Ironhide wrote:How much actual game is there in the Steins Gate games, I've seen a fair bit of praise for the first one but to me it just looks like almost every other Japanese visual novel that are flooding Steam almost daily.
Edit: just seen that the first game is £26.99 on Steam
seems very pricey for what you're actually getting.
Taken from the opening to a S;G walkthrough
Steins;Gate is a considerably more complicated affair than most other visual novels.
This largely stems from its core gameplay mechanic: the "Phone Trigger" system. Rather than being presented with explicit, binary choices like in other visual novels, your interaction with Steins;Gate is entirely diegetic and performed through using Okabe's phone. The route you take through the game and the ending you get is determined by your responses to emails you receive, whether you make phone calls when given the opportunity and even whether or not you read incoming messages.