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[CrichtonKicks]

So, I just wrapped up Steins;Gate yesterday with all of the endings. Overall I thought it was pretty great. Time leaping was a very novel conception of Time Travel that I don't recall having seen before. Same with Attractor Fields. I really liked how the game very methodically developed a unique system of rules over the course of the game to the point where the player/reader has a really strong grasp of the fundamentals when the game takes off in Chapter 5.

Did not like Chapters 7 & 8, however. I would have deleted them wholesale if I could. Stopped the great pacing in the second half in its tracks. Can't believe almost a whole chapter was devoted to a Rai Net tournament with a one time antagonist. It seemed so low stakes after the stuff from Chapters 5 & 6.

I really hated how the game had to make most of the bad endings into pseudo-romances. It was totally ham-fisted. As much as I hated Chapter 8, I did appreciate that it seemed to acknowledge that Okarin and Luka have zero romantic chemistry. But then that ending still implies that they end up together! The Mayuri ending was even worse- the entire game they have a really touching brother-sister dynamic and then the ending just casually drops a "oh, Mayuri and I are a couple now" thing. Faris ending was a bit more tolerable only because I did think there was a strong amount of chemistry between them throughout the game. Is this just some sort of expectation of the genre or something? It feels like the author was forced to drop in a couple of harem bits into the story out of some sort of requirement.

Meanwhile, the Okarin-Kurisu romance was actually really well developed (when accounting for all of the additional scenes on the True Ending path). Why couldn't they have left that as the only romance in the game?

At the end of the day, I think the Suzuhara was the only alternate ending I really enjoyed. I liked that much darker take on Groundhog Day. Unfortunately it was the first alternate ending I got and it set a standard that none of the other alternate endings could come close to.

I was also vaguely disappointed with some of the SERN stuff. I love conspiracies but the idea that a group of research scientists were secretly plotting to take over the world just seemed too silly from the get go. Was really hoping for a plot twist revealing that it happened because of their messing around with the world lines but that never happened.

Also didn't like how dense Okabe could be. Suzuhara's identity as a time traveler was telegraphed so much that Okarin should have caught on once he realized that actual time travel was possible. Same with Moeka and the disappearance of the 5100 after she sent her D-Mail.

Some questions on the plot:

- What was the mechanism that allowed Okarin to decipher the video text from the future only after witnessing Kurisu's death?

- I believe there was a comment in the epilogue that Okarin and Daru dismantled the IBN 5100. Was that a mistake? Why would they have a 5100 on that worldline?

-Who was sending the threatening emails to Okabe? SERN?

-Is the 42" CRT's function as a lifter supposed to somehow be linked to Braun's connection with SERN or was it a total coincidence?

 

[GodzillaDB]

01) The video D-mail doesn't come into existence until Okabe fails in his first attempt to rescue Makise Kurisu. In the Beta world-line, which must take place in order for Okabe to send the aforementioned clue to encourage his past-self to reach 'Steins;Gate,' he succumbs to the post-traumatic stress brought forth from accidentally taking Kurisu's life by his hands and refuses to meddle with time travel. He chooses to condemn himself to the inevitability of World War 3 along with his predestined 'death' about fifteen years down the road. These events exploring what takes place over the next twenty-six years are depicted in the recently released 'interquel,' Steins;Gate 0, available on PS4/Vita in the United States.

02) Okabe and Daru dismantle the IBN 5100 as part of the story route leading into the True Ending finale. Once Okabe manages to save Kurisu and, consequently, diverges into the 'Steins;Gate' world-line, the epilogue simply explores a brief period in which he hands out commissioned pin badges to the Lab Members that were inducted in prior world-lines before a fateful encounter with Kurisu on the streets of Akiba. The retro PC doesn't make an appearance in those final moments.

03) Yes, SERN and their Rounder mercenaries were primarily responsible for the threatening messages. The largest clue about their connection with the texts would be the ominous photo of the red jelly which correlates with the gel banana and Jellymen experiments. Supposedly an interview with Naotaka Hayashi, the original scenario writer, discloses that it was Moeka Kiryū, under orders of Yuugo "FB" Tennouji, who sent them in an effort to discourage Okabe from meddling further with SERN servers. However, these attempts become nullified once they discover the existence of the operational time-leap machine.

04) Unless I'm mistaken, it was a pure coincidence for the CRT shop to function as a lifter for the PhoneWave although the direct net access to the SERN servers pretty much solidifies Mr. Braun's ties with the organization. My evidence for the serendipitous nature of the CRT store comes from an unlocalized short story called The Distant Valhalla which explores an Alpha world-line about a year-and-a-half after the Rounders were successful in capturing Okabe, Kurisu and Daru during their laboratory raid. Basically, it reveals the research group continues to struggle with perfecting their time-travel experiments despite having the aforementioned Lab Members in captivity. They keep producing Jellyman results until Kurisu accepts her predestined convergence as the 'Mother of Time Travel' in the same world-line thus leading into a SERN dystopia.