The Newcomer's Route Chart: How to Speedrun Your Way Into the Nitroplus Back Catalog
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Every speedrunner knows the truth: route order matters more than raw skill. The Nitroplus back catalog is no different. Charge in blind and you'll either burn out on the heavy stuff or bounce off the deep cuts entirely. So here's the route chart — split into segments like any good run, with time estimates and hazard warnings.
Segment 1: The Warm-Up (You've Done This)
Steins;Gate — 30-40 hours, or ~24 episodes on Crunchyroll if reading isn't your thing. It's the gateway, and it's legally available everywhere in the US. Low trigger risk, high time-travel feels damage. This is your Any% baseline.
Segment 2: The Confidence Builder
Steins;Gate 0 — ~35 hours. A darker alternate route that assumes you can handle disappointment. It's on Crunchyroll as an anime if you need a bridge. Trigger warnings: depression, grief. Emotional hazard: moderate.
Robotics;Notes — ~30 hours, or the anime on Funimation-era platforms. The palate cleanser. Giant robots, sunshine, one genuinely unsettling conspiracy threaded underneath. This is where you learn that Nitroplus flinches are earned, not random.
Segment 3: The Difficulty Spike
Here's where the run gets real. Chaos;Head (~25 hours) is the next science-adventure entry, and it's a deliberate descent into unreliability. Trigger warnings: delusions, violence, general psychological wear. It's rougher than Steins;Gate, and that's the point — you can't appreciate the polish until you've seen the prototype.
Occultic;Nine — shorter, ~15 hours or one anime cour. Dense, fast, weird. Treat it as a mid-run sprint.
Segment 4: The Emotional Endgame (Save States Required)
Song of Saya (Saya no Uta) — 5-6 hours. This is the boss fight. It's short, it's cheap, and it is absolutely not a warm-up. Trigger warnings: body horror, violence, content most people should screen first. Do not attempt this segment until you've finished everything else and know what Nitroplus does to you. It's available digitally in the US through JAST USA.
Demonbane and the deeper cuts — for the completionists only. Retro, pulpy, mecha-flavored. The post-game content of the catalog.
Route Notes and IL Tricks
- Legal access: The Science Adventure titles are on US storefronts digitally; several anime adaptations stream on major platforms. Song of Saya is via JAST. Avoid gray-market key sites — this fandom has enough tragedy.
- Skip any%: Do not skip Steins;Gate to get to the "edgy stuff." The route order exists because tonal whiplash is real and it will end your run.
- NG+ behavior: Everything rereads differently after Song of Saya. Plan accordingly.
Final Split
Total route time: roughly 120-150 hours, plus whatever therapy you budget afterward. The Nitroplus catalog rewards patience and punishes bad routing like any good speedgame. Follow the chart, respect the trigger warnings, and we'll see you at the credits — probably crying.
