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hopeymchope · 4 years ago

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Robotics;Notes DaSH review-ish thoughts

So I finished Robotics;Notes DaSH yesterday, and it seems like nobody on Tumblr has talked about it in much detail, so here I am.

I am in a huge SciAdv binge lately, so I went straight from finally playing Robotics;Notes Elite (LOVED it) to this. If you know SciAdv, there’s a good chance you know the story of Robotics;Notes Elite through the anime adaption (simply called “Robotics;Notes”) that aired back in 2012-2013. Robotics;Notes Elite is the first release of R;N in North America, but is actually an updated/upgraded release in Japan, hence the addition of “Elite.” But all of that is unimportant right now, because I’m here to talk about the sequel.

Robotics;Notes DaSH is undoubtedly the lesser of the two stories in the “double pack” that you can get in NA, but it’s still very important to the overall SciAdv mythos because it brings together so much of what came before. Itaru Hashida/”Daru” from Steins;Gate is the main POV character here. Daru travels to Tanegashima, the island setting of Robotic;Notes, in order to meet up with 20-year-old Nae Tennouji (who is a major character in both R;N stories as well as a supporting player in S;G) and for a secret “mission” he’s on that ultimately leads him to team up with all the R;N cast just six months after their initial adventure. See, Steins;Gate took place in 2010, but Robotics;Notes took place over 2019-2020, so Daru is now ten years older than he was when we last saw him, but the R;N cast is largely the same age as when we last saw them. Get it?

Anyway, Daru and Nae are the primary alumni of Steins;Gate here, but Daru also enlists the aid of some other S;G characters via phone calls and emails, and you get to check in with most of the S;G characters on “Twipo” (which is Twitter in the SciAdv universe). It’s interesting to get a bit of insight into how their lives have changed in ten years... or how they haven’t changed at all, in some cases. (I’ll circle back to this at the end.)

As a POV character, Daru can be kind of tough to take sometimes. I found him kind of obnoxious but mostly harmless in Steins;Gate... but when the sequel, Steins;Gate 0, rolled around, it illustrated just how gross he can be about “lolis” and the like (answer: pretty fucking gross). Sadly, even though he’s 10 years older now (and married! with a child!), that behavior is still in full force. With every single female character he meets from Robotics;Notes, Daru has some sexual harrassment to offer (even the 14-year-old Airi!). It may be played as a joke, but that doesn’t stop the way he tries to manipulate them into saying or doing things that grossly please him from being pretty goddamn repugnant. His perverted fantasies about them end up being surprisingly important to the plot, even! It can be unpleasant. It does help that the Robotics;Notes characters find him largely off-putting at first, but over time, he proves full of mature advice and useful wisdom for almost all the characters at some point. By the end, they come to honestly appreciate him and welcome him among their group in spite of his... extremely clear character flaws. And, well, Nae never takes his sexual harassment seriously, and Daru’s own internal monologue clarifies that he doesn’t exactly mean it either, so these things... help, at least a little. It all means that there are times where I find myself feeling repulsed by him and other times when I find myself managing to appreciate how he helps the R;N cast move their lives forward. So I don’t completely hate him, and besides, the tale ends with Daru promising to introduce the R;N cast to the S;G cast, so how could I despise him, really, when he’s bringing us that much closer to the dream of the SciAdv Avengers-style team-up? But man... I wish it could’ve been almost anybody else from S;G who teamed up with the R;N cast. Still, Daru’s talents fit the story well, so here we are.

Daru’s obviously grown in intelligence and... well, maybe a little bit in maturity, but what about the R;N kids? This IS a sequel to Robotics;Notes, after all, and despite Daru being the central character, you can still feel that this is a R;N story and not a Steins;Gate story. Robotics and A.I. remain at the core of the plot, the setting is the same as R;N, the graphical presentation is carried over from R;N (meaning that we get animated 3D models of the characters instead of just static artwork like in other SciAdv VNs), and, yes, the entire cast of R;N is present and accounted for. Most of them haven’t changed much at all from the first Robotics;Notes... with the exception of former lead character Kaito Yashio, who seems to have lost most of his defining character traits in favor of being a pretty generic protagonist. Both of the R;N games jump around in POV, but Kaito is really the only other character besides Daru to spend significant time as the lead POV character in DaSH. And although Kaito has some new trauma from the shit he witnessed in his first outing, he’s mostly pretty much just “some young dude�� in this game. He no longer has that self-centered, sarcastic attitude, he no longer focuses all his energy on playing Kill-Ballad - in fact, he’s given it up entirely - and he no longer considers himself Akiho’s personal protector. He’s moved on to be defined mostly by his post-high school studies, and it’s kind of disappointing to see him lose everything that made him distinctive.

The other characters from Robotics;Notes get slightly better treatment. Akiho is still as hyper as ever, but her lack of planning for after graduation has caught up with her. Kaito has moved into the next phase of his life, single-mindedly pursuing his dream career away from Tanegashima, and Aki is back on the island, working as a part-time waitress and feeling like she’s left behind. It’s an interesting problem to focus on, but the thread is never completely resolved. Junna has a post-graduate job, too, but it’s not one that really has much to do with her as a character. She gets a side route focused on confronting her lack of self-confidence. Subaru gets a route in which his difficult relationship with his father is further explored and developed, and Frau... well, she gets two scenes in the main story where she comes to accept how the robotics club has affected her and made her grow, but she’s mostly relegated to the background. Even her dedicated route is just a lengthy joke that does nothing for her character. I was hoping they’d circle back to the storylines about the Gunvarrel anime conspiracy and her missing mother that were never actually resolved in the first VN... but sadly, those plot threads remains unexplored.

Aside from Jun, Subaru and Frau, there’s also a side route for Airi. It’s largely inconsequential, but it does contribute more depth to a character that barely existed in the first R;N, and it shows a kinder, gentler side to Daru in the process. The final side route belongs to Nae. It gives us a tiny bit mor info about how she went from being the little Nae of S;G to being the adult Nae of R;N, but it probably has the least to do with the main plot out of any of the side routes. Moreover, it contains a shocking reveal that is left unexplored and unexplained.

Regardless of which ones I found meaningful or meaningless, these character-exploring side plots aren’t canon anyway! In Robotics;Notes Elite, the side routes/alternate endings were actually ALL canon, which was a pretty weird way to handle the Visual Novel staple of multiple endings. However, it was also a great thing because of how it added weight to the proceedings when you were forced to work your way through every single route to see the “True End.” In DaSH, you still have to experience all of the side routes/alternate endings to reach the True End, but none of those side routes are canon at all. Which means that, in canon, much of the growth you see from the characters... never actually happens. I mean geez, Frau may not get much new development, but at least the growth she does show is canonical. Subaru and Junna’s routes have the best character stuff in the game, and they’re merely “What If” scenarios that see their lives developing and growing, only to have that growth later erased from the timeline. Oof.

As far as the main storyline goes, it’s revealed early on that the main villain from Robotics;Notes is back, and the delusions-made-reality powers of the two “Chaos” visual novels also feature heavily into things. Regardless, the story never gets as dark as even the first Robotics;Notes, let alone the rest of the SciAdv line. DaSH is easily the lightest of all the SciAdv VNs. There’s still a major crisis that threatens countless lives for our team to overcome, but the tone remains hopeful and optimistic. When I think of most SciAdv novels, I think of that moment around the halfway or 2/3 mark where shit gets real and something shockingly dark occurs. Steins;Gate, Robotics;Notes, Chaos;Child... they all had those turns where everything that was going on suddenly got that much more serious and personal. That kind of moment never comes in DaSH, though. More than anything, this is a chance to visit old friends and have some frothy fun with them.

And now, UNDER THE CUT, I’m going to just spoil where this game leaves all the Steins;Gate and Robotics;Notes characters.

Steins;Gate Characters

- Once he “came up with” (*cough*) the ‘Worldline Theory,’ Rintaro Okabe managed to make in-roads with a number of geniuses in both Japan and America. He travels between the U.S. and Japan regularly to further his scientific research. He did create the Divergence Meter, and he reaches out to Daru for information/help when the numbers on the meter start to flicker near the climax of R;N DaSH. Okabe also maintains a Hououin Kyoma “bot” on Twipo that regularly spouts crazy the kind of “wisdom” you’d expect from his alternate personality.

- Makise Kurisu spends most of her time in America as a researcher in neuroscience for Viktor Chondria University. She still seems to be acting tsundere about her feelings for Okabe even after 10 goddamn years, even though Daru openly teases her about their relationship. She also expresses irritation with the existence of the Kyoma-bot.

- Faris is still running MayQueen and saying “nya” all the time.

- Luka/Ruka is still sincerely impressed with “Hououin Kyoma” after all these years, and often replies to the Kyoma-bot’s posts with genuine reverence. He is still working at the same shrine, although in what capacity is unknown.

- Moeka went back to being a journalist and is shown to be actively supporting the others in their work against the Committee of 300 and other evil entities.

- Maho Hiyajo got acquainted with the LabMems “around 10 years ago,” and apparently trusts them well enough to help Daru as soon as he asks.

- Mayuri is still around, although her tweets reveal nothing about her circumstances. She mostly just posts about what food she’s been eating or replies to the others with encouragement.

- Suzuha is two years old. She’s busy being two. :P

Robotics;Notes Characters

- After having a false start in the first R;N, Kaito and Akiho officially begin a relationship by the end of DaSH and declare their love for each other, so at least ONE of the major SciAdv couples is allowed to get together. Kaito is studying to be an astronaut at a school off-island, but he promises to visit regularly. It’s not clear what Akiho is going to do with her life, but she does manage to start healing the rift that grew between her and her sister over the past six years.

- Subaru wants to pursue robotics as a career. He’s still a senior in high school by the end of DaSH, and is also the new president of the Central Tanegashima Robotics Club. Unfortunately for him, the club once again is down to just two members, with Frau being the other one. It’s not clear where things stand between him and his father by the end of the canon route, but at least his father isn’t openly opposing Subaru’s robot work anymore.

- Junna is working for Space Candy. Her exact role with the company isn’t clear, but based on her assignments, it seems likely to be something in PR.

- Nae has permanently moved to Tanegashima and considers it her home now. She still works for JAXA there.

- Frau is still living on Tanegashima and still in high school. Evidently, it’s her weird-talking, perverted presence in the Robotics Club that has driven away all of the new recruits who tried to sign up after the club’s heroics in R;N.

#robotics notes #robotics notes dash #robotics;notes #robotics;notes dash #sciadv #science adventure #Steins gate #Steins;gate #itaru hashida #kaito yashio #akiho senomiya #visual novels #visual novel reviews

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