What's up everyone?
Alex here!
Over the past several years, the visual novel genre has had quite a resurgence.
Games such as Dream Daddy, Hatoful Boyfriend, and Danganronpa have made many players aware
of the genre's existence.
And while I've played and enjoyed many visual novels, I've never once actually reviewed
one in my many years of reviewing video games.
It's during this visual novel renaissance then, and at a friend's insistence, that
I decided to play and review my first game from the long running Science Adventure series.
I'm of course, talking about Steins;Gate Elite, a game that's attempting to attract
newcomers to both the genre and the series by incorporating elements of the anime with
the storytelling of the original game.
But how does this divergence fare in this worldline?
Put on your VR headset and boot up that PhoneWave, as we take a trip back to the Akihabara of
2010, as we review Steins;Gate Elite, Hours Later!
Steins;Gate Elite is a remake of Steins;Gate, originally released in 2009, utilizing footage
and artwork from the Steins;Gate anime, released in 2011, as well as using music, voice work,
and part of the text from the original game.
The story follows the perspective of one Rintaro Okabe…
Okabe: "Hououin Kyouma!"
Uhh, Hououin Kyouma, a self-proclaimed mad scientist who is chased after by an unknown
Organization for a myriad of different reasons, most of which, is probably in his head.
The mystery deepens, however, as events begin to unfold that don't make sense, leading
to Rintaro Okabe...
Okabe: "Hououin Kyouma!"
realizing that he stumbled into some form of time travel.
Oka…
I mean Kyouma, along with resident hostage Mayuri,
Mayuri: Tutturu!
Good morning!
otaku and super hacka Daru…
Daru: Stop saying hacka! At least say hacker!
and Kyouma's assistant, Maki Kurisu...
Kurisu: No!
What kind of introduction is that?!
… begin conducting experiments in time travel with the help of their latest invention the
PhoneWave.
Together, they form the members of the Future Gadget Lab, as they descend into a tangled
web of conspiracy and a good helping of science fact and science fiction that the Science
Adventure series is known for.
Because pure visual novels are more focused on telling stories rather than inventing cutting
edge gameplay, it's more important than ever to have a presentation that allows you
to customize your viewing experience in multiple ways.
Unfortunately, the options provided aren't quite clear as to what each toggle does, with
no help text indicating what each setting actually affects.
It's because of this that I went through the first three chapters of the game, on Auto,
feeling like these chapters were absurdly slow, not knowing that there's a way to
force the game to display all of the spoken dialogue immediately - similar to most subtitled
anime - and shorten the delay between lines of text.
By default, the spoken text crawls slowly to match the length of the spoken dialog's
delivery, leading to some weird moments where gasps or multi-word exclamations are sometimes
slowly revealed as a word or two in English!
Kurisu: It's hot...
Despite having to alter the game's presentation with the options menu and replaying the game
with it, I still found the first three chapters to be slower than the rest of the game's
pacing.
And while many have told me that Steins;Gate Elite is building up towards something great
towards the end, it's quite frustrating for newcomers to be told to suck it up until
the payoff happens.
This reply can be so discouraging that I'm not sure how many people would drop off as
a result.
Instead, I want to offer a slight bit of a hint as to why this build up has to happen
this way, which does not spoil the game in any way: Many of the events, spoken dialogue,
and scenes in these early chapters are given different context upon revisiting these in
later chapters, completely altering the context of each scene and delivering more gravitas
to each word of nonsense Kyouma spits out.
Yes.
Even the "chunibyo" nonsense Kyouma says morphs into something meaningful later on!
The early chapters will sound banal, I can assure you, but crossing this early threshold
and even by reaching Chapter 4, will you start seeing the story finally take shape.
And while this is yet another way of urging newcomers to hang in there, I promise that
the payoffs begin shortly upon starting said chapter.
It's as though this blind faith parallels Okabe's own journey through the story.
By the end, Okabe is a very different person from the moment the story begins, and the
game does a wonderful job of depicting this change in the many chapters the story unfolds
in.
While almost completely unrelatable in the beginning for me, Okabe's character development
made him feel more human by the time the last chapter played, and by then, you'll feel
a strong sense of kinship towards him.
I found this to be a great representation of what the Science Adventure series is all
about: being able to present complex real world concepts while, at the same time, creating
an environment that allows for substantial character growth.
It's no wonder why many fans feel strongly for him.
Most time travel stories are focused on changing the past to change the present, and I'd
be lying if I said that that doesn't happen here.
However, one subject that is often overlooked in these kinds of stories is how time traveling
is a lonely and solitary experience.
This feeling is used to great effect in the story, with moments where you'll genuinely
feel for Okabe's plight.
And while he's surrounded with people who are close to him, the story reminds us of
why that doesn't matter in the short term, opting for its audience to instead, focus
on Okabe's tasks at hand.
It is this trickery that the game asks us to conduct some logic kung fu here: Okabe
has grown with us throughout the story, while certain characters have grown relative to
the events that have transpired for them.
In other words, they're barely getting the big picture because the big picture always
changes.
It is surprising then that despite this, the supporting characters do go through very engaging
and interesting developments, which will make players feel a wide range of different emotions.
The story has no shortage of interesting twists and turns, and for newcomers to the genre,
you'd be surprised to learn how very little of the game's choices - by way of phone
messages - actually matter in the end.
It's through these sometimes confusing exchanges - thanks, in part, to Okabe's fantastical
ramblings - that the characters give a hint to their inner motivations, and it becomes
more apparent when the game finally gets around to addressing them individually.
Thanks to kinetic movement delivered by the game's animation sequences, the urgency
of each situation is heightened even more, and the stakes feel so much higher with every
line of text.
Some original animated sequences were made exclusively for Steins;Gate Elite, and while
I can't tell you which ones they are, let's just say that utilizing these animated sequences
instead of the original stills really made the events feel more important.
Steins;Gate Elite's creator expressed his desire to evolve the visual novel genre and
cited the Yarudora series of games as the remake's inspiration.
Originally released in 1998, the Yarudora games featured high quality animated sequences
whose kinetic animations helped bring their stories to life.
Interstitial text would provide insight into each characters' motivations and thoughts,
much like other visual novels of the time.
The combination of the two provided an experience that feels closer to watching an anime than
reading a visual novel, allowing for a viewing experience that is more familiar, albeit different,
than your typical game in the genre, and that idea is very much represented in Steins;Gate
Elite.
Accompanying each scene is a wonderful soundtrack from Takeshi Abo.
While there was one piece of music that sounded like it could've been lifted straight from
the Zero Escape series, some of the more impactful songs play around one central theme.
I've often admired composers who are able to change the feel of a central theme by slightly
altering its instruments and tempo, and Takeshi Abo's songs are a masterful demonstration
of this.
Add to that some wonderful voice acting whose emotions transcend its language barrier, and
Steins;Gate Elite, feels like - pardon the phrase - a complete package, from top to bottom.
Being the first visual novel I've ever reviewed, I found the task of talking about Steins;Gate
Elite to be both difficult and enriching.
For one, I do agree with my friend that this is a great introduction to the Science Adventure
series.
However, I lament the many times when I've been told to keep pushing past the slow start.
Despite still being discouraged by this, I pushed onward, and after more than 20 hours
of reading and seeing the true ending, it's as though I've gone through a long journey
alongside Okabe.
Steins;Gate Elite is a wonderful tale of time travel, friendship, and so much more that
I cannot mention here.
And while any subsequent playthrough won't be as impactful as my first time, I'll always
remember Steins;Gate Elite for the creative ways it weaved its story and how it slowly
managed to grab hold of my attention, ultimately ending in a fitting Ragnarok that I still
think about as I'm making this review.
"El Psy Kongroo."
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the people whose Twitter handles are shown
here.
This was one of the most challenging reviews I've ever written, and it is through serendipitous
conversations with them that I was able to help focus on what I really wanted to write
about.
Thank you very much for your help!
Thanks for watching this video!
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Also, follow me on Twitter @mybacklogbattle for the latest updates on upcoming videos,
or, to just chat about video games!
Thanks for stopping by, and let's all have fun playing video games!
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