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The next one up also has an anime by it, but I have yet to watch it yet. I will warn though, unlike the previous game, this one is much bigger (It's about the size of BC-WoW) and has a... sloppier translation, due to it being a beta patch. I haven't found a non-buggy fully translated patch yet.

Also be warned, this VN is graphic, while it has no sexual content in it (Pervy moments, and a few bra/panty scenes), there's a lot of violence and very gory situations. I would also advise to try to play this game in spread hours instead of sitting down for one reading too, because it may be too much info to take in or the graphic nature may be too much to handle.

And this review is MAD long, think it's the longest one here yet!

Title: Chaos;Head
Company: Nitro+ and 5pb
Translation done by: Assembla (Not sure if that's how they refer themselves to)
Rating: R/17+
Genre: Horror/Sci-fi/psychological (Classified officially as a Delusional Science Novel)

Graphics: 9/10 - Compared to Tsukihime... there really is no comparing the two because Chaos is so different from Tsukihime.

First of all, there's not only anime-like art, but there's actually an anime opening. The room of the main character, Takumi, is completely 3D. There's tons of CGI's which had to be translated (For example, the chat room scenes and the webpages), the backgrounds are actually 3D and while it doesn't completely mesh with the anime, it doesn't distract like how it does with Tsukihime. The characters, when they speak, they actually move their lips.

Everything is so colorful and alive and creepy that it really gives to the story more than it should.

Plot: 7/10 - There's a good reason why I said to read this story in lumps instead of one sitting and there's two reasons for this. One, there's a lot of stuff to intake per chapter that it can get a little overwhelming at times that you may need to sit back and digest what you just read. And two, the game gets more and more bizarre as you go on.

The basic plot of the story is this: The main character, Takumi Nishijo, is your average Otaku. Aka, the type who is obsessed with anime and hentai (ero) games. He's also deeply involved in an online game called 'Ensue' (Think WoW here). He skips school (He only goes the bare minimum so he can graduate, even though he's making a living already by RMT or 'Real Money Trade' from his online game he plays obsessively) and lives alone in a shed on the roof of a building, secluded from everything and everyone. Basically, he's really not your typical main character, which can be a love/hate relationship depending on your viewpoint. You either find him very interesting because he breaks the norms or you find him so absolutely creepy that you want to stab him in the head.

While talking to a friend in a chatroom about the recent murder cases called 'New Gen', a mysterious guy name Shogun appears, which doesn't seem out of the normal since people lurk in chatrooms a lot. After Takumi's friend leaves, Shogun starts linking random pictures to Takumi. By accident, Takumi clicks on a picture only to see a 'guro' artwork piece and he pretty much brushes it off. However, Shogun leaves Takumi with the phrase, 'Whose eyes are those eyes?', a phrase really only having meaning to Takumi himself...

One night walking home, he walks into a scene of a brutal murder that resembles the picture that was linked to him. Later, he then realizes that the murder scene he stumbled upon was another episode in the 'Next Gen' case. But how could a picture of what happened existed before it happened? Who was that strange girl at the scene covered in blood? Who is 'Shogun'?

Basically the plot goes from there, and there's no way I could cover the entire game even in an entire post, let alone a review without spoiling it.

There's a few things I'm sort of 'meh' about this game.

-Takumi - I really don't know how to rank him, but I slide between being one of the most 'unique' characters I've read about to one of the worst characters in gaming existance. He's cowardly, he relies on others to get things done rather than take action, he's sloppy, he's selfish, he totally rejects the real world (3D world) and would rather amuse himself in the '2D world'. But in another way, he's so very human that it's really painful to read sometimes. And at least he has the balls to admit to himself that he's a freak and that he's selfish and his ending conclusion is not saving the world like some sort of super hero but a simple selfish desire. You gotta at least admire that to some degree...

I can relate to him on some level, but on another, he really creeps me out, especially if you decide to see one of his 'delusions'. I'll cover the game's choices in the gameplay section later.

All in all, I don't see people having a middle road for him, because of the way he breaks the norms of things.

-Atmosphere - At one point, I thought Tsukihime was creepy, with the vampires and demons and the like. Chaos though, takes it to another level, probably about the same as Higurashi (Which ironically is another VN, but currently is probably better known for the anime/manga). As I progressed through the game, I thought the game couldn't get anymore creepy or violent, but it did. It sometimes gets to such creepy levels that I had to stop and take a break before going back to it. The game starts off on a humor note, but pretty much goes down to the 'omgwtfbbq' area. Sometimes, though, the plot can go a bit too much into the 'emo' side of angst factor that you'll probably be muttering 'wtf' under your breath a few times.

The good thing is it keeps you on your toes. When you think 'oh, so this is the story', the game throws you a curveball and you're back to wondering 'wtf is going on here!?'

-Endings - There are 4 endings total and they don't really differ much to each other. One is a typical dead end, so discounting that, there's 'main' 3 endings. And they don't really differ much, so you're basically rereading the same story again. AA and A only has an extra scene and A can be gotten in the same playthrough as AA, changing the very last choice in the game. The B route has a totally different chapter from AA, and it's very short, but sweet. The problem is that you have to replay the entire game again and change your 'choices' in order to see it. And in my opinion, it's really not worth trudging through 12+ hours to get. Even with the skip feature, if you go too fast with the skip, it'll skip the choices completely and then you'll have to reload and get the correct choices. I had to do that a couple of times, which was really annoying.

-Translation - Please note, this is a beta patch, so there are times where you get some untranslated lines and sadly, in the B route, one of the most important parts is completely untranslated. I don't know if there's going to be a fully functional complete translated patch, but as of right now, there's 2 patches. I chose the stable patch.

I'm gonna nitpick here totally now. It doesn't help that there's fanpoodle japanese in it. Why not say 'cute' instead of 'moe'? I mean seriously... I don't mind terms that cannot be translated like Senpai and -chan. People don't like having to goggle stuff in the middle of fanfics when people put fanpoodle japanese in it, and I'm quite sure they won't like that in a text novel. But that can really go back to the translation and the team assuming you know what these terms mean, etc. It just kills the mood at some parts.

-Glossary - It really would've helped a ton if the glossary was translated. There's some termanology that's used that can get a reader really confused. For example, '3rd dimension' vs '2nd dimension', which basically means the 'real world' vs 'more anime-ish/game-ish world', some Online game and chatroom terms ('wtf', 'lol', etc) that may slip up a reader if they're not too familiar with the online and online game slang.

Music/sound: 8/10 - Unlike Tsukihime, this game is fully voice acted and you can turn off the VAs. You also have music which fit the surroundings well enough. The only problem is again, Takumi, who stutters a lot and can get on your nerves after a while (Which really isn't the fault of the VA). And the music will pause at the end of it's play and then loop again.

The sound effects sound so real that when I heard the computer buzz fan, I almost mistook it for my own. :X

Gameplay: N/A - It's a text novel? But unlike Tsukihime which has straight choices, your choices are watching Takumi's delusions or not. Basically, at certain parts of the game, on the top screen, you'll see two dots, a green one to the left and a red one to your right. You can choose either dots or not choose either and continue on as is with the game. So you have 3 choices:

-Green - You see a delusion that is 'happy'. In other words, Takumi will daydream a perverted or rather silly scenario.

-Red - You see a delusion that is 'violent'. In other words, Takumi will daydream a gory or violent scenario.

-No choice - If you don't select a choice by a certain amount of lines, you won't see any sort of daydream and the game pretty much progresses on as normal.

The delusions themselves can be very silly, a typical stereotypical teenage boy moment. The orgy daydream for example or finding one of the girl's panties when sitting on the hospital bed. Or they can be really really freaky, like the part where Takumi imagines himself running into the street, being hit by a car constantly or how he gets sliced in half by one of the female's Di-swords.

There's no real middle road when it comes to these delusions, they are either super silly/perverted or super gory/psycho.

Sadly, like I said before, there's really only 4 endings. There's an ending around chapter 6 depending on your choices (Basically, the game prematurely ends). There's a B route (Considered the 'worst' ending, but can only be obtained after viewing the A or AA route), the A route (The 'bad' ending) and the AA route (The 'good' or 'true' ending). But the A route and AA route can be gotten in one playthrough by changing one choice and the AA route only offers an extra scene at the end, which in reality, there's only really 2 routes, and the B route only really changes apparently in 2 chapters. Otherwise the game is the same.

From the stuff I heard online too, route B is the 'canon' ending, but I don't know how true that is. Supposedly someone hacked the code and took a look at the programming notes. But while route B clears up some things, there's no other evidence that otherwise states this is the more true ending. It links better to the opening of the game than the AA and A route, but not by much.

Overall: 8/10 - Overall, it's worth one read through, and as of right now, until a final patch is released, you should only really go through it once. If you're not a fan of gory games, you WILL want to stay away from it. But if you like psychological horror stories or are a fan of Higurashi, you may want to give this one a read.
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