"Holy fuck!" is what I shouted at my Vita's screen when all of a sudden the credits began rolling. I wasn't ready for that. Wait, strike that— Given how long I've been working on making my way through Steins;Gate, I was shocked I hadn't finished it ten times over. But the narrative didn't feel over.

Of course, it's not over. I hit one out of, what? Six different endings? Definitely not the true ending—which I have hazy memories of from watching the anime—but one of the others. I've never before gone through a visual novel after watching the anime, so it's interesting, actually, to see how different the experience actually is—and how these endings are dictated by seemingly innocuous phone interactions.

Okabe Rintaro is a year out of high school and fancying himself a mad scientist. He rents a room where he and his friend Daru, a computer wiz, invent gadgets. Well, "invent" might be a bit rich of a term given the tape-and-string nature of these things, particularly seeing as how they tend to lack science, creation, or any kind of actual building. But I digress. Their latest invention is, perhaps, a bit of an anomaly: A microwave with a phone taped to it that (theoretically) will start the microwave when messaged. The practical application seems limited, but if there's one thing science has shown over the years is you might think you're inventing or learning one thing, but in reality you're inventing/learning something completely different. The so-called PhoneWave may suck for what it was intended, but Okabe and Daru discover it does something much more unique: Send messages to the past.

So in broad terms, Steins;Gate is a story about the invention of a time machine, the the friendships that form, and the dangers that arise.

Rintaro is our perspective character. He has a bit of an abrasive personality, especially when he slips into "Hououin Kyoma!" mode, which is his mad scientist (and preferred) moniker. He has this annoying habit of getting bent out of shape when people don't call him Hououin Kyoma, yet stubbornly uses nicknames (and other dubbings) for everyone else that they prefer him to not use. In my mind, the mad scientist persona is partly a shield he uses to keep people at a distance, and partly a projection of the person he wishes he could be: Cool, confident, in control, uncaring. It, along with his ramshackle lab, is a fantasy, like a kid playing dress up. But he becomes more endearing as the VN advances and we see the the facade start dropping—his need for that shield, that projection decreases.

Time travel, of course, takes a fairly central stage throughout Steins;Gate. Basically every time travel story is going to have some muddled logic and paradoxes, and this is no different on that front. It does do a pretty good job of outlining the "rules" for this particular system, which relies on parallel timelines (visualized as individual strands on a string) and, given their method really only transmits data, there's no messy "same person in multiple places" bullshit. That said, there's a LOT going on the time travel (and its implications), so I think that the less you hyper-focus on the mechanics, the happier you'll be with the story.

So let's talk that ending a bit. Not so much the specifics (I'm going to try to keep this spoiler free), but whether it—as a non-true ending—feels like a viable ending point. I'm of the opinion that given the time commitment for a VN like Steins;Gate (it basically took me two months to work through), even non-true endings need to feel good. Kudos to the portion of VN fans who can get their way—either naturally or with a walkthrough—to the true ending, but I'm not one of those. Not with VNs of this length and time commitment. So I want endings to feel appropriate, even if they're not "true." If the ending split happens where I think it does (ie, where I think I stop remembering stuff), it's a surprisingly lengthy ending. It grapples with some interesting moral questions that I found pretty crucial. So that's good. But it only feels like an ending if you're solely looking at the things that happen at the point where the story splits. It creates a problem and solves that problem, while the larger storylines of the VN (ie, everything leading up to the split, lol) are left open.

And I think I'd notice that even if I hadn't watched the anime. Yes, having watched the anime definitely makes the difference markedly obvious, but I doubt people fresh to the story will reach this ending and think, "Yes, this feels like an ending." Granted, ending writing for this sort of project has to be really fucking hard—each non-true ending focuses on a specific character and Rintaro's relationship with them—but there should be ways to bring a larger sense of resolution. It doesn't have to be every little detail or anything, but at least find an answer to the major arc even if it's not the answer.

I'm sure at some point I'll want to go back and fish for those other endings—Steins;Gate has a way of lingering in my thoughts—but for now I'm very ready to move on to other things. If it had given me an appropriate-feeling non-ending, I'd have gone 5 stars on this without a doubt. The journey, however, is strong enough to still justify a pretty high rating.

Even after sitting through the anime twice, I still felt a strange, magnetic pull toward the original source material... so here I am.

The presentation and music are really beatiful. A lot of banger songs and in general the color pallete was a great choice.

Now, let’s talk about the protagonist. I know we’re not necessarily supposed to like him 100% of the time, and his "mad scientist" views don’t always reflect the writers, but some scenes definitely haven't aged like fine wine. Specifically, the "surprise genital check" scene, I know it was played for laughs and tied into a "what-if" gender route, but for me it was cringe and weird.

Visual Novels usually struggle with pacing, but this one actually respects your time. It starts slow, but the chapter structure is surprisingly consistent. It doesn't just wander aimlessly; every chapter actually has a job to do, making the continuity feel solid instead of a tangled mess of world-line threads.

Something I did not like from the iOS version is that you had to click on SKIP to go through already read dialogue, so I had to seat there just seeing characters and text move very fast for a long time between the actions that would take me to the specific route I was looking for. Not sure if other versions fix this, but it was a little bit of a slog and impacted the narrative somehow.

I really liked the cast but I think some characters are underdeveloped, even in their own routes. Not saying I didn't like them, tho, all of them were very charming I just wished I could learn more about the reasons why they think or act like they do. In particular my fav by far was Mayuri, who I think is very neurodivergent-coded, and got me very moe moe kyuun in every scene.

The side endings are great for flavor, but the "Main Plot" is by faaaaaaaar the champion. The Mayuri and Kurise endings, as welll as the True End, hit me like a brick to the face. Even knowing exactly what was coming, I was still vibrating with excitement.

On that note, the otaku references were very good, I just think those might be a little bit alienating to people outside otaku culture - there is even a TIPS guide section to explain them all, but still.

I think even with its flaws, it 100% earns its legendary status. I was fully commited to every scene and the ambience was top-notch. would recommend to anyone who enjoys Visual Novels or Time-travel related stories.

I first have to say that I mostly enjoyed Steins;Gate. I had watched the anime some years ago and this left me with a similar feeling. The characters, although somewhat stereotypical, tend to grow on the "player" (being a visual novel, there is not much playing...) the further one gets into the story. Whether one can get invested in the fates of these characters will mostly determine ones enjoyment or not of this VN.

The story itself was interesting enough for me to get one through to the endings but, unfortunately, it is mostly convoluted and contrived nonsense. Even for typical anime standards, suspension of disbelief is stretched to its breaking point. It goes to some lengths to set up a very "serious" world with technobabble heavy rules that end up not really meaning much. The plot will readily ignore, gloss over them or make up exceptions or new rules in order to force the different pieces and characters into place for the next big emotional beat (some of which work very well). This would probably be fine if it didn't take itself so seriously in trying to establish and explain the logic/science behind its rules. For me, the end result is that the plot feels very contrived to to fit (at least at surface level) within these rules while not really caring about them. This ends up detracting from the overall experience. Some of the dialog and writing can also be hit and miss... It has the typical anime style of being overly explainy and explicit with too much telling and not enough showing.

Speaking of contrived, the path to reach several of the endings (including the "true ending") is just absurd. The only real interaction with the game is reduced to activating (or not) your phone at specific moments in the narrative to make calls and send or reply to messages. The vast majority of these messages have no impact on the endings and mostly serve to further develop some of the characters and get achievements. However, the "true ending" is only unlocked if one replies with specific responses to very specific messages throughout the game. These responses also seem to have no pattern/theme and give no indication or feedback on their importance. This means that to get the "true ending" you will likely have to just check a walkthrough or go through a lot of trial and error. I do not think this is well designed.

I feel that the game does a very poor job in handling its trans and/or homosexual characters. I can't say for sure... I am not a member of either of these groups and am by no means well informed on the matter... But, to me, its attitude towards these groups seems very confused at best and overtly hostile at worst.

The whole construction of the game world also is quite "problematic" when viewed from a feminist point of view. It ends up being essentially a "harem" story where the main character can "choose" one of the many females that he is (quite unexplicably) surrounded with. It is not so overt or direct as this, but this aspect is still present. As such, the game is unwelcoming to female players since in plays into many of the typical tropes in this kind of story and reinforces some harmful stereotypes rampant in japanese anime. It is solidly targeted at young adult males.

Although I have been quite harsh here, in the end I can't say I didn't (for the most part) enjoy this game. It just didn't seem to live up to its reputation as "one of the best VNs".