Favourite Moments in Fiction #22 – The Epilogue (Steins;Gate)

WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Steins;Gate

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I was originally planning on writing about the entire climax of Steins;Gate because I love it so much, but the whole point of these articles is that they’re short and get to the point, and breaking down why said climax is so great would take a lot of explaining, especially since I’d want those who haven’t played it to fully understand it. So, instead, I’m just gonna skip ahead to the game’s epilogue. Continue reading

Steins;Gate 0 – No, Seriously, Don’t Invent Time Travel

WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Steins;Gate

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When I finished playing Steins;Gate back in 2015, I found myself in that state of mind where, even though everything was neatly wrapped up, I was hungry for more from its world and characters. Even if it was an entire story just about the characters living their lives, I wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye yet. Fortunately, there was an anime adaptation to throw myself into and a movie that acted as an epilogue of sorts (both of which I loved). But then I found out that a full-on sequel was coming to Japan very soon and would be out in the West the following year… and I had no interest in playing it.

“But you just said you wanted more Steins;Gate!” you cry. True, but Steins;Gate 0 isn’t a sequel in the traditional sense, instead continuing the story in an alternate “bad” timeline. Considering how much I loved the first game’s ending, I was worried that the sequel could potentially undo how perfect it was. Plus, I didn’t want to see more bad things happen to the characters after they got their happy endings, so I skipped it.

Cut to 2018 and the anime adaptation began to air on Crunchyroll. I had an account at the time and when the first episode went up, I thought “Eh, why not? I’ll give it a shot.” And sure enough, I got completely sucked in. I’m not sure what it was but it did enough to make me see it through to the end, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. But even I could tell that certain elements had been changed or removed in order to fit the narrative in an anime format (I even saw some comments complaining about how certain scenes were cut). Curious, I decided to play the game myself and go through the full unaltered experience of Steins;Gate 0 myself. Continue reading

My VG Music Picks #25 – Believe me (Steins;Gate)

Last week, I wrote a review on the visual novel Steins;Gatebut I realised after the fact that I didn’t go into it’s music at all. To be fair, I wouldn’t call the soundtrack the greatest. It’s not a bad one; just one that I don’t really remember all that well. It serves its purpose well and creates atmosphere, but there were a few tracks that stood out to me. Especially this one. Continue reading

Steins;Gate – Or Why Time Travel is a Bad Idea

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Opinions are a funny thing, aren’t they? We all have them, we love to share them and, for some reason, we can’t fathom the idea of somebody else having one different to ours. But possibly the most bizarre thing about them is how they can change. We can go from liking something to hating it and vice versa. It’s all very weird. Why am I bringing this up? Because of my experience with today’s subject, Steins;Gate.

Now, Steins;Gate isn’t an old game that I played as a child and am now looking at to see if it holds up or anything. It only came out in Europe last summer (though it originally came out in Japan in 2009), but it sticks out as possibly being the only game I’ve played where my opinion of it radically changed whilst I was playing it. Such an oddity deserves to be documented and shared with others. I guess you could say this is the will of Steins Gate itself. Let’s get started, shall we? Continue reading