Steins;Gate (Limited Edition)

Before it was a a TV series Steins;Gate was a visual novel, the computerized version of what I knew as Choose Your Own Adventure books.Quirky, oddball, perhaps even slightly mad but ultimately endearing characters make yet another cautionary tale about the consequences of time travel into one of the most memorable, heartrending games you will ever play because this isn't just a game WITH time travel, but rather a game ABOUT time travel, about how it can go horribly wrong. Self-proclaimed mad scientist Rintarou Okabe attends (and disrupts) Dr. Nakabachi's seminar on time travel and has a number of unsettling experiences that will eventually mean much, ending with seeing Kurisu Makise lying in a pool of blood. His almost inadvertent text to "Daru" Hashida, who was conducting experiments with his cell phone hooked up to a microwave at the time, triggers the first temporal anomaly, in which past events have changed leaving only Okabe to remember them.What follows are several mostly lighthearted chapters in which Okabe, Daru, and a very much alive Kurisu Makise conduct experiments first to prove and then to understand and improve upon the time travel mechanism they have stumbled upon, including allowing some of their friends to try to alter past events more to their liking. This builds slowly to a cataclysmic event at the end of chapter 5 and several shocking reveals. Now the game's tone grows increasingly dark as an increasingly frantic Okabe, who is the only one able to fully remember all the time changes, attempts to undo the horrific events he unintentionally unleashed or caused to be set in motion. With the aid of a Kurisu Makise he must repeatedly explain the time changes to, can (you as) Okabe leap backwards through time carefully enough to fix the mess you have created and find the True Ending?And can you bear the ever increasing emotional cost?If you loved the TV series, you are going to love playing this game, which allows you to make the choices that will either lead you to the True Ending or to some other ending. In particular this much longer version of the story clears up a number of things that were given short shrift for lack of time in the show, and you get to see the consequences of refusing to cancel d-mails in the various endings. As a result, you can expect to spend quite a few days playing this game; just going from the prologue to your first possible ending, Suzuha's, will probably take longer than watching all 24 TV episodes, the OVA, the movie, and the four "Steins;Gate The Sagacious Wisdom of Cognitive Computing" animated shorts straight through.Note: Steins;Gate the visual novel is available in various formats:Steins;Gate - PC (Regular Edition),Steins;Gate - PC (Limited Edition) (comes with a couple of Future Gadget Lab Mem pins as shown in the game),Steins;Gate - PlayStation 3,Steins;Gate - PlayStation Vita.Note on Game Play: Players are encouraged to just wing it to start, especially players familiar with the TV series. All of the choices come as phone triggers, incoming calls or emails, for which the suggested default response is to accept every phone call, open and read every email, view every attachment, reply whenever allowed to, and try both cancelling the d-mails and refusing to. This will clear a lot of achievements and endings, probably not including either the True Ending or the achievements that require making the correct choice at several different points, some of which are mutually exclusive. Clearing those will require a lot of time (and a lot of luck) or following one of the cheat sheets you can find online.Note: Intriguingly, the story is based on a real occurrence: a person claiming to be a time traveler, calling himself John Titor, looking for a real computer I. B. M. 5100 Portable Computer.Note: A new visual novel Steins;Gate 0 and a new Steins;Gate 0 anime series will be coming out that begins with an alternate version of TV episode 23: SG0 OVA: Episode 23(Beta) Open the Missing Link, in which Okabe gives up in despair where in the original he pushed on to change from the Beta Attractor Field world line to the Steins;Gate world line. Presumably this will turn out to be the Okabe who will actually build the C204 time machine and send the video D-mail that inspires his earlier self NOT to give up.Note: There have already been a couple of visual novel sequels to Steins;Gate that have never been given anime versions and probably never will because their target audience of true blue fans who love any additional material about these characters is too small. One of these is "Steins;Gate - Darling of Loving Vows" a largely lighthearted romp taking place on the Delta World Line, where SERN and WWIII are not threats, no one is trying to kill anyone, and the greatest choice facing Okabe is who to fall in love with. Based on viewing some game play videos, the choices and endings are a mixed bag: Ruka's and Moeka's are downright cringeworthy (because the authors apparently couldn't come up with a plausible plot), Faris' is the weirdest (picture ALL of the feminine characters in cat maid costumes and Kurisu as the Hell Maid, all tsun, no dere), Kurisu's is the funniest (she invents a future gadget, "Darling Is an Idiot", that forces she and Okabe to stay within a meter of each other at all times and not to argue on pain of electrical shock WITHOUT providing an off switch), Suzuha's is the odd man out (she must deal with the catastrophe of Daru falling in love with her rather than with her mother he is supposed to be meeting in just a few days), and Mayuri's is the most moving (her character, previously noted for her general ditziness, displays more complexity and emotional depth in this story than she has in anything else I've seen; the childhood friend flag has definitely been activated!)The other is "Steins;Gate - Linear Bounded Phenogram" a collection of scenarios set during and after the original visual novel's story line, but in different world lines. Based on viewing some game play videos, the scenarios and endings are once again a mixed bag, but what makes these short stories rather unique is that unlike all the others which are told from Okabe's POV, these are told from the POV of the main character. Several of these are hero's journeys: Daru's, Faris', even Moeka the Rounder gets one. Kurisu's contains the clearest statement of her feelings about Okabe. Suzuha's is a weird one with three versions of herself showing up. Okabe's first one and Tennouji's are more than a little cringeworthy until their shock endings. Ruka's and Mayuri's veer from expected paths into surprise endings. Okabe's second involves the first failure of a time leap to fully transmit memories into the past and the confusion this causes, and Nae's seems unfinished.