VN Reading Club - Steins;Gate (about bloody time)

[Nimbus]

Our poll finished the other day and after several months of being humiliated, Steins;Gate has finally won the vn club's poll.

We'll take a few days to give everyone a chance t get stuck into it then we'll start our first impressions.

And just to address allegations made by a certain barber; No, me making Time Travel this months theme to get Steins;Gate into the club is not proof of a conspiracy, my blackmailing of Kosaki is though.

"The universe has a beginning, but it has no end. —Infinite. 
Stars, too, have their own beginnings, but are by their own power destroyed. —Finite. 
History teaches that those who hold wisdom are often the most foolish. 
The fish in the sea know not the land. If they too hold wisdom, they too will be destroyed. 
It is more ridiculous for man to exceed light speed than for fish to live ashore. 
This may also be called God's final warning to those who rebel."

The story of Steins;Gate takes place in Akihabara, and is about a group of friends who have customized their microwave into a device that can send text messages to the past. As they perform different experiments, an organization named SERN who has been doing their own research on time travel tracks them down. The characters must now find a way to avoid being captured by them.

[Dergonu]

Ok, I WILL give this month a shot. This time I'll finish the VN. Maybe. Hopefully. Possibly.

Let's do this!

[Arcadeotic]

I was going to continue Inganock, but I guess it's about time I revisit this VN

[kingdomcome]

I'm sad I'll never be able to participate in these, since I only have a very limited amount of hours per week and it takes like 3-4+ months to finish a VN. S;G is sitting in its box waiting for me.

[Templarseeker]

Been meaning to replay or revisit this Visual Novel for quite a while. I was only able to get through 4 routes starting with Suzuha, Ruka, Faris and lastly Mayuri's normal ending. I'm really sad for not being able to reach up to Kurisu's route and the true ending since I was playing the game without a walkthrough and it was pretty hard to get to that point for I have no clue on what specifics that needs to be done for me in reaching the climax.

 

Hope I get lucky this time and get it done once and for all...

[Fred the Barber]

5 hours ago, Nimbus said:

And just to address allegations made by a certain barber; No, me making Time Travel this months theme to get Steins;Gate into the club is not proof of a conspiracy, my blackmailing of Kosaki is though.

My allegation (unless you were also accused by some other barber, I suppose) was purely in jest, of course . I was actually surprised to see how many VNs there were involving time!

At any rate, I'm looking forward to it. I'll try to get started today and put in an hour or two per day, and definitely won't be using a guide for as long as possible.

[MercyZombie]

I might actually reread this with you guys. I don't usually revisit visual novels because my backlog is freaking huge but I love me some Steins;Gate. One of the few I binge read, which is not something that happens very often with my ADD-addled brain 

57 minutes ago, Fred the Barber said:

...and definitely won't be using a guide for as long as possible.

You should be able to see almost all the content with little to no problem. But good luck getting the true ending, the steps you have to make doesn't even make sense in hindsight. 

[Kurisu-Chan]

Muhahahaha, MUAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

[Dergonu]

10 hours ago, Kurisu-Chan said:

Muhahahaha, MUAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

This was all a part of Kurisu´s evil plan!  

I knew it! 

[Kurisu-Chan]

If anybody has a question, feel free to ask. 

[FinalChaos]

14 minutes ago, Kurisu-Chan said:

If anybody has a question, feel free to ask. 

b-baka, i-i have no qu-questions!

[Icarus_K]

I was hoping it would be Yu-no for this month but I guess this works as an excuse to finally read Steins;gate

[LiquidShu]

Alright, so I'm still running into the problem I did way back when I first bought Steins;Gate.

 

Spoiler

 

  

 

 

 

Seriously wtf. I bought it from JAST a while ago and the files you see on the left most side are the files I got from the JAST website (in the second SS). When I run setup.exe it asks for the data.bin file to be inserted (ha can't do that cuz digital download [first SS]). Was never able to figure it out the first time I tried.

Also let's take a moment to appreciate that Inori hnggggg 

[Eclipsed]

Liked for Inori  

Try browsing the Jast forums see if anyone else had same problem+solution

[LiquidShu]

8 hours ago, Eclipsed said:

Liked for Inori  

Try browsing the Jast forums see if anyone else had same problem+solution

They didn't a year ago that's for sure.

[Fred the Barber]

So, here's exactly what I did when I installed it:

1) Both installer.zip and data.bin went to my "downloads" folder by default

2) Explicitly extracted the .zip file to a new folder (right-click, extract, or something along those lines)

3) Moved the .bin file to the resulting folder with the unzipped installer

4) Ran the installer.

 

I can't tell from your screenshot if the .bin and the installer are sitting in the same folder, or if you're trying to run the installer by just double-clicking the zip file and then double-clicking the installer, i.e. without explicitly extracting the zip file. If it's the latter, I wouldn't be surprised when it doesn't work, but if it's the former, it worked for me so I don't know what else to say...

[LiquidShu]

22 hours ago, Fred the Barber said:

So, here's exactly what I did when I installed it:

1) Both installer.zip and data.bin went to my "downloads" folder by default

2) Explicitly extracted the .zip file to a new folder (right-click, extract, or something along those lines)

3) Moved the .bin file to the resulting folder with the unzipped installer

4) Ran the installer.

 

I can't tell from your screenshot if the .bin and the installer are sitting in the same folder, or if you're trying to run the installer by just double-clicking the zip file and then double-clicking the installer, i.e. without explicitly extracting the zip file. If it's the latter, I wouldn't be surprised when it doesn't work, but if it's the former, it worked for me so I don't know what else to say...

Will try when I get home.

[LiquidShu]

Thanks FTB! Can't believe I never tried that before... At least that problem stalled me reading it for this glorious moment 

[Fred the Barber]

Happy I could help a fellow time traveler

[Fred the Barber]

Well, it's mid-March now, so it's about time for first impressions IMO. Here's what I've got.

I'm alternating playing this and Grisaia, which makes for a great study in contrasts. Where Grisaia is, so far, following the Key formula (meaning in the early stages it's mostly focused on making me bond with the heroines), this VN has me pretty deeply engaged in an overarching plot right from the beginning. I actually remember the Steins;Gate anime being a little bit boring for the first 50% of it, but even though the same material is handled here, I'm not bored at all - on the contrary, I'm feeling pretty heavily invested. However, that might be in part due to my experience watching the anime, though, which helps me feel the greater significance of many events. I wish I could read this VN with no background at all, but unfortunately induction of highly-localized amnesia doesn't yet exist. A pity.

If I have a modicum of conscious control over this, I'm going for Suzuha first - it's always bugged me that she is so capable, yet nonetheless gets rather marginalized. Capable, competent, responsible people are my favorite people, and Suzuha wins that race handily in Steins;Gate. That said, there's something about Mayushii. She remains my favorite, so I'll be saving her route for as late as possible. Kurisu is fine; the story is going to take care of giving her more importance, though, so I'll let that be.

I love the art style overall, but for some reason I'm not a huge fan of the heroines' sprites. The males, especially (Daru and Mr. Braun, I guess, are the main ones), look fantastic to me, but the females are just a little off, somehow - might be the anime's influence again, unfortunately. I'm gradually getting more used to it, but I'm still not crazy about any of them yet. Suzuha is the closest to looking good; Mayushii especially looks somehow off to me, and Kurisu is not far behind.

The soundtrack is excellent. I'm definitely going to get MP3s of it, one way or another, once I'm done playing the whole VN (soundtrack spoilers are spoilers too, for me at least).

[Nimbus]

Steins;Gate has a Back to the Future reference

12/10

[Vorathiel]

1 hour ago, Nimbus said:

Steins;Gate has a Back to the Future reference

12/10

Even twice, if I remember correctly. Laughed my ass off.

[Fred the Barber]

I just finished that part last night and was pretty amused by it as well. I rate 88/88

[Nimbus]

I'm really having difficulties liking this protagonist. The main issue is how in every interaction he has he brings up the organization he's supposed to be hiding from. However he seems to have been lobotomized in his sleep because he  doesn't seem to understand that screaming "Hey! Are you with the secret organization that's hunting me!?" to every Tom, Dick and Harry is literally the worst way to hide from someone.

I get that they're trying to make him funny and all but the joke is just falling flat every single time. It doesn't help that he's supposed to be smart but is making such stupid decisions. 

[Eclipsed]

A shame, that's the best part about okabe imo, were you expecting scientist version of Grisaia's Yuuji or something