LogFAQs > #966966940

Steins;Gate (PS3)

Took me a while to sort out my thoughts on this visual novel. This is really my first ever "pure" VN, and it was an interesting experience. I'm pretty sure that I liked it, but there are a lot of qualifiers on thatit's a very flawed experience.

First, one of the strongest points about this game is the science fiction aspect. I'm not super into science fiction, but the science in the game is explained at a level that is understandable to a layperson, without traveling too far down any rabbit holes or overly obsessing on the details. It's very accessible.

The other strong point is the "true ending" storyline, which resolves in a satisfying way. Some of the side endings are also nice and fun, even if they don't always make sense. Unfortunately, the "true ending" is locked away behind the silly and convoluted phone email system, which makes it a chore and practically impossible to get on a natural playthrough. It would have been a lot more impactful to just have that be the normal ending, or to at least make the trigger something in the endgame so you don't have to start over again to get it. I wasted an hour or two making different game choices before finally just consulting a guide.

I get that they want to reward you for "work" or whatever, but making some of the most impactful scenes hidden behind arbitrary/invisible choices robs them of a lot of their significance. For instance, I waited the whole entire game to see the resolution of Chekhov's Jellyman, only to discover during the 100% cleanup that I missed the only Jellyman scene because I didn't call the right person at a certain time. By that time, I had already seen Mayuri die dozens of times, so the scene had zero emotional impact.

I generally dislike anime because of certain aesthetic and thematic tropes, and while this game avoids a lot of them, the tropes it embraces are some of the worst thematic ones. The inclusion of some of these (the "trap" character and nonstop normalized sexual harassment of female characters) threatens to ruin what is generally a very good story. The catgirl crap, while also annoying, is at least tolerable in comparison.

The storyline twists were a mixed bag. I feel like most of them are very heavily foreshadowed, so much so that Okabe kind of comes off like an oblivious idiot for not noticing them. Of course Suzuha is a time traveler, and of course Moeka is an untrustworthy person who never should have been allowed to send a D-mail. The only things I did not really see coming were Mayuri's death, which of course was designed to be shocking, and FB's identity, which was not very important in the end. On the positive side, there were a few plot points that I deduced only a minute before they happened, which is really the perfect way to design a good twist.

I wish the last chapter was a little less contrived. I had been waiting since the prologue to see how the time-travel questions there would be resolved, and was hoping it would be Okabe and his friends coming up with some way to save Kurisu. So when it just turned out to be "Suzuha time travels again and tells him what to do" I was disappointed. I still really liked it, but I felt like the problems were mostly conveniently solved off-screen.

Still, as I said at the beginning, I overall liked the game. I had no expectations going in, and did not expect to come to enjoy many of the characters like I did. I understand why it's such a popular time-travel story.