REVIEW

Steins;Gate 0 Review

by Rob Pritchard, December 12th, 2016

The concept of time travel and being able to change the events of the past is one of the most popular plotlines in science fiction, with the consequences for changing the events ranging from moderately beneficial to catastrophic. The possibility of a better future was the focus of Steins;Gate, a visual novel adventure game released in Japan in 2009 for PC by 5pb, who are also known for their work on the recent video game visual novel adaption of the Psycho Pass anime. The game received an English translation for consoles back in 2013, and now three years later, Steins;Gate 0 has followed its predecessor, arriving for PlayStation 4 and PC just in time for the holidays.

In an interesting twist, Steins;Gate 0 directly follows on from the bad ending of the original game. After failing to save Kurisu Makise from her fated death and becoming involved in her demise himself, a young scientist named Rintaro Okabe returns to the future as a broken man. Giving up on his research, Okabe returns to his life as a university student, until he learns of two mysterious new projects. One of them is known as the Amadeus System, which allows the user to create a fully sentient artificial intelligence based on someone’s memories. The other is a system which allows someone to make a backup of a person’s brain, to help treat memory diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Dementia. Like the previous Steins;Gate, the sequel delves into the moralities of using unknown sciences, and creates an emotional story filled with twists and turns. One of the particular highlights was when the group realises the true purpose of why their memories are being collected, and how it could potentially bring about another world conflict.

At its heart, Steins;Gate 0 is a visual novel just like the original game. This does mean that you will need to go through mountains of text in order to experience the story, but that is to be expected with the genre in question. The only major problem that I can see with the gameplay is that while you can make choices at on how a character interacts with a situation, there seems to be a distinct lack of mini games, which can often prove to be an entertaining distraction. The side mechanic from the original game also returns, allowing you to send emails to and from the future to change history by varying degrees. The only downside with this feature is that it can only happen once you have reached a particular moment in the narrative. Thankfully, Steins;Gate 0 makes up for its lack of interactivity by offering a vast array of alternate pathways and endings depending on the decisions that you will have to make.

If you were a fan of the high quality voice acting in the first Steins;Gate, you will be pleased to learn that it remains at the same professional standard. As an added bonus, most of the original voice actors have returned to reprise their roles for the characters, particularly Mamoru Miyamo as Rintaro Okabe, and Asami Imai as Kurisu Makise. There appears to be no English dub included for the international release, but like the original Steins;Gate, it is more than likely that one will be created for the anime adaption of the game as it has been officially confirmed to be in production.

From a graphical standpoint, Steins;Gate 0 replicates the stylised manga styled visuals of the original game, and adds in some high definition flair thanks to the power of the PlayStation 4. The soundtrack is full of high energy tracks that fit well with the emotions being portrayed on screen, although there are a few occasions where the tone feels slightly inappropriate. One of the best tracks in the game is the opening theme on the title screen, or the incidental theme that takes place during a normal conversation.

Overall, Steins;Gate 0 is an intriguing sequel which delves into another science which could dramatically alter the world. The branching storyline offers the same moral dilemmas and emotional moments that fans have come to expect, as well as a mostly appropriate soundtrack and a beautiful visual style. If you have played the original game, or are looking for a high quality visual novel to keep you entertained, this is definitely a continuation you should pay to experience.