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.

The game's a pretty chill time but also there's a lot of care taken to build up a convincing universe and really lovable characters. The gameplay triggers aren't annoying at all and definitely bolster the experience, and though the final fight was cheesy, I still enjoyed every part of it.

Also you get to save the world with your gamer powers. So that's pretty cool too.

Fantastic VN from the Sci;Adv series and I loved this way more than Chaos;Head.

This game has a few technical problems, particularly with the camera sometimes not scrolling down/up and locking when you've got multiball, some very strange framerate issues where there is a noticeable dip in the animation speed, and can often be a little finicky with crashing when you've played a while. Design wise I think it mostly succeeds, though losing 1000 points per tick for not collecting gems in a while sucks and grinding for points to get achievements can get pretty tedious when going for gems in lower areas can be risky. It's also pretty easy to lose your ball from certain trajectories in the bottom screen, so you'll often have to lose points via bumping to ensure you don't get screwed out of an early ball. I think it's an alright pinball game that's not too ambitious, but it wears you down after a while and isn't the most entertaining title out there.

I honestly had a much more enjoyable experience with Left Behind than the base game, mainly because due to the shorter timeframe, I feel as if Naughty Dog focused less on the long term game constraints of ammo management and constant push/pull between stealth and open action, and focused more on just inserting you in the moment. The narrative of Ellie's backstory alongside Riley is run parallel with Ellie's desperate search for supplies in the mall, and both manage to capture and display Ellie's emotions quite well. While there still are combat sequences, I especially like that there were plenty of supplies to create traps for enemies (and because you're playing as Ellie, no need to worry about running out of shivs for clickers), and that there were in fact a couple of instances where I could just bait the zombies into fighting the hunters for me, something that I wish was more present in the base game. Maybe the worst part is that the stealth can still be a little inconsistent at times, and there were a couple of instances where clickers still caught me just standing still with minimal noise or a hunter/runner somehow spotted me across the map, especially in the final confrontation. In particular, the final confrontation almost reminded me of how much of a slog combat in the main game felt (considering how concise and honestly well thought out the previous action sequences felt to me), but fortunately there are plenty of supplies as well as a deus ex machina to alleviate this sequence. Overall, Naughty Dog realizes that there is less time to make an impact in their DLC, and they deliver on their premise quite well due to these constraints.