clear weather, and Chaos;Child stormy. He used the same process for all of them when composing the music: he started by reading the story, to understand the setting and characters as well as possible, and writing down notes about the games' emotional flow and the situations that occur throughout the stories. Using these notes, he constructed musical worldviews for the games, with a lot of weight on his first impressions. This approach, while slower than just designating songs to different areas of a game, allowed him to compose higher-quality songs with a better relationship to the games' worldviews. He was given a lot of freedom when working on the series, and was able to make the music he wanted to make for it, something he enjoyed greatly. Abo also got to compose each game's theme song, and was especially happy with Steins;Gate's theme song, "Gate of Steiner", which he aimed to represent the entirety of the game with. [98]
The Science Adventure series is partly the child of Infinity, a visual novel series primarily developed by the now-defunct company KID. It contains several references and similar themes, as well as a similar focus on science fiction elements. Some of the staff who worked with KID and the Infinity series, such as Naotaka Hayashi, Chiyomaru Shikura, and Takeshi Abo, came together to work on Chaos;Head, and later, the rest of the Science Adventure series.
Game | Famitsu | Metacritic |
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Chaos;Head | 32/40 [23] | – |
Steins;Gate | 34/40 [30] | 87/100 [101] |
Chaos;Head Love Chu Chu! | 26/40 [63] | – |
Steins;Gate: My Darling's Embrace | 30/40 [66] | 73/100 [102] |
Robotics;Notes | 30/40 [44] | 80/100 [103] |
Steins;Gate: Linear Bounded Phenogram | 34/40 [72] | – |
Chaos;Child | 31/40 [104] | 76/100 [105] |
Steins;Gate 0 | 35/40 [106] | 81/100 [107] |
Occultic;Nine | 33/40 [108] | – |
Robotics;Notes DaSH | 31/40 [109] | – |
The games have also received generally positive reviews, both in Japan [23] [30] [44] [104] [106] [109] and the West. [101] [105] [107] Critics have enjoyed the story, [7] [44] [92] [106] the music and visuals, [59] [110] [111] and the implementation of the gameplay elements within the visual novel presentation, [44] [112] although some have noted how it is complicated and difficult to unlock certain routes. [110] [113] Anime News Network wrote that the series has well-paced mysteries and uses creative concepts, but that the conclusions often are not as good as the set-ups. [114]
In 2009, Steins;Gate won Famitsu's annual Game of Excellence award. [115] RPGFan included Steins;Gate on a list over the 30 essential role-playing games of 2010–2015, calling it one of the best visual novels on the market. [116] It was also nominated for the Golden Joystick Awards, for best handheld/mobile game of 2015. [117]
The Science Adventure series has been a commercial success for Mages, with the release of Chaos;Head and Steins;Gate helping establishing them as a game developer. [88] In June 2011, Steins;Gate sales passed 300,000 copies sold, something Shikura noted as an achievement for its genre. [118] A year later, he revealed that there had been more than 80,000 preorders for Robotics;Notes, which was a large improvement compared to Steins;Gate's original release. [119] Steins;Gate 0 similarly did well commercially, selling 100,000 copies during its first day, [120] bringing the combined sales of all Steins;Gate games past one million copies. [121] Chaos;Child's original release, however, failed to chart on Media Create's weekly top 50 sales list in Japan, selling an estimated 1,415 copies. [122]
The English console releases of Steins;Gate performed "phenomenally" well, with a large majority of the sold copies being of the PlayStation Vita version; according to PQube's head of marketing, Geraint Evans, it was the game that made PQube break through and get noticed as a publisher. [123] Steins;Gate Elite's international PC release was among the best-selling new releases of the month on Steam. [124] [lower-alpha 5]
In addition to the games, the series has seen adaptations and spin-offs in several types of media, such as audio dramas, [126] stage plays, [127] light novels, and manga. [128] [129] There are also anime adaptations of all four of the main series games – Chaos;Head (2008), [130] Steins;Gate (2011), [131] Robotics;Notes (2012–13), [132] and Chaos;Child (2017) [129] – and of Occultic;Nine (2016), [20] as well as Steins;Gate 0 (2018), [133] a "final route" to the story of Steins;Gate 0. The Steins;Gate anime series was followed by the anime film Load Region of Déjà Vu in 2013. [134] A live action Steins;Gate television series is also in production by Skydance Television. [135] There are several music albums featuring the games' original soundtracks, as well as albums featuring new arrangements. [98]
The Steins;Gate characters Kurisu Makise and Mayuri Shiina appear in the 2012 role-playing video game Nendoroid Generation . [136] Kurisu also appears as a playable character along with the Chaos;Head character Rimi Sakihata in the 2011 fighting game Phantom Breaker , [137] and along with the Robotics;Notes character Frau Koujiro in the 2013 game Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds . [138] [139] Multiple Steins;Gate characters also appear as bosses in the 2013 role-playing game Divine Gate . [140]
Our World is Ended is a Japanese science fiction visual novel developed by Red Entertainment and published by PQube in North America and Europe for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Microsoft Windows in 2019. But, this updated version, dubbed Judgement 7 - Our World is Ended was published by Mages in Japan for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 in 2019. Mages advertises this game as a "Masterpiece for Science Adventure fans". [141]
Takeshi Abo is a Japanese video game composer. He joined the industry through developer StarCraft, Inc. in the early 1990s, mainly working on conversions of Western video games. In the mid-1990s, he joined KID. After KID declared bankruptcy in December 2006, he has joined 5pb.
Chaos;Head is a 2008 science fiction visual novel video game developed by 5pb. and Nitroplus. It is the first game in the Science Adventure series. Following the original Windows release, the enhanced version Chaos;Head Noah was released for Xbox 360 in 2009, and has since been ported to multiple platforms. An English localization was released by Spike Chunsoft for Nintendo Switch and Windows in 2022. The game follows Takumi Nishijou, who gets involved in the "New Gen" serial murder case. He frequently experiences delusions and hallucinations, some of which the player can influence, which affects the progression of the story.
Steins;Gate is a 2009 science fiction visual novel game developed by 5pb. and Nitroplus. It is the second game in the Science Adventure series, following Chaos;Head. The story follows a group of students as they discover and develop technology that gives them the means to change the past. The gameplay in Steins;Gate includes branching scenarios with courses of interaction.
Mages Inc., formerly 5pb. Inc., is a Japanese video game developer and record label for video game and anime music.
Robotics;Notes is a visual novel video game developed by 5pb. It is the third main game in the Science Adventure series, following Chaos;Head and Steins;Gate, and is described by the developers as an "Augmented Science Adventure". The game was originally released by 5pb. in Japan on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2012; the enhanced version Robotics;Notes Elite was released for PlayStation Vita in 2014, and for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 in 2019. An English version of Robotics;Notes Elite was released by Spike Chunsoft in 2020 for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4.
Spike Chunsoft Co., Ltd. is a Japanese video game development and localization company specializing in role-playing video games, visual novels and adventure games. The company was founded in 1984 as Chunsoft Co., Ltd. and merged with Spike in 2012. It is owned by Dwango.
Steins;Gate 0 is a 2015 visual novel video game developed by 5pb. It is part of the Science Adventure series, and is set in the period of the 2009 game Steins;Gate. It was released by 5pb. in Japan for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in December 2015, Microsoft Windows in August 2016, Xbox One in February 2017, and Nintendo Switch in March 2019.
Anonymous;Code is a visual novel video game developed by Mages and Chiyomaru Studio, and is the sixth mainline entry in the Science Adventure series. Along with being a visual novel, it also has a fully working implementation of Conway's Game of Life built in that can be accessed via the in-game menu. Following a series of delays, the game was released for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch on July 28, 2022 in Japan. A western English release, published by Spike Chunsoft, was announced in July 2022 with a Windows port, and released on September 8, 2023.
Chaos;Child is a 2014 visual novel video game developed by Mages. It is the fourth main entry in the Science Adventure series and a thematic sequel to Chaos;Head Noah. It was initially released 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 and Switch by Spike Chunsoft in 2019.
Steins;Gate: Linear Bounded Phenogram is a visual novel video game developed and published by 5pb. for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PlayStation Vita in 2013, and later ported to iOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Microsoft Windows; the PlayStation 4 and Windows versions were released internationally by Spike Chunsoft in 2019. The game is part of the Science Adventure series, and a spin-off from the 2009 game Steins;Gate. It consists of ten side stories set in different realities, and follow different Steins;Gate characters. Unlike previous entries in the Steins;Gate series, the game is nearly devoid of interactive narrative.
Steins;Gate: My Darling's Embrace is a visual novel video game developed by 5pb., originally released for the Xbox 360 in 2011. It has since been ported to several other platforms, and was released by Spike Chunsoft in English for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Microsoft Windows in 2019. It is part of the Science Adventure series, and a spin-off from the 2009 game Steins;Gate. The game is a romantic comedy set in a different world from the one in the original Steins;Gate, where the player builds romantic relationships with Steins;Gate characters. By making certain choices and interacting with the player character's cell phone, the player can affect the direction of the plot.
Chaos;Child Love Chu Chu!! is a 2017 visual novel video game developed and published by Mages for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita on March 30, 2017, in Japan. It is a fan disc for the 2014 game Chaos;Child, and part of the larger Science Adventure series. The story, which is affected by player choices, is set in Shibuya, Tokyo after the events of Chaos;Child, and follows Takuru Miyashiro, who ignores the "Return of the New Generation Madness" events, instead choosing to spend time with women.
Steins;Gate Drama CD Alpha, Beta, and Gamma, stylized as α, β, and γ, are a trilogy of audio dramas based on the 2009 video game Steins;Gate, and are part of the Science Adventure series. It follows Kurisu Makise, Mayuri Shiina, and Rintaro Okabe, three characters from the Steins;Gate game, in three different alternative histories. Alpha shows Kurisu's actions during the tenth chapter of the video game, Beta shows what happened after Okabe failed to save Kurisu, and Gamma shows a reality where the Year 2000 problem caused a disaster and Okabe became an agent working for the organization SERN.
Blue Reflection is a role-playing video game developed by Gust. It was published by Koei Tecmo in March 2017 in Japan for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita, and was released in September 2017 in North America and Europe for the PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Windows. The player takes the role of Hinako Shirai, a ballet dancer who due to a knee injury no longer can dance, but who is given magical power allowing her to fight and move freely. The game follows a day cycle, which sees Hinako attend school and spend time with classmates, and visit another world where she fights monsters in a turn-based battle system. By becoming close friends with her classmates, Hinako can use support abilities from them in battle.
Tokyo Tattoo Girls, known in Japan as Irezumi no Kuni, is a strategy video game developed by Sushi Typhoon Games, Nikkatsu's video game label. It was published for PlayStation Vita as a digital-only title in Japan by Nikkatsu in 2016, and was released internationally for PlayStation Vita and Microsoft Windows by NIS America in 2017. Unlike the original Japanese release, NIS America's Vita version was released physically.
Steins;Gate Elite is a science fiction visual novel and interactive movie video game, part of the Science Adventure series. It was developed by 5pb. for PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows and iOS, and was released in September 2018 in Japan and in February 2019 internationally. It is an updated, fully animated remake of the 2009 game Steins;Gate, using footage from the anime adaptation of the original game along with newly produced animation by White Fox.
Robotics;Notes DaSH, is a visual novel video game developed by Mages. It is part of the Science Adventure series, and is a sequel to the 2012 game Robotics;Notes. It was released in 2019 in Japan for the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, and was released in English in 2020 for the same platforms and Windows by Spike Chunsoft. The game was written by Toru Yasumoto and Chiyomaru Shikura and produced by Tatsuya Matsubara, with character designs by Tomonori Fukuda, mechanical designs by Makoto Ishiwata and Yukihiro Matsuo, and music by Takeshi Abo.
Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly and Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk are two otome visual novel video games developed by Otomate. They were published for PlayStation Vita by Idea Factory in Japan in 2015 and 2016, and by Aksys Games in North America and Europe in 2018. Intragames and Idea Factory released Black Butterfly for Microsoft Windows in 2018, and Ashen Hawk in 2019.
Steins;??? is an upcoming video game developed by Chiyomaru Studio and Mages. It is a thematic sequel to Steins;Gate (2009), and is part of the Science Adventure series. The game is written by Mages' representative director Chiyomaru Shikura, and previously went under the working title Steins;God.