Chaos;Head Noah

I started Chaos;Head Noah a long time ago on the 360 and didn't get very far mostly because my 360 is in the closet of shame™. My media cabinet can only fit like 4 systems and that's with the WiiU and PS2 vertical. And god forbid, don't even CONSIDER leaving an unsightly game system out, visible to the naked eye!! Think about the decor!!! #MomSoAnnoying

Umm yeah, anyways while the 360 version is way cheaper, I took a payday loan to lease a new truck (a slick 99' Tacoma) and sold my old one to my brother-in-law in order to afford Chaos;Head Dual on the Vita. I guess it's not that expensive given that you get two games for the price of one. I'll be covering the second game in a separate post when I get to it one of these days.

Which do I like more? Yeah um, I think the non blood-covered one?

But enough about my personal finances, the important question is, "If you are God, and the delusion becomes reality. About what kind of the noids you get?" I mean personally I prefer the sensual noids but I guess some might go for the destructive sanctions. Or...

No thanks, not a big fan of Domino's pizza...

This is one of those rare titles that actually went up in age requirements from the PC 15+ version all the way to Cero Z. Then they must've censored all the disgusting gore and violence down to a Cero D for the PSP and PS3. Fortunately, they went back to the Cero Z full gore package for the Vita. Unfortunately, this version also comes with some serious issues with lag and pauses.

What did the PSP port look like then? 256 colors?

It's actually kinda pathetic that they couldn't make this port work smoothly on the Vita, which I guess is now no more powerful than a Pocketstation? After all, real portables didn't exist until the Nintendo Gods blessed us with their mighty Switch. Anyways (rolls eyes), while the character portrait and dialogue would lag, thankfully the sound doesn't skip a beat. Since I play these mostly like an audio book anyways, it didn't bother me too much but purists might want to go for the 360 OG version.

As for the story, I have to give it credit for at least keeping me interested until the end. As I mentioned, while some of the gore and violence is seriously disturbing, it doesn't actually show the gore in pictures. So you mostly visualize in your head based on the voice acting and text description. But even still, some real sick shit is going down. It's especially ironic because the main character is into games (MMO and eroge hack, not a REAL gamer) and constantly wonders whether he himself is in a game and why all this shit has to be happening to him. Seriously man, if I had the choice to be in a game, the last fucking one I would ever pick is Chaos;Head. Poor dude.

The irony of saying you're not interested in this 3d girl in a 2d game.

And of course, how can I not mention how the poor protagonist tries to google everything. Pretty much exactly what you or I would do in these internet days with so much information on valuable websites such as WE-KEY PEDOPHILIA. LOL

I think the image speaks for itself

I thought the part that you have to take a medical questionnaire was super cool if it had some effect on the game. Unfortunately, it only appeared to matter for unlocking two trophies and doesn't affect the story in any fashion. Lame.

I totally, never, ever masturbate... EVAR. No wonder this wasn't localized.

The game even has a Patched option that shows all the female characters in their underwear. My favorite was of the cutest character in the game, the nurse.

You won't get this with Obama care! #MAGA

SJWs need not worry though, it has fat women as well. Or would it be better if the game showed some dick bulges? I dunno how their agenda goes these days.

SJW friendly?

The routes were pretty easy to find after the first play through. I did have to consult the digital (ugh) manual to read about the delusion system. I also looked at a guide to unlock the last couple endings but it wasn't too onerous.

Score: 3.5 man, if I was in a game... 2d imouto harem time... out of 5 (44.5 hours to beat)

While the main premise of the game was pretty damn Chuunibyou, it was at least interesting leading up to it. The science portion of the story was total bunk though and unconvincing.

However, except for the Vita port issues, the game has good production value. The character design is nice and the voice acting convincing especially at making Takumi annoying as hell. The OST was definitely a level above the generic ADV stuff. I was especially impressed that every ending had a separate ED theme song.

LOL, gotta love the tsundere comments

So yeah overall, I thought it was a pretty good game. Not a great game but it at least kept me interested enough to plow through. Bonus Jhipster smugness point for no official English translation, even for the toned down smartphone version.

Why not just learn Japanese? LOL

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

In search of GOTY for 2017

So in general I try to keep an open mind which is why all my GOTY posts are prefaced with "In search of". However, my current GOTY for this year is so strong, I highly doubt that I will find another game to top it despite the fact that I've so far played a total of about 3 games released in 2017 and beaten only one.

Is it the obvious choice: Persona 5? No stupid, this is a Jhipster blog and Persona 5 came out in 2016. Anybody following me on Twitter (the 2 people) could probably guess what my GOTY is and drum roll....

DJMax Respect

The DJMax portable series is my favorite rhythm game series but I've never written about them here because I usually like to finish a game before I post about it. For rhythm games, I like to at least clear all songs on the highest difficulty barring one or two that's clearly there to be nigh impossible. But holy shit, the best I can do on DJMax is 6-button mode on normal difficulty. 8-button mode and extreme difficulty is beyond what I would consider to be human levels of skill.

This isn't even that hard but in my defense, it's been years and I'm rusty.

DJMax Respect is, no question, the pinnacle of the DJMax series. Though I usually prefer portable systems for rhythm games, I'm actually glad this was on the PS4 instead of the shitty Vita baby buttons AKA the "thumb killer". And don't even get me started on the "when is this going to be on Switch" whiners. I was worried about lag but I've had zero issues even with wireless headphones and wireless controllers. Anyway, one day I'll do a full write-up of the whole series. For now, suffice it to say, this game is fucking awesome.

Fuck YEEEAAAAAH!!!

Other games I tried

Doki Doki Literature Club!
A great indie title, highly recommended (it's FREEEEE!!!) but it's in English... and cupcake is not really a thing to bring to school in Japan at least as far as I'm aware...

Games I plan to try later

Too many to list...

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely