Video Game Vintage Title: Chaos;Head

Chaos;Head

Chaos;Head , stylized as Ch�oS;HEAd, is a Japanese visual novel developed by 5pb. and Nitroplus that was released on April 25, 2008 for the PC. A port of the game, named Chaos;Head Noah , for the Xbox 360 console was released on February 26, 2009 followed by releases on the PlayStation Portable, iOS, Android & PlayStation 3. The game is described by the development team as a "Delusional Science NVL" . The game's premise revolves around a high school student named Takumi Nishijō who unknowingly walks into the scene of a gruesome murder on his way home. More mysterious events start happening afterwards as more gruesome murders occur in the area. Takumi struggles to cope with reality and the delusions he experiences as he tries to avoid getting caught by the perpetrator behind the chain of murders. Although no release outside of Japan is planned, an unofficial English fan translation has been released.

The game's story has been adapted into a manga that started serialization on May 21, 2008 in ASCII Media Works' shōnen manga magazine Dengeki Daioh. A second manga adaptation that focuses on Sena Aoi and Kozue Orihara began serialization in Media Factory's seinen manga magazine Monthly Comic Alive on August 28, 2008. It has been decided for this adaptation to be a side story to the original visual novel. A third adaptation begun serializing in Jive's shōnen manga magazine Comic Rush magazine on September 26, 2008. The anime adaptation of Chaos;Head by Madhouse aired in Japan between October 9, 2008 and December 25, 2008.

Chaos;Head Plot

Chaos;Head's story is set in 2009 in Shibuya and is centered around Takumi Nishijō, a high school student at the private Suimei Academy, and the strange and brutal murders that have recently occurred in the Shibuya area, known as the "New Generation" (ニュージェネレーション?) Madness. The story begins on September 28 with Takumi talking to an online friend called Grim (グリム Gurimu?). Grim is trying to bring Takumi up to speed about the recent New Generation events since Takumi is not interested in local or international news. A person named Shogun (将軍?) joins the chat room midway through Grim and Takumi's conversation. After Grim leaves the chat room, Shōgun begins to talk. He speaks in a very cryptic and confusing manner, leaving Takumi nervous. He then sends Takumi a barrage of image links, one of which appears to be of a brutal murder of a man being pinned by stakes to a wall.

The next day, Takumi comes across a real life murder scene. Witnessing a mysterious pink-haired girl pinning a man up by stakes in an alleyway, he immediately realizes he is witnessing the very murder detailed in the pictures he received the day before. Convinced Shogun is targeting him and the girl he saw committing the murder is somehow connected to him, Takumi tries to avoid getting involved with other New Generation events. However, as Takumi begins attempting to distance himself from the crime he witnessed, he soon catches interest of the police.

With the police suspecting him, and himself convinced that he is being targeted by Shogun, Takumi finds himself caught in a spiral of delusions and paranoia, as he desperately tries to keep himself safe and figure out why he is apparently being targeted. He eventually comes into contact with several other people related to the events, including the girl he saw committing the murder herself. Unsure of what is real or who he can trust, Takumi finds himself thrust into a much larger scheme than he ever thought possible, as the mysterious company NOZOMI carefully plots something from behind the scenes.

Chaos;Head Gameplay

The gameplay of Chaos;Head, like other visual novels, requires little player interaction as the game is primarily made up of text dialogues. The player only needs to read and click through the text to advance through the game. The text that is displayed on the screen depicts conversations between different characters or their thoughts.

Chaos;Head presents choices to the player through a unique "delusional trigger" (妄想トリガー mōsō torigā?) system. This system presents the player with three choices relating to Takumi's psychological state. Two cardiac cycles will be displayed on the screen. A green, stable one will be on the top left hand corner and a red, unstable one will be on the top right hand corner. The third choice is not visible to the player as it requires no player interaction. The player may choose to click on the green or red cardiac cycle, or to simply proceed through the game without selecting either of them. The player is not required to make a choice immediately as the two cardiac cycles will remain on the screen until a predetermined number of lines has been passed since they appeared.

Selecting the cardiac cycles will often decide what kind of delusions Takumi will experience. The stable choice often shows a happy or humorous scene whereas the unstable choice will show very negative scenes possibly with gore and violence added. Yes and no questions also show up at times although they are much less frequent than the delusional triggers.

Reception
During the month of March 2008, one month before Chaos;Head's release on April 25, 2008, Chaos;Head ranked fourth in national PC game pre-orders in Japan. Chaos;Head came out in third place in sales ranking in April and twenty-nine for May 2008. Chaos;Head became the 16th bestselling visual novel on Getchu.com during the first half of 2008 and 35th overall for the year of 2008. Chaos;Head Noah placed 11th during its first week of release selling 17,952 copies.

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