Chaos;Child: Visual Novel Review

Actually making a video of this, I just don’t feel motivated to do it, and I got annoyed that this was done for over a month just sitting here and delaying my annual “what I liked” post. I’ll embed it here when I get around to it
This is on Chaos Child, a loose sequel to Chaos Head, something I find gets more hated than it deserves. Maybe some of it is based on the meh anime? You can skip it overall, you’d miss some references that can make this one more enjoyable, but if you tried and disliked it that much, it’s not a deal breaker for this one.

I put it as 7.5 with a -1 if you dislike the genre, and up to 8 if what I’ll nag about isn’t a big deal for you. I honestly don’t like using numbers, but it’s always an easy way out, I think I wrote about it before. But the main point I’d like to convey is that a 7 is a really good score.
Anyways, back on topic. Chaos;Child can be summed up pretty easily. There’s a series of deaths happening that are happening that is similar to the previous title’s Generation of Madness. The lack of evidence or leads have the cops stumped, and our local know-it-all Takuru wants to figure it out with his pack of friends to show that he’s a “right-sider” while also having a scoop that gets views for his club.
It’s quite a fun read, I had an easier time reading it than I did chaos;head whilst sharing a similar mood, it’s part of the point. The character design is average, it’s quite good but there’s also nothing rememberable for the most part. But to be fair, I also find it better than Chaos;Head, and Sasaki did both. You might’ve watched some anime that had him back in the day, but myself;yourself is probably the most recognizable one. The art itself was a highlight for me though, especially the background. It’s pretty funny when someone says Steins;gate, I remember the character art, but for Chaos;child, it’s all about the backgrounds. I’m going to put some examples, all going to be spoilers. So you can look away now, then come back.
The soundtrack is also quite good, if you’re into the more atmospheric approach it takes. And some of the vocal tracks jump in the appropriate times.

But there’s still issues with it; the return of the delusions aspect from chaos;head, a somewhat detective sections where you choose options to continue the plot, the quality of the sub routes and the pace breakers.
I’d find the delusions to be a downgrade overall, not only are there too many in the first chapter, there’s just too many that are based on his libido. And it’s not even that they’re all bad, there’s two later on that I found pretty funny because he was going over the top, to the point where I felt where I was reading some Okabe side skit. I took a look at a guide, there’s 12 delusions in chapter 1, the runner up is 6, and that’s the joke one where he keeps trying to solve the problem and it backfiring. Otherwise they’re 4 delusions and below per chapter. It feels more like stamping out a requirement than trying to make it work. And it could always be the case that chaos;head’s delusions were equally as bad and I just remember the good 6 of the ones I remember.

The detective sections was a good idea, it keeps the readers engaged and is a good recap. But for the most part, the answer was either given to you a line before the options were displayed, or it was really obvious. I got the perfect answer achievement without knowing that existed. I’m not sure if that get 10 or 20 wrong answers is even possible unless you’re purposefully going for it or you want to fail and see what dialogue comes out of it? And this one is a tangent out of this, but some can also be annoyed at the whodunnit in the aspect that you’re not really supposed to figure it out, or it could be that I didn’t notice it. They just foreshadow it a few hours beforehand until it gets brought up in the plot, and that’s done consistently. You can kind of tell who it is just via feeling and gut instinct, but maybe some of twists will get you.

spoilers after

And now that I broke my own pacing I can talk about the plot’s pacing, and this is where all the spoilers start coming in because it pertains to the routes. You see, the prologue in both of these novels start with shit hitting the fan, it’s the classic hook. In this one an earthquake happened a hellscape emerges and presents how everything is fixed and where the characters are placed at. Then flashforward and you see someone die in some horrible way; you know more or less know how it happened, but you don’t know who. You’re intrigued, then another case happened, pretty quick succession but still cool. And then you’re introduced to the main character, and the first delusion happens, and it’s smoochy central on the childhood friend, why? Then it’s a decent amount of school life and I get it, it’s all exposition, but I want to go back. And honestly it’s harder than in chaos;head, because Takuru does have more initial connections than Takumi, you have to introduce them and they’re all shown fluidly. You see what they’re about and how they interact with the MC, and then it’s smooth sailing for awhile. And my major gripe is that chapter 1 could’ve been split in half, which would then drop that huge delusion counter.

But anyways, back to the routes. You don’t start with a route per se, the common route itself is a full route. You can see it as the bad ending, and it is in most perspectives. The other routes have to be read for the true end, and how to get some of them are kind of awkward. Most of them are just about picking good delusions for the route you want, while also bad delusions for the others. But sometimes you need one or two good delusions for them? But the gist of it is they’re awkwardly placed, especially when there was an opportune time to place all of them and remove the choices to begin with, and this would remove you having you to go through the plot and mapping mode 4 times. Worse yet two of them are pretty bad. Hana’s route, while funny due to some chaos;head cameo banter is a waste of time outside of Hana herself. Uki’s was laughable as I’m not sure if the mini mystery was meant to stump anybody(maybe it’s harder in japanese), but the anagram was so basic that I just thought how did no one notice? Hinae’s was pretty ok, but also still weird when it’s mostly SoL right after the climax from the main plot.
And honestly it’d be pretty easy to fix it because there’s a specific spot you can put all these in, and it’s when Takuru’s tortured in the void of 0 senses. Like Serika is keeping him together, trying to give something to do and make him happy, so it’d be easy just to give him these delusions with useful tidbits she got from reading their minds beforehand. Then comes the climax and technically the bad ending. Then Nono’s story(which was quite good and leads pretty well into the final ending), then the somber ending. This goes well with the reveal and gives a high contrast between the common story climax and the real ending.

And the ending is the thing I find most conflicting. Because it’s well done, it fits things into place, it explains why these kids can do what they do, and why Takuru was different. It destroys what Takuru originally wanted to be and fits in all the times the novel places him in the position of distain and pity. It’s the juxtaposition of it all, because in the end what’s best for everyone and what leads to the best outcome is him being a normal person, not a right sider or a hero, just a normal guy that is useful but also needs help from others time to time. He finally became content right after he lost what he always wanted, to be special and have attention from his normal peers. But outside of that, it’s also boring and a somber way to go even if that’s the point. Because there is one final altercation, but it’s so boring and it could’ve been done better. Like, maybe Takuru was off from time to time in the ending, and saying it was nothing and just continues on. Only for Takuru to explain what’s going on to Mio when shit was going down when she was creating the cure. For the main bad to show up just then, and make the deal when everything is going down, and then never seeing him again for the remainder was badly done and honestly boring. Instead of him occasionally trying to screw with Takuru only to see that’s not really fazing him much and he’s keeping his convictions to the end. Would it still be a somber ending, yeah because nothing really changed, but at least it’d have some hidden fight between the two, one of attrition and who gives up first, to see if he can keep up with his character development or will he break soon enough.