Finished reading Chaos;Head (the fantranslation because I'm a lazy ass). Here are some scattered thoughts:

Chapters 1-8 might just be some of the best psychological horror I've ever seen.

The protagonist, Takumi, is presented as this extremely socially anxious otaku that mostly just wants to be left alone so he can focus on his hobbies. I've seen many people saying they found him too obnoxious or unbearable, but in my opinion being in his headspace and who he is as a person is the best thing about C;H.

At points I, as a player, and sometimes even despite having some extraneous knowledge from interludes, found myself affected by the way the game mindfucks with his perspective and sense of reality.

His withdrawn and cowardly nature never really bothered me. I can kinda relate to his social anxiety, even if I've never suffered from it in such a crippling way as Takumi does, and I actually ended up empathizing with him a lot during some of his most paranoid episodes. He's the type to avoid people because he fears social situations so much, so him never really approaching others for help or even to ask questions felt extremely natural to me.

There's this part of the game where Takumi hangs around Rimi, finding relief in her comforting presence. He wants her close because he feels safe around her but at the same time measures himself and what he information tells her because he's afraid that if he falls out of her good graces she will find him obnoxious and leave him. This way of approaching people was such a strong piece of characterization to me. As in, even when Rimi is pretty waifu-ish in terms of personality, Takumi approaches her like a real person and mentally notes or worries about what her intentions and impressions of him are. A lot of it is mostly paranoid or overly anxious fears, but him thinking of her as a person who may change her mind about him or have unsaid negative impressions of the MC if he randomly does something weird really humanized her to me, as a player, in a way I normally don't feel for this type of overly nice anime girl.

I ended up really liking Takumi by the end. I even found him kinda endearing as a person, mostly thanks to the way the game (sometimes indirectly) drips us with information about him. My interpretation of his character is that his antisocial tendencies are mostly a front, an internet tough guy persona he develops as a psychological defense mechanism against the "juvies" and "mocking/judging glares" he's so afraid of. If you read in between the lines you can see he's actually a pretty righteous person. This is particularly apparent in the roles he chooses to play in the fantasy worlds where he escapes reality. His main MMO character is Neidhart, a righteous, infallible defender of justice who champions the rules and order. His side-character, which he uses to blow off steam when constantly keeping up the perfect knight shtick becomes a bit too overbearing, is some lowlife he created to mess around in random parties.

You'd think he'd use a character like this to let go and troll others or be the lowlife he can't be with Neidhart, but instead what he chooses to do is... mess up on purpose mostly during critical moments so that the rest of the party can get the spotlight and feel good about their own skills. You might feel his methods are a bit weird or misguided, but it's pretty telling to me that most of the social side-hobbies he chooses to engage in mostly involve trying to protect and lift up other people's moods.

Then there's the more clear plot-related humanizing moments, like him not being able to take gory images, or worrying, sometimes abnormally so, about murder victims in leaked videos he's watching, and the most telling of all being how much he worries about harm falling on his sister and even Ayame, some chick who he barely knows. The dude has an upstanding core deep down in his heart - a desire to protect or keep others feeling bad. That's why, when he finally evolves and chooses to face his fears for the sake of Rimi, it felt completely natural to me.

As is typical of Sci;Adv stories, the usage of news, the internet, chatrooms, imageboards, rumors, the buzzing of social media on recent events, all of it was superb and integrated perfectly into the story.

Taku's chemistry with his sister was pretty great, and she worked really well as a sociable presence in Takumi's otherwise hermit life. I also liked Rimi as a main heroine. The story suddenly worms her into Takumi's life in a way that you can't help but feel his apprehension. Throughout the game I, just like Taku, was very wary of her but still ended up charmed, maybe almost too easily, by her upbeat gallantry and the sense of relief and protection she offers to Takumi. They barely get any development as a couple but tbh I still enjoyed their final declaration of love. I found it really sweet.

Most of the girls who are not Rimi and Nanami are barely there, but I didn't feel we needed more of them. The role they took in the story was perfect, and I appreciated the story focusing more on Takumi and what was important to him. Chapters 1-8 are so good and I had an absolute blast going through them.

Chapters 9 and 10 though, are where everything goes downhill. The solution of the new gen murders is brushed off in a single scene and then the game suddenly decides it wants to stop being a thriller/psychological horror and become a chuu2 fightan story instead, with powerlevels and especially in chapter 10 where it's just boring fight after fight after fight. It completely destroys the excellent buildup it had up until that point. It's only the the last 1/5th of the game, but some of the reveals retroactively almost ruin how good the initial setup of the mysteries are to me, lowering what was a 10/10 experience into something that's just pretty ok. A real shame considering how much I liked the atmosphere throughout most of the work as well as the main protagonist.