good

played with Committee of Zero patch

Peak 3

I wrote an entire review for this game during Chapter 9 of the story, and decided to hold off on posting it until I was done the story in case my opinions changed. I thought I had my thoughts sorted out and that they weren't going to change, but I still held off. Now that I'm done, I realize that I was wrong about Robotics;Notes. Just like Chaos;Head Noah, Steins;Gate and Chaos;Child that I played prior, this game is fantastic.

Robotics;Notes is a very intriguing story that is part slice of life and part conspiracy. The story follows a group of students forming the Chou Tanegashima Robotics Club as they follow the club's decade long dream to build a giant robot based off of the fictional mecha anime Gunvarrel. All is well until the protagonist, Yashio Kaito, comes across a mysterious file called the "Kimijima Report" alongside a mysterious AI girl who lives in the world of IRUO, a smartphone application. Kaito learns that the file is one of seven reports meant to be the final will and testament of Kimijima Kou, a man silenced by the hidden rulers that govern the world, the Committee of 300. Kaito tries to ignore the reports, but curiosity gets the best of him, and as he reads through the further reports of Kimijima Kou, he starts to notice strange similarities between the reports and odd occurrences in the real world, and Kaito begins to worry about whether the dire plans for the "Human Domestication Project," the final goal of the Committee of 300, are truly in motion, or if Kimijima Kou is nothing more than delusional. What starts off as a simple story about a group of students trying to build a giant robot becomes much more, as the fate of the entire world begins to become at stake.

To be honest, I actually wasn't going to play Robotics;Notes, but Chaos;Child left me so hungry for more SciADV that I had to give it a go, and I'm damn glad I did. This game is much happier and more lighthearted than the two entries that came before and the one that proceeds, but the story is just so damn intriguing. The conspiratorial elements that are hidden behind the scenes in the previous entries are front and center here, and it's fantastic. There are many unexpected twists and turns throughout this lighthearted story, and it eventually leads into a final couple of chapters that completely blew my expectations out of the water. This game is great, and if you're going through the Science Adventure series, I urge you to not disregard it.

That isn't to say that Robotics;Notes isn't without its issues however, as I think the characters are somewhat poorly handled here. All character development is mostly centered into each character's own individual chapters. Subaru is developed near the beginning of the game, Juuna is developed in Chapter 6, Frau in Chapter 7, Airi in Chapter 8, and Akiho in the last couple chapters. These characters receive significant development in those chapters, but once the game decides to move on, the development is somewhat disregarded and the characters go back to how they originally were. One of my favorite elements of the Science Adventure series is how each cast of characters follows a set of archetypes near the beginning of each story, and eventually all grow into different people by journey's end. Robotics;Notes is different in that each character similarly starts off following an archetype, eventually receiving development in their own chapters, and then reverting back to their original personalities come the next. The characters here never really feel like they grow from beginning to end, despite having very well written development in between, and that left somewhat of a sour taste in my mouth. Kaito, the protagonist, doesn't even develop much throughout the story at all, and even though I liked him, he doesn't hold a candle to Takumi, Okabe, or Takuru. I just don't like seeing good development go to waste, especially when the development here is so good.

The best character in this game is Koujiro Frau, who acts a lot like Takumi in that she's a perverted shut-in, but her part of the story is exceptionally written and I believe it's some of the best development this series has to offer. Unfortunately though, as soon as her chapter is finished she goes back to just being a shut-in pervert.

I think Robotics;Notes as a whole has a problem with character development. Outside of even just the main 6 characters, there are many others who either don't develop or have their development disregarded. Throughout the game, you can see posts from Nishijou Takumi and Daru from Chaos;Head and Steins;Gate respectively. In their own games, they act like creepy perverts, but both eventually develop past those personalities and are shown to be much more than that. Takumi changes as a result of the New Generation Madness and finally gains a group of people to call friends, learning the importance of living. Daru is eventually revealed to be more than just a perverted otaku when he learns that Suzuha is his daughter. The things that they post throughout Robotics;Notes feel like things they would've said before their development. Takumi says that he's going to spend Christmas alone marathoning Blood Tune and Daru talks about how his wife supports his hobby of playing eroge games. Why is Takumi not spending Christmas with Rimi and the like and why is Daru still playing porn games when he has a wife and daughter!! As someone who is a big fan of these two characters I don't like seeing their development ignored, and I feel like I would've been better off not hearing from them again.

I feel like it's important to mention the inclusion of Tennouji Nae as well, who is the one character from Steins;Gate who appears here. She's 11 in Steins;Gate and is 20 here, and there is a scene in her part of the story where she's shown in a bikini. There's a whole cutscene for it, it has attention brought to it. I get that Nae is an adult now, but she was a child in the last game, so it's still creepy to have her sexualized here. Mr. Braun would not stand for this!! Funny enough, Nae's ending is the only bad one here, which is fitting because the character routes in Steins;Gate were all major ass. She doesn't do much throughout the game, and as a recurring character, I would've liked to see her play more of a role.

To conclude, Robotics;Notes was an extremely pleasant surprise to me. I think it has a number of problems, and in a series that has previously been home to entries that I consider near-flawless masterpieces, the problems here stick out like a sore thumb. I came into this game with low expectations, but I've learned not to doubt this series time and time again. Despite its issues, I think Robotics;Notes deserves its spot in the Science Adventure series, and I would recommend anyone looking for an extremely interesting conspiracy story to stop here.

I mean its pretty good. Around the same level as chaos head but worse than steins gate. Well worth my time and especially the ten dollars i spent.