Steins;Gate - Visual Novel Review

Played: PS3
Price: Varies by platform
Developer: MAGES.INC
DLC: None
Genre: Visual Novel

*Note: This is on Steam! Check it out.

Rintaro Okabe attends a conference on time travel, only to find out that it is a farce. However, after witnessing the aftermath of a brutal murder he is shocked to his very core. An innocent text message sent from his phone regarding the murder inadvertently changes the course of human history. His message somehow went into the past!

I should start off by saying that I watched the anime adaptation of this long before I ever touched the visual novel. Because of that, the major endings were unfortunately already spoiled for me. However, there are plenty of other endings that are never explored in the anime and those were a pleasant addition.

Steins;Gate is a heavy science/science fiction story. There are a lot of advanced concepts but it does a pretty good job explaining most of them through an in-game database. There is a lot of emphasis on action and consequence and what is "right". Chaos Theory is extremely prevalent here and it slaps the player across the face repeatedly.

There are a lot of things brought up that even I had never known. Numerous times I hit the internet and perused further. If you like science stuff there is a lot to discover here. The story creators managed to weave a brilliant plot into some of the most mundane of things.

The characters in this are all very well fleshed out. Even the most minor characters have a lot going on. Even the Repair Shop owner's daughter has more to her than I ever imagined. This really helped to build a solid world and believable relationships between all of the characters. I mean a lot of them seem just like the standard stereotypes at first but there is so much more to them that they really feel like complex individuals. There is also a ton of humor to be had. I had a smile on my face on numerous occasions.

There is not a lot of "gameplay" in visual novels usually, however, there is some in Steins;Gate. Your best friend will probably be your cell phone throughout the game. With it you can send and receive messages, as well as reply to key parts of text. The latter point is one I wish to make salient. Certain parts of messages can be selected for a reply. However, they do not all have the same outcomes. Not only do the messages literally vary, they can also flag/waive certain major events within the game. This can be especially frustrating when you are searching for a way to get a particular ending and find out that you missed something up a LONG time ago. Fortunately the game auto-saves generously at the start of each chapter. This makes going back and getting the other paths no-so-bad. Plus the fast-forward function for anything previously read makes everything a breeze.

Conclusion
This story is amazing and everyone should experience it at least once. Read it. Watch it. I do not care how you ingest it, just do it. The anime adaptation of this was surprisingly good, too. If I had any real criticisms it would be the way they managed the flagging on certain endings. It is extremely easy to mess something up and have no idea how or why because they are such trivial details. At least there is an easy way to skim through it and repair your "mistakes". I am just not sure it should have been designed that way in the first place. There were also some minor typos here and there. I also did not like them changing the name from Rukako to Lukako. I suppose that isn't a huge deal. I am just used to Rukako!

Recommendation
Absolutely. This is one of the best stories I have experienced. Period. Like I said, either read it or watch it. Just make sure you do at least one.