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

[Fred the Barber]

I finished the last two endings with 20 minutes left in March (per my time zone):

Spoiler

Kurisu's ending hurt like hell. Wow. Loved it.

And the True Ending was pretty much perfect, though from what I recall, the anime actually delivered the video mail from the future a little better (pretty much the only point that I'll give a nod to the anime over the VN)... but that wasn't nearly enough to offset the impact of an interrupting phone call (of course) in the middle of the credits rolling.

The phone response choice thing is still dumb, incidentally. Screw the butterfly effect.

10/10 - why play anything else?

[Nimbus]

On 3/30/2016 at 11:38 PM, Tiagofvarela said:

I don't know if what I want to say constitutes as spoilers, or even if I'm correct in what I'm saying, but what you say keeps making me think you're looking at Okabe in entirely the wrong light. Or maybe I'm the one who's confused.

Maybe someone else who's already finished can tell me if it's spoilers, or if I'm just plain wrong.

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Why do you say Okabe's a scientist?
Okabe is your average college student with a rather heavy case of chuunibyou. He fools around with his friends, the lab members, living a joyous normal life. He just happens to have a scientist's curiosity. I'll give you that much.

At least, this is how I've always seen him.

 

Spoiler

The reason why I judged him as a scientist was because this game has very scientific themes, he understands theoretical physics (to the point where he can stump Kurisu, a genius girl) and because he does to a little inventing. Granted, what he makes isn't all that sciency but it would still require some degree of knowledge.

So I just finished Suzuha's route (I think)...

Spoiler

I'm hesitant to give my thoughts here until I figure out how the endings work (I recall someone saying there were 10 chapters but I finished at chapter 6) and all that, but for now I will say that the game, against all odds, did make Okabe somewhat likable in the end. I'm still ticked off that I had to put up with Prick-Okabe for 5/6 chapters but I assume it's better in other routes. 

 

[Fred the Barber]

@Nimbus, in case you haven't figured it out yet, you need to intentionally pull out the phone and send a D-Mail (at that point in time where he's saying he has to do it, even though he doesn't want to) to move on to the next chapter, instead of going down Suzuha's route. I was confused as well, the first time I finished a route, and almost went and played the whole game again (which is completely unnecessary until you are ready to go for the True End).

[Nimbus]

On 4/2/2016 at 5:55 AM, Fred the Barber said:

@Nimbus, in case you haven't figured it out yet, you need to intentionally pull out the phone and send a D-Mail (at that point in time where he's saying he has to do it, even though he doesn't want to) to move on to the next chapter, instead of going down Suzuha's route. I was confused as well, the first time I finished a route, and almost went and played the whole game again (which is completely unnecessary until you are ready to go for the True End).

Spoiler

Welp, because I didn't anticipate this, and due to my force of habit to have only one save (i usually use walkthroughs so multiple saves per-route is unnecessary) my last save is AFTER this point. meaning if I want to continue I have to play the whole thing again. and to that I have just this to say.

Fuck

Off

If I can't go back in the one file I'm going to (temporarily) drop this game and move onto pastures new. A pity really, Okabe was becoming less insufferable and the story was getting a lot more interesting. But the idea of going through the whole thing, even with the skip feature, added with Suzuha's quite frankly anticlimactic ending have just killed all motivation I had for this vn.

 

[Kurisu-Chan]

1 minute ago, Nimbus said:

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Welp, because I didn't anticipate this, and due to my force of habit to have only one save (i usually use walkthroughs so multiple saves per-route is unnecessary) my last save is AFTER this point. meaning if I want to continue I have to play the whole thing again. and to that I have just this to say.

Fuck

Off

If I can't go back in the one file I'm going to (temporarily) drop this game and move onto pastures new. A pity really, Okabe was becoming less insufferable and the story was getting a lot more interesting. But the idea of going through the whole thing, even with the skip feature, added with Suzuha's quite frankly anticlimactic ending have just killed all motivation I had for this vn.

 

Or i could give you a save, i have for both last endings, you could continue like nothing. 

[Nimbus]

I have no idea how we'd go about that, but sure. Still lost a lot of interest in S;G but I'll slog through it.

[Vorathiel]

Oh come on Nimbus, please finish this!  Even without a save it's just a matter of <~15 minutes on skip. 

[Nimbus]

4 minutes ago, Vorathiel said:

Oh come on Nimbus, please finish this!  Even without a save it's just a matter of <~15 minutes on skip. 

I get the feeling I'm going to go down in Fuwa history... For all the wrong reasons.

[Eclipsed]

Honestly, what a silly reason to drop a VN, though in your case that was the final nail in the coffin eh? 

Wow, guess you'll be one of the < 100 people out of 3000+ that give S;G a < 7 VNDB score. Damn hipsters

 

[Nimbus]

8 hours ago, Eclipsed said:

Honestly, what a silly reason to drop a VN, though in your case that was the final nail in the coffin eh? 

Wow, guess you'll be one of the < 100 people out of 3000+ that give S;G a < 7 VNDB score. Damn hipsters

 

It's not so much Suzuha's ending, it's more just my lack of motivation to continue it at this point combined with you guys telling me how much better S;G gets after chapter 5 only to get an ending that wasn't what you hyped up, and if you want me to like it then that's probably a good thing right? Better I come back to it later with an cleared head and a desire to see the ending, rather than now where I have absolutely no motivation and playing it just feels like work.

I honestly can't stress this enough, but I like 90% of Steins;Gate. The problem is that the 10% I don't like (the protagonist and the plot) are, in my opinion, the two most crucial elements to a visual novel. At this point I'm sure I'm sounding like a broken record to you guys at this point, but no matter how great the 90% may be, the parts that it fails are the parts that always bug me. I want to look past these faults, I really do (if nothing else it would stop me being the most hated member of Fuwanovel) but the ratio of fun/frustration as not been kind to Steins;Gate.

I know I can just skip text and in about 30 minutes I'll be back to where I was and I can continue onto the true route(s?) but I can't even really find the enthusiasm to do that. 

[LiquidShu]

Yeah yeah yeah, this was last month's game, bite me. Still reading it (on first PT still), and I'm about to vent some shit because this VN is fucking me right now. I will either edit this post tomorrow or keep it as is.

 

Just an FYI, spoilers are just a bunch of swear words, I needed to vent.  

 

 

Removed.

 

Edited April 14, 2016 by LiquidShu

[LiquidShu]

OK, just going to drop my thoughts on the first route I completed and then let this thread die.

The route I ended up on was Rumiho's and I really don't know exactly how. The whole time I was playing all the events flowed near perfect (not using a guide), and I didn't even know I was going towards Rumiho's route until the last 30 (?) minutes. That may sound like a bad thing, but it was super awesome. Steins;Gate was able to transition so smoothly between everything that happened in the game it didn't even feel out of place. 

The choice system is what really interests me in S;G. I wasn't sure (still not) what the choices even were for a while. I'm led to believe when you answer your phone/look at it, and how you reply are the choices. Which is freakin' awesome. It's such a subtle way to implement choices into S;G and added a whole other layer to the experience. 

I big like the CG's as well, the art style is like nothing else I have seen in a VN and really stands out in a good way. 

 

 

 

After finishing Rumiho's route it left a huge desire to know what's going on with the other lab mems and worldines, plus SERN is free to do as they please now, even more so... 

 

Looking forward to seeing what happens on other routes, still debating on whether to pull out a guide or not at this point.

 

I big like Steins;Gate

[MercyZombie]

40 minutes ago, LiquidShu said:

 

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After finishing Rumiho's route it left a huge desire to know what's going on with the other lab mems and worldines, plus SERN is free to do as they please now, even more so... 

 

Looking forward to seeing what happens on other routes, still debating on whether to pull out a guide or not at this point.

 

 

Spoiler

Once you figure out how the system works, finding the triggers for the different endings is going to be pretty easy so I would personally recommend against using a guide yet. It's actually pretty simple.

Except for when you try to get the true ending. Then you're pretty much screwed without a guide. I don't know a single person that has made it to that ending on their own. I assume they exist somewhere. Theoretically at least. Like I said earlier in this thread the steps you have to take does not even make sense in hindsight.

I'm surprised you got Faris's ending first. Most people get Suzuha's ending first. Or maybe that's just something I have gotten into my head since that's what I got. 

 

[Fred the Barber]

@LiquidShu I don't know why people want to not spoil how the choice system works. That caused frustration for both me and especially poor @Nimbus.

It's very simple once you understand it, but at least for both of us, it wasn't the least bit obvious in the game. If you really want to figure it out for yourself, I guess I don't want to get in the way of that, but it's not anything I would consider a spoiler, and not knowing it is potentially going to waste a ton of your time. So, for your own sake, just read the spoiler:

Spoiler

At the point where you're about to change the past, e.g. when Okabe was wrestling with sending a D-Mail to Rumiho's father that would undo their change to the past and make her father disappear, you have the option of sending the D-Mail. Either you do it, or you keep reading. If you keep reading, Okabe won't send the D-Mail, and you'll go into a side route (which may or may not end the game early). If you send the D-Mail, you'll continue along the main story line.

The main story line has 3 endings. Two of them are pretty hard to get, especially the True Ending. Both of those endings require you to have made certain choices when replying to lab mem texts earlier in the game. Definitely use a guide once you reach that point.

 

[LiquidShu]

I never thought of the choice system was a spoiler, my bad. 

I never really looked at my phone during gameplay unless I was alone or had to. Kurisu said it's rude to look at your phone while talking and I agreed, so I barely used it outaide experiements.

[Vorathiel]

Did any of you read/watched Steins;Gate Senkei Kousoku no Phenogram ?
I just started and after 3 episodes I'm impressed. Or maybe I shouldn't be, because original S;G is pure 10/10, so 'spin off' should at least be good. But I didn't expected it to be THAT good.
Damn, so many titles at once, what have I done.