Sci ADV: Chaos;Head, Steins;Gate, and Robotics;Notes

Thinking about playing it after Hoshizora no Memoria. I was kind of surprise to find this game had no thread here.

edited 3rd May '12 8:04:40 AM by risingdreams

The translation that's out for it right now is apparently just a trial patch or something, so nobody has really been reading it around here afaik.

It's Steins;Gate, not Stein's Gate. I was planning on making a thread when the translation job is complete; it's just one chapter left for editing. I'm pretty sure the beta patch already translates everything except a few tips and pictures.

Well, the translation is done and has been for some time. Someone other than Blick Winkel took the latest scripts and made a patch out of them such that all the Tips and Achievements are translated. The downside being that it does not support installing to the Program Files, since Windows throws a fit over file permissions when the patcher runs. The patch on ED is not the latest one, though, it is the earlier unedited one.

Do you know where one would go about finding the edited version?

an official release of the VN has finally been confirmed!!at last,in november,we will finally get to see this game completely translated

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gneEX-_b-3I

IN FUCKING TAIWAN!!goddamn it...

That's just mean.

http://www.siliconera.com/2012/11/24/5pb-working-on-new-game-steinsgate-linear-bounded-phenogram/

Movie trailer.

edited 24th Nov '12 11:51:27 AM by Classifiedzerogoki

I'm finally making decent headway in the game.

But I still like Okabe better when I can't hear his thoughts.

My other comparisons to the anime are that I prefer the world-line transitioning as shown by the anime (makes more sense than seeing the divergence meter we don't have) and the fact that the relatively happy daily life BGM is a bit repetitive, probably why it doesn't appear in the anime.

Mechanics of the phone microwave are much better explained.

But I loved Kurisu's lecture in the VN. It was actually scientifically accurate where the anime glossed over it. And her seeing the send date on the text being in the future gives her much more reason to come looking for the lab.

The one thing the anime does better is the humour. The quick gags. And of course not having the misfortune to try and make heads or tails of Okabe's thoughts.

edited 5th May '13 4:04:06 AM by UltimatelySubjective

How is the translation? I was holding off on it because I heard only the unedited one was out.

The translation is good. So far.

The original translators do seem to have stopped. Judging from the patchwork nature of the media they ended up finishing bits of translation in (and recommending "watch the anime") anyway.

But someone else got the patch to version 1.3 so I'd say it's all good. It says it's fully translated, just doesn't have a translator homepage.

You'll probably find the version I have by googling "Steins;Gate VN English w/Glossary, Achievements and Cosplay addon" or "Steins;Gate English Patch + Cosplay Addon".

edited 5th May '13 6:44:34 AM by UltimatelySubjective

Thanks.

I haven't watched the anime at all, because I got fed up with watching anime alone ages ago. These days, I only watch anime when I have someone to watch it with. V Ns and manga are solitary media though.

Just so you know, Reading Steiner, one of the guys who worked on the VN translation and who has gone on to translate most of the side content as well, is saying that there's gonna be a big announcement at Anime Expo in July, so it sounds like he's hinting at an official release.

For the world line transition animations, they seem to serve different purposes. The VN animation that clearly shows the world line number is supposed to be more informative to the reader, while the anime one tries to give you a taste of what Okabe feels (although he himself just feels vertigo and doesn't see anything really).

edited 6th May '13 2:48:11 PM by tvsgood

Bored. Realized I had already installed this and never started, so reading it now. Somehow the main character being a complete dork has gotten me invested in his character surprisingly quickly.

Hopefully the tips not being translated won't be that big of a deal.

edited 16th May '13 7:48:24 PM by Arha

This Visual Novel really makes the anime writers look like idiots.

The anime script was solid and in execution it's nearly flawless, but it's like... Hurr durr, I'm an anime writer, what's a "science"?

They actually discuss almost any possible conjecture. In the anime, one of the major plot holes I felt was how they were able to transfer the data of a human consciousness to SERN for compression in such a short time, whereas the VN specifically shows that they have eight (I think) direct fibre-optic connections to SERN and can actually connect to SERN faster than they can browse the internet, a circumstance likely engineered by SERN.

Anyway, the details are completely glossed over in the anime, though of course a reference to a "direct connection" is still there, it's not enough to cover the plot hole. Now at most I can object to the slightly dubious idea of compressing data via the use of another black hole, to send through a smaller black hole after which it will unzip on it's own, but black holes are like magic anyway.

The spatial arrival destination of Dmail is also discussed, as is why Reading Steiner doesn't trigger on Time Leaps (the divergence factor is insignificant, though even for bigger ones I would link it to the VN talking about how superfluous "now" is).

The translation is slightly tortured in places, in particular, "Pretentious Hipster Bullshit" for Chuunibyou and Kurirsu's "Feels Bad" (which I can at least see why they used).

As for the visual novel itself, I like the phone mechanic, but I kinda wish it was a touchscreen or had a bigger screen. Navigating it is reminiscent of actually using a non-smartphone for serious browsing/conversion (ouch).

I'm also not sure how the choices would play out since answering your phone seems almost inconsequential. Though I did see that Answering calls while talking to Kurisu would probably not be a good flag to raise with her.

I didn't realise that Faris made Okabe uncomfortable either. My impression from the anime was that they were Chuuni comrades. Looks like it's not quite like that.

I think I'm over half of the way through my first playthrough from what I remember of the anime plot. I'll hopefully post about the ending soon.

The Glossary? It's translated in my version. It's useful for context and details of references, but you'll probably know most of them, be able to pass the reference off as largely non-essential or be able to google it.

Actually, the mangling of science concepts in the visual novel is one of the things that's been putting me off of it.

I'm not a big follower of sci fi in general because I'm a huge pedant when it comes to that stuff, and practically nobody ever gets it all right, even allowing for the basic premise suspension-of-disbelief stuff.

I can't play it now anyway, because my computer is out for repairs and I'm using a loaner which I'm not about to fill up with visual novels.

Are you using a walkthrough? It's doubtful you'll get the true ending without one. Also, the translation is currently being fixed up, and it's being heavily implied by the translators that there's gonna be an official English release announced at Anime Expo in July.

edited 17th May '13 10:45:35 AM by tvsgood

Yeah. I didn't want to play it when the beta patch first came out due to there not being a walkthrough, but now I have one.

I don't think the science is that mangled. And it's nice how they outlined real schools of thought involving time travel. I'm more interested in the fact that their logic is properly reasoned out and they've thought about everything.

But it is a microwave creating black holes (in a way that sounds like it should explode) so I guess it will depend on where your tolerance is.

Yeah, I just got the Groundhog Day/Suzuha ending. I'll probably have to go to a walkthrough for the next one, otherwise I might just end up doing the same things again or not going anywhere.

Not a bad ending I suppose, I just wasn't expecting it to be so abrupt.

edited 17th May '13 4:31:02 PM by UltimatelySubjective

The Suzuha, Faris, and Ruka endings are only determined by a single choice, whether you send the D-Mail or not. The part that confused most people is that you have to manually take your phone out to send the D-mail.

Also, to get the True Ending, you have to get all the Kurisu flags, the first of which is in chapter 4. You'll know that one since you get an achievement once you get that flag. Really, it comes down to answering her phone calls and choosing the right responses to her texts.

Also, her's something else: there is no Moeka ending. For the full, canon story, when you get the choice in her chapter to send the D-Mail or not, do NOT send it!

And here's the walkthrough I used. It's a bit confusing, but once you get used to it it's fine. I don't like the more common one that's out there since it seems there are mistakes with it, like I didn't get some of Kurisu's texts despite following that guide. I also disagree with it at points, such as where it says to send the D-Mail from Moeka's chapter when doing the True Route, despite it being very much canon that Okabe does not send the D-Mail.

edited 17th May '13 8:49:18 PM by tvsgood

In that case I think I'll just keep going for now.

Are there bad ends?

I forgot to mention something: If you don't get all the Kurisu flags, then you end up with the default Mayuri ending.

The alternate endings are bad ends pretty much. You really think Okabe will succeed with Suzuha in a broken time machine? Also, the bad ending theme is by Phantasm from Chaos;Head, so it's a prophecy song. Check out the lyrics:

Steins Gate has taught me something I probably should have already known. Naturally, it is now time to go put an egg in the microwave.

Or it would be if I had any eggs. Next time I get groceries I will need to try this myself.

All these RaiNet excerpts will probably prove plot critical eventually but I can't make myself read them.

This is a fun story that lets me keep theorizing. Haven't read a good story like that since maybe Umineko. I'm coming up on the Suzuha ending and there's some pretty blatant hinting going around about the future. Given how unsubtle the John Titor thing was I guess I have no particular surprises coming on that front.

edited 18th May '13 5:21:29 PM by Arha

I discovered the egg-in-a-microwave thing by accident in college when the meal halls were closed over break. I put it in a cup of water inside the microwave (because I didn't have a stove.)

Fun fact. If you do it right, the egg won't explode in the microwave. It can explode after you take it out. Like, say, directly in your face when you try to remove the shell.

edited 18th May '13 6:22:28 PM by Desertopa

When I get around to exploding the egg, I am going to put a plastic container over it while it's in there. I have no desire to clean up exploded gooey egg. Okay, blew it up. That was loud.

Ah, Suzuha end. Okabe goes kind of nuts and decides to keep looping, eh? Ends ambiguously. That's kind of neat.

Ruka chapter: Critical Tact Failure.

If this story gets the kind of crappy ending I'm starting to suspect it'll have I'm going to be irritated.

Off to Mayuri chapter. Not that I dislike Mayuri or anything, but this had better be good because I'm not exactly thrilled to be seeing a romance with her. There's just not much chemistry there. Granted, the other three didn't have a huge amount either.

Hm. I thought Mayuri's ending might be leading to this. It's kind of odd that they make Mayuri so useless and in the background while having Kurisu with you all the way and then kill off the one you'd actually be attached to by this point. They should have balanced them more if they wanted you to feel conflicted, but I guess they just assumed you must already be sympathetic enough to Mayuri. Ah well, it's not the true ending anyway. So long as Kurisu, Okabe and most of the others are alive in the True End I'll be satisfied, I guess. Now that I've finished Mayuri I wonder if Kurisu will be the route that points out that the time machine appeared whether or not Kurisu died. I guess the reasonable assumption would be that Suzuha killed her, which is kind of a bummer. Those two are my favorite characters.

Hmmm... I seem to prefer the character I classify more as helpers to the helpees. They matter more.

Kurisu ending is d'awwww so far. The ending itself, though, is a surprisingly big downer. I guess that's what the True End is for. Ah, finally the time machine being there even before Kurisu died pays off.

edited 19th May '13 4:25:51 PM by Arha