The start of it all in the Science Adventure series. I never thought I'd give this title a shot after I watched the horrific anime adaptation years ago, but Chaos;Child really changed my mind. With the majority of what I watched forgotten about after I pushed it out of my memory, I went in to this as blind as could be after I had played Chaos;Child, and it was a great time. This visual novel is nowhere near perfect, but it's far from being bad. It's a good VN that suffers from some clunky story structure and literal game development problems, but it still delivers a satisfying journey to embark on with multiple interesting characters and events.
The biggest problem is the protagonist, Takumi. He is weak in many regards, so he's not all that fun to follow at times in the story. But his weakness is everyone else's gain, as the story, events, and characters that surround Takumi become interesting and engaging. So I'd say it all balances out. Other than that, I'd say that there's one or two other characters that just don't end up having much of a purpose in the end, which really bummed me out. One of them just gets used as everyone's punching bag in almost every route, which really stinks. But other than that, I have no complaints with the characters. While some are quirky and weird, they're still very enjoyable.
Similarly to Chaos;Child, this title has the same approach of having everything being confusing and hard to follow as you go through the story, up until when things get revealed at the end of the common route and in the character routes. It's fun trying to figure out what's happening even so many things seem extremely disjointed and not coherent whatsoever. At times I kinda just gave up and accepted that everything is just a chaotic mess, especially with the concept of delusions. But things do come together, and it's satisfying connecting the puzzle pieces at the end of the common route and in the following alternate/character routes.
Finally, the most shared complaint is how clunky and messy this game is. This title was actually shipped out broken, where many reported that they couldn't even view the final route's ending sequences, which prevented them from finishing the game! Luckily this was fixed with an update, but there are also other problems. You have to cap the game to 60fps to avoid animations being too quick, having certain USB controllers plugged in will freak the game out in menus, the font is terrible, there's no quotations around spoken dialogue, etc. It's also unfortunate that there is cut content shipped with this game. It's super depressing for a title that many in the Science Adventure community looked forward to having all of these issues.
There is a patch that fixes some of the problems I listed, however it changes the official translation to that of a fan translation. If you use this patch, you have to use the translation that a team of Science Adventure series fans put together, which is fine. There are names and such that have been changed for a variety of reasons as they expect you to always use their patches in all other Science Adventure titles. If you don't mind that, then you do get a better font, quotations on dialogue, and the return of cut content (specifically a collection of scenes that pop up in the alternate route after completing the common route, which isn't necessary to view, but preferred in my opinion). Either way, you can absolutely play the game with or without the patch, as both translations seem to be totally fine (they both tell the same story). I played the first ~6 chapters of the common route without the patch and the rest with it. It's quite obvious of there being some glaring changes in the fan translation, like the mentioned name changes, more cursing, more aggressiveness out of Takumi, and localized lines and more modern internet slang.
In the end, I'd say this is a visual novel everyone who enjoys VNs should try out. This is a great introduction to the Science Adventure series, and also the obviously preferred one, but Steins;Gate still works as a good alternative introduction to the series. While it may not be the strongest in the series, Chaos;Head Noah is absolutely worth the time and effort to figuring out the big question of... Whose Eyes Are Those Eyes? And hey, if you went through Chaos;Child first, no worries! You didn't spoil too much and there's still a wild adventure to embark on. Plus, it'll open your eyes to some new stuff that'll make going through Chaos;Child again worth it.
The biggest problem is the protagonist, Takumi. He is weak in many regards, so he's not all that fun to follow at times in the story. But his weakness is everyone else's gain, as the story, events, and characters that surround Takumi become interesting and engaging. So I'd say it all balances out. Other than that, I'd say that there's one or two other characters that just don't end up having much of a purpose in the end, which really bummed me out. One of them just gets used as everyone's punching bag in almost every route, which really stinks. But other than that, I have no complaints with the characters. While some are quirky and weird, they're still very enjoyable.
Similarly to Chaos;Child, this title has the same approach of having everything being confusing and hard to follow as you go through the story, up until when things get revealed at the end of the common route and in the character routes. It's fun trying to figure out what's happening even so many things seem extremely disjointed and not coherent whatsoever. At times I kinda just gave up and accepted that everything is just a chaotic mess, especially with the concept of delusions. But things do come together, and it's satisfying connecting the puzzle pieces at the end of the common route and in the following alternate/character routes.
Finally, the most shared complaint is how clunky and messy this game is. This title was actually shipped out broken, where many reported that they couldn't even view the final route's ending sequences, which prevented them from finishing the game! Luckily this was fixed with an update, but there are also other problems. You have to cap the game to 60fps to avoid animations being too quick, having certain USB controllers plugged in will freak the game out in menus, the font is terrible, there's no quotations around spoken dialogue, etc. It's also unfortunate that there is cut content shipped with this game. It's super depressing for a title that many in the Science Adventure community looked forward to having all of these issues.
There is a patch that fixes some of the problems I listed, however it changes the official translation to that of a fan translation. If you use this patch, you have to use the translation that a team of Science Adventure series fans put together, which is fine. There are names and such that have been changed for a variety of reasons as they expect you to always use their patches in all other Science Adventure titles. If you don't mind that, then you do get a better font, quotations on dialogue, and the return of cut content (specifically a collection of scenes that pop up in the alternate route after completing the common route, which isn't necessary to view, but preferred in my opinion). Either way, you can absolutely play the game with or without the patch, as both translations seem to be totally fine (they both tell the same story). I played the first ~6 chapters of the common route without the patch and the rest with it. It's quite obvious of there being some glaring changes in the fan translation, like the mentioned name changes, more cursing, more aggressiveness out of Takumi, and localized lines and more modern internet slang.
In the end, I'd say this is a visual novel everyone who enjoys VNs should try out. This is a great introduction to the Science Adventure series, and also the obviously preferred one, but Steins;Gate still works as a good alternative introduction to the series. While it may not be the strongest in the series, Chaos;Head Noah is absolutely worth the time and effort to figuring out the big question of... Whose Eyes Are Those Eyes? And hey, if you went through Chaos;Child first, no worries! You didn't spoil too much and there's still a wild adventure to embark on. Plus, it'll open your eyes to some new stuff that'll make going through Chaos;Child again worth it.