Rebooting my STEINS;GATE review
When it comes to visual novels, STEINS;GATE is an absolute classic of the genre and one that I consider to be one of the best stories- not just in games, but in all of fiction.
So, it is quite fortunate that it’s had enough of a cultural impact to receive a variety of spin-offs and even an anime adaption. However, there’s a limit to how many times an IP can be remade and resold before it begins to feel like a bit much. This is why I was actually quite hesitant to review this new iteration, despite it looking promising. As this is the third time that I am effectively reviewing STEINS;GATE, I was a bit concerned, feeling maybe that magic would have been lost and I would no longer like the series as much as I once did.
Luckily, STEINS;GATE Reboot proved itself much more than a simple remake or a prettier package and I came away reaffirming my love for the cast of lovable characters and timeless story.
Yes, I missed you too, Christina.
MSRP: $59.99
Platforms: PC, NSW, PS, Xbox
Played Mostly on Steam Deck
Length: 30~ hours
In terms of the story and character presented, there haven’t been any radical changes to the plot or story beats and while some aspects were slightly altered and some scenarios added in, it’s still the same overarching story that I fell in love with over a decade ago. So, I won’t repeat myself and will simply point you to my first review of the game. (Please forgive the broken look of the site, it’s been a LONG time, but the relevant text remains)
Instead, I will be focusing on the changes, and additions new to this version and how I feel about them.
First, the talented artist of the original VN “Huke” has taken up the proverbial brush again, drawing up all new character, background and event art. There has been a significant increase in the number of event CGs and everything looks marvelous. I find Huke’s style to be very interesting and distinct. To see him revisit the series that ended up being his breakout success, with the benefit of over a decade of practice & mastery was enough for the price of admission by itself.
There’s something about Huke’s art that feels distinct and inherently alluring, like it’s drawing me into the scene.
They also made the decision to animate the character portraits via the use of the “E-Motion” system. It’s something akin to Live 2D where the character portraits sync with the voices and animate various different types of emotions to go along with the VA.
At first, I found the system to be a bit jarring since it clashed with how I remembered the other SG games being but after a little while, I began to like it quite a bit and felt it really added to the sense of immersion.
In the audio department, the entire script was re-recorded by the original VAs and I can’t stress enough how incredible the VA work turned out. Special mention to the VA of the main character, Rintaro- Mamoru Miyano. He went absolutely all out and had me cracking up constantly through the delivery of his lines, but the entire cast did a wonderful job, and I was absolutely set on leaving the progression of text on auto mode so that I wouldn’t miss a single spoken line.
As was my previous feeling, I would still really love an English dub option for those who do not want to read for 30 hours but I would not envy the position of those English VAs trying to follow in the footsteps of the original VAs.
Voice Acting is truly an art form that can make or break a piece of media.
As for other additions, there are some story beats which have been expanded and some references to other pieces of SG media which weren’t present in the original. The script mostly follows the one presented in the Elite iteration which might be a deal breaker for the VN purists, but I found it to be a nice middle ground which kept things moving at a brisk pace.
While I wouldn’t say that additional bits of story will make this an absolute, must-play for fans of the original, it does a good job at feeling like a fuller experience overall.
The music has also been re-recorded, and I felt it captured the spirit of the original quite well, while adding layers to suit modern sensibilities.
As for the negatives, truly, I have nothing to nitpick about the quality of the story, art or music. Instead, it’s in the state of the game on PC that I have a bone to pick with.
First, as someone that uses an UltraWide Monitor, the game’s fullscreen is simply broken and will force a zoom-in which cuts off parts of the screen.
Luka looks great, the close up is not needed.
For those using a UW monitor will be forced to use a windowed mode and given that the max resolution supported is 1080P, it will not be a pleasant experience. Alternatively, the PC resolution will need to be adjusted to standard resolution before booting the game to resolve the issue. I fully understand that UW monitor users are a small minority still, but this is such a simple oversight that was brought to their attention, but they took no action to fix it, at least at the time of writing of this review. This is why I ended up playing the game mostly on the Steam Deck which also needed a custom proton version to get it to work with VA.(It works natively now on Steam Deck)
I also lost my save of about 15~ hours when the game updated at one point and corrupted my save. Later, I learned that the developers released a statement before it happened, but it wasn’t sent out to my editor so I had no idea it was even going to happen. Otherwise, I would’ve kept the game in offline mode while I finished my review playthrough.
Cat girls to lift the spirits after losing a 15 hour save file.
While the issues with the PC port soured the overall experience a bit, there’s no denying that STEINS;GATE REBOOT is a stellar iteration of one of the best Visual Novels ever created.
Fun Tidbit: It took me about a full hour and change to get back to where I was in the story by full-skipping everything but then I realized it was no good because I was missing all the phone triggers while skipping. PAIN.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.