Steins;Gate Elite is an updated enhanced port of the original visual novel. The biggest new feature is the addition of scenes from the anime, which replaces the original visuals. Despite taking scenes from the anime, it’s not as if the whole game is fully animated. Rather, it’s still a visual novel at its core and so there is a lot of text. The text is accompanied by a static screenshot from the anime, with lip syncing and some animations to transition to the next piece of text. Thus there’s more movement here given that the characters and the scene will move as the story progresses. It’s done well and gives, what is basically the same game, a breath of fresh air. That said, the anime isn’t extremely detailed in its animation. One can say it is a step backwards in terms of the art direction when compared to the original.
The original game didn’t have many interactions, and there are even less here. This is a visual novel that is 95% reading, with only a few key choices in the story. In the original game, you could pull up the cellphone and poke around its menus, but even this is taken away now. Messages that are received by the phone automatically pops up to be read, and phone calls are automatically picked up. This isn’t great since you’ll be going through a scene when suddenly the phone screen pops up, which feels so random and out of place. At least the Tips section, which provides explanations on various terms that appear in the story, remains and is written well. It will give a clear explanation of the term when required, and in other times, there will be a healthy dose of pop culture or humor.
The key draw of the game is the story and this is arguable one of the best visual novels of all time. It’s a science fiction story about time travel but roots itself with real world concepts and theories, which gives it that extra authentic feel. The theories it pulls out and explains, are real, even if the usage of them is tweaked for the sake of the story. Unfortunately, the story has a slow opening, so that may put a lot of people off before they finally get to the meatier and more interesting part. The extra animation of this version helps a little but doesn’t completely remove that problem.
The story follows Okabe, who is a university student. He suffers from chunnibyou, whereby he puts on an act to satisfy his own delusions, although there is an important reason for this. The start of the story has Okabe attending a lecture about time travel with his ditzy childhood friend, Mayuri, when afterwards he experiences a hallucination and is left a bit confused once he returns home. He is joined by Daru, an expert hacker (and a stereotypical otaku), as well as Kurisu, a prodigy who has returned from America. The group, along with a few other supporting characters, will become involved in events concerning time travel. It explores the concepts in innovative ways.
After the shock revelation that is the end of the first chapter, the story will hook you in more and more until it doesn’t let go. The scientific theories and concepts come thick and fast as it tries to explain the phenomenon and it is at this point that you’d expect a shock revelation at the end of each chapter because… it does that. It blends in the humor in a natural way and manages to successfully swap from serious to silly, then back to serious, all within the same scene. The scenarios heavily explores the mentality and reality of time travel, along with the repercussions of going back to redo something again and again. You can see the side effects and how it eats away at you, it’s quite thought provoking.
There are times where the story stretches the believability of a few of the group’s feats, but that’s understandable and the story is good enough to make up for it. Each character has their own quirks, from Okabe’s delusions, Daru’s extreme otaku nature, and Mayuri’s naivety. While these traits can make them endearing and unique as characters, they’re also not the most likeable or realistic traits. The story can feel like it gets side tracked a lot but you don’t know that it is like that because it’s actually foreshadowing and setting up future events. Once it connects it all together a few chapters later, the payoff is massive and is immensely satisfying.
There are certain choices throughout the story that dictate which endings you will get and would have been irreversible if not for the plentiful autosaves that the game makes before every decision. Each of the endings rely on the player caring a lot for a specific character and for the most part, it succeeds. However, if you have played the original, then you will feel that this version rushes things a bit so that you don’t get to develop as heavy a bond as the original. The original spent a lot of time providing the backstory and setting up the scenario so that you were fully invested in it. this version has a much faster pace and feels shallower as a result.
Getting to the true ending is worth the effort and is best left for last after you have experienced all the other endings. This is because it will allow you to fully feel the same heavy emotions and responsibility that Okabe feels. The sacrifices that he has had to make and the way the world plays around with him by constantly throwing up new challenges, they’ll get to you. It is a powerful ending and one that manages to successfully wrap what you thought was a somewhat throwaway beginning of the game, and what seemed to be an unsolvable problem, into a neat conclusion. The way it bookends the story cements this as one of the best written visual novels ever. It makes the ending all the more sweet because you, as the player, and Okabe, the main character, has worked so hard and persevered through so much to earn this happy ending.
The length of the story depends entirely on your reading speed and whether you know what choices to make to get the endings in an optimal route. If you follow a walkthrough and read fairly fast, then it’ll take around 25 hours to complete. For most players, it will probably be upwards from 30 hours. Apart from the multiple endings, there isn’t anything extra once you have gotten the true ending. The PlayStation 4 version does come with a digital copy of Linear Bounded Phenogram, which is another whole game itself, so there’s plenty of story content.
Overall, Steins;Gate Elite is a fantastic visual novel and contains a great story. This is a perfect start for anyone keen to get into a meaty sci-fi story filled with compelling characters and fantastic writing. The reuse of the anime footage (with some significant tweaks as times), works well for what it was trying to achieve. However, given the choice, the original is probably better because it felt that this Elite version overlooks or omits a few things in its story flow, so that certain events aren’t as impactful.
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