I've been following the Science Adventure series (SciADV for short) for the last 4 years now, ever since I checked out the Steins;Gate anime, read some of Chaos;Child, and read the Chaos;Head NoAH spanish translation in full, which made me a diehard fan of the series for a time, and I even helped work on the Committee of Zero Translation and QoL improvement patches for a good while too. That said, while I will still always be grateful to NoAH for putting my own shut-in lifestyle into perspective and helping me get out of that hole I dug myself into, as I've gotten older and graduated college I've come to realize that I've drifted away from this series, and don't like a lot about it in retrospect. I've found the series more often than not is more plot-driven and really chokeholds the potential of its characters to be more compelling due to heavy plot devices and fast pacing in a good amount of entries, with the only real exceptions being Robotics;Notes and Chaos;Child. I've also really grown to not care for the heavy fanservice and objectification of women in the series, there's a lot of misogyny that goes on in the series that feels like it's done for otaku bait, among other fanservice things. For these reasons and a few more, I'm not the biggest fan of SciADV anymore, and I planned to make Anonymous;Code be the final game I check out in the franchise, and I think I might still stick to that. That said...
I have to stay I was pretty impressed with A;C itself. I don't plan to spoil the plot in detail, but I will say some general things. Firstly, I think this game truly is meant for those long-term SciADV fans first and foremost. The game explains enough that newcomers can enjoy and understand a decent bit of the plot, but I think most of the returning SciADV concepts really make a lot more sense and hit much harder in terms of impact if you're already familiar with the series. I'd really recommend most people read Chaos;Head NoAH, Steins;Gate, and Steins;Gate 0 at the minimum before playing this, to get the full impact.
The game is very plot-driven and only really fleshes out its two lead characters, but the main appeal of the game really is the worldbuilding and payoff to long term SciADV plot points and themes in my opinion, and it does a fantastic job of that. So many things I'd theorized and figured out on my own beforehand were finally vindicated after so many years, so that was nice. The very brisk, thriller-esque pacing of the plot was very welcome too, after dumping so many hours of time investment into this series with its earlier entries that are more slow burn plots. I didn't really want another slow burn story with SciADV after this much time investment, and I'm really glad A;C delivered there. I was able to beat the game in 4 days thanks to that.
The OST is also amazing, definitely one of Takeshi Abo's best. Also, after seeing SciADV's horrible decline in quality following Chaos;Child, it's nice to see that Naotaka Hayashi, the original scenario writer for NoAH, S;G, and R;N come back to return the series to form was very nice. Also, thank goodness that they FINALLY got rid of the fanservice crap aspect this series is infamous for. There's next to no fanservice in this game which was super refreshing.
That said, as an Orthodox Christian, this game is pretty blasphemous to my beliefs, but I wasn't too surprised as I said, because a lot of those aspects of the story were already foreshadowed and built up to long in advance in previous games. So I won't hold that against the game itself, even if it's another reason I probably won't revisit this series or read later games.
Overall, the story was good for what it was going for. It's far from perfect, lots of missed opportunities with better character writing and portrayal, some kind of one-dimensional views of religion and other concepts, but I think the game succeeds in what it was trying to be: a full realization of SciADV's overarching themes and sci-fi concepts, and shows them taken to their natural extreme to answer enough of what the narrative's been leading up to all these years. I enjoyed it enough, and I think this is a great place to end my time with Science Adventure.
It's been a fun ride, and may the delusions you wish for come true.
Total playtime: 18 hours.
I have to stay I was pretty impressed with A;C itself. I don't plan to spoil the plot in detail, but I will say some general things. Firstly, I think this game truly is meant for those long-term SciADV fans first and foremost. The game explains enough that newcomers can enjoy and understand a decent bit of the plot, but I think most of the returning SciADV concepts really make a lot more sense and hit much harder in terms of impact if you're already familiar with the series. I'd really recommend most people read Chaos;Head NoAH, Steins;Gate, and Steins;Gate 0 at the minimum before playing this, to get the full impact.
The game is very plot-driven and only really fleshes out its two lead characters, but the main appeal of the game really is the worldbuilding and payoff to long term SciADV plot points and themes in my opinion, and it does a fantastic job of that. So many things I'd theorized and figured out on my own beforehand were finally vindicated after so many years, so that was nice. The very brisk, thriller-esque pacing of the plot was very welcome too, after dumping so many hours of time investment into this series with its earlier entries that are more slow burn plots. I didn't really want another slow burn story with SciADV after this much time investment, and I'm really glad A;C delivered there. I was able to beat the game in 4 days thanks to that.
The OST is also amazing, definitely one of Takeshi Abo's best. Also, after seeing SciADV's horrible decline in quality following Chaos;Child, it's nice to see that Naotaka Hayashi, the original scenario writer for NoAH, S;G, and R;N come back to return the series to form was very nice. Also, thank goodness that they FINALLY got rid of the fanservice crap aspect this series is infamous for. There's next to no fanservice in this game which was super refreshing.
That said, as an Orthodox Christian, this game is pretty blasphemous to my beliefs, but I wasn't too surprised as I said, because a lot of those aspects of the story were already foreshadowed and built up to long in advance in previous games. So I won't hold that against the game itself, even if it's another reason I probably won't revisit this series or read later games.
Overall, the story was good for what it was going for. It's far from perfect, lots of missed opportunities with better character writing and portrayal, some kind of one-dimensional views of religion and other concepts, but I think the game succeeds in what it was trying to be: a full realization of SciADV's overarching themes and sci-fi concepts, and shows them taken to their natural extreme to answer enough of what the narrative's been leading up to all these years. I enjoyed it enough, and I think this is a great place to end my time with Science Adventure.
It's been a fun ride, and may the delusions you wish for come true.
Total playtime: 18 hours.