Steins;Gate is a visual novel released on various platforms, the latest of which is the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita. There is literally no gameplay in the game save for a few button presses in predetermined spots. The hook of Steins;Gate is the plot and you are expected to read and read for the 20 hours it takes to complete the story. Therefore, Steins;Gate is definitely not recommended for people who doesn't like to read and you must accept that this is not really a "game". With that out of the way, the story is told via inner dialogue of the main character and actual dialogue between characters. It is portrayed through a detailed background overlaid with character portraits. These character portraits are animated when it is time for them to speak (i.e. their mouth moves) and there are various portraits for different poses.
As is common with visual novels, there are the occasional "CG" to boost the immersion of the story. These CG are artwork for various scenes and look fantastic for the most part. There are also a few that is freaky, which suits the tone of that particular section. The game's aesthetic is unique and the character design is top notch. It should be noted that there are a few areas where some ecchi or sexual comments appear, which can seem out of place. The character Daru has these kind of dialogue often but it is used for humor. It is when the main character speaks or think these sexual thoughts that it seems out of place. The game is voiced in Japanese with English text, there is no English dub available but it does not matter since the voice actors are fantastic.
The voices carry a lot of emotion even if you don't understand what they are saying without reading the accompanying text. The music is up there too, the theme songs as well as the music playing at important moments elevate the tension and atmosphere felt by the player. One thing to note is that the game heavily references various manga and anime, so you will need to either brush up on your knowledge of some of the more popular series or rely on the in-game glossary. As you play through the game, messages will appear whenever a reference or term comes up, then you can pull up the glossary to see what it means. It's really handy and an effective way of not losing the meaning and charm of the game through the translation process.
Steins;Gate's story revolves around time travel and in the process, will throw up some technical theory regarding particle physics which is impressive. These are all real theories which you can search and read up on them. It makes the game much more realistic and believable, it also mixes and incorporates real events into the story such as John Titor. Its take on time travel is one of the best yet. While it can be confusing at times, the plot just works and makes sense. The story is science fiction and as you go through the story, it can be hard to tell which part is real science and which part is fiction. It ends up sounding plausible and that a time machine is possible. It is an amazingly written story with plot threads woven within each other with huge plot twists. Something that seems irrelevant at the beginning will end up being crucial towards the end.
The plot is clever and blows your mind at how painstaking and detailed the writers must have been in order to produce something of this high caliber. It is hard to go into too much depth with the story because this is what makes Steins;Gate so good, and having a spoiler-free run is highly recommended. Just sit down and relax and you read through the process of creating a time machine, the characters experimenting to make it work and how little actions add up to create huge and heavy consequences. The main character is odd at the beginning and it will be confusing because he tends to use two different personas, but it ends up becoming a charming and defining feature.
The emotional impact of the story cannot be understated, and this is all wrapped into the plot twists. Throughout the story, you have developed friendships with the other characters, you understand them and what they have gone through. When the time comes to make your decision, you will be torn as to what you should do. Sure, you might be thinking earlier that you don't care about the character but once the section comes up and you reach the decision point, the game has wrapped you around its finger and your attachment to the character makes the choices difficult. With all that said about the story being amazing, it is fairly boring until the middle of Chapter 2, where it slowly becomes interesting. There are a total of eleven chapters and Chapter 6 is where the story explodes (around 8 hours in), and you're completely hooked, so make sure to hold out until then as Steins;Gate carefully sets up the story.
Sure, Steins;Gate takes a while to get into the swing of things but it was worth it because it is hard to put down the game towards the end. There is not much gameplay to speak of, the game is 95% reading and the remaining 5% is the player, at certain points in the game, having the choice to use their in-game phone to affect the events. Throughout the story, you will get text messages, by choosing how you respond, it will reveal more backstory and is linked to Trophies. The phone is used to read and send emails, as well as calling other characters, even these features are restricted but it is a neat system that works well. As expected, there are alternate endings, a total of six. Most of the endings are not hard to achieve, usually dependent on one or two obvious critical choices the player makes.
All of the alternate endings are great and you don't feel ripped off when you get one. Note that you need to save before pursuing an ending as you cannot chapter select, however, you are able to skip text. The true ending is a bit harder to get but it is worthwhile, plus, there are many walkthroughs out on the internet to show you how to achieve it. It has a melancholy yet hopeful atmosphere to it, and it is beautiful once you read the final pieces of text. There is about 20 hours of gameplay in order to obtain all the endings and Trophies, but it is largely dependent on how fast you read and whether you follow a walkthrough to get 100% clear or not. However, Steins;Gate is definitely not to be missed, it contains a great story, dives into concepts not often covered by games or even other media, and is just simply fantastic. Make sure you give Steins;Gate a chance, whether it is on the PS3 or Vita!
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