Visual Novel / Steins;Gate 0

Late-Arrival Spoiler Warning: Everything below this section will have unmarked spoilers for the original Steins;Gate visual novel. If you have not watched the anime or read the visual novel and do not want to be spoiled, do not read this page. Avoid or read at your own risk. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

This is a story of the future I couldn't save.

Steins;Gate 0 is a "true sequel" to Steins;Gate and the fifth main entry in the Science Adventure Series. It released on December 10, 2015, and once again stars Rintarou Okabe as the main character.

Rintarou Okabe, self-proclaimed Mad Scientist, managed to discover the secret of time-travel with his friends and they used it conduct their own experiments. However, their actions caught the attention of a certain organization, SERN, who retaliated by murdering Okabe's dear friend Mayuri. In order to save her life, Okabe continuously traveled back to past to undo their actions to prevent that tragic event from happening, but it comes at the cost of having to let Makise Kurisu die on the day they first met.

Though Okabe later learns that Kurisu's death serves as a catalyst for World War III in the far future of 2036, in an attempt to save her, Okabe accidentally ends up being the one to take her life. Filled with grief and despair, Okabe decides to abandon his life as a scientist and live in the world without Kurisu.

In an attempt to forget his traumas and get his life back on track, Okabe involves himself in his college, Tokyo Denki, and meets a trio of scientists- Maho Hiyajo, Alexis Leskinen, and Judy Reyes- visiting from Viktor Chondria University, where Kurisu attended. At a presentation in Tokyo Denki, Hiyajo and Leskinen unveil their greatest creation- Amadeus, an Artificial Intelligence that stores human memories. Okabe, agreeing to become a tester for the AI, has his old wounds re-opened when he meets Amadeus Kurisu, a being made from the memories of Kurisu that were stored in the device.

And just when Okabe thought it could not get any worse, yet another conspiracy surfaces. Mysterious and unknown forces are out to steal Amadeus for themselves while also aiming to get their hands on a time machine. Once again, Okabe finds himself thrown into the middle of madness and must find a way to keep Amadeus and the time machine safe and prevent the upcoming Third World War. If he can even muster the energy to work past his trauma, that is...

New designs and new characters were introduced in this game. The Phone Trigger was changed to Rine Trigger. The game also became substantially more nonlinear, with endings having widely different branches. In addition to the protagonist from the first game, Okabe Rintaro, many scenes are narrated from the perspective of Suzuha Amane and Maho Hiyajo. An animated adaptation by White Fox was announced in 2016 and premiered on April 12, 2018.

---

Tropes found in Steins;Gate 0:

A-M

• Acronym Confusion: Faris believes that AI stands for Ancient Intelligence, "the great, lost wisdom of ages past, nya!"
• Actionized Sequel: Downplayed, but with each individual route being shorter due to no need for establishing the time-travel technology, already knowing the characters, Cerebus Syndrome having already kicked in at the start, and more fight scenes, it will feel much more action-packed than the original, particularly the Altair timeline.
• Adaptation Distillation: The anime completely removes the plot revolving around Kagari being surgically altered to look like Yuki, which greatly simplified the plot without changing the fact that Kagari was still a brainwashed sleeper agent for Stratfor.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • The anime, which combined many parts of plot points from various routes to create a singular storytelling adaptation for the True Ending, expands many parts of the visual novel's respective routes to better explain the story. This includes Okabe's more proactive interactions with Amadeus AI and his temporary visit to the Alpha world line where he met Kurisu again, for instance.
  • The anime adaptation also elaborates on the more intensive role of American DURPA and Stratfor as the groups seeking to seize the time travel theories and works made by Kurisu. Instead of their depiction in only their respective roles in certain routes (which only serves as antagonists with limited to no description on their motives), both groups are depicted more regularly as the antagonists of the entire anime, along with their motives and attempts to win the time machine arms race.
  • The anime also shows us the full conversation between Mayuri and her younger self.
• All of Them: Leskinen's answer to what countries he plans on selling the time machine plans to.
• All There in the Manual: A drama CD released around the game goes into detail about what exactly Mayuri & Suzuha's mission in the past is for, and talking Young!Mayuri into encouraging Okabe to find the courage to try again and save Kurisu. This was included in the anime.
• Alternate History: Compared to most jumps where the only noticable change is within Okabe's group of friends, in the Stratfor route Okabe, along with other people with latent Reading Steiner, are temporarily shifted to a history where Perestroika has never happened, USSR has never collapsed and have currently invaded Japan.
• Alternate Timeline: To the true route from the main series. The true route point of divergence comes from the fact that due to not existing, Future Okabe never appeared to inspire Okabe after his first failed attempt to save Kurisu. In the end, it turns out that 0 is, in fact, the story of how Future Okabe came to be the one who figured out how his past self could reach Steins Gate .
• Always Someone Better: Kurisu to Maho.
• Artificial Intelligence: The Amadeus System, which stores memories from humans.
• Art Shift: Sorely evident throughout the game. While huke is still the lead artist in charge of character design, his art style is all over the place, especially in CGs where the quality goes up and down dramatically. It doesn't help that sprites from the first game get re-used often for no apparent reason.
  • A small example, but when Okabe's interaction with Amadeus in the anime becomes more regular and intense, it became clear that Amadeus seems to look more humanlike than her original CG depiction as Okabe seem to consider her as the real Kurisu more than it should be. Maho snaps him out of it before it's too late.
  • This is also used properly when Okabe re-enters the Alpha world line, as well as during flashback scenes from it.
• Bad Future: The Beta timeline 'is' one. The entire point of the game is finding a way to avert it.
• Berserk Button: Several:
  • For Kagari, threatening Mayuri. She is conditioned to stop whoever threatens Mayuri, by any means necessary.
  • For Maho, mentioning how she looks like a child or how small she is.
  • For Okabe, any attempt to reconstruct the PhoneWave, which Daru and Maho find out in Gehenna's Stigma and Golden Ending routes.
• Benevolent A.I.: Amadeus Kurisu. Despite the knowledge she contains, she never tries to hurt others. It is the greed of her fellow scientists that results in her knowledge unleashing World War III, and she tries to hold out until the end in every route.
• Big Bad: The mastermind behind the plot to hijack Amadeus, steal the time machine blueprints, and spark World War III is revealed to be Judy Reyes and Alexis Leskinen, two American doctors at Viktor Chondria University who are actually agents for DURPA and Stratfor respectively. Though they do work together, it is at cross purposes.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • In Vega & Altair, Kagari gets to the roof of the Radio Building when Suzuha and Mayuri are about to be killed by soldiers, and after seeing Mayuri injured, she handily kills all the soldiers.
  • In Twin Automata, Moeka rescues Maho from the clutches of Dr. Reyes.
  • In the anime, Okabe going to BC 18000 with the prototype time machine to save Mayuri and Suzuha.
• Big First Choice: The VN's narrative splits into two major branches depending on whether or not Okabe turns off his smartphone at a certain moment.
• Bland-Name Product:
  • "upaTunes", for the media player the GUI for the Extra's library is designed to look like.
  • The RINE App.
  • The animation company who made CG for Amadeus is Drinkworks.
  • The American DURPA and Strategic Focus.
  • "Skipe".
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: The translation is generally fine, but the woman in the motorcycle suit is consistently referred to as "Women's with riding suit" (sic) at the bottom of the dialogue box. Also, at one point Suzuha is referred to as her own sister and Mayuri's grandmother becomes Okabe's grandmother. Finally, Operation Arc Light is sometimes mistranslated as Operation Aquila.
• Brainwashed: Kagari is an interesting example. She's conditioned to do whatever it takes to save Mayuri when her life is threatened. This is to more effectively allow her to play The Mole and sabotage Suzuha's mission. There's also a large amount of Brainwashed and Crazy due to the stress it puts her under.
  • Played straight with Maho in Gehenna's Stigma, who is brainwashed into getting information out of Okabe and giving it to Dr. Leskinen.
  • A more benign example (yet remains horrible in hindsight) is shown with Daru had his brain programmed to be more proactive and confident in his upcoming date with Yuki in episode 15, courtesy of Maho's device. It fails.
• Canon Foreigner: Several characters, including Amadeus, came from the Epigraph Trilogy of Light novels.
• Catapult Nightmare: In episode 4 of the anime, Okabe wakes up screaming after finding himself in the war-torn world line for the first time.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Leskinen inflicts this on Okabe (though it isn't seen on screen) in the Gehenna's Stigma ending, and we learn in Promised Rinascimento that Stratfor's torture in 2025 actually put Okabe in an 11-year coma.
• Continuity Nod: Maho and Kurisu study at Viktor Chondria University, which Okabe is also planning to enroll to. Alexis Leskinen and Judy Reyes are also professors there. Anyone who've played Chaos;Head may find it concerning, considering Project Noah was developed there, which The Committee of 300 planned on using. It's also revealed that the Time Leap Machine and the Amadeus are working by the same Visual Rebuilding principle as Project Noah. Furthermore, both abovementioned professors are part of a global conspiracy that kills most of Earth's population in the Bad Future, which so happens to align with The Committee's long-term goals.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: A rare example where the "original" and "sequel" main characters are actually the same person. Okabe at the start of 0 is so broken up by his failure to save Kurisu that he abandons his "Hououin Kyouma" persona entirely, leaving him much more melancholic and subdued.
• Covert Group with Mundane Front: SERN, DURPA and Stratfor, which present themselves as respectable scientific/military/political research organisations in public, but are in private evil corps not bound by morals and which employ militias of sociopathic soldiers equipped with gear which rivals the most advanced armies.
• Cryptic Background Reference: After Russia earned time travel thesis from Nakabachi, several references about their assumed time travel experiments (which is covertly televised as "seismic activities in Russia", for some reason) are seen, usually through background TV news in several episodes.
• Darker and Edgier: Considerably darker in tone than the original, with Okabe spending most of the game in a Heroic BSoD regardless of route. More murders also occur during the course of the story and you get to see World War III start as well.
  • The anime adaptation raises up the ante in this, as proven through Okabe's nightmarish dream for killing Kurisu (in the first episode, no less!) and his occasional PTSD bouts, for instance.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Unlike the first game's true ending, Okabe has extreme PTSD from the events leading up to this game. He also has serious issues with even seeing Moeka, unlike how he's affable towards her in the original's true ending despite no longer having any reason to force himself there.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight
  • In Twin Automata, it's close, but subverted. Maho holds Moeka as she gives what she believes are her final words, but the EMTs manage to make it just in time.
  • In the Promised Rinascimento, Future Luka dies in Okabe's arms, snapping him out of the despair he had been in and making him realize he needs to stop World War III.
  • Played straight as well in episode 15, where Yuki sacrificed herself to protect Suzuha from an incoming drone machine gun fire in the future.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The second ending theme of the anime, "World-Line", is sung by Kurisu's voice actress, Asami Imai.
• Downer Beginning: Opens with the first failed attempt to save Kurisu's life from the original game's True End, but this time he doesn't receive the V-mail from his future self and consequently is too distraught to make a second attempt.
• Enemy Mine: Okabe allies with the Akihabara Rounders after Nae is involved in a Stratfor attack.
• Fanservice: You have the Christmas party which is pretty much most of the girls getting into skimpy Santa outfits, multiple CGs of Maho's butt, and Suzuha's Full-Frontal Assault.
• Faux Affably Evil: Leskinen and Reyes.
• Foreshadowing: In Twin Automata, Maho has a flashback where it is shown she was frequently playing Mozart when in the lab in America. So of course, there is no way a Mozart song could be the key to unlocking Amadeus, as it would be constantly activating.
  • In the 'phone off' route leading off to either Twin Automata, Recursive Mother Goose or Promised Rinascimento endings where you get to know Kagari herself in person. In the 'phone on' route, the woman in the motorcycle suit is confirmed to be Kagari behind it but strangely if you listen to her voice while talking to Moeka at her apartment, her voice actually sounded more like either Suzuha or Yuki instead of the original Kagari's but especially the latter when it's revealed in the ending, 'Vega and Altair' when Okabe takes her helmet off, it's revealed that it was Yuki but actually was Kagari all along as she underwent plastic surgery to disguise herself as the latter while the real Yuki is safe and currently studying aboard in Europe.
• Full-Frontal Assault: Suzuha in the Altair timeline when Kagari attacks the Lab.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Daru punches Okabe in "Vega and Altair" after he suggests to her face that Maho wants Mayuri to die so Kurisu can live.
• Guide Dang It!: There are two major branch points. These are not at all obvious initially, although make sense when you find out how Okabe is being monitored, and some of the actions to get the true ending are quite counterintuitive.
• Golden Ending: Downplayed compared to the scale of the first game's True Ending, but go through the Promised Rinascimento route, then start the game from before Closed Epigraph, go through Vega & Altair, and you will get to see Okabe send back the video message that allowed the original Okabe to really save Kurisu.
• Heroic BSoD: Okabe is having one which lasts through almost all (or all in some routes) the story due to his failure to save Kurisu. He literally has PTSD from the events of the previous game and can't get it properly treated because he can't tell any psychiatrist the truth about what caused it. It takes a further Heroic BSoD in The Promised Rinascimento ending when he sees just how awful the future he chose is and witnessing Luka's death to pull him out of it.
  • Also, in the Promised Rinascimento, according to Kurisu in the Alpha world line Okabe is just as bad as he is in Beta. No matter who he chooses to save, he regrets it and becomes extremely depressed.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In the Promised Rinascimento ending, adult Luka dies helping most of Valkyrie's leadership escape an enemy ambush.
  • Again in Promised Rinascimento, Alpha-line Kurisu, after several months of seeing what a mess Okabe has become after Mayuri's death, rebuilds the Phonewave to alter conditions to set things back to the Beta worldline where she is fated to die.
  • Yuki sacrificed herself to protect Suzuha from a drone's machine gun fire in the future.
• Hit Me, Dammit!: Okabe asks Suzuha to hit him for giving up in The Promised Rinascimento.
• Identical Stranger: Okabe's friends are targeted by a mysterious woman in a biker Spy Catsuit. His guess on who it is is wrong most of the time. Depending on the route it's either Reyes of DURPA or brainwashed by Stratfor Kagari. Moeka and one unnamed Rounder are shown to wear the same suit as well.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Okabe for most of the game.
• Interquel: This story takes place in the middle of the true ending of the original Steins;Gate Visual Novel, in the sense that it explains what happens in the Beta timeline to allow the true ending to take place.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Moeka, being her socially awkward self, doesn't really get how attractive she is in her lingerie during the Faris/Maho slumber party, and chose the outfit for mobility.
• Innocently Insensitive: Albeit he doesn't mean it, Okabe's enraged bursting after finding out that Daru and Maho had already remade the Time Leap Machine was accidentally misheard by the already saddened Mayuri just outside the lab, not to mention that his outbursts also inadvertently offended everyone's attempts to help Okabe, with Mayuri, Daru, and Maho being the worst offenders. It takes Daru to punch him in the face and some verbal beatdowns from Maho to get Okabe calmed down.
• Intentional Engrish for Funny: Leskinen's awful Japanese, courtesy of his translator being a machine. While the English translation's text is normal and readable, his voiced lines are awkward and use improper (but technically correct) terms.

• Karma Houdini: Similar to Steins;Gate, nothing happens to the villains in the Golden Ending, their new plans would just have nothing to do with Okabe, and Maho never learns that her professor is a real Mad Scientist.
• Lampshade Hanging: When mocking Dr. Reyes for buying into her Techno Babble so easily, Amadeus Kurisu mentions "This isn't a sci-fi movie."
• "Leave Your Quest" Test: In the Promised Rinascimento route, Okabe is severely tempted to just stay in the Alpha worldline and let whosoever is tampering with Amadeus go about their business, as he had nothing to do with it. Even if he hadn't changed his mind, Kurisu's sacrifice would have brought him back to Beta.
• Lensman Arms Race: After Nakabachi escaped to Russia along with his daughter's stolen time travel thesis, now both American and Russian governments are pitted against each other in a time machine arms race where both sides massed intelligence agents to seek the remaining time travel technologies, with Russia being slightly ahead of everyone else.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Okabe attempts this to ensure his friends (such as Mayuri and Ruka, for instance) will not discover the dark secrets behind his time travel experiences and making sure of their safety from knowing the truth. Alas, both Mayuri and Ruka definitely know that something is up and even at times mentioning that everyone is keeping secrets from them and consequentially, feeling helpless on things they can do to help Okabe.
• Love Confession:
  • Mayuri, to Okabe, naturally.
  • Finally done as well between Daru to Yuki in episode 15.
• Mad Scientist:
  • Okabe defies this, abandoning his Hououin Kyouma persona. At the end of Altair and Rinascimento branches, Okabe returns to his mad scientist shtick again.
  • And then you have, Dr. Leskinen in the "Don't turn off the phone" route, an honest-to-God mad scientist with none of Okabe's pretenses, and the funding to actually bring chaos to the world.
• Megaton Punch: Both Daru and Suzuha give him one, depending on the route.
• Mêlée à Trois: The Series culminates in a three way battle between DURPA, Stratfor and Russia. DURPA (led by Judy Reyes) and Stratfor (led by Alexis Leskinen) want to acquire the Time Machine. While Russia want to destroy it so they remain as the only one with Time Machine technology. Add in Okabe and SERN Rounders (FB and Moeka) that aims to protect Suzuha and Mayuri who are going to use the Time Machine to go back to the past so they can complete Operation Archlight and prevent World War III.
• Mental Time Travel: Okabe time leaps to the future using the Amadeus program rather than the time leap machine.
• Metaphorically True: Turns out that Daru has been lying, even to Suzuha, about Okabe dying in 2025. In The Promised Rinascimento he justifies it by saying he was effectively dead due to losing his mind as a result of interrogation. He gets better.
• Mood Whiplash: The Twin Automata ending looks like it's going to be a gag reel with Faris holding slumber parties with Maho and Moeka, Moeka's inability to conduct an interview due to her social awkwardness, Nae as Sergeant Clean and plenty of Fanservice. It doesn't end that way.
• Multiple Endings: There are six endings (including the bad end).
• My Greatest Failure: For Okabe, not saving Makise Kurisu in another world line.

N-W

• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Though Leskinen brainwashing Kagari is what allows his future self to give his present self a leg up in the race to control time travel, it's also what prevents him from succeeding in the Vega and Altair route: he uses Kagari's love of Mayuri to control her, and when his men inadvertently end up threatening Mayuri to capture the time machine, that conditioning instead drives Kagari to slaughter his men. Even in a following worldline where Mayuri isn't harmed, Okabe is able to talk down Kagari using her love for Mayuri, again keeping Leskinen from obtaining the time machine.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Vladimir Putin, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Boris Yeltsin are referred to as part of a ruse by an SDF soldier, though they are referred to as Puchin, Golbachev, and Leltsin in the game, respectively.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Kagari to some soldiers on the roof of the Radio Building in Vega & Altair.
• No Man Should Have This Power: Okabe considers this to be the case with Kurisu's laptop. While Maho considers it one of the few things left of Kurisu, the consequences of it in the wrong hands are too much to risk.
• Not With the Safety On, You Won't: In Twin Automata, when Dr. Reyes is being held at gunpoint by Maho, she remarks the gun she is using is a newer model with two safeties, and she forgot one. Of course, it's a bluff, and Maho falls for it.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In the anime, it took Okabe by surprise that Daru punched him in the face to get him back into his senses after accidentally insulted his and Maho's attempts to help Okabe to reach Steins Gate. Okabe even lampshaded it, mumbling that it was very out of character of Daru's usually gentle and laid-back nature.
• Older Than They Look: Maho looks like an elementary student, but she's already 21 years old. Not that it prohibits Daru from calling her "legal loli" every now and then, due to her looks.
• Plot Armor: Okabe brings up that he knows the Future Gadget Lab lives up to least 2036 and neither of them can get killed in the present. Still, he never takes the risk.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: In the dub of the anime, Maho continues to speak Japanese while translating for Leskinen. After all, both of them speaking English would be weird and, in-universe, unnecessary.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Okabe gets one from Suzuha in "The Promised Rinascimento" and a slightly gentler one from Maho in "Vega and Altair".
• Red Herring: Depending on the route, the player is either being misled into thinking that the person in the motorcycle outfit is either ("Don't Turn Off the Phone" routes) Moeka because of Okabe's past experiences or ("Turn Off the Phone" routes) Yuki Amane because of her arm injury. Either case is wrong, as the mysterious individual is either Dr. Reyes ("Turn Off the Phone" routes) or Kagari Shiina ("Don't Turn Off the Phone" routes).
• Robot Buddy: Amadeus Kurisu. Dating advice, genius scientist, good friend, all at the click of an app.
• Setting Update: Okabe now uses a smartphone instead of a flip-phone.
• Shout-Out:
  • At one point, Daru says "If they have no tea, then let them drink soda!", referring to the famous "Let them eat cake!" quote misattributed to Marie-Antoinette.
  • Several to the film Amadeus — the AI's name, naturally, and Maho also explicitly references the film when comparing her relationship with Kurisu to that of Salieri and Mozart.
  • Speaking of Mozart, this isn't the first time that the first movement of his Piano Sonata #11 has appeared in a story about a man developing an unhealthy obsession with a simulacrum of a woman.
• Stable Time Loop:
  • In the route where he is the antagonist, Leskinen actively works to engineer and maintain one by following his future self's plan by brainwashing Kagari to protect Mayuri, and to prevent the future from changing at all costs.
  • The first hints to this in the anime are given with the Song for the Stars, that Kagari knew from Mayuri, who herself knew it from Suzuha, who will say she knows it from Yuki... who got it from Okabe's mother... who got it from Okabe... who got it from... Kagari.
  • The actual spinning Zero logo is one.
• Static Role, Exchangeable Character: While the game has Multiple Endings, all beside the Golden Ending occur in the Beta Attractor Field, meaning who've started World War III doesn't matter by 2036. Suzuha recalls that many members of her Valkyrie were killed and brainwashed by The Professor, which can equally imply Leskinen or Reyes depending on who lives, and the Vega and Altair route confirms Leskinen becomes a major figure in the war.
• The Stinger:
  • Episode 7 of the anime has a scene after the credits; none of the previous episodes had one, and there was no indicator that this series would have stingers.
  • Episode 12. Then again, it uses a different credits theme, so that should entice the viewer to stick around at least.
• Surgical Impersonation: In the "Gehenna's Stigma", "Vega & Altair" and true ending timeline, Kagari is impersonating Yuki.
• Switching P.O.V.: Depending on the route, perspective will flip between Okabe, Suzuha, or Maho from time to time.
• Techno Babble: In Twin Automata, as Maho hands over control of Amadeus to Dr. Reyes, the system begins talking about "Shutting Down A10 Nerve Circuit Logic" and other nonsensical terms. Of course, this is all part of the plan to trick Dr. Reyes into thinking she is being given control.
• There Are No Therapists: Averted. The beginning of the plot has Okabe visiting a therapist.
• Throwing Your Gun at the Enemy: Used effectively by Suzuha after she realizes that Kagari has replaced the bullets in her pistol with blanks.
• Time Skip: Half a year passes between Episodes 13 and 14.
• Title Drop: Not for the work as a whole, but for the Pandora's Box chapter:
  Okabe (narration): But if my hypothesis was right... that laptop was too dangerous to be allowed to exist! It was Pandora's Box, with the power to unleash the Third World War.
• Took a Level in Badass: Luka in the Beta future. Daru has also become quite the hunk, as he is proven to be quite acrofatic when it comes to escaping his hideout through narrow alleyways when Stratfor came to personally seize Kurisu's laptop from the labmem's hands.
• Token Evil Teammate: Moeka becomes this in the "Turn off the Phone" routes. While she is helping the group (And in "Twin Automata" gets a Morality Pet in the form of Maho) she is still a killer working for SERN.
  • This is also the case in the anime adaptation, since Stratfor's attack to the lab during the Christmas Party motivates Okabe to seek help from Tennouji, and by extension, the entire SERN Rounders to protect him from any potential enemies.
• Transferable Memory: The whole point of the Amadeus project and what Reyes plans to do Kagari. Okabe is also restored from a backup in 2036.
• Trigger Phrase: Whenever Mayuri is threatened in any way, Kagari is conditioned to protect her by any means. Also, playing the fifth sonata of The Magic Flute is a surefire way to trigger Kagari into following her captors' machinations.
• Troll: Depending on the player's choices, Okabe can troll his friends over Rine, such as when he asks Maho can he get access to Amadeus!Maho as well as Amadeus!Kurisu. Maho is rather ticked off, and Okabe apologizes, but after Maho explains that she can't let him have access to her AI because it could spill details about her private life, Rintaro repeats his question.
• Uninhibited Muscle Power: If Mayuri is threatened, Kagari's brain is conditioned to remove any limits on her strength and come after you with everything she has.
• The Unreveal: Kagari looks almost exactly like Kurisu. You'd think this would set up a plot twist of some kind in the future. Instead, nothing ever comes of it and they just look incredibly similar because of a mere coincidence.
• Unstoppable Rage: Threaten Mayuri. See what Kagari will do.
• Villainous Rescue: When Okabe, Maho, and Daru are being held hostage by Moeka and her Rounders, Russian soldiers arrive in a van and cause the Rounders to flee. Of course, the soldiers then fire at Okabe and friends.
• Villain Team-Up: Stratfor and DURPA are looking for Kurisu's paper on time travel and Kurisu's memories within Amadeus repsectively, both in Maho's possession, and are working together. Depending on the route, once one of them gets close, the other backstabs them.
• We Win, Because You Didn't: The Russians' approach to the hunt for Kurisu's laptop. They are already ahead of everyone else in the time travel race, so as long as they make sure nobody else can use it, they win. Hence why they destroy the laptop instead of trying to get it back from the Rounders.
• Wham Line:
  • When Okabe realizes something about Yuki:
    The way she hurt her arm- It was the left arm, the same place the woman in the motorcycle suit had gotten hit.^spoilerActually a Red Herring, as Yuki is not the motorcycle woman.
  • When Maho reveals why Stratfor and DURPA are after her:
    I have some of Kurisu’s belongings.
  • When Suzuha realizes who the motorcycle woman is:
    You should know better than to drop that. It’s something Mommy gave you. Right, Kagari?
  • When Okabe asks Leskinen something:
    Okabe: Who are you going to sell information on the time machine to? America?! China?! Or the war zones in Africa and the Middle East?
    Leskinen: ...All of Them.
• The Worf Effect: The SERN Rounders were a practically unstoppable force in the original series, and were never directly overcome, only carefully kept out of the loop to keep them from ever finding Okabe and his friends. But in certain worldlines in this series (where Okabe doesn't ally with them), they are outmuscled and outmatched by the international forces also seeking to control time, demonstrating the increased physical stakes heralding the future Third World War.