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Chaos;Head NoAH
Note: This discussion contains spoilers for Chaos;Head NoAH.
[Pictured L to R:
Chaos;Head NoAH & Chaos;Child, Anonymous;Code,
Steins;Gate Elite, Robotics;Notes Elite & Dash]
- Despite my love for Steins;Gate, until now I've neglected the rest of the Science Adventure series.
I decided I need to experience the rest of the series, so bought copies of the Visual Novels for Nintendo Switch.
- Sadly, Steins;Gate 0 isn't available as a physical release for Switch, only as a download. Of course I got it, but I much prefer owning copies physically. This means I own
every SciAdv game on Switch - the only one unavailble there (Linear Bounded Phenogram) I have on PS4. Of course, I don't have the Japan-exclusives. Yet.
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Where was I? Ah, Chaos;Head. At first I began playing a fan translation of the original VN, but then I bought NoAH, which is like a remaster. I've quite enjoyed the story
overall, although the MC (Takumi) is so ridiculously whiny and cowardly with few if any redeeming qualities that I found it hard to empathise with him, despite myself
living a lazy lifestyle online most of the time. In the first playthrough you're locked out of substantive route choices, and in it you find that Takumi has zero sense
of loyalty even to his little sister who checks on him.
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And like, obviously that's kinda the point, he's meant to be unlikeable, I think. The devs maximised and leant into every negative otaku trait they could. Yet
despite this, Takumi does have moments where he's not totally awful. He seems quite smart overall too.
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I know I've sounded harsh on him, but seriously, they managed to turn him around a lot by the end of the first playthrough, so that you can't help but root for him!
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The ending of that playthrough also is quite unique and exciting. Prior to this moment, the MC has gained this sort of power to know what's going on elsewhere through his delusions.
Basically it gives him this somewhat objective viewpoint. In the final battle Takumi is in the middle of being killed, and the pain is so great that he basically retreats
into his delusions, dissociating from himself.
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And then suddenly, he starts narrating. In case you don't get why this is cool, in a visual novel usually there are characters with voiced lines, and then there are narrator lines
that are unvoiced, which include both generic description and the thoughts of the main character. And in this moment, as Takumi takes on an objective perspective through his
power of delusions, he becomes the narrator, voicing those lines that would usually be text-only!
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This is an exceptional merging of the theme, story, and mechanics of the visual novel. So there I was, nerding out in this moment, and it goes a step further.
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Because Takumi, having been woken back to semi-consciousness by another character, in a state where he has partially abandoned his physical shape in order to fight,
having returned the narrator's lines to it by not voicing them anymore, still retains the power to do so. He voices, "I shut off my sense of pain" and it is
so, proclaimed into the reality of the story in much the same way as the world was proclaimed into being by Woden, Vili and Ve; Takumi is harnessing the narrator's
power over the storyline. Then he casually reads the enemy's mind - something that other characters in the story are capable of, but the way it is done here makes it
seem more like he is reading directly from the narrator's script as he were drinking it in from a memory horn.
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The game's scifi trope is said to be "perception" and I can certainly see why. I think it succeeds, despite the remarkably annoying main character. The VN seems to
intentionally leave you without mooring, not knowing what is going on. It's enough that if it didn't feel intentional, I'd be annoyed at it. But it ties it all
together by the end in a largely satisfying way, and the final battle feels viscerally like an exploration of perception. The other routes are a little hit and miss,
though they provide extra context which is much appreciated.
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It's still nowhere near as good as Steins;Gate though. But I'm glad I played it.
[Pictured below: Chaos;Head NoAH Switch game icon]
Written 2nd of October 2023