Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate Preview

What would you do if you could see the past? What if you were investigating a murder? Well that’s your job in DYSCHRONIA: Chronos Alternate, and that’s also your ability! You play as Hal, a newly minted Special Supervisor in the city of Astrum Close, in this VR visual novel adventure, and your first case is to investigate the first murder to happen in the city in almost ever. Well, “visual novel” is a bit reductive, but it does basically fit into the genre.

Being released as three episodes on Meta Quest 2, it’s also coming as a non-VR game to Switch once the final episode is out. That’s why this is a preview instead of a review; it hasn’t been fully released yet. I would have reviewed each episode if they had been available separately like episodic games of the past, but it’s all going to be in this one game.

Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate takes place in the future in a domed city, Astrum Close, where every citizen is linked to one another through the Augmented Dreaming Network. The only way that a crime could be committed would be if the culprit were someone from outside the city, or had become disconnected from the network. Visitors are few and far between, as most of the world has been rendered unlivable due to a vague disaster of some kind.

As the game begins you’ve just become a Special Supervisor — the city’s police — and are assigned the murder case due to your special ability. You’re a type of human called a Variant, and have the ability to hold objects and see their past. Honestly, it’s quite limited in what you can view and which objects it works with, but it’s here as a device to solve puzzles and move the plot along, not worldbuild. You have a murder to investigate and someone keeps shooting you, you don’t have time to— oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that.

Your investigation progresses at a steady pace — this first episode took me a few hours — so it’s not long before you discover another aspect of your power. You can travel back in time to important decisions and choose a different outcome! You are given a pocket watch which allows you to revisit those certain points whenever you like, but you also get to do it if you reach a “bad ending”.

Dyschronia’s story is really quite intriguing and really kept me hooked right up to the end credits. Finding clues isn’t very difficult as most objects which you can interact with will glow or seem out of place, but piecing it all together on your investigation board is less obvious. Putting together clues and presenting the whole thing during the trial segment really made me feel like I was accomplishing something.

While the graphics may not seem all that great, what screenshots and trailers won’t show a lot of is the Augmented Dreaming Network (often referred to as A.D.). This is where Dyschronia shines, because Hal can see A.D. and interact with the residents of Astrum Close. If a resident is fully asleep they appear as fish, but anyone who’s just chilling will appear as a human. Since the whole city is on lockdown due to the murder, whenever you activate A.D. you see schools of fish swimming around, some different sizes and occasionally some sitting still that you can talk to. Your conversations with faceless NPCs are always one sided, but it’s still a nice touch, and yes sometimes they will swim through your face which can startle you.

The incidental music in Dyschronia is decent, though the loops aren’t very long so if you remain in one place for several minutes you might get annoyed by it. Each location has its own music to suit it, and whenever you activate A.D. it changes to a more laid back version of the one that you were just hearing. Each character is voice acted well, even Lilly who I’ve avoided mentioning because honestly she kinda annoys me.

Okay, so Lilly is your artificial assistant who floats around the place keeping logs of your investigation and asking for head rubs. She’s needy and a little annoying, but if you’re stuck and don’t know where to go you can speak to Lilly and she’ll give you a hint.

I’ll likely follow this up with an article about episode two when it comes out, followed by a full review when the third episode releases. But for now at least, Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate is a very enjoyable adventure with twists, turns, and maybe more going on than it seems.