About Steins;Gate (and VNs in general)

[MJLahey]

I'm pretty new to VNs, (started with 999 and VLR, like many).

I'm currently playing Steins;Gate and loving it, however I'm on Chapter 2 and have not been given any choices. After doing some research, it appears my "choices" are actually which word I click when responding to emails, which makes the entire thing completely and utterly random, as I can't see the response until after I click the word.

My question is how to proceed, without using a walkthrough. Do I have to replay the entire game from scratch to try a different path after I finish? Should I be making periodic saves all over the place? and is there any way to know which choices are important to the direction of the story?

[Zakamutt]

Well, there are quite a few save slots. A decent lot of the messages are only for random achievements; otherwise, it's not until chapter five that the first choice that is really important happens iirc. I'm somewhat in the same boat as you are, but I'd just recommend what you would normally do: accept calls from your target only, etc

[Kaguya]

No, no. Answering calls of only one girl is really bad. You can just go ahead and get maximum points with all the heroines at once (unless you want to replay the game again and again to get 100 CG completion)

Having a lot of points with one girl will only make it impossible for you to enter another girl route once in the whole game.

If you're into Kurisu, you can't do Mayuri's route

However, the other girls really don't matter. You can do their routes no matter how low their affection score is, by

not sending a D-mail when the game asks you to do so in their chapter

after said chapter, it's impossible to get the heroine.

[MJLahey]

Ok, thanks.

After this I plan on playing Ever17, Remember11, and Fate/stay night.

In 999 the choices were very clear and when you got an ending it marked it in the menu so you knew what ending you got and what was left, then allowed you to fast forward through text you've already read on future plays. VLR just lets you jump to any choice and continue. Do other VNs (the ones I mentioned or others) have any guidance similar to this, or are you pretty much flying blind?

Thanks for the help, and patience!

[Kaguya]

Yeah, a lot of them have similar things. Fear not, Steins Gate choice system is incredibly unique.

[Mephisto]

For this is Steins;Gate's choice!