Should I buy this with no VN experience?

[Alpha_pro]

I have never played a VN before. I loved Steins Gate, its one of my favorite shows, and even then I normally wouldn't have gotten this game at full price. What is a VN's gameplay like? I don't want to look up a let's play or something because of spoiler (unless watching the show gave me all the spoilers). Would it be worth it or should I hold off?

[Mastema]

Usually depends on the VN. Steins Gate's key feature is Okabe's phone and the choices you can make with it, so that's pretty much it. The story certainly does an amazing job at immersing the reader into the plot. As to the gameplay itself, it's pretty much just reading with few stops when major decisions come up and you have to make a choice. You should totally buy it, it's one of the best VN's out there. Somethings were missed or pictured differently in the anime, or just simply skipped for various reasons, even then i'd recommend playing the game throughly.

[mimizukari]

Buy Steins;Gate ELITE with no VN experience. https://store.steampowered.com/app/819030/STEINSGATE_ELITE/

It plays just like an anime, but animates all the scene the anime didn't animate and has all the content that the original novel did. Also all the other routes are animated now too. If you fell in love with the anime fall back in love with Steins;Gate ELITE. 30 hours of the animation you love, all the details you missed and far less complicated than the original VN too, basically the equivalent of a shounen anime run lol.


LASTLY if you buy Elite, you also get Linear Bounded Phenogram which is in the normal VN style, but by now you'd be used to the regular controls and Linear Bounded Phenogram is an ADDITIONAL 20 hours of Steins;Gate content taking place after the first!

After that there's https://store.steampowered.com/app/970560/STEINSGATE_My_Darlings_Embrace/
Then Steins;Gate 0.

[HonoredShadow]

Hope the OP does not mind me asking something here also as it's kinda related. I have played a few visual novels before but nothing like this. Certainly nothing Japanese. I have not watched the anime either.

Should I buy the original or Elite? If I can find out how to watch the anime I will try. Would it spoil the game?

Thanks all for any answers as I know nothing of this! I'm just looking for the best version really.

[mimizukari]

Originally posted by HonoredShadow:

Hope the OP does not mind me asking something here also as it's kinda related. I have played a few visual novels before but nothing like this. Certainly nothing Japanese. I have not watched the anime either.

Should I buy the original or Elite? If I can find out how to watch the anime I will try. Would it spoil the game?

Thanks all for any answers as I know nothing of this! I'm just looking for the best version really.

ELITE. You can watch the anime on Windows Store, Funimation.com and Steins;Gate 0 is also available on VRV.co / crunchyroll.com

ELITE is like watching an anime, if you put it on auto mode it moves at the pace of an anime almost, as long as you have it set to skip through text speed fast enough.

The anime is an adaption of the true route of the game but leaves out, you know, 20 hours of the common route, all of which is animated in ELITE.

[Graz]

tbh I'd rather recommend the original VN than ELITE. The mai nreason is that Elite is basically the anime which you had already seen. And the original VN has gorgeous artwork.

[Runa Silvertongue]

The S;G anime is also up on Hulu, as well as the 0 anime.

[⛤ . ˚⊹]

STEINS;GATE ELITE is better option because every part is animated, which is nice. Many scenes have completely different music and honestly it all fits better. I think it is the best version of Steins;Gate.

[mimizukari]

Originally posted by Grazloth:

tbh I'd rather recommend the original VN than ELITE. The mai nreason is that Elite is basically the anime which you had already seen. And the original VN has gorgeous artwork.

ELITE artwork is better IMO. Everyone has their opinion, if you're already used to anime graphics then ELITE is better

[Kiru]

Elite cuts quite a bit of stuff though. If you actually want everything, the original is the way to go. If you want a quasi anime, Elite is the way to go. Note that the other games in the series have no "anime" esque version and Elite has no patch to polish its translation, something unfortunately rather necessary.

Personally I think Elite is good as a replay at some point and that's it. Want the original? Take the original. Want something animated? Take the anime. Elite is somewhere in between, cutting out a few things here and there, yet being not quite anime. It's just a little of this, a little of that.
If you've seen the anime, it makes little sense to go with Elite. The other games in the series will still have their usual style and Elite is not giving you the original experience that you'd probably want. May as well keep it at the anime at that point.


Elite is honestly the game you can ignore the most easily. That's the reason it's bundled to another game by force. This other game is the reason you probably have to pick it up eventually. Otherwise, few would do that. If the few bucks extra you'd need to spend on the original is an issue, I guess Elite might do. Keep in mind there's no patch to actually polish its translation and whatnot, unlike what you have for the original though. And judging from the quality of the polished script, I don't want to know the unpolished one. Only relevant if you rely on the English translation of course.

tl;dr:
Steins Gate in English is best experienced with the original Version with the patch to polish it, and if that's not to your liking with the anime. That't why you have to get Elite in a bundle with Linear Bounded Phenogram, because otherwise people would not buy it.

[⛤ . ˚⊹]

Originally posted by Kiru:

tl;dr:
Steins Gate in English is best experienced with the original Version with the patch to polish it,.

i don't really agree with that.. I always playing those games which have Japanese Audio, which means, i dont need to read.

the experiences from "reading only" and "from listening" are very very different. + English translations are not perfect, what did u read in English, it can have a completely different meaning in Japanese

[mimizukari]

Originally posted by Kiru:

Elite cuts quite a bit of stuff though. If you actually want everything, the original is the way to go. If you want a quasi anime, Elite is the way to go. Note that the other games in the series have no "anime" esque version and Elite has no patch to polish its translation, something unfortunately rather necessary.

Personally I think Elite is good as a replay at some point and that's it. Want the original? Take the original. Want something animated? Take the anime. Elite is somewhere in between, cutting out a few things here and there, yet being not quite anime. It's just a little of this, a little of that.
If you've seen the anime, it makes little sense to go with Elite. The other games in the series will still have their usual style and Elite is not giving you the original experience that you'd probably want. May as well keep it at the anime at that point.


Elite is honestly the game you can ignore the most easily. That's the reason it's bundled to another game by force. This other game is the reason you probably have to pick it up eventually. Otherwise, few would do that. If the few bucks extra you'd need to spend on the original is an issue, I guess Elite might do. Keep in mind there's no patch to actually polish its translation and whatnot, unlike what you have for the original though. And judging from the quality of the polished script, I don't want to know the unpolished one. Only relevant if you rely on the English translation of course.

tl;dr:
Steins Gate in English is best experienced with the original Version with the patch to polish it, and if that's not to your liking with the anime. That't why you have to get Elite in a bundle with Linear Bounded Phenogram, because otherwise people would not buy it.

Elite has more than the anime and has all the text from the original, it's just missing one unneccessary bit from Faris' route.

[Blanners]

Originally posted by HonoredShadow:

Hope the OP does not mind me asking something here also as it's kinda related. I have played a few visual novels before but nothing like this. Certainly nothing Japanese. I have not watched the anime either.

Should I buy the original or Elite? If I can find out how to watch the anime I will try. Would it spoil the game?

Thanks all for any answers as I know nothing of this! I'm just looking for the best version really.

If you're ok with VNs definitely buy the original.

[Blanners]

Originally posted by Kurumi Tokisaki:

Elite has more than the anime and has all the text from the original, it's just missing one unneccessary bit from Faris' route.

Elite has more than the anime, correct, but it also has a lot less than in the original. It doesn't cut "just a bit from Faris' route", it:
* Cuts out a whole lot of Okabe's inner monologue (like 1/3 to 1/2 of it)
* Has a completely useless gimmick: the animation is really bad for the parts where they didn't just copy and paste the anime, and for most of the other time it's just the same repeated closeups of a character speaking over and over again
* Has way less player interaction
* Destroys the theme of "the lone observer" of the original by being in third person and sometimes just randomly cutting to other POVs for no reason at all
* Has a convoluted and obscure choice system (S;G spoiler Not talking about D-Mails) as opposed to just picking up calls or not from the original
* Completely destroys the tone of some scenes with poorly matched animation (for example, a character looks neutral or even happy while their voice tone is angry or agitated or sad) or just bad animation (S;G spoilers for example, there's a scene in chapter 9 where Mayuri dies but the characters are borderline stick figures so I can't take it seriously at all)
* Cuts not only a big part from chapter 7, but also a noticeable bit from chapter 8, and really butchers part of chapter 9 (This on top of Okabe's inner monologue mentioned previously).

[mimizukari]

I'm under the impression what they cut wasn't really all that meaningful, nothing instantly springs to mind when i completed elite after having played through original multiple times except that 1 faris route. In its place they added like soooooooo much of the 2chan dialogues and it's way more meme than it was in the original... in exchange for some TV scripts and what not which were alright and added to the lore about rainet kakeru and stuff but y'know...

[Blanners]

Originally posted by Kurumi Tokisaki:

I'm under the impression what they cut wasn't really all that meaningful, nothing instantly springs to mind when i completed elite after having played through original multiple times except that 1 faris route. In its place they added like soooooooo much of the 2chan dialogues and it's way more meme than it was in the original... in exchange for some TV scripts and what not which were alright and added to the lore about rainet kakeru and stuff but y'know...

> ignores most of my points
> talks about something i didn't even mention that was cut, further adding to my post instead
Alright