Chaos;Child Review

Chaos;Child is a visual novel developed by MAGES and was released on the 7th of October 2022 for the Nintendo Switch, which is where I played it. The player takes the role of Takuru Miyashiro, the president of his school’s newspaper club, who investigates the “Return of the New Generation Madness” serial murder case. Just like in the original, the main character experiences delusions. At multiple points in the story, the player can choose if Takuru should experience a positive or negative delusion. It could very well be neither if you choose that option, and these choices affect the plot’s direction, causing it to branch off from the main narrative into different routes. This game is the thematic sequel to Chaos;Head, but none of the characters from the original story return for some reason. So I will review Chaos;Child based on that aspect and evaluate if it earns its right as a worthwhile sequel.

This story takes place six years after the events of Chaos;Head in 2015 when an earthquake near levelled Shibuya, Japan. Shibuya has since been rebuilt, but a new series of odd killings begin to take place the same day as the previous killings, marked by stickers of a two-faced man called “Sumo Strikers” left at the crime scenes. Several characters have awakened to psychic abilities in the wake of the earthquake, such as Pyrokinesis or being able to spot lies with absolute certainty; these individuals are referred to as Gigalomaniacs and use their abilities by making delusions come true in the real world (“real-booting”) through the manifestation of a Di-Sword, which connects them to the Dirac Sea.

The plot this time around is a bit more straightforward than the original; I appreciate that because with this title being a 30-40 hour game instead of a 15-20 one, it’s nice not to have to endure lots of twists and turns for an extended period of time. Still, I’m having a hard time considering the length to be a good thing since the issue of having to do multiple playthroughs to get different endings remains. Before continuing that thought, I’d like to say the developers have made improvements in other areas. The character art looks much better than in the original game, the music is much more noticeable, and there has been a greater focus on accessibility. For example, we now have an actual controls breakdown! Plus, the subtitles are easier to read because they are displayed in white text against a dark background. Unfortunately, most of the text found in the help menu is significantly harder to read than before, which is an issue since it wasn’t a problem in the previous game. I do have to give credit where it's due because I was worried these problems wouldn’t be fixed after encountering them in Chaos;Head — so the fact the developers took the time to fix many of them was very much appreciated.

However, despite the various improvements, the issue of replayability still exists. I’m sure those who are into these games will have a blast experiencing its straightforward story, great animation and above-average music, but for everyone else, it’s a mixed bag. I think videogames should be inclusive instead of exclusive, so for those new to the series and visual novels in general, this problem can be intimidating. I know it was for me, and I imagine it was for a lot of people, so having to do several play-throughs of a game that is a lot longer than its predecessor, which is also fairly long, is definitely more exclusive than inclusive. I won’t bother blaming the developers for this because it was a deliberate choice on their part. However, I was still disappointed there was no way to see the different endings without committing to an essentially linear story. Perhaps adding an unlock system that gradually rewards players for playing through the story for the first time with hints to what happens next if they stick with it would suffice.

It also bothers me to see no improvements in that aspect after there were so many entries before this one, and the problems don’t stop there. The speed-up feature seems overly restrictive, and there is a noticeable lack of customisation options. It’s almost always too fast, so more ways to change the speed or even integrating the feature into the game itself rather than having it in the pause menu would’ve gone a long way. Another issue that has gone unchanged is the lack of English voice acting. Now, it’s obviously an issue of money and time, but there is also the saying, “If you’re going to do something, do it right.” Try to get actors to do different languages instead of just your own to help the game reach its full potential as a sequel. I know that idea is scary, but it’s something other smaller studios have done in the past, and Chaos;Child came after other successful games, so I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to want to hear a more familiar language.

As mentioned above, the character art looks much better than in Chaos;Head and I can tell MAGES felt the same way I did about how it previously looked. MAGES also spent more time on the soundtrack, and while it never blew me away, I’m glad to see the developers devoted more of their time to it. I wish they had done the same for other areas. At least the animation is beautiful, which I’ve come to expect from these games, and it’s always a treat. I hope this series will be adapted into a full-blown anime someday.

So much like the last title I reviewed, it’s a matter of accessibility, replayability, and if it’s worth your time if you’re not a fan of these games. The story is more straightforward, the art style and music have seen an upgrade, and many of the accessibility issues I mentioned before have been eliminated. I guess it comes down to me hoping for at least a little more, as I feel like I played a similar game just a few days ago, which I essentially did. However, I think fans of the series will get a lot out of it, but Chaos;Child didn’t do much to convince me that it was worthy of a sequel, especially considering the characters I grew to like didn’t show up.