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Story-driven anime game

I’ve owned PSVR2 system since launch, which is little over three months now. I’ve played lots of VR games with it and I’m very impressed all the games the system has. One game genre I haven’t played yet is story-driven games and Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate was one in the list. The game looked interesting and all the good reviews pointed out that I must play it. So, is Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate Episode 1 as good as it is said to be?

A murder mystery awaits… in the future

(I only played the Episode 1, which didn’t cover the whole story. There is Episode 2 now playable and Episode 3 is to be released 2023).

Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate Episode 1 tells a story of Hal, who has to solve a murder mystery on his first day on the job. He is a Special Supervisor, an investigator with the ability to rewrite the past. The story takes place in far future, where human kind was almost destroyed, but they survived and now live in safe haven called Astrum Close. Then there’s a premonition that foretells of the city’s destruction in seven days. Hal has now two problems in his hands; to solve the mystery and stop the destruction.

The story was interesting, especially when introducing the murder, which was rather straight forward who did it—but the questiong was; why they did it. I didn’t get the answer in the Episode 1, but what I got was intriguing story and engorssing characters. They were very anime-like, even the voice acting was straight from anime. Overall the story was well-paced to keep me going.

Gameplay, controls and visuals

The gameplay in Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate Episode 1 was rather simple. I liked that because the main point was the story itself. Player plays as Hal and he has ability to rewind time and see memories attached to items (and at some points; change the outcomes).

What I had to do was to question people, collect items, see the memories, change outcomes and do some puzzles. The game isn’t puzzle-heavy if you are afraid of that, as I was, because I’m not that good with puzzles. There was only few puzzles to solve and I think they were rather easy to do, nothing overly complicated.

Hal also has an assistant; a flying robot Lily, who helps Hal with everything. If I didn’t know what to do next I always asked Lily and she told me what I should do. It was also very easy to know where to go, because there was always a waypoint showing it. So I didn’t wander around or anything.

All the controls in Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate Episode 1 was easy to use. They were obviously well-designed and I didn’t have any issues with them. The game can be played in three modes: sitting, standing and roomscale. I played this sitting down.

Even though Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate Episode 1 looked very simplistic, all the characters were sharp and looked nice. Some of the environments didn’t loko as nice as the characters did, though. It was lots of blurry textures.

The game was—almost—fully voice acted. Meaning, only the main characters were voiced, but all the citizens weren’t. Which comes to the only negative part of the game. There were subtitles on everything that was said, but sometimes they were hidden behind objects and characters so I had no idea what they had said.

The Verdict

Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate Episode 1 was enjoyable experience. Even though the Episode 1 was only about 4-5 hours long, I got hooked and want to play the next episode and see how the story continues. Even if the game was rather slow-paced it has a good voice acting and intriguing story.

I do recommend this if you like story-driven games and, of course, some anime. Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate Episode 1 is playable on Meta Quest 2 and PSVR2 (Nintendo Switch version is coming 2023).

(Review copy kindly provided by the publisher)

SCORE:

4/5

“what I got was intriguing story and engorssing characters”

RELEASE DATE: February 22, 2023
GENRE: Adventure
DEVELOPER: MyDearest Inc. / IzanagiGames, Inc.
PUBLISHER: PERPETUAL / PErp Games
PLATFORMS: PS5 (reviewed)
Meta Quest 2
NIntendo Switch (Upcoming 2023)

 

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