Chaos;Head

I have played some weird visual novel games in my time, but Chaos;Head is one that is very close to the top of the list. I have been looking at the blank page for a while trying to think best how to describe this super weird game and this is coming from someone who played through it twice!

The New Gen Serial Murders

When I heard that the game was about a potential serial killer I was immediately sucked in as I love crime stories in my visual novels. Well, this I guess is a “crime story” but you are a smarter person than I if you can truly get to the bottom of Chaos;Head and figure out what exactly is going on, The basics are that our “hero” is called, Takumi Nishijo and he is a bit of an introvert and kind of just wants to play games, be left alone you know the type. He manages to stumble across one of the New Gen murders and comes across the person who is most probably the one who did it. It just so happens to be a cute girl who takes a shine to him. The story has a lot of depth in the relationship between these two characters as Takumi is sure that he has never seen her before, but there is more to it than that.

The Red Or Blue Pill?

Chaos;Head is like other visual novel games where it gives you choices to make as you play. One thing that is quite interesting about this game is that the choices you make are either a good or bad delusion. I am sure you can take a stab at what the difference will be, but holy crap I was not prepared for how horrific and messed up some of these are. I am a huge horror fan so it takes a lot to shock me, but this game managed it on a couple of occasions. I liked this mechanic overall and this was the main reason I went back to play through the game again. It actually lets you skip dialogue if you want to the bits that are always the same are easy to speed through.

Alice In Prerendered Wonderland!

The game from a presentational point of view is one that I really liked. The backgrounds look like they are in full 3D and pre-rendered. The characters on the other hand look like they have been ripped straight out of an anime. Normally I would not be into these two styles mixing as it can be quite jarring. However, as this game is so freaking weird it actually fits with it very well.

Sing To Me!

The sound in the game is great, it is one of the highlights of the game overall for me actually. It has a really catching song that I liked and I thought that the Japanese voice acting was truly fantastic. I always prefer it when a visual novel has English subs, but Japanese voice acting if a game as an anime style to it.

Pros:

• The story is freaking weird
• I liked the crime/murder aspect of the story
• Some very strange characters to come across
• I liked the way your choices mattered
• The sound in the game from the voice acting and music is great

Cons:

• Making sense of the story is really hard
• This is certainly not a game for everyone