Finished Chaos;Child after around 70 hours or so. Really enjoyed it despite some flaws and reservations.
More in depth opinion follows, no spoilers but hidden for neatness.
Spoiler free summary
It’s kind of like a Japanese X-Files - if Mulder and Scully were High School Students running a Newspaper Club. It’s certainly pretty macabre but also mixes in quite a bit of slice of life as well as good debating points about how we use/misuse technology and Social Media. I knew nothing about Chaos;Head but I thought this VN worked very well as a standalone with enough background info thrown in, and while this is a follow-up it’s not a sequel in the strictest sense. In order to completed the VN the necessary path is:
Common route —> All heroine routes —> True end.
and with a very complex set of “triggers” forming part of the route finding, following a walkthrough is necessary ( or meticulous note-taking and a LOT of patience in trial and error).
It starts out as murder mystery but increasing turns to paranormal / fantasy / personal trauma and that might be a bit of a turn off. One of the heroine routes in this way is just bizarre / silly although kind of fun. This isn’t a VN that tugs your heartstrings but another of the heroine routes I did find unexpectedly touching and the last I read gave a neat if not unguessable twist that actually had a surprisingly (pleasant) sweet end. The characters are good but not especially memorable (for a change a girl who is all tsun tsun and no dere dere).
Although it can be pretty grim and a little gross occasionally there is humour, although relying too much on Hormonally Challenged Teenage Boy Fantasies ®. The pacing can be hit and miss but in general everything that happens has some sort of payoff. The VA, sound and art are excellent, for example the area around the Shibuya Scramble looks pretty realistic compared to photos.
I saw complaints of lots of typos but maybe patch 1.01 cleared most of those as I saw few and the translation read well to me.
Easter Egg? A mention of a hacker in Akihabara who is never seen - could it be…?
TL;DR - 8.5/10. Not as good as Steins;Gate, not for everyone especially if 5pb games just don’t so it for you. Worth investigating especially for SG/SG;0 fans although only on PS4/PSV in English AFAIK? Hopefully an English language release for Windows on Steam at some point for a wider audience.
Oh and this capture seems to sum up Harem VNs nicely
EDIT: Just read a bit more about the Steins;Gate Elite release planned for later this year:
The PlayStation 4 and PC versions will include a high-definition remake of Steins;Gate Phenogram, which is a collection of 10 additional stories written by renowned writers such as Kotaro Uchikoshi.
Read more at https://gematsu.com/2018/03/steinsgate-elite-coming-west-ps4-switch-pc-2018#wh5ebuOLP3usd20a.99
I’ll probably wait for reaction on release first but provided it isn’t ridiculously expensive I could be tempted to add to my library as I’d like a hard copy since I have it PS3 and Windows via download only, and the extra content hasn’t AFAIK had an English language release…
Adios gracias!