Toaru Kagaku no Railgun (PSP game)

Toaru Kagaku no Railgun (とある科学の) (PSP game) is a for the  handheld console based on the Toaru Majutsu no Index universe's sidestory Toaru Kagaku no Railgun. It was developed by Shade Inc. and published by  and Kadokawa Games. The video game features an original story by the author of the series, Kamachi Kazuma, featuring another Urban legend based in Academy City.

Its existence was foreshadowed by a secret Misaka Mikoto scenario featured in the Toaru Majutsu no Index PSP Game that could only be accessed via a file taken from the Railgun game.

The opening theme is way to answer by fripSide.

Development
Since its announcement, the game has been hampered by delays in release dates. Originally intended for a release shortly after the release of the Toaru Majutsu no Index PSP Game on May 26, 2011, it was delayed to a much later date and was later intended for release for the on November 24, 2011, however, was pushed back again to December 8, 2011. Probably to take advantage of the release of the 3rd New Testament: Toaru Majutsu no Index Light Novel release two days later.

Chapter 1

 * Misaka Mikoto
 * Shirai Kuroko
 * Uiharu Kazari
 * Saten Ruiko
 * Hazamaya Kana
 * Rie
 * Atsushi
 * Naoya
 * Konori Mii
 * Yomikawa Aiho
 * Miyoshi Yoshiko (Hair-cutting lady)
 * Tokiwadai Dorm Supervisor

Chapter 2

 * Iiko
 * Kaburagi Yumi
 * 2 female students (生徒)
 * boy (少年)
 * Futaishi Kyousha
 * Kongou Mitsuko
 * Wannai Kinuho
 * Awatsuki Maaya
 * 4 girls from the Disciplinary Guides (制裁指導, Seisai Shidou)
 * Noriko - Leader of the Disciplinary Guides

Chapter 3

 * 2 girls from Judgment
 * Student from Sakugawa Middle School
 * boy (少年)
 * 2 guys from Skill-Out
 * Shinigami Kakiko *nickname
 * Atatsu Chiyo *fake identity
 * Ichizawa Akiko
 * guy from Anti-Skill

Chapter 4

 * receptionist (受付係)
 * a lot of guardians (保護者)
 * guard (守衛)
 * headmaster (学年主任)
 * waitress (ウェイトレス)
 * 2 students from Nagatenjouki Academy (長点上機の生徒)
 * Aizono Mio *real name
 * Saitou Souta
 * Suzuki
 * Hashida
 * person in front (フロント)

Chapter 5
...

Special DLC Chapter

 * Kamijou Touma

Gameplay
The gameplay has two gameplay phases, which has similarities to the previous Toaru Majutsu no Index PSP Game. The first phase is Girls Talk (ガールズトーク) which uses drawn sprites with speech animations—which makes up much of the game—that forwards the plot of the game. Here, the player talk to several characters and gather topics which can be used during Strategy Meetings, where the player decides which routes the story will take (some ends in fail). During theses meetings, dialogue advances automatically and, once the choices are presented, the player has only a limited time to select one before the game automatically advances. Additionally sometimes during the gameplay an option chattin'!! will appear on screen, which serves to interrupt the current scene with such a strategy meeting and allows the player to select optional alternative routes to follow. There are also special Judgment meetings, which while similar to strategy meetings in format, requires the player to select a series of choices in sequence in a 'who done it' style conversation, whose progress is measured by a bar that fills and empties in accordance with the conversation.

The second phase is Action Part (アクションパート), similar to the combat parts of the Toaru Majutsu no Index PSP game, which uses 3D character models. However, the mechanics are different. Action consist of Quick Time Events (QTE) when character has to press corresponding keys in time. Thus consists of either pressing the shown key, or choosing the correct key from the shown ones. Correct inputs advance the action towards a successful takedown of the opponent, while a missed or incorrect input results in failure, either due to defeat or the opponent escaping.

The game also contains animated sections like the anime.

Gallery
Akin to its sister video game, the game includes several unlockable images upon completing certain points or tasks in the game.

Easter Eggs
As previously stated, this game is originally required to unlock the hidden Misaka Mikoto storyline from the Toaru Majutsu no Index PSP game. However, only a few days after release hackers have already discovered a way to unlock the storyline without the need of the oft-delayed Toaru Kagaku no Railgun PSP game.

Story
Although exact date hasn't been revealed, the game seems to occur during summer vacation between the Level Upper Arc (Mikoto already knows Saten and Uiharu very well) and the Sisters Arc (Mikoto still does not have her flower hairpin). Potentially complicating this placement though is the appearance of Kongo Kongou (who has met Misaka's group in the anime by this point, but not in the original manga) and Uiharu finding a reference to the Displinary Guides on an Urban Legend site during the Daihasei Festival Arc. (The latter though could be explained as the rumor outliving the original incident, as Uiharu shows little interest in it).

Railgun Manga Teaser
The story—as teased by Toaru Kagaku no Railgun manga—begins with an urban legend of mysterious woman cutting the hair of unwary children for no discernible reason. Interested in the mystery, Mikoto and company decide to investigate.

Chapter 1 — Hair Cutting Bug of the Vacant Lot
While hanging out at the usual restaurant, Mikoto, Kuroko, Uiharu, and Saten run across some kids talking about one of them having a run in with the “Hair Cutting Bug” (the literal meaning of the Japanese term for a ). Saten is familiar with the urban legend. Supposedly kids falling asleep in vacant lots wake up to find some figure looming over them with scissors that has cut their hair. The four girls decide to investigate it. After lenghty investigation, they lure out the Hair Cutting Bug using Mikoto as bait. The Hair Cutting Bug ends up being Miyoshi Yoshiko, a former Academic City athlete who was disqualified for failing a drug test. She claims to have failed due to a false positive from a drug for menstrual pains. Academic City drug tests are top-notch so the esper-creating drugs don’t trigger false positives, so Yoshiko wanted to know what they were putting in the drug she was taking for it to trigger a false positive. Worried that the children might be having harmful chemicals given to them, she was going around getting samples of their DNA through their hair and running drug test on them. Mikoto and the others stop her, but are left with the thought that Yoshiko had to be working with someone since an athlete would only take drug tests so she wouldn’t have been able to run them herself.

Chapter 2 — Disciplinary Guides
It starts with a scene of two girls being surrounded by girls with faces hidden by hoods and armed with blunt weapons. The attackers call themselves the Disciplinary Guides. Mikoto, Kuroko, and Uiharu run across Saten who is on her way to meet some friends from a rumor/urban legend message board. When Saten arrives, she finds her friends beaten and being carried into an ambulance and are just barely able to say they were attacked by the Disciplinary Guides. Saten is really shaken up over her friends being hospitalized and the four main girls decide to investigate the Disciplinary Guides. Saten has heard rumors of them. They supposedly target people spreading urban legends on the internet. After some investigating, it turns out they are mainly targeting people who are spreading a rumor about the “Ecomichi Incident”. Supposedly, the Ecomichi Company’s esper creating materials caused a student named Ishigaki Miho’s powers to go berserk at school which led to her being expelled. Mikoto lures out the Disciplinary Guides and confronts them. They act almost like a cult and are doing everything for Ishigaki Miho’s sake. They say they want to prevent people from saying bad things about her because she was only a victim. However, Uiharu’s investigation into Judgment records revealed that the entire incident never happened and Ishigaki Miho never even existed. Mikoto reveals this fact to them and assumes none of them have even met Ishigaki Miho because they all use her full name every time. She asks them to describe her and they all have different ages and descriptions of what exactly happened to her. The chapter ends with a shadowy figure standing above the warehouse where the encounter took place complaining that she can’t use the Disciplinary Guides as a source of information anymore.

Chapter 3 — Grim Reaper Kakiko
Mikoto and Saten are alone in the usual restaurant because Kuroko and Uiharu are on Judgment duty when Kongou shows up and joins them. They comment on how the entire city seems on edge that day. Saten immediately jumps to the conclusion that a UFO has crashed in the city and that is why Judgment is so busy. She runs off like a small child to go investigate. Kongou agrees to help Mikoto search for her. They wander around for a while and run into Kuroko and Uiharu on the way. They say they are having to cover for Anti-Skill’s usual duties because Anti-Skill is tied up with something else. They also say they will call if they see Saten. Mikoto and Kongou finally find Saten surrounded by Skill Outs that Saten is convinced are aliens. After rescuing her, Kongou leaves. Afterwards, Mikoto and Saten meet up with Kuroko and Uiharu. Out of a sense of duty, Kuroko refuses to tell Mikoto what has Anti-Skill so busy, so Mikoto gets it out of Uiharu by bribing her with parfait. It turns out an AC space research bigwig named Ichizawa Akiko is headed to an international exhibition hall and a “threat” has been made against her on the internet. Someone posting under the name Grim Reaper Kakiko had been predicting bad things that would happen to people and the things would supposedly come true. The latest post had predicted an accident occurring to Akiko on the way to the exhibition hall. Just in case, Anti-Skill was increasing security. The four decide to investigate this Grim Reaper Kakiko. As they do so, a prominent member of Judgment named Atatsu Chiyo helps them out over the phone. They eventually find Kakiko’s hideout where she has created a bunch of makeshift rockets to attack Akiko’s transport. They deduce where the closest point on Akiko’s route Kakiko could have taken the rockets and Mikoto heads there to stop the attack. After doing so, it turns out that transport was a decoy and Akiko went a different way. It turns out this was done based on a suggestion from Chiyo. Mikoto realizes all their major leads had come from Chiyo and gets suspicious. She then learns that the real transport was attacked and its lower guard (to lessen suspicion of it being real) allowed Akiko to be captured. Also, a report comes in that the real Atatsu Chiyo was found tied up. The chapter ends with a girl in the shadows with Akiko tied up. She says she her plan is to use something code-named Eighth Level Red. However, Akiko says kidnapping her will do no good because the security on the Eighth Level Red requires a brainwave scan to confirm an authorized user. However, the girl brings a younger boy named Futaishi Kyousha who is a Level 2 Telepath. She says she found him using the DNA found in the hairs cut by Miyoshi Yoshiko. She had been searching for an esper who could do what he could. (She had also used information from the Disciplinary Guides to find Akiko’s location.) She has the boy copy Akiko’s brain waves into his own head. What she doesn’t tell him is that this overwrites his own brain waves and essentially turns him into a vegetable. Akiko seems very frightened at the prospect of the Eighth Level Red being used.

Chapter 4 — Code Red
As Judgment systems were hacked into for Atatsu Chiyo’s impersonation and no trace of it was left, Uiharu guesses the Black Gateway may have been used. The Black Gateway is an urban legend among AC hackers about a super computer-level server that has weak enough security to get into and use for your own purposes. (Incidentally, Saten had not heard of that rumor.) Uiharu finds it and (from its IP address) finds that it exists within Nagatenjouki Academy. The four go there and get a tour as prospective students. While there, Uiharu attempts to get the usage records from the Black Gateway, but it was left in a state where trying to do so activated a logic bomb virus that caused it to overheat and explode. (Yes, the physical machine blew up.) They are kicked out of the school grounds and perform various investigations. From analyzing the recordings of the phone calls with the Chiyo impersonator, Uiharu determines the person was calling from a nearby café. Also, they see students’ parents practically rioting at the front of the school and look into what that’s all about. Basically, the parents are complaining because they have paid a ton of money to get their kids into such a presitigious school and yet their kids aren’t becoming Level 5s. (I can only imagine how pissed they’d be if they knew about the Parameter List.) They are demanding to be shown what the presitigious school’s unique powers development curriculum is, but the school of course refuses to do so. They were also demanding to see a man named “Saitou”. Meanwhile, the girls manage to track the suspect down to a Nagatenjouki girl named Aizono Mio whose power is unlisted in Judgment’s database but is merely listed as a Level 4 Psychokinesist in the Bank. They learn that she was on good terms with the Nagatenjouki school counselor Saitou Souta. He was kind, so all the things other school faculty didn’t want to deal with (like dealing with the angry parents) were shoved onto him. He would do pretty much anything forced upon him “for the children”. He was forced to do a lot of things by the angry parents and one day he collapsed from exhaustion while cleaning a fourth floor window and was injured very, very badly and fell into a coma. The people at the school wanted to hide that there was an accident so they secreted him off to a hospital and from then on denied he had ever existed.

At any rate, due to the previous incident, Academic City goes on Code Red alert. This means no one can enter or exit the city. Also, the parents are brought to a civilian shelter. The girls realize that this means the parents Aizono Mio likely wants revenge on are trapped in the city and gathered in one place. Meanwhile, the parents are gathered in the shelter which is a room on the upper floors of a hotel. Mio calls them and explains her motivation a little more. When younger, she had been part of a Dark Side experiment called White Alligator. (Not many details are given in the game other than that horrible things are done to the children in it, but according to the at-wiki, the game’s after-story SS gives more details. Basically, it was a program that used extremely harsh stimuli to breach an esper’s limit given in the Parameter List.) Basically, the alterations to her brain and things done to her during the experiment had made her mind unstable. The program had eventually been shut down, but she was left being a heartless killer. Saitou had patiently dealt with her and brought back her humanity. She blamed the parents for what had happened to him, so she wanted revenge on them. She sets fire to the building and had deactivated the sprinkler systems and the fire alarms. She tells them that the only way they will survive is to jump out the window. She says the first few will die on impact, but that her calculations told her that, after a dozen or so, a cushion of bodies would remain at the bottom to allow the rest to the survive. The parents begin fighting trying to kill the others and throw them out the window. After hanging up, Mio mentions to herself that she was lying and none of them would survive the fall.

Mikoto rushes to the hotel and has a run in with Mio, but fights her off. The fire is put out and the parents are injured but none had been thrown out the window or killed. Mikoto realizes it had been too easy fighting off Mio and that some of the parents had been brought to a different VIP shelter. She guesses that Mio’s true revenge has yet to happen. Meanwhile, the Eighth Level Red (actually known as the Magnetic Debris Cannon) begins activating from the Hikoboshi II. It uses space debris as a weapon. It sends a great mass into orbit where it gains amazing kinetic energy from the Earth’s rotation. After accelerating in orbit for a while, a small unmanned spacecraft uses electromagnetic energy to alter its orbit and drop the 10-story building-sized mass on the target. Mio plans to have it dropped on the VIP nuclear shelter where the VIP parents are. Unfortunately, this will also destroy the city.

Chapter 5 — Eighth Level Red
As the destruction of the city looms in the near future, the four girls investigate. Eventually, they manage to find where Aizono Mio is by tracing the signal from the antenna she’s using to contact Hikoboshi II. Mikoto heads there on her own in order to bring it all to an end. Before Mikoto arrives, Mio contacts the parents in the VIP shelter to gloat and goes a little nuts while doing so. The parents try to say that this isn’t what Saitou would have wanted, but Mio says she’s well aware but no longer cares. As Mio prepares for her own death in the blast, her control signal is jammed by Mikoto as she arrives. Mikoto tries to convince her to stop with a mini-speech about the emptiness of revenge, but Mio merely gives a counter speech about how White Alligator left her as an inhuman beast that could do nothing but kill and how Saitou had worked so hard to drag her up out of that darkness. Mikoto decides words won’t be enough to convince her, so she’ll fight Mio and drag her out of the depths of that darkness herself by force. As the fight begins, Mikoto realizes that Mio clearly isn’t using Psychokinesis. She had earlier noticed a smell of oil and what looks like oil starts to cover Mio’s body. Mio says it is a special composite armor that is neither wholly solid nor wholly liquid and that she would remain unscathed even with a direct hit from a tank shell. Her power is known as Military Oil and it lets her break down and reconstruct oils. She describes it as a Level 4 power developed by the adults as a stable and reliable source of strength meant to replace the more unpredictable and uncontrollable Level 5s. By igniting some of the oil, she can fire solid portions of the oil like missiles. Her armor is solid enough for a direct hit with Mikoto’s Railgun to do only minimal damage. She explains that the White Alligator unit was given anti-Railgun training and that those who failed when shot with the test railguns were blown to pieces. She starts gathering oil and creating a napalm-like oil substance. But before she could light it, Mikoto secretly put one of her coins in the oil being gathered and fired it from within Mio’s armor. This actually hurts Mio and Mikoto threatens to go all out with the next in-armor shot if she doesn’t stop the Magnetic Debris Cannon. Mio refuses to give up and tries an all out attack, but Mikoto in-armor Railguns and zaps her into submission. As Mio lies oil armor-less and therefore nude, she laments over everything being over and the cannon being unstoppable at that point. Mikoto gives a “don’t give up; keep fighting to save Saitou (by finding the hospital where Nagatenjouki secreted him away to) rather than getting revenge” speech to the girl lying naked on the ground. Mio agrees to help Mikoto stop the cannon. They get Uiharu to do some calculations. Based on Uiharu’s calculations, Mio and Mikoto create a giant literal railgun that they use to blow the falling debris mass away. After the credits, a short scene has Saten tell Mikoto that she’s heard of a rumor about where Saitou is (and apparently following up on that rumor is what the after-story SS is about).

DLC Chapter
The downloadable chapter consists of a short collection of scenes that didn't appear in the game, narrated by Kuroko. These include an encounter between Touma and Mikoto (who has lost her memory for some reason), onsen scenes and Kuroko's fantasy of Mikoto serving her as a maid. Mikoto comes in after the last one and punishes Kuroko.