Yes, that's a stupid joke, but not meant as an insult to the VN itself. I appreciate that this VN exists and for all the countless hours of hard work CoZ put into patching it. And from a moment to moment standpoint, I really enjoyed reading C;HN. It got me through being on bedrest and made the time pass very fast. Its pacing is great, the tension is held through most of the read time and it built up a very interesting story with a pervasive sense of creeping dread.

So why the thumbs down?

Simply put, I have never been let down so much by any (good) thing I have ever read, before.

The murder mystery, the strange broken world, the shadowy creepy villains, the existentialism, the denpa vibes, the masterminds behind it all and sadly even the science themes of a game in the Science Adventure series, don't matter. At all. There's nothing to piece together, nothing to figure out and nothing to ponder over. Everything about the world building, the atmosphere and intrigue turn out to be complete throw-away, to the point that even calling these elements "meaningless set dressing" still might be implying they matter more than they do.

Everything boils down to "just because" with no real depth, and all the things that made me interested and kept me hooked in the setting and narrative had no pay off.

So what I was left with in the end was a solely character driven narrative. The problem for me with this angle is that the characters themselves, while decent I suppose, just weren't interesting, deep or compelling enough to make the experience worthwhile; nor was there any real room for growth or character development during the short time frame the story spans. One thing I will praise here, is Takumi. Despite being the most unlikeable protagonist I have ever experienced, he's truly fascinating and his voice actor does a great job of bringing him to life. Takumi is the star of the show and while in all fairness this is his story, he's just not strong enough to hold up the entire rest of the novel's shortcomings by himself.

When I finally reached the true end, I was left with this disappointed sensation of "that's it???" with every single thing I cared about being rendered pointless. I had no real emotional reaction to the resolution of the cast's struggles either and I tend to be a bit of a sap most of the time. Instead I felt exhausted when it was over and the end just fell so flat for me.

That said, I've read many VNs with higher levels of cruelty, gore and traumatic events taking place but with all of them, there was a much greater reward for doing so. I'm not name dropping nor trying to say that every story must be held to X standard, but the reward for suffering through the awful scenes in C;HN just wasn't there for me at all.

Its not a *bad* story per se. It's well written. But it didn't resonate with me one bit, left me feeling hollow when it was over and in the end, it was nothing but a very compelling bread crumb trail that ultimately lead to absolutely nowhere.

Its hard to explain without spoiling, but if you're ever experienced a bait-and-switch VN where everything seems like a mundane high school slice of life until it hits you in the face with a harrowing and total mind**** reality, this story feels like the exact opposite of that, which it turns out is not nearly as interesting.

Of course your milage may vary, but if you have the same interests in narratives that I do, I warn you: the mystery is so contrived, the science fiction is so soft and the intrigue shoved so far into the background they might as well not even exist. Even the mystical vibes the story delves into later are exceedingly shallow. Don't waste your time trying to figure things out, jotting down notes or making extra saves to review later.

C;HN succeeds solely as a character study on Takumi, but fails in all other categories it presents to the reader. Whether or not that's enough to warrant the actual price, time cost and mental taxing of admission is definitely subjective. For me it did not, and I look forward to the day I completely forget certain scenes.

But a lot of people really love C;HN and SciAdv as a whole is often recommended, so my opinion is obviously not the majority one. I wish I did have a more positive experience but I did not and I offer a different perspective.

Instead of excitedly starting what I expected to be the beginning of a long trek through some of the highest rated VNs of all time, I am now hesitating to read anything else in the Science Adventure series because if they all boil down to these same issues, its really just not for me.

[h1]SCHRÖDINGER'S;INCEL[/h1] Yes, that's a stupid joke, but not meant as an insult to the VN itself. I appreciate that this VN exists and for all the countless hours of hard work CoZ put into patching it. And from a moment to moment standpoint, I really enjoyed reading C;HN. It got me through being on bedrest and made the time pass very fast. Its pacing is great, the tension is held through most of the read time and it built up a very interesting story with a pervasive sense of creeping dread. So why the thumbs down? Simply put, I have never been let down so much by any (good) thing I have ever read, before. The murder mystery, the strange broken world, the shadowy creepy villains, the existentialism, the denpa vibes, the masterminds behind it all and sadly even the [b]science[/b] themes of a game in the Science Adventure series, don't matter. At all. There's nothing to piece together, nothing to figure out and nothing to ponder over. Everything about the world building, the atmosphere and intrigue turn out to be complete throw-away, to the point that even calling these elements "meaningless set dressing" [i]still[/i] might be implying they matter more than they do. Everything boils down to "just because" with no real depth, and all the things that made me interested and kept me hooked in the setting and narrative had no pay off. So what I was left with in the end was a solely character driven narrative. The problem for me with this angle is that the characters themselves, while decent I suppose, just weren't interesting, deep or compelling enough to make the experience worthwhile; nor was there any real room for growth or character development during the short time frame the story spans. One thing I will praise here, is Takumi. Despite being the most unlikeable protagonist I have ever experienced, he's truly fascinating and his voice actor does a great job of bringing him to life. Takumi is the star of the show and while in all fairness this is [i]his[/i] story, he's just not strong enough to hold up the entire rest of the novel's shortcomings by himself. When I finally reached the true end, I was left with this disappointed sensation of "that's it???" with every single thing I cared about being rendered pointless. I had no real emotional reaction to the resolution of the cast's struggles either and I tend to be a bit of a sap most of the time. Instead I felt exhausted when it was over and the end just fell so flat for me. That said, I've read many VNs with higher levels of cruelty, gore and traumatic events taking place but with all of them, there was a much greater reward for doing so. I'm not name dropping nor trying to say that every story must be held to X standard, but the reward for suffering through the awful scenes in C;HN just wasn't there for me at all. Its not a *bad* story per se. It's well written. But it didn't resonate with me one bit, left me feeling hollow when it was over and in the end, it was nothing but a very compelling bread crumb trail that ultimately lead to absolutely nowhere. Its hard to explain without spoiling, but if you're ever experienced a bait-and-switch VN where everything seems like a mundane high school slice of life until it hits you in the face with a harrowing and total mind**** reality, this story feels like the exact opposite of that, which it turns out is not nearly as interesting. Of course your milage may vary, but if you have the same interests in narratives that I do, I warn you: the mystery is so contrived, the science fiction is so soft and the intrigue shoved so far into the background they might as well not even exist. Even the mystical vibes the story delves into later are exceedingly shallow. Don't waste your time trying to figure things out, jotting down notes or making extra saves to review later. C;HN succeeds solely as a character study on Takumi, but fails in all other categories it presents to the reader. Whether or not that's enough to warrant the actual price, time cost and mental taxing of admission is definitely subjective. For me it did not, and I look forward to the day I completely forget certain scenes. But a lot of people really love C;HN and SciAdv as a whole is often recommended, so my opinion is obviously not the majority one. I wish I did have a more positive experience but I did not and I offer a different perspective. Instead of excitedly starting what I expected to be the beginning of a long trek through some of the highest rated VNs of all time, I am now hesitating to read anything else in the Science Adventure series because if they all boil down to these same issues, its really just not for me.