In the running for one of my favorite all time video game remakes alongside Pokemon HGSS and REmake 1 for Gamecube.

The graphics are great, the remixed music is fantastic, and there's a lot of excellent quality of life features like quick travel, item re-management, visual indicators for timed hits, and in-battle character swapping that makes an already super fun turn and skill based JRPG even more fun and convenient.

Only flaw I can think of is it's ALOT easier to be overpowered in this game compared to the original with stuff like Triple Attacks. It's somewhat balanced by some of the post-game bosses being legit challenges.

Guess I'll go the opposite of Guacamole Boy. I think Super Mario 64 is easily the best reason to get this (well unless you get that stupidly overpriced Nintendo Switch Online bundle with N64 games).

Super Mario 64 is timeless, and many people forget this inspired a lot of the 'open world' 3D platformer/collecathons. It's a shame this genre of games is basically never done anymore. Mario 64 shows how it's done in a simple but effective, fun and replayable way.

I know the game is rough around the edges and the controls are still very early N64-ish but it works with Mario 64's simple and fun level design.

Getting rid of "So long gay Bowser" was a lame move though.

Mario Sunshine is kinda fun, though it relies a bit too much on the water gimmick. It says something when my favorite parts of Sunshine are the stars that take you to those bonus level where you don't have the FLUDD and it's just challenging but fun pure platforming.

I think Galaxy 1 is easily the most overrated Mario platformer game (and would be most overrated Mario game period if Paper Mario Thousand Year Door didn't exist).

Apparently Nintendo had the smart idea to take 64/Sunshine's design and make everything a LOT more linear. Sure the game looks pretty and all but what's the point where the level design is so boring?

If I were to give 3 things that stuck out in a positive way it'd be:

1) The music. Even after Chapter 1 I was enamored by the different songs. Some standouts includes the happy Let's Go, the atmospheric Crossing, the darker Painted Black, the very sad Fragile, but my absolute favorites were things like Rebirth (the arrow shooting theme), I Cry Your Name (possibly #1, usually the song of an upcoming confession or character development), In the Gentle Sunlight (usually during a very heartwarming moment), and Overflowing Emotions (during a more dramatic but very feelsy moment). One that surprised me was Snow Crystals (the H-scene music) cuz while it's romantic/sexy and all, it's actually very memorable melody wise and it has this "This is the last sex we'll ever have" bittersweet vibe to it, and many times it does end up being the last sex.

2) The common route. This is definitely one of my favorite common routes ever, if not possibly my #1. I had no expectations that there would be any couples beyond the typical 4 heroine harem, let alone having 5-6 potential ones! I've always really liked the idea of seeing more couples besides MC playing out and I really like how they integrated them into the plot/development of the MC. But most importantly, the common route chapters themselves are all mostly quite good by themselves! They could all be their own short VN/movie romance stories even without the heart shard thing.

They all felt fairly realistic or at least had potential to actual happen. I also really like how the Shard choices feel like a true 50/50 of whether it's a good decision for the reader. And it's thanks due Aine and Tomoe's back and forth arguing on analysis on whether or not returning it is a good thing in the long run. And generally each of the endings are justifiable/understandable, since it reflects how grey area life can be and there isn't some "everything will be 100% alright" like many VN route endings end up going.

One of the flaws I have with the common route are the fact that (over) half of them involve adult/teen romance/crushes/relationships in some way. It makes me wonder if the writer either likes these a lot or he thought it would be a good/easy way to create characters with fractured hearts. The other flaw is... the last part of Chapter 6. I still like the idea of everything before the reveal of Koyuki needing a gangbang to get pleasure. Which might make sense in some girls might be that broken mentally I guess but it felt like the author added this super edgey dark reveal to prepare you for another route... but then the issue is that since Ch 6 has 3 ends, it's pretty obvious the locked 3rd one is by far the best ending. This was good since the 6th chapter was way edgey at the end and needed something good but at the same time kinda took away from the 50/50 choice factor since it was the obvious choice at the end.

If I had to rank the Common route chapters it'd be something like

Chapter 2 (Adult romance making tough career choices was super interesting) > Chapter 1 (Kinda cheesy way to end but the the running scene really hooks you into the rest of the VN) > Chapter 3 (Insecure internet girl with her romance was super nice but not telling her friend and accidental reveal by sex in classroom was silly) > Chapter 4 (Probably the most wholesome coming out of the closet story I can think of, no preachiness you'd get from current year society and the added benefit where both endings were bittersweet relation to no resolved romance) > Chapter 6 (Broken girl and saving her from a rapist was nice, but the edgey ending/reveal brought it down a bit) > Chapter 5 (Kinda typical adult/teen romance drama but the two endings were interesting)

3) The characters. Ties a bit into the common route, but "all the side character/couples were done very well, and I thought the way it was executed was way better than other series with multiple couples (like say ef imo). But most importantly, the main characters were all quite good. I'll cover them more in the actual routes below, but I like them a bunch as a whole. Tomoe had super good development that came to a climax of Aine's route which was one of the best parts of the VN, but even seeing his development in the other 3 routes was nice. I thought Aine was just alright dummy baka character at first, but she really grew on me especially when you saw her influence on the Tomoe, the characters, the plot,...and apparently the Earth itself. Naruko still has my favorite base/waifu personality. I liked Minamo's drive to do well for her mom and career... and her romantic assertiveness. Yuri was my least fav of the mains but I've known people in her position and in some ways can be relatable.

So while those things were my stick out positive... I have much more mixed feelings about the routes themselves.

I did think Minamo's route wasn't bad, it was just a little predictable. Probably doesn't help I know how the Japanese idol industry works and I heavily predicted the whole them not being able to go out cuz idols can't date thing but I suppose it wasn't bad. Similarly the whole My parent was making a big sacrifice secretly for my sake but was hiding it by being harsh is a boring trope. It doesn't helped Ive kinda experienced it myslef and dont really like that excuse. But either way, the development of Minamo's actual character was still nice. The ending where they run away felt a little over the top but considering how long it took to find Minamo's shard for some reason (obviously drawn out for drama) it was understandtable Tomoe had to do something or risk Minamo's reputation and mental health")

Yuri's route.... ugh. So this one hurt cuz once again I know someone (and maybe me a little to some extent) who was basically a slave to guilt which to be fair was a pretty unfortunate thing that happened. But damn Momo I literally thought was the devil. However, Chapter 6s edginess was only a teaser for how...ridiculously stupidly edgey this route was. If Momo were the older sister or something I cound understand her actions more. But apparently I'm supposed to believe that a middle schooler is capable of planning indirect harassment through ripping clothes, strapping someone and beating them with a bat, and worst of all RAPING him and her sister... all because she's jealous and her parents died through an accident? Like obviously she's sociopathic and crazy in the head but I don't think these series of actions felt realistic given her age, but who knows maybe I just underestimate middle schoolers. While the good ending was cathartic in a way cuz she ended up offing herself... her "selfless" reasoning felt too convenient given what her personality was so even that didn't fully satisfy me. It just brings up the issue of a middle schooler being the main villain but just happens to have an innocent mindset at the same time?

Naruko's route... I quite liked it till the red string twist. Then I had more mixed feelings. This was when I knew the VN writer made you want to hate him for screwing over nice characters. Maybe I'm just biased since Naruko was my favorite personality wise. Like I know childhood friend romance is a hard thing to make interesting and unique. But using the "if we get together something will magically make us stop" felt like a cheap way to make it dramatic. Like it was the only feasible way Tomoe would legit care enough about Naruko to romance her when he was perfectly fine with Minamo and Yuri without red string drama. That said... I will give praise to the realism of their actions given the knowledge of the twist and it did do the 50/50 thing of both choices being grey area best compared to the other 2 routes.

Aine's route was definitley the best overall route. That said I'd consider it just good, not great. The cheesey romance scenes I actually really liked. Seeing Aine and especially Tomoe's development was super nice, especially since it explained where the title of the VN comes from (apparently Tomoe uses Boku as pronoun?). Tomoe smiling getting over his past, and him turning into angel to make Aine and everyone happy felt like the culmination he learned from his childhood wishes and everything he did in the common route. The whole thing with Earth having a fractured heart and that messing up the red threads was... kinda weird but considering how angels were prominent I guess it wasn't that bad but still an odd way to solve the plot. But even though the ending was "bittersweet", it was much happier than any of the other routes which I liked. It almost felt like a true happy ending and I thought it was a fitting way to end the story.

I do also have somewhat mixed feelings about the red thread twist since it does screw over the common route I really liked in a way. But thankfully Aine's route kinda fixed that... both in the giving hope before the TomoeAngel thing and after since the red threads being fixed turned back time to an extent made it so the Shard endings can be canon without separation (assumedly thats what Tomoe would do). And thankfully the emotions I felt during the common route stories still hold value since they're still characters and stories that happen wither way.

During the common route I was heavily considering this VN to be a potential all time favorite, maybe even a top 3 VN. The routes brought it down a bit to just "quite good" and still very much worth reading. It had really good emotional moments (heartwarming, depressing, and bittersweet), realistic grey area choices, cool angel-related themes and music, super unique common route, and great music and characters. I'll have to think of how to shill it properly since people may have different thoughts of how the the routes turned out compared to what I thought of them.

Overall I'd give a VN like an 8.5 ish... rounded out barely to a 9 only because the characters and music themselves were consistently great.

Chaos;Child is a basically perfect mix of murder mystery, psychological drama, fun Sci-fi magic, and likable characters. I was honestly floored that outside maybe the first several hours, the visual novel was consistently quite interesting or entertaining.

Country to popular belief from the hardcore Sci;Adv fanboys, you do NOT need to read other Science;Adventure visual novels first. In fact, I think Chaos;Child is one of the better ones to start off with since it has a good balance of mixing slice of Life character development as well as introducing mystery plot elements. It can help you find out if you like the ideas of Sci;Adv before going into others. But if you’re sure you wanna read all the Sci;Adv VNs, then find one of those online guides to read from Chaos;Head Noah up to Anonymous;Code.

Many of the Science;Adventure series usually have like 1-3 good characters and the rest are boring, annoying, or nowhere near fleshed out as they should be. In my opinion I think all the major characters of Chaos;Child all eventually get enough depth to stick out. Sure there are still some that probably could have used a little more love like Uki, Hana, and Mio but even I thought they had just enough for me to have something of an emotional connection to them, which I can't say for 90% of the cast of Steins;Gate or Chaos;Head.

As said earlier, the mystery stuff is basically paced almost perfectly. You have a murder mystery scenario within the first chapter and every single chapter has some really interesting reveal, so you're never left hanging. This also extends to the heroine routes when you get on them.

While this visual novel has a lot of sci-fi magic that could’ve lead to dumb deus ex machinas, Chaos;Child does a surprisingly good job having a good balance of hopeful/positive twists but also not reversing any big negative twist (like KEY). In fact, you can make the argument that sometimes the way some routes end are probably a little too edgy at times. But once again I think Chaos;Child has a good balance of having hopeful things happen and negative things happen where the characters just have to live with the consequences.

Chaos;Child also has a very consistent theme of “be careful what you wish for”. It’s a theme I find is only used in certain occasion in other media. I like how this theme applies to many characters and works great with how the sci-fi magic works in Chaos;Child.

The story structure is definitely very weird and a carryover from Chaos;head. The vast majority of the story is in the common route which you are forced onto on your first read through. I could see how this could bother some people since the common route on its own could be somewhere between 20 to 40 hours depending on your reading speed since it has 11 chapters of variable lengths. However, I'm glad this visual novel at least did something relatively different because the common route is very much its own complete story with a very definitive end. And honestly, if the story ended there, it could have been a great story on its own.

I generally have positive things to say about every heroine route + true route. They are all on the short side being somewhere between two to five hours depending on your reading speed. They basically feel more like giving context to certain characters and world building that the common route couldn't quite tackle. I thought this route aspect worked surprisingly well simultaneously giving the other main heroines a different role while not taking away from the main story and especially the true route twists. A minor nitpick is I wish more of the side heroine twists were integrated in the main story.

However, one thing I don't have positive things to say about is the delusion choice system, another carryover from the spiritual prequel Chaos;Head. In Chaos;Head, the delusion trigger system made more sense for the main character as he was exceptionally paranoid. In Chaos;Child, the delusion trigger works exactly the same where you can choose positive or negative delusions based on certain slice of life scenarios. Unfortunately, all these just feel like dumb tacked-on anime fan service scenes. Since these all happen in the main character Takuru’s head, they can range from goofy references to other media, typical horny male fantasizing over females, or just super random mundane things. What doesn't help is that you have to watch a certain amount of positive or negative delusions to get onto the heroine routes. Thankfully, if you really don't like these scenes, you could probably just hold the Skip button during the scenes you don't like because none of them are plot relevant.

Thankfully the delusion trigger aspect is the only real flaw I have with Chaos;Child besides the occasional slow pacing issue which is just a common thing with visual novels in general.

The “best for last” aspect I want to talk about is the characters and as I basically implied earlier, they are what help carry this visual novel to now one of my new favorites.

Admittedly, almost none of them are in the running for my favorite character or anything. In fact, you could make the argument that a few of them are purposely unlikable at times, including our main character Takuru. Some people may be put off by him because of how low-key arrogant he is despite clearly being socially awkward. But he gets a surprising amount of depth, and while his development wasn't always great, the way he turned out by the end was satisfying.

All the major heroines are decently likable: Nono being an overprotective mom but for good reason, Hinae being a troll who has clear trust issues, Hana having a mystery of why she never talks, Uki’s desire to always want to be helpful to people, and even Mio who starts off as a bitch but gets more tolerable over time.

However, the true star of the show is easily Serika and is now in the running for one of my favorite visual novel heroines. I really like her base personality of just being a goofy ditzy weirdo. In every single scene she's in, she provides some fun commentary, jokes, or super interesting dialogue.. As you get farther in the game, she shows a lot more depth than you realize and the fact that they don't sugarcoat things about certain aspects about her was part of why I really like her even if she does some things that aren't really “waifu-like". But that's fine, not every visual novel girl has to specifically be a waifu target, we got plenty of childhood friend characters in weeb media.

The more I think about it, the more that chaos child was basically the perfect storm of what I want in a plot-heavy mystery focused visual novel. It’s just consistently entertaining and interesting, and despite all the sci-fi magic stuff and things getting a bit edgy at times, everything either has a proper explanation or has really good character growth and depth that generally made the storytelling understandable.

I'm still debating whether to give this a 9 or 10, but when I have almost nothing but positive things to say, I think that's a good sign that this is now one of my favorite visual novels.

I heavily recommend Chaos;Child if you want a mystery and/or psychological story and don't mind some sci-fi magic explanations.

Unlike other short drama VNs like Narcissu or Planetarian I feel like more effort was put into making every character memorable and likable. I liked just about every characters' role in the story and they all played an interesting part.

The ending was somewhat predictable but just about every scene around it was interesting to me. It made the build up to it good anyway.

There were some cool presentation features like some nice BGM, moving mouth flaps and the PROTAG BEING VOICED (big big big plus).

I feel like the romance was a tad rushed but given how short the VN was and the situation I was a little forgiving of that part. The dramatic moments of the visual novel were a good mix of being poignant but without being melodramatic or overdone.

This is one of the most consistently funny AND engaging visual novels I read in a long time.

I think the people who try to sell this as a plotge are not selling it correctly. To me it's a plotge in the same vein as the agave route from Majikoi. It has its serious themes but the action is very goofy shounen and there's still all of the over-the-top comedy especially with the whole unique parodying nukige thing.

But considering that I just compared it to Agave from Majikoi, which is my favorite visual novel, obviously means I still put this visual novel in high praise.

I actually quite liked all the routes. Some people have said that Misaki route is their least favorite but honestly outside a few rushed developments, it was easily the funniest route reminding me of a Majikoi or Asa Project route with how ridiculously funny it got. Nanase, Hinami, and True route for all good in different ways, I would say Nanases route is only my least favorite for minor reasons.

I think by the end I found every single major character likable or interesting. Including the antagonists, with some who you are not supposed to like it first. (Which does go into one of the interesting themes of the VN of you eventually coming around to things you initially dislike)

Junnosuke was a decent entertaining main Character mostly brought down by him being a hypocritical asshole at times.

My main girl ranking goes something like this:

Misaki - No surprise she's my favorite considering she's the very quirky hilarious girl. But she also has a nice wholesome side (in fact, I liked how every single heroine with a route are all distinctive variations of nice girls)

Fumino - A very wholesome character with surprising depth. Maybe went slightly far on her being willingly subservient.

Hinami - An amusing character with some funny if occasionally Repetitive loli/senpai jokes. Definitely the least deep character but makes up for with some of the most wholesome scenes in the whole game.

Asane - the only character I would say got slightly worse as the story went on. Her jokes got slightly more repetitive and they made her slightly bitchier than I was expecting to non-Nanase girls. That said, her funny jokes were still really funny.

Touka - She was easily the most interesting antagonist to me so I was kind of disappointed they sequel baited her depth.

Nanase - Likeable but just doesn't stick out as much as everybody else above her.

Rei - Definitely got the most love in terms of giving proper backstory and depth. Her base personality just isn't quite as good as everybody else's.

Ikuko - She's okay, but definitely my overall least favorite. Her base personality is too OneNote and her depth and development is way too rushed when it shows. (The opposite problem of Touka)

Just a little aside on the translation. I do think there were a bunch of lines where they went a little too far on the localization memes/references/political jabs but to be honest, they felt more like mild to moderate annoyances at most. I would say the complaints are kind of overblown but if it really bothers you, there is an improvement patch you can find on vndb.

I'm still stewing on my final score, but with how consistently I enjoyed just about everything about it. I would not be surprised if I settled on a 10/10. It's been forever since I've given one to a full length visual novel.