Chaos;Head was first released in 2008 for PC, followed by an expanded version with new endings in 2009 called Chaos;Head Noah. A double pack – Chaos;Head Noah and Chaos;Child – was released for the Nintendo Switch in 2022 with a nice steelbook and game case inside a card sleeve. It also comes with a digital code for the soundtrack. Chaos;Head was released before Steins;Gate by 5pb and Nitroplus, a fact I was unaware of. I thought that Steins;Gate was the visual novel that started the entire Science Adventure series. I think, however, that it isn’t a bad place to start. I enjoyed both Steins;Gate and the crazy alternative story Steins;Gate 0, about which I haven’t written anything yet. I still have my extensive notes on Steam, so maybe someday!

Chaos;Head Noah stars a male otaku called Takumi Nishijou living in Shibuya. He is on the verge of being a hikikomori. He’s also a hero inside a MMORPG called Empire Sweeper Online or ESO, having built his beloved avatar KnightHeart with unwavering dedication. Inside his closed online community and guild he’s the max levelled, better equipped, most skilled player everyone looks up to, whereas outside he’s a self-hating, anti-social, misogynistic loser. He also collects action figures from his favourite anime shows – his waifus. Since this blog serves as a tribute to my waifu, I can relate. I just happen to be very faithful to a character of which there aren’t any collectibles made because she’s evil as all hell. Takumi’s waifu is not overdressed, conflicted and overly serious like mine, she’s a cute pink-haired anime girl called Seira and a part of his delusions as all waifus seem to be.

Takumi is an asshole, a whiny teenager, irritating, socially awkward, scared of the air he breathes, but also terribly relatable. I personally don’t like him because I was a bit like that in my teenage years and young adulthood. I wasn’t perfect, I never strove for perfection. If I wasn’t playing video games or reading, I’d still prefer the company of my own thoughts than of people around me. I may not have been as socially awkward as Taku, but I had my idols, I was superstitious, I had little rituals. Now I’m over all of it, but characters like Taku aren’t unfamiliar, even when I skipped his exaggerated meltdowns and frowned at his lack of courage, I would have reacted in the same way, maybe. Taku’s destiny in the game is twofold – he is both himself and a delusion of his own making. Haven’t we all been there?

Whether he wanted it or not, Taku had to at least engage in some dialogue with a school mate and, as the story developed, meet the mysterious female characters carrying beautiful swords across Shibuya. The action is set at the heart of a series of murders called the “New Generation Madness” (New Gen) and the impact the murders had in the media, online and in the society at large is well represented in the mass hysteria building around the case. While the police investigated the murders they eventually interrogated a very scared Taku as he was getting unwillingly more involved and absorbed in the paranoia surrounding him and his delusions.

He was approached online by a certain Shogun who left creepy messages in the chat and then disappeared. A supposedly close online contact – Grimm, who also played ESO – was also strangely invested in the murders. Taku would hallucinate about one of the murders and meet Rimi Sakihata at a crime scene before the actual crime happened; a girl for whom he developed feelings he didn’t seem to be able to process. He would be stalked and confronted by Yua Kosunoki, an older student who was also working with the police. He was approached by Ayase Kishimoto who told him he should get a Di-Sword about which he would learn more with the help of Sena Aoi, Kozue Orihara and Shogun himself. The story is long and all these characters have their backstories, told through small bits of fiction mixed with reality, of self-made delusion born from past traumatic events.

Soon everyone will be on the same page about the big conspiracy behind the New Gen killings and the tech company Nozomi Group’s true intentions behind the creation of Project Noah II. In a nutshell it’s a machine with the power to create illusions which, through shared recognition, become real in the eyes of those it can reach. At a certain point in the game, the player is invited to do an optical illusion test. There’s a dot and a circumference on the screen and with our eyes focused on the dot, we should bring the screen closer to us and see that the circumference disappears and reappears at times. By making use of these blind spots the accumulation of energy generates impulses leading to reality recognised as true by shared experience, that is, when a delusion is “real booted” in the real world. Delusions with no “real booting” are just errors perceived only by Gigalomaniacs like Taku and the aforementioned girls. They have the ability to boot delusions into the world without the influence of Noah II.

This part of the story reminded me of an X Files episode where a creature moved with recourse to these blind spots. No one could see it passing through a crowd because it had the ability to identify the blind spots of everyone it came across, and move only in those. If someone knows which episode it is, please tell me because I’d love to see it again! 

Even though the game plays as a visual novel with minimal player input, at least in the common route, there’s moments where we can choose to see a positive, neutral or negative delusion from Taku’s perspective. Any of the delusions can unlock tips for our collection and new CGs so it’s recommended to watch them all. Tips are also featured in Steins;Gate and are excellent to learn interesting scientific concepts related with the main theme which in that case was time travelling and in the case of Chaos;Head is the perception and manipulation of reality. After I finish the common route I’ll do all the others with the help of a guide, as I usually do with traditional visual novels.

https://swordofseiros.wordpress.com/2024/10/09/playing-chaoshead-noah-nintendo-switch/

#5pb #blindSpots #chaosChild #chaosHeadNoah #delusions #gaming #japaneseGames #nintendoSwitch #nitroplus #reality #scienceAdventureSeries #steinsGate #videoGames #VisualNovels #waifus

My save file on the original #ChaosHead with English patch corrupted and then I skipped past where I was and saved and loaded and did it again so I guess that's it then but at least I have #ChaosHeadNoah. #ScienceAdventure #ScienceAdventureSeries #SciAdv