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09/16/11(Fri)09:09 No.7875311Steins;Gate Review
Steampunk.
Catgirls. Evil Empire. Evil Geniuses. Bright Colors (especially blue).
Assorted Fantasy Races. Exploration Minigame. What could go wrong? As it
turns out, more than I'd hoped.
The writing in Steins;Gate is
absolutely ridiculous. Tons of cryptic language, abstract ramblings,
maybe a hundred arc words (whose meanings you have to figure out), kanji
and non-kanji puns, furigana abuse, stuff that looks like gibberish but
isn't, random assortments of the above, and on occasion it seems to be
outright mocking your ignorance. Between this, the good soundtrack, the
unique and memorable art style, and the actual plot connecting all that
nonsense together, the game is thoroughly immersive and addicting.
Anyone who likes mind screws will have a very strong desire to unravel
the mysteries, no matter how long it takes or hard it is to do so. And
it is very possible to work out a lot of it by paying sufficiently close
attention (and taking a few notes).
Unfortunately, this game is
in serious need of pruning. The infamous bullying scenes in particular
should be half their current length if not shorter, and there seems to
be a constant supply of dialogues which are interesting but just
long-winded enough to get annoying. There are also several times when
you're forced to rewatch a scene from another character's perspective,
and either nothing new is added or it was already quite obvious to me
what would be different. Finally, one part of the game got no
explanation at all despite very thorough explanations for everything
else.
The problem with Steins;Gate is that there just weren't
many scenes or events which truly impressed me. And for every one that
did, there was also a scene earlier in the game which dragged on too
long or outright bored me. It's hard to explain why, but I think the
best way to put it is: there was definitely enough detail in the game to
fill up the time in which I played it, but not much more than that. |
