➤ Portable Visual Novel 🎮

The story of Steins; Gate in the west has been quite troubled despite the resounding success achieved in Japan, which has made it a cross-media phenomenon that has given birth to a manga and an anime.

Both have received unanimous acclaim from the public and critics, but as often happens when it comes to Japanese titles of a particular genre such as visual novels, the crystalline success was not enough to put it at the top of the list of videogame products to be exported to the West. as soon as possible. From 2009 it took six years to see Steins; Gate in English, only for PC although at home it was released for practically all existing platforms, from home consoles to iOS and Android portable devices. Fortunately, after the first English translation, the greatest effort was made and all other versions could be more easily brought to our country. After all, they are nothing more than relatively easy porting, given the narration in drawings and the absence of any control system that would require a more targeted adaptation based on the control system of each platform. Here then if on the one hand the old generation consoles that have fallen into oblivion are not worth the effort of albeit small work, the English version of Steins; Gate for PlayStation Vita was created which, given its portability and graphic quality, is a candidate as the best solution for the graphic adventure developed by 5pb and Nitroplus.

Steins; Gate also arrives in English on PlayStation Vita in its best form

PSVita Trophies

Steins; Gate includes forty-two Trophies all correlated with the continuation of the story and the use of Rintarō's mobile phone to read emails and messages, which help to further contextualize the plot and the game world. Many are hidden to avoid spoilers, but to get them all it is required to complete the title several times by making different choices.

A mysterious story

The success of Steins Gate revolves around the quality of the storytelling. Rintarō Okabe finds himself unwillingly involved in a story with a supernatural flavor and implications that are anything but trivial. Without going into too much detail to avoid any risk of spoilers, it all begins when our Rintarō together with his friend Mayuri Shiina goes to the Akihabara neighborhood to attend a conference, finding the lifeless body of a girl only to find her alive and well not very much after. The narrative then develops around the protagonist's investigations to understand what really happened, how it is possible that the girl is not dead and what mysteries the shady scientist of the conference hides.

Each character is well defined and characterized, making it interesting from the first meeting despite the fact that we often approach the stereotypes typical of Japanese productions: Rintarō Okabe plays the role of the bipolar scientist, while Mayuri Shiina those of the naive girl who seems not to fully realize the situation in which the protagonists find themselves. The same goes for the other supporting actors introduced gradually with the passing of the hours, for a rich and varied cast that goes to season a plot in general well-paced even if not free from declines. The strength of the latter is the variety of topics covered, from more serious and reflective topics, to moments of pure adolescent comedy with some sexy references, in line with the genre of belonging. Not everything is rigidly scripted: sometimes it is necessary to make decisions that will strongly influence the narrative, revealing unexpected and very interesting implications. Each narrative crossroads is managed by the protagonist's phone, deciding whether or not to answer specific calls or messages by carefully choosing the words to use. In this case it is a matter of choosing them from those proposed on the screen, but this does not detract from the weight of each decision. With the presence of the touch screen, everything can be managed directly with the touch, as well as the scrolling of dialogues and navigation in the menus, even if for the latter it is better to use the directional arrows given the very small characters adopted for the interface. As for the visual rendering, the PlayStation Vita screen proves to be perfect for very well made boards, confirming itself as the best platform for the game especially in light of the dozens of hours of longevity. Since it is only a question of reading lines after lines of dialogues, Steins; Gate is in fact very enjoyable on the move, on the train rather than in the park, perfect situations to indulge in a piece of history and then pause it and then resume it from where we were interrupted.

Comment

Digital Delivery PlayStation Store Price 39,99 € Resources4Gaming.com

9.0

Readers (30)

8.2

Your vote

The already beautiful Steins; Gate has found its home console in PlayStation Vita, capable of reconciling the excellent realization of the drawings with the portability and convenience of enjoying excerpts of history in complete freedom without necessarily having a PC at hand. . The only flaw are the menus with the writing too small, a problem that fortunately does not arise for the dialogues displayed on the screen. The story is very long-lived and compelling, despite some drop in pace, seasoned with interesting narrative crossroads and well-characterized characters. In short, Steins; Gate per Vita is the best visual novel on the market enjoyed in the best possible way.