Steins;Gate 0

Steins;Gate 0
European cover art, featuring (clockwise from top left) Maho, Rintaro, Kurisu, and Kagari
Developer(s)	5pb., Nitroplus
Publisher(s)	JP: 5pb. WW: PQube
Producer(s)	Tatsuya Matsubara
Artist(s)	Huke
Writer(s)	Chiyomaru Shikura
Composer(s)	Takeshi Abo
Series	Science Adventure
Platform(s)	PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Microsoft Windows
Release date(s)	PlayStation 3 JP: December 10, 2015 PlayStation 4, PS Vita JP: December 10, 2015 EU: November 25, 2016 NA: November 29, 2016 Microsoft Windows‹See Tfd› JP: August 26, 2016
Genre(s)	Visual novel
Mode(s)	Single-player

Steins;Gate 0 (Japanese: シュタインズ・ゲート ゼロ, Hepburn: Shutainzu Gēto Zero) is a visual novel video game developed by 5pb. and Nitroplus. It is part of the Science Adventure series, and is a follow-up to Steins;Gate (2009). It was released in Japan for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in December 2015 and for Microsoft Windows in August 2016, and by PQube in North America and Europe for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in November 2016.

The game was planned by Chiyomaru Shikura, using Steins;Gate drama CDs and light novels as its "roots"; it is not an adaptation of them, however, instead featuring a new scenario. The music was composed by Takeshi Abo, who made notes of his first impressions of the emotional flow while reading the story, using these to create music with a good relation to the game's worldview. The English localization was a large project, taking place over the course of five months; it was done with the intention to avoid Westernizing the game too much due to the importance the Japanese setting and culture hold in the game, while still striving to keep it accessible for Western players.

Gameplay

The player can interact with characters by replying to messages with stickers.

As a visual novel game, minimal interaction is required by the player and most of the time spent is on reading the text representing dialogue between characters or the thoughts of the protagonist.

For the decision points, Steins;Gate 0 has a different system from the "phone trigger" system introduced in the original Steins;Gate. In Steins;Gate 0, the "RINE trigger" system is used where the player can exchange messages real-time with the characters of the game via the RINE app installed on the player's in-game smartphone. The player is notified through an indication found on the upper left corner of the screen upon receiving a new message. Depending on the message, the character of the game will react differently. The player also has the option to send stickers.^[1]

Plot

The story follows after Rintaro Okabe returns to the Beta worldline where Kurisu Makise is fated to die. He failed in his attempt to save Kurisu, only to accidentally kill her instead. The protagonist later suffers from serious post traumatic stress disorder and tries to cope with his failure to save Kurisu. He later meets Maho Hiyajo, a neuroscientist working on a program called "Amadeus" which allows the copy and digital recreation of a person's brain into an artificial intelligence (AI) avatar of said person. He is later surprised that Hiyajo managed to create an AI copy of Kurisu using Amadeus, before the latter's death.^[2]

Development

Steins;Gate 0 was planned by Chiyomaru Shikura and produced by Tatsuya Matsubara, and features character designs by Huke. The scenario was worked on by Naotaka Hayashi, Toru Yasumoto, Masaki Takimoto, and Tsukasa Tsuchiya,^[3] and makes use of the Epigraph Trilogy^{[lower-alpha 1]} series of light novels and Steins;Gate drama CDs as its "roots". It is however not an adaptation of these; it features a new scenario, and the developers describe it as a "legitimate numbered sequel".^[2][3]

The music was composed by Takeshi Abo. His process for composing the music consisted of him reading the game's story, to get an as full as possible understanding of the setting and the character personalities. He considered his first impressions of the game's emotional flow and events to be very important: he would write them down together with the kind of music he would want to use for each scene, and keep them in mind when composing the music. He said that this approach, while taking longer than if he had just designated songs to various places in the game, made for higher quality music with a better relation to the game's worldview.^[4]

Localization

The English localization was done over the course of five months, something localization lead Adam Lensenmayer noted as a big project. It was also a challenging project; its use of real-world science meant that the localization team had to research subjects like artificial intelligence, cognitive science and time travel theories to ensure that everything was phrased correctly. Another challenge was that Steins;Gate 0 was written specifically for a Japanese audience, who might understand certain things that Western players would not, although Lensenmayer said that this was a smaller problem than it had been with the first Steins;Gate, due to Steins;Gate 0's more serious tone and lesser focus on otaku and internet culture, and its built-in dictionary which explains obscure concepts.^[5]

Lensenmayer wrote the localized text with a general audience in mind, intending for it to be accessible regardless of the player's knowledge of the game's setting,^[5] while working towards creating something that people who have played the first Steins;Gate would enjoy.^[6] The localization team wanted to avoid overt Westernization of the game, because of the importance the Japanese setting and culture held in the story, and strived to achieve a level of Westernization similar to the first Steins;Gate's localization. Lensenmayer said that some parts were difficult to localize, tempting the team to replace them with other, similar content, but that they tried to avoid this whenever they could. Aspects of Japanese culture that were deemed too obscure to Western players were handled the same way as in Steins;Gate: for example, the Japanese term senpai was left intact, with short explanatory dialogue added. One thing that took up a lot of time was localizing the character Mayuri's dialogue due to her way of speaking: Lensenmayer described her as acting "spacey", but not "stupid or ditzy", and that there was a nuance of caring and awareness to her speech that did not come across in a direct translation of the words. She was seen as a very important character, so conveying her personality accurately was given high priority.^[5]

Release

The game was first was announced in March 2015.^[7] It was originally scheduled to be released in Japan on November 19, 2015, but was delayed and released on December 10, 2015 for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita.^[8] Japanese first-print copies of the PlayStation 4 version of included a digital PlayStation 4 copy of the first Steins;Gate.^[9] The PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita versions of Steins;Gate 0 were released by PQube in Europe on November 25, 2016 and in North America on November 29.^[10] They are available in an "Amadeus Edition" that includes a soundtrack disc, an artbook, a pin badge, and a plush toy,^[11] and in a limited edition that includes just the game and the artbook.^[12] A Microsoft Windows version was planned to be released on June 24, 2016 in Japan,^[13] but was delayed to August 26.^[14] An anime adaptation has been greenlit.^[7]

Reception

Steins;Gate 0 was well received by critics.^[15][16] Kotaku included it on a list of the best Japan-only video games of 2015, praising its story and saying that it, while not as good as the first Steins;Gate, is a "fantastic follow-up".^[18] It sold 100,000 copies on its first day of release in Japan, bringing total sales for the Steins;Gate games above one million copies sold.^[19]

Notes

References

External links

• Official website (Japanese)
• "Steins;Gate 0". The Visual Novel Database.