That would be heavily understating it. The movie is closer to the first season but isn’t readily available through legitimate channels at the moment.
Everyone’s been waiting to hear from PQube, the western console publishers of the first Steins;Gate, about the western release of Steins;Gate 0 – and now we finally have news for you! PQube have confirmed with us that they are releasing Steins;Gate 0 in 2016 in both Europe & North America on PlayStation 4 & PlayStation Vita.
http://www.ricedigital.co.uk/steinsgate-0-english-2016-release-in-europe-north-america-confirmed/
Thought the first one was amazing, really glad this one is coming over too. This year is absolutely epic for visual novels in the west.
Steins;Gate is finally coming to Steam.
I’m looking forward to making a killing on trading cards.
Should release today. It also hit iOS with separate phone and iPad versions for 24.99. From what I can gather, it is subtitled.
December turned out to be visual novel month for me. Finished two VN’s back to back. The first of which was Steins;Gate 0 which took me about 31 hours to complete with all routes. I won’t really go into story specific stuff since I don’t want to spoil anyone.
I was really looking forward to this one after absolutely loving the first, but unfortunately this one let me down a bit. I think the main narrative was ultimately weakened by the alternate routes. The first game was mostly linear and would occasionally branch off to an alternate ending. I remember reaching that alternate ending would take around an hour and then I’d load up a save and continue on the main narrative. Steins;Gate 0 is less linear and if you branch off from the main story it takes like 4 hours to get to the alternate ending. This absolutely weakened the main narrative for me since it wasn’t as developed, and it was harder to remember which events happened on the main route and which occurred on an alternate route.
I really disliked most of the endings. They were less like endings and more like stoppings which is a shame since I remember all the endings of the original game being very satisfying in their own right. Even if things didn’t turn out 100% perfect, they were still satisfying endings in the first game. Here, it was like whenever it started to get really really good and I’d get amped up, it would roll credits immediately afterward and I’d be like
I initially played this without a guide and after getting a bad ending, I managed to do most of the true route before credits rolled. This was a mistake. While I enjoyed it quite a bit, it ended up spoiling certain reveals in other routes so if anyone is going to play this for the first time, I’d use a spoiler-free guide right from the start and do the alternate routes first. When I eventually finished all the alternate routes, triggered the true ending, and went back to finish the true route it took me all of 20 minutes from where I had originally left off to get to the true ending. What a disappointment. I remember the credits rolling and thinking that there had to be more, but then I got the achievement for 100% completion and was stunned. Steins;Gate 0 doesn’t have its own ending. While it does make sense for it to happen like it did, it was so completely unfulfilling to me that it pretty much soured the whole experience.
Endings aside, I still think it’s worth playing if you are fan of the original. Some of the new characters were awesome, such as Maho and Dr. Leskinen, though a couple left me wondering why they were in the game at all. Two characters from the first game were absolutely wasted which was disappointing. The music was pretty enjoyable as well. I was never bored though and found all the routes very compelling. While I do think they ultimately could have taken the story further, I was quite addicted to finding out what was going to happen next. The emotional highs weren’t as strong for me, though something did find its way into my eyes a couple times. I’ve read other peoples thoughts on the game and some feel the polar opposite to me, saying it’s better than the first and even more emotionally driven. Sure wish I liked it as much as them.
If you haven’t played any of the Steins;Gate games, I’d recommend you play this one directly after finishing the first game while it’s still fresh in your mind. I think it works better as a companion piece rather than a sequel that stands on its own legs. This is one I’ll eventually revisit at some point when I choose to replay the first game. There is also an anime coming for it I believe which I’ll definitely be watching. I’m quite curious how they will handle all the alternate routes or if they will ignore them completely.
As for the second VN I read in December, I think I’ll save my thoughts on that until tomorrow or so, but holy shit was it amazing and absolutely made up for my disappointment with Steins;Gate 0.
At least tell us what the name of the other VN is!!!
I haven’t finished SG 0 yet (I’m on the main route after TE unlock, so close, though) and my thoughts mirror yours. It’s a really good game, but not as good as the first, specially because it is NOT standalone at all. I’m looking at it as an alternate route/extension to the first game.
It does really cool things with Okabe, though. Good character development. And I do like the alternate routes more than the linearity of the first game. It does work better with the subject matter, I think.
The Steins:Gate that is listed on Steam that is the first game correct?
That’s right.
I’m thinking I’m going to make January “finally play some of these dang visual novels” month, in which I play Steins;Gate, Ladykiller in a Bind, Aselia the Eternal, Demonbane (after beating people up with Al in Nitroplus Blasterz, I’m excited to see her in her original story), and probably one or two of these OELVNs I have on Steam, plus I want to finally finish Umineko and replay some other stuff.
Alright, before the Winter Sale is over (and since this thread reminded me), I’m offering up two spare World End Economica keys that I have from the Kickstarter. I’m not doing this in the Giveaway Thread because people reading this topic are more likely to actually go through them. The keys are for Episodes 2 & 3, so you’ll have to buy Episode 1 yourself. That runs just over $3 at the moment. Episode 3 was just released last week.
These are kinetic novels, so they have no choices and are simply read from start to finish. I’m not done with 3 yet, but this is kinda like a science fiction Spice & Wolf set on the moon and the first two parts were quite good. They’re about 10 hours apiece and can get a little technical, so you have been forewarned. First person to reply to my post gets them when I get home tonight.
Whoa, I’d love a key. This series has been on my radar awhile, the premise always seemed interesting.
Alright, should be a few hours and I’ll PM them over. I’d imagine you can buy the complete bundle after activating 2 & 3 to get an even bigger discount on 1.
Woooaaah saw this too late :)
Just wanted to say that I’ve been playing Steins;Gate on the Vita since August, and I’m only at chapter 5 (when stuff starts hitting the fan). At this rate, I wonder if I’ll finish before Persona 5 comes out. Real life is just so distracting…
One VN I had been hearing nothing but good things about was The House in Fata Morgana and I went into it not knowing much about it aside from there being a cursed mansion. It starts off with you waking up in the mansion with no memories or idea about who you are. The maid of the house calls you Master and in order to help you find yourself she takes you through doors that lead into different eras, each era having its own story and cast. This VN felt really episodic at first and I wasn’t completely sold on it. The individual stories were entertaining, though I do think parts of each story were easy to predict what will happen. The characters were very well done and the music was incredible, but while I had been really enjoying the experience, I wasn’t ready to call it the best VN of the year like other people were. After about 12ish hours I thought the game was about to wrap up, but it turned out I had barely scratched the surface. From then on it managed to get better and better, building on top of everything and blindsiding me at times with its reveals. In the end it took me under 40ish hours or so to complete it.
I really loved the character art used in the game and it’s nice for a VN to stray away from all the anime tropes and trappings. There are no senpais or tsundere girls, and I wasn’t even sure it was a Japanese VN until I looked it up. One thing I wasn’t a fan of were the backgrounds. Saya no Uta did something similar where they take pictures of real places, throw a ton of Photoshop filters onto them and make something that looks like a painted picture. It sort of works with this one and adds to the overall atmosphere of the mansion, but it did leave something to be desired at times. Adding to what I said about the music, I loved the soundtrack. There are 68 tracks in the game, most of which have vocals which is insane, and it was usually a joy to hear a new one. There were a few weak tracks, but to me they were few and far between. One of the weakest was prominent in the first door and coupled with the content made me think I was playing an otome game. Many of them are fantastic and this is easily one of my favorite soundtracks since the original NIER.
While Steins;Gate 0 felt short and left me wanting more, The House in Fata Morgana felt long, but in a good way. Some parts I thought might be a bit overwritten, but I’m pretty sure it was just me wanting to know what happens next. What really makes it feel long is just how exhausting it is to read. It gets very depressing and grim at times and it deals with some really heavy material. There is some pretty dark stuff in this one and it was great to see such subject matter handled expertly and with maturity. Despite being a horror themed VN, there was never any real gratuitous violence in the CG’s. It’s not all dark and dreary though, there is a lot of beauty to be found as well. I found it to be well-written for the most part, though there are some lines that stick out as awful. The characters have a modern way of talking despite the time period, but it was mostly good to me.
It’s an incredily linear VN and while there are a total of 8 endings, they all feel like afterthoughts except for the true ending which was amazing. The decisions you have to make are all pretty easy to discern, and if you pick a wrong one you always get an ending within 10 minutes. It was pretty easy to make it through the game without a walkthrough, though there are a couple points where the decision is time-based, and if you don’t pick or ignore the correct option right away it can screw you over if you haven’t saved recently.
Usually games and movies and such don’t elicit emotional responses out of me so it’s always great to find one that does. While some are able to melt my icy heart a bit, The House in Fata Morgana hit it with a hammer. I love the original Steins;Gate and that one made me tear up a few times, but this one just wrecked me in a good way that no others have been able to come close to. It can be incredibly depressing and there was one point where I was just hoping for something to go right for a change, but the story is just so good I had to press on eager to know what happens next. Overall, this is easily one of the best VN’s I’ve ever played and a shining example of the medium as a whole. There isn’t a single negative review of the game on Steam and I really can’t recommend it enough.
It’s currently on sale and there is also a beefy demo which you can get here and import your save into the main game if you want the full version.
5pb is having a major sale on the App Store. Just picked up Steins;Gate HD for 8.99, down from 24.99
There’s a Visual Novel bundle on Humble Bundle right now:
Is there anything worth playing in there?
From what I hear, Root Double is good. The Fault games sounded possibly interesting.
There’s stuff beyond Visual Novels - some of the games there have strategy elements, and one of them is an Ace Combat clone, it seems?
As for VN, I heard Root Double is great (and people said the bundle is worth it even if you play Root Double alone), and I’ve heard great things about the Fault games - such that I bought them before.
BTW, if anyone here has a Humble account and would like the two Fault games, please let me know. I got the BTA bundle but I already had the two Fault games in my library, so I have those spares. Must be a regular on the forum though!