A while ago, I documented my first-time playthrough of Robotics;Notes over on the BBS. I had stalled on it for a long time, having been offput by the 3D models, relatively bland look of the characters and art, and the fact that I was not really in to mecha. This was foolish. I loved R;N, it's an excellent visual novel that is every bit the match for Chaos;Head and Steins;Gate in many ways. This article will summarise many of my opinions on the game, sorted in a roughly chronological order.
One thing I'd like to start off with is the idea that if you aren't really in to mecha you probably won't love this game. This is false, and I think somewhat illogical. I do not see how the mecha as it is in R;N differs from the physics in Steins;Gate or the neuroscience in Chaos;Head, yet nobody claims that you need to be proficient in either of the other two in order to enjoy those entries. You absolutely do not need to be a mecha fan to enjoy or even love R;N; it "helps" surely but, as someone who only enjoys the genre tourist selections of mecha, I loved it.
Robotics;Notes excels in most areas as a game. The character writing is superb and honestly the best in the SciADV series by a fair margin in my opinion with each of the main cast getting their own distinct arcs. The growth is very natural and realistic. The narrative is a slow burn, but rarely do things feel contrived. The reader is sucked into the small hamlet island of Tanegashima (which is based on and highly accurate to the real-life location), and the strange oddity that rests beneath it. Similarly to Steins;Gate, the mystery develops at a quite natural pace.
Unlike some other mystery novels where you are left in the dark for a very long period of time and deliberately aren't given enough information to piece it together, with R;N there's always an interesting plot thread that makes you want to keep reading on. The Kimijima Reports are the greatest example of this early in the game, but by the mid point other intrigue opens up as well. As do its siblings, at some point shit simply hits the fan and once that point comes you will not be able to put it down.
One thing I love about R;N is how it touches on two niche topics that happen to mean a lot to me. The first is the main charaacter's drive to improve himself, using a fairly realistic portrayal of competitive gaming and the long grind that accompanies it as a metaphor to this end. Although the improval bit is generic, it is the latter that makes it distinct. As someone into that sort of thing myself, it was really nice seeing it used that way because truly you do have to adopt a mindset like that if you want to rise up a leaderboard. Seeing Kaito overcome his inhibitions in person and using KillBallad as motivation for that was awesome and very motivational to me.
The second, and most important in my opinion, is the way in which technology can be used to manipulate public perception. The fact that this game was released in 2012 before phones were ubiquitious with day-to-day life as they are now, and yet it accurately foresaw the modern social media landscape and all of the misinformation and psychological operations that go on, is very impressive to me. I view silent weapons as almost something as a metaphor for how easily narratives and power structures can be shifted by the concerted efforts of just a few powerful individuals. The game showcases the paradigm of how social media and the nature being always connected to the internet via PokeCom (which is essentially just a smartphone) can be used to whisk common people off into artificially constructed realities. It's very well done and hauntingly accurate.
As it tends to go in SciADV entries, the dynamics of the group are incredible. I adored that scene where the Robotics Club got up in a huddle and psyched themselves up before the final showdown. Although I'm not much of a mecha person, this novel convinced me to watch some Gundam for the first time in part because of how much the robots grew on me. ROBO-ONE was a lot of fun, and I am bit sad that we did not get to see Subaru and Kaito go to the tourney that was hosted in America. I love me a good tournament arc and it was executed quite well here, the stakes were simply hitting.
The game is not perfect. I think that the beginning could go a little quicker than it does; the slow pace sort of compliments the rural setting in a way and helps to make everything about Tanegashima feel more homey, but it could've been made a bit brisker. There is also some pretty stupid and bad bait and switching used with one particular Nae scene, and Nae in general is very underused as a character. I wanted to see more of her, instead her route is pretty much just boobslol and nothing else.
The other non-Nae routes in my opinion were very good. Juuna does not seem well-liked by most fans and I am not her biggest fan either but her route and relationship with Doc is very touching. Frau Koujiro is incredible, her development and route, her base personality, everything about her literally me fr fr, god I would let her ruin me. Akiho's route is good, I'm personally not as big on Akiho as most R;N fans seem to be as I think of the heroines she probably develops the least outside of Nae but I enjoyed her relationship with Kaito well enough. As it tends to go with SciADV, while the twist regarding the villain is interesting the character himself is very.. lacklustre. Overall though I loved this game, it's probably my 3rd favourite entry to this point but that isn't a diss as I'd still give it a score of an 8.5 or so, I just really love Chaos;Head and Steins;Gate. Read Robotics;Goat NOW!
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