It's hard to say exactly why I don't like Chaos;Head as much as Robotics;Notes but I'll try.

1. Excessively gruesome. I get that this is probably the intention in order to make the player feel squeamish (in which case, well done), but the extent to which the game harps on this really detracted from my experience.

2. It is quite difficult to relate to the main character, and most of the main side characters as well, due to how one-dimensional a lot of them feel. I won't elaborate too much on this, but to me it felt like the main protagonist was a loser and spent 95% of the game wallowing in how much of a loser he was. The 5% where he decides to get something accomplished is quite satisfying, but to have to get through 95% of everything else first is a struggle.

3. Super downer game that feels like the authors spent too much time meandering about. The "good ending" (AA) is your classic "struggle for success" ending but Chaos;Head doesn't leave you with much feeling of fulfillment since it cuts the ending quite early once the main protagonist succeeds. The other ending (B) is fantastically scripted but you have to get through a lot of horrendously drawn out detail to finish this ending, so while the ending itself is pretty well executed, the payoff felt minimized because I was just exhausted by then.

I dunno, I feel like what's good is VERY good but there's so much mediocrity and disgust that I had to sit through in order to get to the very good parts. I will say that the game does a very good job at messing with your perception (and unfortunately leaves a lot of plotholes because they don't thoroughly explain everything) and grossing you out, for what it's worth. And maybe this game isn't for me, and I can accept that too. I just felt like the execution could have been vastly improved for a lot of the time I spent playing. Maybe I'll have a better experience with NoAH (which I heard does a much better job explaining everything) and feel like the payoff was better after playing that and Chu Chu, who knows. My mind can be changed.

Reviewed on Jun 07, 2021


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