The original Steins;Gate holds a special place in the designated “gaming” corner of my heart. Despite having never played a visual novel at the time, and not being overly keen on the “anime” visual style, I took a punt on the game which quickly blossomed into a love for the genre and the start of a small but mighty collection of hits across multiple platforms.
Steins;Gate started life as an Xbox 360 title exclusively available in Japan (weird, right?) before making its way to other platforms, including the PS Vita where I played it. It went on to spawn anime, manga, a wider series of games and a previously-released remake, Steins;Gate Elite. While there are some differences between Re:Boot and the original release, the overall story is largely the same, following Rintaro Okabe, in a tale that starts with some friends roleplaying as scientists but quickly snowballs into a crazy, convpluted time-hopping saga that’ll make you feel every emotion you can possibly think of (although mainly a lot of sadness).
The cast are the heart of Steins;Gate and Okabe sits at the centre of them all. He regularly switches into Hououin Kyouma, a delusion-fuelled alter-ego and self-proclaimed mad scientist. He’ll openly talk aloud about being an agent of chaos who wants to destroy the world but the second someone scratches away at him even a little, it becomes clear he’s insecure about his own scientific and social abilities. It’s one my favourite things about him, and something that was a bit lost in the anime as you’re not “in his head”, so to speak. This inadequacy gets exacerbated early in the story when we’re introduced to Makise Kurisu, a teenage science prodigy who becomes another central character, and the relationship between the two of them builds beautifully as the story progresses. While the constant swiping back and forth between them is funny, the game gives just enough tenderness to their relationship that you know they’re destined for more, and the game handles this wonderfully..
The supporting cast are all stars in their own rights too, from the genius “super hacka” Daru to irreverent cat maid Faris, they all bring their own personalities, motives and desires to the plot which Okabe inevitably ends up getting tangled in as he tries to meddle with, and subsequently fix, the timeline.
As much as I love the cast, there are a couple who don’t quite hit the same as the others. The first is Lukako, who is unfortunately central to a clumsy and cringeworthy sub-plot involving their gender. Their story feels silly and farfetched, which is saying something considering half the things that happen in this game, and because of that it leads them towards some awkward dialogue. At the risk of angering some fans, I was less keen on Okabe’s childhood friend, Mayuri, this time around too. I appreciate she’s meant to be simplistic and childlike in nature but at times her speech patterns are reminiscent of a toddler which just feels uncomfortable and out-of-place to the others. These are minor gripes though, and I largely love the cast and their stories as much now as I did when I first played.
As far as science-fiction goes, Steins;Gate Re:Boot is as heavy on the former as it is on the latter, which is hardly surprising given it sits in the larger Science;Adventure series. Your first few hours contain a flurry of definitions that get added to the in-game glossary, covering everything from “lol” and “lmao” to explaining the Grandfather Paradox and Kerr Black Holes. On several occasions you get some quite in-depth explanations of, what I assume, are real scientific theories and while it could be off-putting, I found them to be quite interesting little detours that help ground the bonkers story in reality.
There’s not too much more I want to say about the story, as that’s more or less all there is to the game. While you’re jumping across timelines in a desperate bid to save your friends and change their futures, the moment-to-moment gameplay is largely non-existent. You tap a button to scroll through the story, occasionally opening your in-game phone to respond to emails which act as branch points in the story to take you to one of several character-specific endings before you eventually get the true ending. It’s a game I played with a guide on PS Vita and I had to do the same with Re:Boot, as some of these decision points are very subtle and it’s not always clear which will funnel you towards the true ending. It’s easy to end up in a situation where you need to replay chapters, or even the entire game, and while there’s a handy “skip” function that fast-forwards text you’ve already seen, it can be a bit tiresome without a guide to follow.
In terms of new content, the most noteworthy addition is the inclusion of a new route/ending for Kiryu Moeka, a character from the original game who got the short straw narratively, as she didn’t get her own ending like the other female cast did. The new route is pretty cool, showing an even greater level of divergence from the main timeline than the others do and putting Okabe in an impossible situation. Alongside this there are also other new scenes, and while it’s been too long since I played the original to notice all the new ones, I did see a few that stood out, including a really neat one that ties the game nicely to its sequel.
The other main, and possibly more divisive, update is to the game’s visual style. It now employs what they call a “next gen e-mote” system, where the characters move during dialogue rather than being largely static as in the original. They now blink, breathe, gasp, fold their arms and generally move about a bit more, bringing them to life as you’re reading through pages and pages of dramatic twists and turns. This means they’ve been redrawn, which some people might not be happy with. It may be because I haven’t played the original in years but these new designs don’t feel that different to me, and the inclusion of movement added more than I thought it would, so I’m happy with the change.
On the audio front, all dialogue and music has been re-recorded. Even after all these years, Gate of Steiner still makes the hairs on my arms stand on end, and every variation in Re:Boot fits the tone of the scene perfectly. It’s an all-timer soundtrack for me, and one that should be in everyone’s gaming playlist.
Steins;Gate Re:Boot is a fantastic remake of my favourite visual novel. While there are still a few minor issues that persist from the original, I didn’t go into it expecting them to change, and the new ending, visuals and re-recorded soundtrack all add significantly more to the experience than I’d expected. For fans of time travel fiction, Steins;Gate is an essential game and Re:Boot adds plenty to make the experience better for newbies and returning fans alike.
