Stein’s Gate will finally reach western shores six years after initially being released in Japan. While the US is still awaiting a release date, Europe will get the acclaimed visual novel on the 5th of June.
Like many cool things from Japan, a lot of you will never have heard of Stein’s Gate. So allow us to elaborate.
Stein’s Gate is a visual novel covering the adventures of self-proclaimed mad scientist Okabe Rintarou. Okabe’s life changes forever when he modifies his microwave. He soon finds out that he’s stumbled upon a way to send text messages back in time.
Okabe ends up altering events several times before he realises what he’s stumbled upon. Soon it becomes clear that there’s someone very interested in what he’s created. The sinister organisation SERN has been conducting their own time travel experiments. Now they want his discovery and they’re not going to write him a cheque.
The player has the ability to influence the story at various points by deciding what response Okabe sends to messages he recieves (or if he replies at all). Like any visual novel worth its salt, Stein’s Gate has multiple endings as well as many ‘bad endings’ (basically non-standard game overs). The player’s choices dtermine which of these endings occur.
Stein’s Gate was a massively successful in Japan, having spawned an anime adaption. There are also two manga adaptions and a theatrical film. A full fan translation patch was created for the Japanese release, but was removed when the posibility of a western release was raised.
So now, finally, PS3, Vita and IOS owners will finally be able to play it and see what all the fuss is about.
