Board 8 > Just finished Stein's Gate tonight. That was fucking amazing. *spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

It took everything I love about Time Travel and everything I love about Visual Novels and combined them almost perfectly.

Fucking Chapter 6 stomped on my heart and it just got worse from there. The first false ending (Mayuri, no perfect flags oops) absolutely destroyed me (I'm even tearing up a bit thinking about it), and the short, fake character endings were all individually satisfying. I ended up having to spend 3 hours trying to troubleshoot why Kurisu was being a bitch and not sending me a true ending flag email, but that kind of worked to the game's favor when I finally reached the fake credits for the true ending. I was confused and frustrated, thinking that the game bugged out again, and fucking bam the phone call hit me exactly as hard as it was supposed to. The epitome of "earn your happy ending", because god dammit Okarin deserved it after everything he'd been through.

There were a couple things that bothered me though.

One, when Moeka sent her D-mail about the IBN 5100 and the changes happened and nobody remembered her anymore, in a few hours game-time the lab mems knew who she was again. Unless I'm misremembering, that's really the only instance I can think of where something was left unexplained or was overlooked.

Two, at one point Mayuri asks what a hadron is and Daru, IIRC, replies that it's a fundamental particle, when in fact a hadron is specifically the general name for composite quark particles (eg, protons, which the LHC collides and have three quarks or mesons, which have two), so he, in a way, had the definition backwards. I expected more from a true otaku that fetishizes the LHC like him.

I really liked the touches early on where the writers would intentionally set up foreshadowing flags. The game was meta, but not in an overdone and cloying way. Those subtle little touches like Okarin saying he wished to spare Mayuri from being Steins Gate's plaything in the prologue, or Kurisu being aware of @channel/anime tropes but still being a textbook tsundere (complete with "it's not like I like you ~baka!~ outbursts) help tie in with the theme of Okarin being an observer disconnected from causality and their worlds in an interesting way.

But yeah, overall one of my favorite VNs of all time, bar none. I'll get around to playing 0 here soon probably.
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Steins;Gate so good. I'm obligated to mention that if you're interested in the SciAdv series that you should check out Chaos;Child too. It was localized and I'd place it ahead of Steins;Gate.

woodman posted...

One, when Moeka sent her D-mail about the IBN 5100 and the changes happened and nobody remembered her anymore, in a few hours game-time the lab mems knew who she was again. Unless I'm misremembering, that's really the only instance I can think of where something was left unexplained or was overlooked.

I don't remember the chain of events exactly, but are you sure another D-Mail wasn't sent in the interim? IIRC the next in the chain was Luka and in that worldline, the IBN 5100 is broken so I think the implication there is that Moeka was still looking for it and met Okabe and the gang the same way she did before D-Mails happened.

The reason no one knew her except Okabe in the aftermath of her D-Mail was because having sent herself the IBN 5100 location she never had to search for it in the first place and so never would have encountered Okabe.
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xp1337 posted...

Steins;Gate so good. I'm obligated to mention that if you're interested in the SciAdv series that you should check out Chaos;Child too. It was localized and I'd place it ahead of Steins;Gate.

woodman posted...

One, when Moeka sent her D-mail about the IBN 5100 and the changes happened and nobody remembered her anymore, in a few hours game-time the lab mems knew who she was again. Unless I'm misremembering, that's really the only instance I can think of where something was left unexplained or was overlooked.

I don't remember the chain of events exactly, but are you sure another D-Mail wasn't sent in the interim? IIRC the next in the chain was Luka and in that worldline, the IBN 5100 is broken so I think the implication there is that Moeka was still looking for it and met Okabe and the gang the same way she did before D-Mails happened.

The reason no one knew her except Okabe in the aftermath of her D-Mail was because having sent herself the IBN 5100 location she never had to search for it in the first place and so never would have encountered Okabe.

What I remember is Okarin being in the lab after she sent the D-mail, freaking out that she might've stop existed somehow when nobody remembered her, and then noting a few hours later that people remembered her again. There's a lot of worldlines to keep count of, so it's likely I've fucked this reconstruction up.
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Without replaying the relevant parts myself I can't be sure.
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woodman posted...

I'll get around to playing 0 here soon probably

Well, glad I didn't have to try to get you to do this. I'm only watching the anime (and also only watched the anime for the original), but so far I am quite honestly enjoying 0 more than the original, somehow. (the anime for 0 is only 2/3 done though, so who knows how it will end up)

Anyway glad you enjoyed it. Steins;Gate is pretty freaking fantastic. Having trouble picking out what my favorite part was because nearly everything that happens after shit first starts hitting the fan is 10/10 for me, but probably the phone call from future Okabe? I really don't know. The final scene with Kurisu before they first jump back to the beta world line is also great.
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like I said the other day I'd probably rank the science games

Chaos Child > Steins Gate > Steins Gate 0

but chaos child has a lot less general appeal and I could easily understand if some of the plot infuriates or upsets people.
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Huh, apparently a significantly revised fan patch version of Chaos Child was just released? That's pretty interesting.
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I liked the 0 VN but the storytelling was all over the place. Some plot points brought up early in the game never get addressed, and the true ending just made the whole thing more confusing. The anime does seem to try to address these problems somewhat so I look forward to see how it ends.

I saw the Steins;Gate anime before the VN and I think I'd say my favorite part was also Future Okabe's D-Mail after the first rescue mission failed.

For the VN-exclusive stuff it was probably Time Leap Nae or the Suzuha or Faris Endings. Nae because holy **** that was chilling. Suzuha's end for similar reasons with the erosion of Okabe's sanity with the endless loops, and Faris because BEST END literally saved more people than the True End suck it causality. >_>
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xp1337 posted...

Time Leap Nae

holy shit yes that is the most terrifying thing.

I think I'm Steins;gate 0 > Steins;gate > Chaos;head > Robotics;notes > Chaos;child, but I first read c;h almost a decade ago at this point so who knows how it lives up. And I love them all so >_>
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