Steins;Gate 0 is the long-awaited sequel to the 2009 5pb./Nitroplus collaborative visual novel Steins;Gate, which itself is a part of their Science Adventure series that includes Chaos;Head and Robotics;Notes. Along with my friend [h] wot rngs u got bithc [/h], I sat down and played through Steins;Gate in the summer of 2014 following the release of JAST USA's english localization. To this day, that game is one of the best visual novels I've ever played. Everything from the games excellent writing, impeccable pacing, and impactful character development to its striking artstyle and beautiful soundtrack set it apart from its contemporaries.

Because of this, I had incredibly high hopes for its sequel. Although I felt like the first Steins;Gate ended perfectly, I was optimistic about the idea of a canon continuation in a coexisting worldline. I got S;G 0 as soon as it was released on Steam, and I couldn't wait to see what it had to offer. However, as I slowly made my way through the game, I noted a reduction in this game's quality compared to the first one. It is with the utmost chagrin that I say that Steins;Gate 0 is a dissapointing and unnecessary sequel. Below you'll find an explanation, followed by my reasoning. THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE FIRST AND S;G 0 SPOILERS ARE TAGGED AS SUCH. As a side note I'd like to remind you that is just my friend and I's interpretation of S;G 0, and we wanted nothing more than for this game to blow us away in even half of the way that the first did. Sadly, you'll find this isn't the case.


Not only is the story in Steins;Gate 0 generally underwhelming and difficult to follow, but the game makes some decisions that liken it to a spin-off and not an actual sequel. This includes none of the character endings feeling like they change or affect the character relationships like they would in the first. They are overly vague and in no way shocking nor do they offer closure for involved characters. MAJOR STEINS;GATE 0 SPOILER this game's true ending suffers from this; they don't even show a glimpse of the characters being IN Steins Gate which is their ultimate goal, nor do they show Okabe reuniting with Kurisu. Whereas the pacing in the first Steins;Gate starts slowly to invest you in the characters, Steins;Gate 0's progression is frenetic, resulting in a story where instead of starting with world and atmosphere building so that the plot can boil up to a high stakes dramatic payoff over time, the visual novel gyrates between disconnected moments of action, drama, and dialogue in a way that feels jarring and out of place. This is typically done through some shameless exposition dumping, and a severe case of telling rather than showing. Unfortunately, the continuity of the story also suffers from a similar issue. At multiple times, the plot would skip months or even a full year of time with a single sentence just for the sake of speeding up exposition. Whenever this happened, it was inevitably followed by sentences of regurgitation plot points wholesale rather than showing us them naturally. This issue is exacerbated to a breaking point by the character swaps. Unlike the original game, S;G 0 swaps perspectives from just that of Okabe Rintaro to other characters at different points in the story. Not only does this prevent the game from feeling like a personal journey as the first game did, but it results in many characters exposition dumping their feelings, backstories, and recent doings at the reader when you switch to them.

The game also has a complete disregard for some of the major plot elements of the first, which include but are not limited to: the dangers of the time leap machine and how using it might make things worse, Okabe being the only witness to alternate worldlines , the rounder's leader being a threat to the Future Gadgets Lab, and the inability to predict the future (in this case the player already knows ending. ). I was especially disappointed to see that every time they used the time leap machine it was an absolute success, and they only briefly considered the risks before using it, despite previous consequences.

And yet, the most fatal flaw might be how unchallenging and boring the story truly is. We know how S;G 0 is going to end from the start because it has to tie into the ending of the first game, and despite that no effort is made to challenge your preconceived notions. The true ending is exactly as expected, offering little information that I didn't already know. Worse, during much of the story you have little idea of how they are working to achieve their overall goal, leaving a feeling of pointlessness. Events happen, and none of it seems to matter to Okabe or to the plot as a whole. There are no moments of shocking plot twists or reveals such as when Mayuri was attacked in S;G 1 , which leaves the story dry and a chore to sit through.

Steins;Gate 0 features a return from all of the characters in the first
(except Kurisu) , some with changed personalities to reflect them being in the Beta worldline. On top of all the old characters, several new ones were introduced. Amadeus, an AI version of Kurisu, seemed to be an excellent addition to the roster who could provide a similar role to Kurisu and provide an interesting conflict for Okabe. Amadeus ends up providing no important role in the overarching story about reaching Steins;Gate, and is largely abandoned in the later half of the game. This is also true for Maho, Kurisu's lab partner, who is another new character that seemed initially promising, but sadly her character arc also has nearly no payoff or role in the story. She helps Okabe with various things and becomes friends with him, yet it lacks any overall significance by the end. Anything major that happens in the plot would have been possible without them, which results in these characters feeling like an afterthought. Even though I liked these characters, I felt that the game had added them for filler rather than because it made for a better story.

It's hard to hide the steep decline in art quality going into S'G 0. Although the background stills from the first are still present and as memorable as ever, the new art for the characters and cg have been drawn in a significantly more mundane manner. The grimy, yet sparkly shimmer that used to exist on every characters hair and clothes is gone, as are the striking circular details often found in the character's eyes. The game even has the audacity to include Kurisu's art from the first game, and then dumb down its details. It sticks out like a sore thumb when next to the current wave of character portraits which have lost their shine and look like generic anime characters. The localization of S;G 0 is also a strict downgrade, as I found a couple spelling errors, and often the translation felt off and clunky. I'm willing to cut them some slack as I realize that it might not necessarily be the translators fault, however in the first Steins;Gate this wasn't an issue.

The end result of all of these flaws is that Steins;Gate 0 is a terribly disappointing game that fails to live up to any aspect of its predecessor. Feel free to share your interpretations and I look forward to any discourse on this game.