Video Game Reviews (2010-2019): “Tokyo Chronos” for the Oculus Quest 2 (2019)

I absolutely enjoy Japanese visual novels. I think what got me into them was a game called “Tokimeki Memorial”, which I bought in Japan for the Sony PlayStation, which is a dating sim from Konami which eventually would also be used to help me learn to read Japanese.

Of course, many would be captivated through games such as “Ace Attorney”, “428: Shibuya Scramble”, “Zero Escape”, “Danganronpa”, but I feel that visual novels have evolved and my favorites will always be “Kanon”, “Steins;Gate”, “Narcissu 1st & 2nd”, “Higurashi When They Cry Hou” to name a few.

And visual novels have exploded especially on the PC gaming scene as many people outside of Japan are creating their own, with anime-like character designs.

With Japanese visual novels, the game is being presented a story and your decisions that you make throughout the game will lead to an ending. And a visual novel can have multiple endings. And for most games, choices are important, but reading the story is a big part of what captivates you.

So, visual novels are games for people who love to read but also want to achieve some outcome and the ability to explore different outcomes.

“Tokyo Chronos” is one of those games.

Created and developed by video game studio MyDearest back in 2018, and a team led by Miki Kazuma, producer of “Sword Art Online”, this is a visual novel that was designed for VR and was also featured on Kickstarter.

The game’s scenarios were written by Segawa Kou, directed by Kashiwakura Haruki and character designs by LAM.

The game has 970 backers who pledged $90,625 and brought the project to life.

And while this game has been out for several years, this is my first visual novel game that I experienced on my Oculus Quest 2.

The game revolves around protagonist Sakura Kyosuke (voiced by Uemura Yuto), who wakes up in an alternate reality of Shibuya with blood on his hands and memories of a figure jumping off a building.

When he fully awakes, he comes into contact with a rude, abrasive individual named Lowe, who acts as if he knows Kyosuke really well, but Kyosuke has no recollection of him.

When he makes it into Shibuya Scramble, he is reunited with all his high school friends, his childhood friend/photographer Momono Yu (voiced by Kido Ibuki), the often silent Nikaido Karen (voiced by Ishikawa Yui), the genius Togoku Yuria (voiced by Yuzuki Shoko), the leader Kamiya (voiced by Park Romi), Kamiya’s follower/assistant Morozumi Ai (voiced by Sakura Azu), the defender Machikoji Sota (voiced by Ueda Keisuke) and the person who wants to fit in, Kageyama Tetsu (voiced by Kaji Yuki).

The eight are happy to be reunited together but they all know that they are together in Shibuya for unknown reasons. To make things worse, they learn that someone killed someone and one of them may be responsible. And if they don’t figure things out quickly, they will be doomed in the Chronos World, in this case, an empty Shibuya with mirror walls that limits how far they can move around the city. So, it’s important for them to solve the case of who killed the mysterious person in order to leave.

But while some are happy to be reunited with friends, each are missing important memories, especially the memory of why they all drifted apart.

For Sakurai Kyosuke, just having his friends together and wanting to stay like that is important to him. But he knows he must find out who is responsible for murdering someone.

GAMEPLAY:

The gameplay is a visual novel in which you are in the position of the protagonist. You can look around you in 360, using your Oculus touch controllers to advance through each dialogue.

And unlike other visual novels which have a plethora of choices, for the majority of the game, it’s primarily reading. But don’t look negatively on this game because of that.

It’s until you reach towards the end of chapter four, in which you are presented with the first good and a bad ending. The first play through took me about 3-4 hours.

Assuming you did the first good ending (which is not exactly good, but tragic imho), it will then give you a chance to replay the chapters but this time, you get the “skip” ability to bypass large dialogue sections. What you will want to do is load replay pivotal chapters involving each character.

But through this chapter replay, now added to the storyline are storylines for each of the characters (which you can explore their past, their memories) and each will have their good and bad ending. You will need to do this second round of playing through each good and bad ending. This second play through is about another four hours unless you skip all dialogue but hopefully you don’t because then you will miss out on the story for each of these characters.

If you were able to playthrough each character’s good and bad ending, then you can load the final chapter, and you know you did everything right when you will be able to make a second choice with Sakurai Kyosuke that will eventually lead you to the true ending. If you only see one choice, then you may have missed someone’s good or bad ending.

For the most part, the dialogue and music is fantastic. And I was impressed by seeing alternate opening and closing themes but the voice acting in this game is well-done!

FINAL JUDGMENT:

I have read reviews on this game and surprisingly, reading from people who never even reached the final true ending. This is a visual novel which does require a lot of reading, which is the point of visual novels. Granted, some are more interactive than others.

But “Tokyo Chronos” is a game that reaches out you in so many levels, thanks to each character and how they and their life is presented. Each character has their weaknesses and strengths but through their experience in the Chronos World, they are able to learn and discover what is important to them.

And I feel many can relate. May it be the feeling of not fitting in, loneliness, not knowing what you want to do in life, wanting to make a difference but whether one should do what it takes to get there to just stay behind and let others do the work and more. The storyline also captures something that is often heard about in Japan is bullying and suicide.

But these are stories that anyone from outside of Japan can sympathize with or have experienced (or knows someone who has experienced these situations).

“Tokyo Chronos” is a fantastic visual novel based on its captivate, tragic, emotional storyline but its one visual novel that demands you to follow the storyline and make decisions when it counts. There are branching storylines which relate to each character but everything is interconnected to the primary storyline.

I absolutely love this game. Prepare to laugh, prepare to cry and prepare to be captivated by this game on VR!

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